CANBERRA (Reuters) - Climate indicators for an El Niño event in the western Pacific have eased slightly in the past fortnight, but meteorologists still expect the weather pattern which can bring drought to the Asia-Pacific and damage crops to form late in 2012.
El Nino indicators such as the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), sea surface temperatures and trade winds have eased over the past two weeks, but are still close to El Niño thresholds, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Tuesday.
"This is a bit of a short-term blip, which is not unexpected," said Andrew Watkins, manager climate models for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.