I get asked many times, what causes an El Nino or La Nina event. There are general wind directions across parts of the globe. In this area where these events occur (the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru) they’re known as the trade winds and blow to the west. Those westerly winds push the water in the Pacific Ocean and cause it to “pile up” in the western Pacific. This allows for cooler water to move from the bottom of the ocean to the top near the coast of Peru. When the trade winds relax a bit, the water that is piled up will move back and stop the movement from the bottom of the ocean causing the water to be warmer than normal. If you need a better explanation, click here. 

 

As you can see in the picture, we’re entering into a warm phase of the oscillation. I did some research to see what that mean for us and was surprised by the first result, which was a drier than normal summer. Given the fact that we’ve had some wet streaks recently, that caught me off guard. However, the El Nino is in its infancy and is still relatively weak. For Fall there didn’t seem to be much change, but for Winter it typically means warmer than normal temperatures for us. Possibly, that’s some good news, but we’ll have to wait and see. 

 

If there’s any updates on our El Nino situation, I’ll be posting them here.