- El Niño is Spanish for "little boy" and refers to the Christ child, because periodic warming in the Pacific near South America is usually noticed around Christmas time.
- El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO is a quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every 5 years, but over a period which varies from 3 to 7 years.
- ENSO is credited with suppressing hurricanes and made the 2009 hurricane season the least active in 12 years.
- La Niña is the name for the cold phase of ENSO.
- During a time of La Niña, drought plagues the coastal regions of Peru and Chile.
- La Niña occurs roughly half as often as El Niño
- An early recorded mention of the term "El Niño" to refer to climate occurs in 1892, when Captain Camilo Carrillo told the Geographical society congress in Lima that Peruvian sailors named the warm northerly current "El Niño" because it was most noticeable around Christmas.
- Major El Niño events were recorded in the years 1790–93, 1828, 1876–78, 1891, 1925–26, 1972–73, 1982–83, and 1997–98.
Some facts about El Niño
