Heat and humidity.

The infamous East Coast duo has been exported to the West, and climatologists predict Southern California can expect more of the sticky combination through October, followed by heavier precipitation powered by a strengthening El Niño cooking the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

What climatologists disagree on is whether there will be enough rain to break the four-year punishing drought wreaking havoc on California farms and urban centers.

“We are already under El Niño conditions,” said Brian Fuchs, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb., who said models from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration support a winter-time El Niño for Southern California. “The idea of a moderate to strong El Niño is likely.”

Climatologist Bill Patzert of the Caltech-NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintrdige said NOAA is correct about El Niño (Spanish for “the child”) influencing local weather, but he’s not so sure it will be powerful enough to carry heavy rains and snow to California mountains. That won’t be known until January, he said, typically when monster El Niños have arrived in the past.

“What we need is not El Niño but El Hombre. We need the man,” Patzert said this week. “We need a huge snowpack, plus reservoirs in central and northern California filling up. I still remain somewhat skeptical.”

Scientists from government, university and institutional labs have reached a consensus that El Niño, combined with the creep of global climate change, are making the Pacific Northwest hotter, with increasing bouts of humidity from monsoonal flows swirling from the Gulf of Mexico.

Hottest June on record

Last month was the hottest June on record in the world. Global temperatures rose by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit compared with the 20th-century average, reported the National Climatic Data Center. In the United States, the average temperature increased by 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit above the average, making it the second-hottest June since 1895 when record-keeping began, according to NOAA’s June 2015 U.S. Climate Report.

California also experienced the warmest June since 1895, Fuchs said, as did Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah.

Along with heat, drought conditions got worse and are spreading. In the West, drought covered 60.38 percent of the region, up from 56.98 percent on June 1. Severe drought increased from 35.92 percent to 39.01, according to a report published last week by Fuchs. Ninety-nine percent of California is in drought, with 95 percent in severe or extreme drought, Fuchs said.

While Southern California, particularly along the coastal regions of Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, was 2 degrees below normal in June, Northern California experienced temperatures 6 to 8 degrees above normal, skewing the average for June, Fuchs said.

Climatologists point to an increase in trapped carbon dioxide gases from the burning of fossil fuels from cars, refineries and power plants as contributing to rising temperatures worldwide. Scientists from NOAA report that surface temperature data show global warming is no longer paused but speeding up.

However, global climate change accounted for an incremental rise in temperatures, some say. A bigger reason for record-breaking heat is warmer oceans.

Patzert said global warming plus El Niño are blocking the normal onshore breezes, replacing them with southerly flows that attract tropical humidity and unstable air that caused lightning strikes, wildfires and flash floods last weekend. One downpour wiped out a bridge on the 10 Freeway near Blythe.

“That has robbed us of our natural air conditioning,” Patzert said, so much so that when it’s hot, Southern Californians can no longer say “at least it’s a dry heat.”

The federal climate prediction center forecasts warmer than normal conditions for California and the West during August, September and October, along with “a stronger signal for above normal precipitation,” Fuchs said.

“El Niño is a mixed blessing,” said Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of L.A.-based Climate Resolve, saying it could result in needed rainfall but also flooding and missed opportunities for capturing storm water. Also, higher temperatures plus humidity can be a dangerous combination for inland Southern Californian residents.

“There is truly a public health concern about people being able to handle higher humidity,” Parfrey said on Tuesday.