New Delhi, July 9 -- The weather-roiling El Niño that emerged across the Pacific last month has continued to build and will likely be one of the strongest in more than 75 years, the US Climate Prediction Center said.

Sea surface temperatures of 1C (1.8F) or more above normal, the hallmark of the phenomenon, have spread across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, and there's an 81% chance it will become a very strong El Niño and rank among the "largest events in the historical record going back to 1950," the agency said in its monthly forecast. Some parts of the eastern Pacific reached 2.7C above normal in the last week.

"Even the strongest El Niño events do not lead to the typical impact everywhere, but stronger ev...