The presence of El Niño boosts the odds of big Denver-area snowstorms, even though the region's winters as a whole aren’t substantially wetter during El Niño. It’s a good example of nuance in the relationship between El Niño and climate.

While most El Niños tend to inhibit Atlantic hurricanes, the Modoki variety, with its peak warming displaced further west from the Atlantic, appears to leave more room for a bumper crop in at least some years.

If you’re a gardener in New England, you might remember the wet, cool summer of 2009 for its tomatoes and potatoes, ravaged by the earliest and most widespread “late blight” on record. If you’re from south Texas, you were probably just trying to keep green things alive.

Along with unusually persistent rains, there was a different kind of watery surprise this summer for people on the U.S. Atlantic coast. From the barrier islands of the Southeast to the rocky shores of Maine, tides ran as high as 2 feet above predicted values.