Last night for the first time in months we had a nice amount of rain in Boulder. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, "Experts say Colorado's weather is likely to shift to a much wetter El Niño
pattern this year, which could mean good news for firefighters, farmers and
those just sick of hot, dry weather." The experts are at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) facility in Boulder. Understanding and predicting El Niño is so important to predicting the weather and climate that the phenomenon has its own website:
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/. Weather and climate have profound and sometimes surprising effects. The
latest research suggests a link between El Niño and the global flu pandemic of 1918/19 which killed over 50 million individuals worldwide.
According to the site "
El Niño is characterized by unusually warm temperatures and
La Niña by unusually cool temperatures in the equatorial Pacific." The site features a link to a
YouTube video explaining how NOAA collects data on ocean temperatures using sea buoys.
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| Collecting Data from An Ocean Buoy |
In addition to information that is too technical for most people to understand, the site features educational materials about El Niño and the related La Niña phenomenon. Check it out.
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