For starters, El Niño is a periodic climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean characterized by unusually mild ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial tropical Pacific Ocean. It comes along with a slowing or even a complete reversal of the normal east-to-west flow of trade winds. It is a result of complex interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere, and requires the participation of both to develop and mature.
Once mature, or in the process of maturation, such phenomenon may bring devastating damage-- and history has some proofs about its cataclysmic effect. As reported by mashable, "the strongest El Niño on record occurred in 1997-98, and brought devastating flooding and mudslides to southern California, droughts and wildfire to Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil, and widespread coral bleaching from high water temperatures off the coast of Africa, Central America and in Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef."
Those were some of the most notable effects of El Niño in the past. And most forecasters believe that with its current condition, the said phenomenon will continue to be strong and would even be considered as the world's third strongest. It can be then likened to a rock placed suddenly in the middle of a river creating waves downstream. And such wave does not only mean changes in the amount of rain or snow falls. For diseases' rates may also increase as it was previously experienced in Bangladesh, where cholera was made rampant due to the said weather change. Aside from diseases, commodities would also be affected, from its stocks to its prices. Thus in a way one could claim that El Niño does not only reshapes the weather but life itself.
