El Nino and La Nina Weather

Before venturing to El Nino, a little background on scientific studies tracking this event are in order. Leonardo DaVinci compared oceans to air movement in the 16th century. From his comparisons, scientists started looking at the oceans in order to understand the atmosphere. What they found were eddy currents/eddy fields—these are found near ocean currents and are swirling water caused by the jet stream. A spinning eddy in the sea has been compared …

…occurs one third as much as El Nino and studies on it didn’t really begin until the 1980s. La Nina is also known as an ENSO cold event and/or La Viejo (old man), and it basically amplifies normal weather patterns in a region. Due to increased scientific studies and predictions, these events aren’t as catastrophic as in the past because people can be forewarned about the event and adequately prepare for it.