El Niño is no longer merely threatening to enter new territory. Federal forecasters now say a record-breaking event is the most likely outcome. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday there is a 69% chance the agency’s three-month El Niño index reaches at least 2.5 degrees Celsius during October through December. That would make it stronger than any El Niño in NOAA’s modern record dating to 1950. NOAA also raised the odds of a “very strong” El Niño developing this fall and winter to greater than 90%, likely eclipsing the 1982-83 and 1997-98 events. … Stronger events increase the chances of familiar El Niño patterns, including a stormier California winter, but individual storms and seasonal rainfall still depend on the atmosphere’s notoriously chaotic behavior.

Other El Niño news:

• SFGate: ‘Genuinely remarkable’: California experts explain new El Niño outlook
• Tahoe Daily Tribune (South Lake Tahoe, Calif.): Tahoe’s winter forecast is looking snowy
• AP News: Stingrays inundate California beach ahead of expected El Niño surge