COLLEGE PARK, MD – The Climate Prediction Center, an agency of the National Weather Service, says that chance of El Niño is about 70% during the Northern Hemisphere summer and is close to 80% during the fall and early winter.

However, forecasters suspect El Niño’s intensity to only reach weak-to-moderate strength, which is a far cry from the “super El Niño” that some forecasters thought was possible, reports The Washington Post.

The Post continues that at its core, “El Niño is the warm phase of a sea surface temperature pattern near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. Right now, water temperatures are above normal in all the right regions, however, they’re not warm enough yet for scientists to officially declare it an El Niño event.”

El Niño has a wide range of impacts on global weather, writes the Post, adding that it  “can alter precipitation patterns over the U.S., and it can decrease the likelihood that hurricanes will develop in the Atlantic.”

For California, which is in the midst of one of its most intense droughts in recent history, a strong El Niño event will produce much-needed heavy winter rain and snowfall for the West Coast.

However, Weather Underground’s Christopher Burt says Californians should temper their hopes for a big rainy season:

“Many residents are clinging to the hope that a developing El Niño will bring relief to the drought next water season. These hopes have little basis in reality since only very strong El Niño’s, like the last one of 1997-1998, actually impact seasonal precipitation across the entire state. Current models indicate the coming El Niño will be of only ‘moderate’ strength. This may have an impact on the southern third of the state but, historically, moderate El Niño’s have not influenced rainfall patterns one way or the other for the northern two-thirds of California.”