El Niño is defined by sustained differences in Pacific-Ocean surface temperatures when

compared with the average value. The accepted definition is a warming or cooling of at least
0.5°C (0.9°F) averaged over the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean. When this happens for less
than five months, it is classified as El Niño or La Niña conditions; if the anomaly persists for five
months or longer, it is called an El Niño or La Niña "episode."[4] Typically, this happens at
irregular intervals of 2–7 years and lasts nine months to two years.[5]

The first signs of an El Niño are:

1. Rise in surface pressure over the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, and Australia
2. Fall in air pressure over Tahiti and the rest of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean
3. Trade winds in the south Pacific weaken or head east
4. Warm air rises near Peru, causing rain in the northern Peruvian deserts
5. Warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It
takes the rain with it, causing extensive drought in the western Pacific and rainfall in the
normally dry eastern Pacific.

El Niño's warm current of nutrient-poor tropical water, heated by its eastward passage in the
Equatorial Current, replaces the cold, nutrient-rich surface water of the Humboldt Current. When
El Niño conditions last for many months, extensive ocean warming occurs and its economic
impact to local fishing for an international market can be serious.[6]

El Niño-Southern Oscillation, often called simply ENSO, is a climate pattern that occurs across
the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every five years, but over a period which varies from three
to seven years, and is therefore, widely and significantly, known as "quasi-periodic." ENSO is
best-known for its association with floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many
regions of the world, which vary with each event. Developing countries dependent upon
agriculture and fishing, particularly those bordering the Pacific Ocean, are the most affected.

La Niña is the name for the cold phase of ENSO, during which the cold pool in the eastern Pacific
intensifies and the trade winds strengthen. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning "the girl",
analogous to El Niño meaning "the little boy". It has also in the past been called anti-El Niño, and El Viejo
(meaning "the old man").

La Niña is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the counterpart of El Niño as part of

the broader El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern. During a period of La Niña, the sea
surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than
normal by 0.5 °C. In the United States, an episode of La Niña is defined as a period of at least 5
months of La Niña conditions. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning "the little
girl", analogous to El Niño meaning "the little boy".

La Niña, sometimes informally called "anti-El Niño", is the opposite of El Niño, where the latter
corresponds instead to a higher sea surface temperature by a deviation of at least 0.5 °C, and its
effects are often the reverse of those of El Niño. El Niño is famous due to its potentially
catastrophic impact on the weather along both the Chilean and Australian coasts. Furthermore,
La Niña is often preceded by a strong El Niño.