As a regular weather watcher, I appreciate the explanation of La Nina. Our local weathermen have often explained El Nina. After any extremely dry Fall & Winter season, we've finally had the wecome rains for our ranch lands. I just told my daughter last night that I've not had to water for over five days! In addition to growing about 50 orchids (a modest assorted collection)outdoors, I have other flower gardens as well as potted plants. Thinking Green! Sheila :)

7thLegend, expecting 60 degrees and sunny here for the Superbowl. LOL! Not as cold in February as it used to be though. We will see. Don't place much belief in the Farmer's Almanac. Do they ever predict anything but cold and snowy for the Northeast in February?! As for the hurricane forecast, this certainly has been a very, very strange season! Was expected to very bad, but abnormally quiet! Probably one of he strangest seasons I can remember. Don't know what to make of it.--May be a very late season. Like X-Mas storms?! We had ours late last year--October 31st, name of Sandy.

I think traditionally we begin feeling El Nino's effects after Christmas. That's why they called it El Nino--because it arrives so close to Christmas. It isn't cut and dried though, and I guess it will get here when it gets here, if it does at all. El Nino varies from cycle to cycle. Sometimes we have very strong El Ninos. The last really strong El Nino was when we still lived in Texas. I think it was in 1996 or 1997 and we had flooding rains in mid- to late-spring. One thing I have noticed about El Nino in the last 10-15 years is that it tends to have an opposite effect on us here than what it has on Tim's family in Pennsylvania. So, if El Nino brings them tons of snow there (like it did Friday and yesterday), then we'll be drier than usual here in southern OK. And, if we have massive winter/spring rain, they tend to have less rain than usual there in Pennsylvania. So, based on this past week's storm, maybe El Nino is going to affect them more than it affects us. That's not a very scientific forecast, but it works for us. Our local forecaster told us a couple of months ago that he expected only slightly colder weather in our part of the state (and we have had that in December here, even being colder than Jay's location in Kansas a few times) and probably a bit wetter winter, but not massive amounts of rain because this is only a moderate El Nino. I haven't had to water because we have had an inch or two of rain here in Love County this month. November was warmer and drier than usual for us, but that's a pre-El Nino month anyway. I've linked NOAA data below that shows El Nino's typical impact during the time frame they studied. I noticed for us here in southern OK, a typical El Nino brings us 134% of our usual rainfall for Nov.-Dec. in the years they studied. (We had that in 2009----maybe southern OK got its El Nino weather one year early. LOL) I don't pretend to be a forecaster, but our trees, animals and other plants aren't acting like they're expecting cold weather. We still have trees with leaves and some of those leaves are green but other trees like the post oaks that normally hold their brown leaves throughout the winter here are already bare. I think Mother Nature is mixed up this year. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful:

Jeri, your description reminded me of the bad storm we had 3 Mays ago that caused all the construction in my neighborhood. I slept through the whole thing, but there was a bad storm and we received 10 inches of rain in 3 hours. It became worse when the water burst through a fence in a yard across the street from me and the home owner had piled yard waste in front of it. All that water and debris rushed downward towards a drain and clogged it. Then the water built up, unfortunately flooding the basement of the two homes near the drain (which had been similarly flooded 10 years ago). At some point I had 2 feet of standing water in my yard, I could tell by the debris line. But luckily my house is higher in the front and slopes downward away from my basement so I did not get any water in there. Now with the new drainage, we get a river running through our yard, but it dissipates after a bit. Of course if we had an El Nino like event, who knows what would happen. After that first rain (after the construction) all that was left in my yard was sand silt. It was like I had beach front property. I also remember a bad rainstorm when my neighbors drain hole cover popped open from the force of the storm water and the statue on top went flying. Almost funny, but not really.