El Nino return could spark five years of UK weather chaos

Australian weather experts are predicting the return of the dreaded El Nino cycle which could last five years and cause havoc on UK weather.

The bad weather could begin as soon next winter for the UK, with freezing weather temperatures.

El Nino is the periodic climatic event that happens when Pacific waters warm, thought to trigger unpredictable and extreme weather across many parts of the globe – including the UK.

David Jones from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s climate information services branch said: ”There’s always a little bit of doubt when it comes to intensity forecasts, but across the models as a whole we’d suggest that this will be quite a substantial El Nino event.

”Certainly the models aren’t predicting a weak event. They are predicting a moderate-to-strong El Nino event. So this is a proper El Nino event, this is not a weak one or a near miss as we saw last year.”

Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office, said the biggest fallout from the event will be damage to crops.

He said: ”The latest forecasts suggest that at least a moderate event is likely and there is a risk of a substantial event.

”We continue to see weak El Nino conditions in the tropical Pacific.

”Predicting how this El Nino might develop is currently tricky because predictability is lowest at this time of year.”