How El Niño could affect Chicago’s winter

How El Niño could affect Chicago’s winter
How El Niño could affect Chicago’s winter

How El Niño could affect Chicago’s winter

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Now that it’s October, we’ll probably start noticing more advertisements geared toward winter: coats, snow blowers, shovels. But this winter might not be so bad — and we can thank El Niño for that. El Niño is the periodic warming of water in the Pacific Ocean, but it impacts weather patterns around the world, including here in Chicago. David Changnon, meteorologist and professor in the department of geography at Northern Illinois University, explains El Niño and what we and the rest of the country can expect. (Flickr/edward stojakovic)