Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has warned that warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean in coming months will increase the chances of an El Nino weather pattern. It is not good news as El Nino weather patterns have immense potential to make parts of Asia very dry and bring heavy rains to South America.

It is evident from climate models that coming months will increase the temperature of the tropical Pacific Ocean to reach El Nino thresholds. As a result of rise in sea surface temperatures, the El Nino thresholds will be
reached during the southern hemisphere winter.

The indicator of the development and intensity of El Nino or La Nina events, The Southern Oscillation Index, has gone down to minus 12.6. The figure is the lowest 30-day value since March 2010.

El Nino could be indicated by sustained negative values below minus eight. El Nino weather patterns are a reason to worry for agriculturists because too much drought or rain ruins farming and causes loss of billions of dollars to the global economy. The extreme weather patterns bring heavier rains from southern Brazil to Argentina and lead to very arid conditions across Southeast Asia and eastern Australia.

"Following two strong westerly wind bursts since the start of the year, waters below the surface of the tropical Pacific have warmed significantly over the past two months", said the weather bureau. As a result, the surface has been warmed to some extent and more warming is expected in the coming weeks.

An El Nino watch was issued this month by the US Climate Prediction Center, saying there are 52% chances that the weather pattern would be triggered late this summer because of warming of the Pacific Ocean, said climate scientist Michelle L'Heureux. And more worrisome, there are 75% chances of El Nino to occur later in the northern hemisphere summer, said Donald Keeney, senior agricultural meteorologist at MDA Weather Services.