What are El Nio and La Nia?
A. El Nio, Spanish for “boy child” (because of the tendency of the phenomenon to arrive around Christmas), is an abnormal warming of water in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean every three to five years and can last up to 18 months. Severe cases of El Nio, as in 1997/98, are responsible for drought, flooding, as well as areas of formation for tropical cyclones and severe winter storms. The 1997/98 El Nio and its associated impacts have been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars of damage in an estimated 15 countries especially in the Panama Canal region but also as far away as the east coast of Africa. La Nia means the little girl, the opposite of El Nio, and refers to the abnormal cooling of the ocean temperatures in the same Pacific region.
