Rare weather phenomenon could hit the UK- but will it affect Norfolk? |
The 'super El Niño' set to develop, raising temperatures that could potentially bring extremely erratic weather.
A spokesman for the Met Office said: "There’s high confidence that El Nino will develop later this year.
"Our forecasts suggest it is likely to be a large event and the global temperature for 2027 will increase if a large event does occur."
The phenomenon is characterised by warmer surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific, which causes changes in global weather patterns.
It happens when the temperature rise is at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
The Met Office added that the impacts in European weather are harder to identify but it’s "important to note that impacts don’t ramp up with the size of El Niño".
"This is just one of a number of climate drivers which can affect the UK, so we will have to assess the balance of competing factors later on," a spokesman for the Met Office added.
El Niño’s effects are usually strongest around December, and the name comes from the Spanish “El Niño de Navidad, “the Christ Child”, because Peruvian fishermen first noticed it around Christmas time.