Most El Nino weather predictions are wild guesses.

Winds blows from west to east in the northern hemisphere and east to west in the southern hemisphere. Along the equator, winds blow back and forth. When the warm wind along the equator blows West, it pushes the warm water west against the east coast of Africa, then every few years the wind switches direction and the warm water blows back toward the west coast of South America. The movement of this warm water toward the West Coast of South America is called El Nino.

Weather forecasters are pretty excited because they now have the technology to see the movement of ocean temperatures. Since water off the coast of West South America has warmed (El Nino), that area can expect warmer weather and more precipitation while the East Coast of Africa can expect slightly cooler temperatures and less moisture.

Despite our new understanding of El Nino, weather forecasts made for places around the globe far from the equator are just as much guesswork as they were before we could find El Nino. It is hard to pin any forecasters down on exactly what effect they think El Nino will have, but forecasters have convinced everyone that the effect will be big. Most people don’t know what El Nino is, but they search the Globe each day for the latest weather abnormality and call it a result of El Nino. Since crazy weather things happen everyday at least somewhere in the world, the El Nino fear mongers have a lot of material to work with.

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