El Nino not finished with Southern Nevada just yet

Monday, March 2, 1998 | 10:10 a.m.

Southern Nevadans welcomed sunny skies this weekend, but clouds, wind and rain will soon return to center stage in the local weather picture, forecaster Ron McQueen said.

The stormy weather pattern Las Vegas experienced in February when 2.85 inches of rain came, in part from the force of El Nino, a complex change in the Pacific Ocean combining warmer waters and high altitude winds that slam storms into California and Nevada.

Rain and winds are normal in the Las Vegas Valley for this time of year, McQueen explained.

With El Nino, named for the Christ child because Peru's fishermen noticed changes along the South American coast around Christmas, things get wetter, windier and wilder in the southern states.

Tornados pounding Florida and mudslides, high waves and swollen rivers roaring through California are evidence that El Nino is acting up, McQueen said.

In other parts of the world drought has gripped wet places such as the Big Island of Hawaii. Hilo, in the northeast corner of the island, usually has an average rainfall of 15 inches by this time of year. The city has barely received a half inch so far and Hilo residents are rationing drinking water.

"With El Nino we definitely have a better chance for above-normal rain," McQueen said. All storms reaching Southern Nevada this year have packed a bigger punch.

El Nino weather patterns have occurred more frequently since the 1970s. The last major El Nino affecting Southern Nevada began in the winter of 1982 and stayed through 1983, flooding the Colorado River. Las Vegas felt its wrath in the summer of 1984 when floodwaters covered local streets for weeks.

In the 1990s alone, El Ninos have cranked storms into the Southwest up to five times, McQueen said. "That's unusual," he noted, referring to an earlier pattern of five to seven years between ocean warming. After the 1982-83 El Nino, Southern California and Nevada suffered a seven-year drought.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts this year's El Nino will affect weather in the southern states at least through April.