The world could be headed for one of the strongest El Niños in recorded history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday.

A strong El Niño event would disrupt weather patterns across the globe and boost global temperatures — and help relieve California’s historic drought.

El Niño, a climate phenomenon triggered by unusually warm temperatures along the equatorial Pacific, affects weather across the planet.

The warmer Pacific surface temperatures are above the norm, the more significant forecasters predict El Niño will be.

This year, climate forecasters observed sea surface temperatures more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average across the east central Pacific Ocean. That level of heat has been recorded only three times in the past 65 years, and all three occurrences matched with strong El Niño events.

"Since March, above-normal sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific have continued to increase," Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said on a conference call for journalists. "We're predicting this El Niño could be among the strongest El Niños in the historical record."

"This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño," added Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.