Chance of El Nino visiting Australia strengthens

The government's Bureau of Meteorology said Thursday that the chance of an El Nino weather pattern developing later in 2009 strengthened from late April.

An El Nino episode, usually associated with below-average rainfall in eastern Australia, can translate to a drought for winter crops in key growing months and result in sharply lower production and export availability of wheat, barley and other winter crops, of which Australia is a major global supplier.

In a regular review of indicators, the bureau reported the equatorial Pacific Ocean surface and sub-surface has continued to warm in the past several weeks, resulting in near average temperatures across most of the tropical Pacific.

Most international-coupled climate models predict further warming of Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures, with sub-surface temperatures remaining in a neutral range until at least mid-winter, it said.

"About half of the (computer) models surveyed are predicting that this warming will be sufficient to see the development of El Nino conditions later in 2009," it said.