California declares emergency as El Nino storms loom

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Monday as the state prepares for an El Nino pattern expected to bring damaging storms to the US west coast.

Forecasters say the coming months could bring powerful storms and higher-than-usual tides that may cause coastal flooding. Newsom said California was acting early to give communities, first responders and families more support before severe weather arrives.

The declaration is procedural. It is intended to help state agencies access resources, pre-position flood-fighting supplies such as sandbags and pumps, and prepare the California National Guard to support flood response, search-and-rescue, engineering and logistics missions if needed, officials said.

El Nino is the warming phase of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation in the tropical Pacific. It can shift weather patterns around the world, bringing hotter and drier conditions to some areas and cooler, wetter conditions to others.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this year's El Nino has a 75 percent chance of becoming the strongest on record and is not expected to peak until October to December. Zeke Hausfather, a climatologist at Berkeley Earth, told AFP that the sea surface temperature anomaly in the tropical Pacific stood at 3.07C, equal to the 2015-2016 El Nino on a widely used metric.

California's coastline has already been hit by storms that damaged or destroyed homes. Coastal erosion also forced the cancellation of a Santa Monica music festival that had been due to feature The Killers, Olivia Dean and Jack White.