Just months after a powerful El Niño ended its 2015-2016 rampage through global weather systems, meteorologists see indications of another one forming in 2017. El Niño began affecting the world’s weather in 2015 and ended barely a year ago. Typically, El Niños occur three to seven years apart, but dramatic winter flooding in California followed by unprecedented rains that buried Peru in deadly mudslides may be a signal that El Niño is returning. “El Niño” originally referred to a warm ocean current that came down from the north around Christmastime along the coast of South America. El niño is the Spanish term for the "Christ child." Every few years, this current was even warmer than usual, so the term El Niño started to refer to this specific anomalous condition. Climate researchers and meteorologists call this an “El Niño event.” In more recent times, climate experts began to understand that this coastal event is related in a general way to a phenomenon that occurs throughout the enti
