El Nino
El Niño, an ocean phenomenon of the Pacific Ocean. El Niño occurs when the southeast trade winds slacken or cease, preventing cool, nutrient-rich water within the Peru Current from moving up from moderate depths to replace warm surface water .) With the absence of the nutrient-rich water, plankton, a major source of food for fish, dies off, resulting in a major disruption of the ecosystem. El Niño causes several other disturbances, among which is an altering of the path of the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere, causing an unusual increase in precipitation in many areas.
El Niño occurs irregularly, about 14 times in a century, causing various ecological and climatic disturbances for about a year. It is named El Niño (“the Child,” referring to the baby Jesus) because it usually begins around Christmas.