<P>La Republica Terminal
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<P>El Nio: More Weather Chaos
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<P>It blows hot. It blows cold. It brings fire and rain, feast and famine. But what is El Nio? 
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<P>El Nio is like a season that comes at irregular intervals and stays for an unspecified period of time. The same way yellow-orange leaves are associated with fall, or snow with winter, during El Nio there are certain expected changes in climate and weather patterns. These changes, which began in the tropical Pacific Ocean, have come to define El Nio. 
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<P>During an El Nio, the normally gusty trade winds along the equator in the Pacific fade. As the winds fade, a huge pool of warm water off the coast of Indonesia begins to flows eastward toward the Americas. This warm water heats and adds moisture to the air above it. This in turn alters storm tracks, bringing un-forecastable weather. Previously, this only occured in the Pacific, though in the last 10 years, a form of El Nio has been observed for the first time in the Atlantic.
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<P>As our own levels of control over nature has risen, the El Nio phenomenon has come back to haunt humanity. Accross the Atlantic, originally free from its scurge,  El Nio has reared it's ugly head. It continues to baffel scientists, who continue to debate boths its origins and affects. The outspoken Gabriel Arnavisca even claimed this latest wave of freak storms was due to governmental attempts to control weather patterns.
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<P>But the fact remains that in truth, nobody really knows where or what these latest patterns are. Some people question whether they are even El Nio at all. As the coastlines of Argentina, Brazil and the Malvinas continue to be bombarded by these waves, some scientists are now turning their attention to fighting the distarous effects of this pseudo-El Nio rather than pondering its origins.


