El nino is on its way! 2014

El Niño on its way

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1N85MiTQ-N0gsI3XBCCYbw?sub_confirmation=1

Hammerhead shark sightings off Southern California; more evidence of developing El Niño? Whether the sighting of a hammerhead shark on Tuesday off Dana Point–the second in a week–has anything to do with a developing El Niño is debatable. But both were unusual, if not rare sightings, and some are speculating that unusually warm surface temperatures off Southern California are a factor. The 6-foot hammerhead was spotted by passengers on a whale-watching trip with Captain Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Safari, which runs from Dana Point Harbor Above-normal fire potential this autumn over most of Washington and Idaho. A weak winter snowpack, leading to frustrated irrigators and a 2015 wildfire season that starts early and runs long. Pacific coho and pink salmon populations decimated by the untimely loss of their food sources to warming ocean currents. Those things may, or may not, be in our future. Because El Niño is on its way. And it might be a big one. What causes an El Niño? Typically, an El Niño develops around May/June, strengthens through September/October and November to peak over December/January, then starts to decay in late February with weather conditions returning to normal around March. The shift from normal — or neutral — conditions to an El Niño (or its opposite — La Niña) is governed by a complex combination of atmospheric and oceanic events. In normal conditions, an easterly trade wind blows from the Americas across the Pacific Ocean storing heat in the western Pacific. This sets up a temperature gradient — or thermocline — across the ocean with the eastern Pacific significantly colder than the western Pacific. It also creates what we consider to be normal climatic conditions — a rain band in the western Pacific, bringing rainfall to eastern Australia. During an El Niño the temperature gradient is reduced, and the water in the eastern Pacific is warmer than normal.