The fires that began burning in Indonesia this summer might have been quenched by the annual monsoons, but in 1997 the rain was too little too late. A thick coat of smog blanketed the region from Malaysia to the Philippines, and hundreds of people reportedly died of starvation and disease.
The rain fell instead in places where it wasn’t wanted, blasting the Pacific coast of Mexico with hurricane Pauline, which killed 400 people and injured thousands. Elsewhere there was strange weather that was more welcome: warm waters on the coast of California lured tropical fish, while calm seas in the Atlantic put a damper on hurricanes there. In every case the prime suspect was the same: El Niño.
El Niño forms every two to seven years when the westward-blowing trade winds slacken over the equatorial Pacific. Sun-warmed water that’s usually pushed up against Southeast Asia sloshes back toward the Americas. ...
