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GENEVA (Reuters) - Up to 750,000 people in Kenya, nearly half of them Somali refugees, could be caught up in flooding and landslides from heavy rains expected to peak in November, the United Nations warned on Friday. U.N. aid agencies have activated contingency plans, bringing food, water treatment chemicals and mosquito nets to flood-prone areas, according to Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). An estimated 4,600 people along the Indian Ocean coast and Kenya's northeastern region have already fled torrential rainfall, forced to seek shelter in schools and with host families, she told a news briefing. Six ... Read Full Story

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Central and eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures are exceeding El Nino levels and will remain at levels typical of an El Nino weather event until early 2010, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday. "The tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface remains warmer than average and exceeds El Nino thresholds in central to eastern regions," said the bureau in its fortnightly ENSO El Nino report. "While such conditions are fairly typical during an El Nino event, values of the Southern Oscillation Index and tropical cloud patterns remain inconsistent with normal El Nino conditions," said the bureau. "Despite this, rainfall patterns over eastern Australia ... Read Full Story

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It will be a tale of two winters in the United States -- warmer and drier than average in the North and wetter and cooler in the South -- thanks to El Nino, government forecasters said on Thursday. In its winter outlook covering December through February, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the El Nino phenomenon will be the dominant factor influencing weather across the United States. The impact of the weather anomaly in the Pacific Ocean is most evident during winter. "We expect El Nino to strengthen and persist through the winter months, providing clues as to what the ... Read Full Story

Global warming periodically shifts El Nino thousands of miles to the west, potentially intensifying Asian droughts and weakening its dampening effect on Atlantic hurricanes, reports a study published Thursday. Up to now, the tropical weather phenomenon, which strikes on average every four or five years, has generally occurred along a wide stretch of the equator in the eastern Pacific. Such is the case with the current El Nino, which is likely to remain in place well into next year, the World Meteorological Organisation said last month. El Nino disrupts weather patterns around the world, causing drought in Indonesia, Australia, India and eastern Brazil, and ... Read Full Story

DALLAS (Reuters) - The El Nino weather pattern is expected to bring significant precipitation and relief to drought-stricken parts of Texas, according to a senior government meteorologist. El Nino, or "Christ child" in Spanish due to the phenomenon being noticed around Christmas off the coast of South America, is an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean which can wreak havoc on weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. "In a nutshell, we are confident that the El Nino will result in above normal precipitation across all of Texas through February. In turn, this will lead to two significant impacts," said ... Read Full Story