If the satellite image above doesn’t make your skin crawl then you’ve got eh, skin made of steel. A very rare meteorological event occurred on Saturday when three Category 4 hurricanes plowed through the Pacific Ocean at the same time. The three hurricanes, Hurricane Kilo, Hurricane Ignacio, and Hurricane Jimena [cricket] had all reached sustained wind speeds of at least 130 MPH at the same time turning the Pacific Ocean into the world’s largest blender. How rare is this weather event? It is the first time in recorded history of three Category 4 hurricanes in central and eastern Pacific basins at the same time. In fact, it’s the first time with three major hurricanes (Category 3 or stronger) in those basins simultaneously.
As of the time of this writing, both Kilo and Ignacio had weakened to Category 3 hurricanes but Jimena [cricket] is still going strong. Scientists say the cause of this extraordinary beginning of the hurricane season is El Nino but Geek Slop says,
“Bleh, technically maybe, but the impressively warm water due to global warming is the root cause of all evil weather and the leading cause of bad breath.”
El Nino is an anomalous, yet periodic, warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. For reasons still not well understood, every 2 to 7 years, this patch of ocean warms for a period of 6 to 18 months. The term El Nino comes from Spanish, meaning “the boy child,” and refers to the Christ child because it was first noticed by fishermen off the coast of South America around Christmas time.
During an El Nino event, the trade winds that blow from east to west across the Pacific weaken, and sometimes even reverse direction. This causes warm water to migrate from the western Pacific towards the eastern Pacific, leading to a rise in sea surface temperatures. The warmer water can cause dramatic changes in weather patterns around the world, including droughts, floods, and changes in temperature.
El Nino is part of a larger climate pattern called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which includes El Nino, La Nina, and neutral phases. La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. Neutral phases occur when sea surface temperatures are near average.
