The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center on Thursday said there is 90% chance the current El Niño event will continue through the northern hemisphere summer and an 80% chance through 2015.
Related: El Niño weather advisory favors good 2015 yields
By early May, a weak to moderate El Niño conditions were present across the equatorial Pacific.
In the past, El Niño events have caused abnormal weather conditions around the world, such as droughts, above-average rain, and warmer than normal temperatures.
"In El Niño years, winds that usually bring warm, moist, thunderstorm-inducing air into the Plains are weakened," AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Ben Noll said in a posting on the weather services website. "Storm systems have a tendency to track across the southern tier of the United States, which can lead to more instances of severe weather across the Southwest, but fewer severe weather risks across the Central states or in Tornado Alley."
Due to the frequency of storms across the South during El Niño, there can be an uptick in severe weather along the Gulf coast, Noll said.
Also, the National Weather Service has said El Niño events tend to reduce the number of hurricanes that form over the Atlantic Ocean.
Continued reading: Purdue climate tool lets you see impact of past El Niño events