El Nino Past and Present

By PARKER KESTON | Junior Reporter

According to one version of the story of El Niño, Peruvian fishermen noticed a pattern of unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean around Christmas time and named it “El Niño” or “the little boy” after the baby Jesus.

However, from everything I have heard from my parents and in the news, it sounds as if El Niño is going to be anything but little.

Here’s how El Niño works. Climate changes cause the waters of the Pacific Ocean to get warmer, which in turn causes other changes in the atmosphere. In some places across the world it gets drier. In some places it gets cooler. But in Los Angeles, it gets wetter, much wetter.

The last El Niño ocurred in 1997-1998. I wasn’t alive then, but I heard it was pretty bad. My mom was in college at Santa Barbara at the time, and she told me a story about it. She said it rained so much that the water rose to the top of stop signs and people abandoned their cars and paddled canoes through the streets instead.

In February 1998, we saw 13.68 inches of rain—as much rain as we usually get in an entire year.

If the predictions are right, we could see even more this year. The news said we might get as much as 30 inches! 30 inches!

Here’s the good news: All that rain could help with the drought, but it won’t be totally over.

Here’s the bad bews: A lot of our houses aren’t built to handle all this rain. Plus, the ocean and storm drains might overflow, which is bad for pollution and animals.

Are you ready for El Niño this year?

(Editor’s Note: Junior Reporter Parker Keston submitted this story prior to the New Year, before Pacific Palisades received 2.62 inches of rain this month, according to local weather tracker Craig Weston. The Palisades is definitely off to a wet start this year, just as Parker predicted.)