Federal forecasters expect the southern tier of the United States, from California all the way to Florida, to see increased rain this winter. The name is Spanish for the Christ child because the huge, warm pool usually arrives around Christmas. The key element of its influence on weather is a core area of the warm tropical Pacific pool that exceeds 82 degrees Fahrenheit. The project measures sea surface height, which correlates with warmer water.
Warm water expands, raising the ocean's surface.
Then, in 10 days, it recovered several percentage points but had not reached the record size, Fu said. Just last week, meteorologist Gerald Bell of the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., reported that the hot area that drives tropical rainfall continues to expand. It is expected to reach its peak around January, he said at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting. Fu said scientists theorize that the pool is occasionally pumped up by wind bursts blowing from the western and central Pacific Ocean. Copyright 1997 Associated Press.