Correspondingly, it's cooler than normal in the Southeast and Southwest United States (Climate Prediction Center Internet Team, 2005). Because the upper westerly winds are more vertical, the tropical North Atlantic has fewer hurricanes, while the eastern tropical North Pacific has more (Climate Prediction Center Internet Team, 2005). Sometimes, after ENSO's warm phase, ENSO's opposite, cold phase (La Nina) occurs (Climate Prediction Center Internet Team, 2005). This periodic (every three to five years) phase has winter temperatures that are warmer than normal in the Southeast, and cooler than normal in the Northwest (Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Project, 1998). ENSO's cold phase is currently happening, and expected to continue into 2012 (Climate Prediction Center Internet Team, 2005). As a result, the Mississippi can continue to expect record droughts, while most of the South can expect more snowstorms (Climate Prediction Center Internet Team, 2005).

(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2011)

In the last twenty years, non-traditional ENSO warm phases have occurred, with temperature anomalies in the central Pacific (Kao & Jin-Yi, 2009) (Larkin & Harrison, 2005). Effects differ, with an increase in the number of hurricanes and their destructiveness (Kim, Webster, & Curry, 2009), (Trenberth, et al., 2007). It is possibly linked to global warming (Yeh, Kug, Dewitte, Kwon, Kirtman, & Jin, 2009), (CIT & McPhaden, 2010), (Lee & McPhaden, 2010).

Works Cited

CIT, J., & McPhaden, M. (2010). NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Ninos are Growing Stronger. Pasadena, California: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Climate Prediction Center Internet Team. (2005, December 19). Frequently Asked Questions about El Nino and La Nino. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from Climate Prediction Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service, NOAA: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensofaq.shtml

Kao, H.-Y., & Jin-Yi,...

(2009). Contrasting Eastern-Pacific and Central-Pacific Types of ENSO. Journal of Climate, 615-632.
Kim, H.-M., Webster, P.J., & Curry, J.A. (2009). Impact of Shifting Patterns of Pacific Ocean Warming on North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones. Science, 77-80.

Larkin, N., & Harrison, D.E. (2005). On the definition of El Nino and associated seasonal average U.S. Weather anomalies. Geophysical Research Letters, 32-45.

Lee, T., & McPhaden, M.J. (2010). Increasing intensity of El Nino in the central-equatorial Pacific. Geophysical Research Letters.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (2011, December 1). NOAA's El Nino Page. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

Pascual, M., Xavier, R., Ellner, S.P., Colwell, R., & Bouma, M.J. (2000). Cholera Dynamics and El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Science, 1766-1769.

(2007). Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. In K. Trenberth, P. Jones, P. Ambenje, R. Bojariu, D. Easterling, A. Klein Tank, et al., S. Solomon, & M.M.D. Qin (Eds.), Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Project. (1998). What is an El Nino? Retrieved December 1, 2011, from El Nino Theme Page: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/el-nino-story.html

Yeh, S.-W., Kug, J.-S., Dewitte, B., Kwon, M.-H., Kirtman, B.P., & Jin, F.-F. (2009). El Nino in a changing climate. Nature, 511-514.