# Is El Niño upon us?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 15, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126 "2014-07-15T01:10:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/1 "2014-07-15T01:10:35Z")
I keep seeing news articles here and there saying that the meteorologists are saying the we _might_ have an El Niño winter coming. Some articles are even saying that the beginnings of it may start to become apparent over the summer.
So, is this happening?
Here in California, where all the gold is in a bank in Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name, the weather has been weird, starting exactly on June 21, the Summer Solstice day. (I mentioned it in a post even then.) For a month or two before that, the weather was just what I’d expect in May and June: Warm and dry mostly.
Starting exactly on June 21, it was rather hot and kind of cloudy. From that day to this, there has been a mixture of hot dry days and hot humid days. Today is hot and very humid – in fact, it’s somewhat overcast where I am, and quite hot and very muggy.
Hot humid weather seems unusual around here at this time of year, I think. And we’ve had a lot of it this past 3 weeks. Is this the beginning of an El Niño event?
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### Author:  [@Lorene89095](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorene89095)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/2 "2014-07-15T01:16:29Z")
I hope so. We’ve had very little rain in Texas for the past 5 or so years and it’s getting old
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/3 "2014-07-15T01:25:13Z")
Thunderstorms predicted to his Los Angeles…right about now.
KNX News Radio (CBS affiliate) reported drizzle and sprinkles as of noon today.
El Nino…or just the usual June damp…we need every flippin’ drop!
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/4 "2014-07-15T01:53:22Z")
El Nino.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/5 "2014-07-15T01:57:19Z")
You know… I moved to the PNW because I like it cool. Now we’ve had like a week in the mid-80s (it was over 90 at the fly-in Saturday), and the midwest is getting all our cool weather! :mad:
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### Author:  [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/6 "2014-07-15T02:00:30Z")
[Bow before El Nino!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkSRUf02gu8)
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/7 "2014-07-15T02:25:43Z")
We’ve been having harbingers of it here in Panama. Birds and marine mammals from Peru and the Galapagos can’t find food when the El Nino occurs, and start wandering north in search of it. So far we’ve had a Gray Gull, Inca Tern, Peruvian Booby, and Galapagos Sea Lion show up. None of them are normally seen in Panama except in El Nino years.
Here’s an article from National Geographic.
[Dead and Lost Boobies: Harbingers of a Growing El Niño?](http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/11/dead-and-lost-boobies-harbingers-of-a-growing-el-nino/)
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/8 "2014-07-15T05:17:01Z")
> [@Lorene89095](#):
>
> I hope so. We’ve had very little rain in Texas for the past 5 or so years and it’s getting old
OTOH, according to that National Geographic article, El Niño is not a good thing for over 6000 Peruvian boobies, pelicans, cormorants, etc.
So – there’s a consensus that The Boy-Child is coming this year, and is already happening then? (ETA: Reading the rest of that article: Says climatologists say 70% chance this summer and 80% chance in fall and winter, in the Northern Hemisphere.)
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### Author:  [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/9 "2014-07-15T13:45:52Z")
I’ll see what I can do.
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### Author:  [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/10 "2014-07-15T13:56:47Z")
It has been alternating between cool and stormy in the midwest. Very odd for summer. Usually it’s hot and humid. Definitely something strange in the air.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/11 "2014-07-15T14:51:04Z")
The weird weather in the midwest is due to the impact of [Super Typhoon Neoguri](http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2725) (scroll down) heading north after hitting Japan. It disrupted the flow of the polar jetstream.
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/12 "2014-07-15T17:30:16Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> The weird weather in the midwest is due to the impact of [Super Typhoon Neoguri](http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2725) (scroll down) heading north after hitting Japan. It disrupted the flow of the polar jetstream.
And the humid weather in southern California is most likely just part of the not-unusual monsoonal moisture moving north from Mexico and spilling over the mountains toward the coast.
The water temps and the out-of-place animals along the Pacific coast are more of an indicator of an impending El Nino. However, last year I recall similar observations and predictions of a drought-buster winter in CA, and it did not materialize.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/13 "2014-07-15T17:38:38Z")
[This](http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml) is a useful NOAA page for referring to El Niño indicators and predictions, showing sea surface temperature graphs and the like.
If you click on “Weekly ENSO Evolution, Status, and Prediction Presentation” it does confirm:
> [@](#):
>
> Chance of El Niño is about 70% during the Northern Hemisphere summer and
> is close to 80% during the fall and winter.\*
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### Author:  [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/14 "2014-07-15T19:43:22Z")
Here on the east coast a _polar vortex_ is supposed to come whooshing in tomorrow for the rest of the week.
Up until last year I had never heard of a polar vortex before.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-el-nino-upon-us/693126/15 "2014-07-15T21:15:47Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> OTOH, according to that National Geographic article, El Niño is not a good thing for over 6000 Peruvian boobies, pelicans, cormorants, etc. . . .
I always feel a little guilty, for rainstorms here are statistically correlated with droughts in Australia. Why does it have to be a zero sum game?