Last week, scientists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center announced that El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific and are likely to continue into early 2007. The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. Typical El Niño effects in North America include warmer-than-average temperatures over western and central Canada and over the western and northern United States. Wetter-than-average conditions are likely over portions of the U.S. Gulf Coast and Florida, while drier-than-average conditions can be expected in the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest.

For more information, read the NOAA news release.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2699.htm