How does the El Nino effect weather?

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Answer 1

Heat drives all weather.

The El Nino effect is a warming in the Pacific Ocean in the Southern Hemisphere off of Peru. Its counter part El Nina, is a cooling in the same region.

When an El Nino is in effect it shoots more warm air up north to California and effects the weather in the US a lot because it reaches up to run into the Jet Stream and the Artic cold.

When the Jet Stream runs a little more south then usual a cold front enters the US and can reach the lower US. When it hits warm air coming from the equator the two fronts collide and create weather. When El Nino throws in its efforts then the weather created is more extreme.

Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air, when the two meet the result is rain. The cold front cools off the warm air and the water vapor can't remain in suspension so it rains. If you add the water from El Nino then the rain is stronger.

When a cold and warm front collide there is circular movement in the air. The cold front is moving at a lower altitude than the warm air so when the two mix they start circulating the air. Storms in circulating air are more violent and the circular air motion can create enough down pressure to create a low pressure area and then a tornado.

Tornados are rare except in Tornado Alley in the central US, east of the Rocky Mountains, but El Nino is a huge warm air mass so it can cross Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico and effect weather as far east as Florida.

With more warm air moving north El Nino can keep the Jet Stream running in a more northerly direction thus giving the Northern US a mild weather. But, when the Jet Stream slips down then the result is a stronger storm; again there is more warm air and so more water vapor.

Of course the El Nino has a world wide effect and it can play havoc with the weather in South America, but there are fewer people there and the Andes Mountains provide a lot of shielding so the weather effect is milder in South America. However, the Andes run north as part of the Rocky Mountain chain so all that warm air is channeled North over the equator to the US and Mexico where it wreaks its damage. Since California is on the western side of the Rockies it tends to get hit the worst by El Nino effects.

By the way Hurricanes get there start as dust devils in the Sahara Desert, when the move west and cross the Atlantic they pick up moisture and intensify. The longer a storm is over the water the more energy it picks up. By the time some of those dust devils hit the Gulf of Mexico they are Tropical Depressions (big rain clouds) and if a circular motion develops then a hurricane can form.

If the temperature of the Pacific Ocean increases by a few degrees then it will be enough, in combination with El Nino to unleash tornados in California. This is just one of the threats of Global Warming.

Answer 2

Both El Nino and La Nina affect our weather, the reasons are complicated and the consequences diverse.

The first excellent answer provides a lot of info, these sites may also help you...
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf
http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/nino/intro.html

Answer 3

The simple answer is that it makes the warm currents and the cold currents switch places.

Btw, 'El nino' means 'The Child' (male).

It is named after Jesus Christ, because it occurs in December, around what the Spanish people regard as Christmas.

Answer 4

yes

Answer 5

it dosent,it is a part of the weather.

Answer 6

It doesn't.