"As far as the climatological forecasts are concerned, for example seasonal forecasts or forecasts beyond three months or six months, or say twelve months, those forecasts are done solely by climatologists. Climatologists are more concerned with the long range forecasts. Here in the National Weather Service, we are more concerned with forecasts that extend out to maybe three to six days. We leave the long range forecasts in the hands of the climatologists. So...the climatologists have gathered all this ocean data from the Pacific, and have determined the strength of this El Nino and from there gone and produced probability forecasts for rainfall across the country. For this event, and a typical El Nino, we normally would get, for example, a better than normal rainfall chances in California and Southern United States. For this event, it's a very strong El Nino, and so they're projecting fairly high probability rainfall for the Southern part of the country, and near normal or below rainfall for the northern part of the country."

Mark Moede, NWS

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Thanks to Mark Moede from the NWS