According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) El Nino has finally arrived. However for those in California and the rest of the western states who are looking for drought relief, this El Nino event is expected to be too little, too late.

El Nino is the warm phase of what is known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). When it occurs, it drives warm surface water from the tropics north toward California. The warm water is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific.

A strong El Nino event can bring dramatically increased rainfall along with increased temperatures.

In their updated monthly outlook released today, NOAA forecasters issued an El Nino Advisory. “Based on the persistent observations of above-average sea surface temperatures across the western and central equatorial Pacific Ocean and consistent pattern of sea level pressure, we can now say that El Nino is here. Many climate prediction models show this weak El Nino continuing into summer,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, and ENSO forecaster in a statement.

However, due to the weak strength of this event it is not expected to bring much relief to the Southwest which is in the fourth year of a drought.

“This El Nino is likely too late and too weak to provide much relief for drought-stricken California,” added Halpert.

The last strong El Nino event was in 1997-1998. The most recent event in 2009-2010, just before the start of the drought was considered moderate to strong.

Residents of the Pacific Coast had some reason to be optimistic after increased storm activity in December and January. However, these storms were reportedly too cold to contribute substantially to the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains and other mountainous areas in the west.

“This past year, December was very wet, but it was also very warm. So the snow levels were very high and it really didn’t help. If you want to look for hope, maybe there’s some hope that this will persist and impact the next rainy season, but I suspect it’s too late to do much for you this year,” Halpert told the Los Angeles Times.

NOAA forecasters say that there is a 50 to 60 percent chance of El Nino conditions will continuing through the summer.

Residents of the west coast have often looked to El Nino for relief from dry cycles. However it is not clear that even a strong event will be enough to make much of a difference anymore. Recent studies have suggested that the current conditions may continue indefinitely, turing into the worst drought the region has experienced in 1,000 years.

NOAA officials are expected to provide their next update on El Nino in early April.