El Nino
Tropical ocean disruption
El Niño is a climate pattern that occurs when surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, disrupting normal weather patterns across much of the globe.
It typically brings drought to Australia and Southeast Asia while causing heavy rainfall and flooding along the western coast of South America.
El Niño events occur irregularly, roughly every two to seven years, and can last from several months to over a year.
The name, Spanish for "the Christ child," refers to the phenomenon's tendency to appear around Christmas.
Its counterpart, La Niña, involves cooler-than-normal Pacific waters.
- stormSevere atmospheric disturbance
- extreme weatherUnusual, dangerous atmospheric events
- rainWater dropping from clouds
- windAir current outdoors
- trade windsReliable equatorial air currents
ocean current · warm water · Peru · Christ child · Walker circulation · upwelling · climate · global climate · flood · anchovy · deluge · cloud · coral bleaching · Pacific Ocean · dry · drought conditions · thermocline · indigenous knowledge
- weather phenomenatornado, wind, hurricane, gust, blizzard
- climateclimate change, climate, weather, global warming, temperature
- Climate Changeglobal warming, greenhouse gases, climate change, carbon dioxide, CO2
- meteorologyweather, rain, wind, snow, clouds
- natural cyclescircadian rhythm, sleep cycle, seasons, tides, water cycle
- tropical weatherhurricane, tropical storm, tropical cyclone, hurricanes, tropical depression