El Niño

El Niño
El Niño, the Spanish name for "Christ Child", is the name given to the occasional development of warm surface waters in the Pacific Ocean along the coast of equatorial South America. El Niño occurs roughly every 2 to 7 years, usually around Christmas, and lasts usually for a few weeks or months. Sometimes an extremely warm event can develop that lasts much longer. In the early 1990s, a strong El Niño developed in 1991 that remained until 1995. It is possible that global warming could bring more frequent and intense El Niño weather patterns.
The formation of El Niño is linked with the cycling of a Pacific Ocean circulation pattern known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO. In a normal year, low atmospheric pressure develops over northern Australia and Indonesia, with high pressure over the Pacific. Consequently, winds over the Pacific move from east to west. The easterly flow of the trade winds carries warm surface waters westward bringing rainstorms to Indonesi...