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Today, we're going to be talking about the upcoming winter season and the effects of *** weather pattern called El Nino. Now, full disclosure up front, we're not going to be forecasting how much snow is going to fall this winter. We're not going to be talking how much cold is going to come this winter, we can't really do that that well, but there are some impacts that do come from El Nino. So first off, what is it? We haven't had El Nino for *** few years. It is *** weather phenomenon, climate phenomena that happens down along the equator in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. And what happens is here, usually the trade winds which are the easterly winds that kind of commonly blow along the equator. They usually push warm air along the surface of the ocean out into the Western Pacific. But when we have El Nino conditions, those winds weaken and since they can't blow the warm water away, that warm water sort of builds up on the surface of the ocean and it gets warmer and warmer and that warms up, the atmosphere ends up allowing more moisture to go into the atmosphere. Changes the pressure and it affects weather all around the globe, including up here in North America, in the Midwest and in Iowa specifically. So here's what is more likely to happen because of El Nino. On an average basis, El Nino strengthens the Pacific jet stream which then blows lot of moisture off of the Pacific into the southern US and it pushes the polar jet stream *** little bit farther north than usual. So compared to average, if you didn't have El Nino, this is what ends up happening, the southern part of the country ends up getting more moisture than usual because you have *** lot of weather systems that follow that Pacific Jet off the ocean and down into places like Texas and the deep south and places like that up here to the north because that jet has been pushed further north. On average, we end up *** little bit warmer than normal or at least more likely to be warmer than normal when we have El Nino. And since this is going to be *** stronger El Nino coming this winter, we're more likely to have those impacts warmer than normal is the most common impact that we would get from El Nino. Here's the last five of strong El Ninos in central Iowa temperature and snowfall compared to normal. If you look at temperature, the last five for the last five have been several degrees above average, average out over whole winter. If you're several degrees above normal. That's quite *** bit for the last five winters have been warmer than normal winter snowfall for the last five winters have been ***, um, lower than normal in terms of snowfall exception being 2009 2010, which actually was really, really snowy. If you remember that winter, *** lot of kids had snow days, *** lot of snow days that winter. So basically what we're saying here is the increase. We do have *** higher than normal chance of warmer temperatures compared to the average as we head into this winter. But it's not *** guarantee because El Nino is *** huge driver of our weather, but it is still just one. There are other patterns as well that sometimes have competing influences. We'll have to see if we get *** little bit closer to that season. In the meantime, this El Nino, now that it's back, it's going to be here all the way into next year.