- There are multiple ways to def And the most common is there's, of the ocean in the middle of th the Nino 3.4 region that we moni for sea surface temperatures.

It's about-it's big.

It's about 2.4 million square ki So, it's like more than 42 Michi So, it's a big piece of ocean.

We monitor the ocean temperature and we measure how much warmer t the temperatures are.

And that's how we determine if a is happening or how big it is.

- [Stephanie] Got it.

- So, if the temperatures are more than 0.5 degrees above it's technically an El Nino even And then, as the temperatures are warmer and warmer than avera we have kind of different catego If it's more than two degrees Ce that's a very strong El Nino eve And I think it was sometime in t in the scientific literature at somebody was writing a paper, and they called a very strong El And I don't know.

I guess people thought that soun But technically, it's just a ver - So, what kind of weather can w expect here in Michigan, then, f - So, a jet stream that's usuall it's usually south of the contin it pushes it farther north.

And so, that's why you would get stream sort of coming into South and you can get a lot of floodin California and the Southern tier states during an El Nino.

And that pushes the polar front That's the jet stream that we us That pushes it farther north.

And the polar front jet separate air in the continental US-maybe that comes from, like, from the cold Arctic air and the And so, if that jet stream, that boundary, gets pushed north then we're going to be in the wa So, that's why, during El Nino y we typically have warmer-than-av And then, that, of course, is going to affect how long our sticks around and things like th - Where can someone go if they w more about changing weather or c - So, I would absolutely encoura people to look at the National W Service and the Climate Predicti especially if you want to find o They have really cool graphs tha the sea surface temperatures, and you can, like, watch how the event is progressing.

So, if you just search "Climate Prediction Center" or y National Weather Service, on the they have links to all of those - Well, Daria, thank you so much us and for talking with us today