You may have heard that one effect of El Niño is an influx of warm water. The question that interested us was, how much did the surface water temperatures increase locally? 

  Water temperatures were analyzed for 1994,‘95,‘96, and ‘97 as recorded by the Point Arena weather buoy located approximately 10 nautical miles west of the town of Albion in Mendocino County. Monthly averages of hourly buoy data allowed graphical comparison between the years (see graph above currently not available). During the non-El Niño years of 1994 through 1996, the lowest average temperature occurred during June, a period of coastal upwelling of cold nutrient-rich water and high productivity for marine organisms. In 1997 temperatures peaked in May at 14 degrees C (57 degrees F) and did not follow a typical pattern of decline in June with water temperature remaining 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above normal. Average temperatures from August to December, 1997 were 1 to 2 degrees C above the previous three years. Clearly, El Niño did affect our local ocean temperatures, which may have affected upwelling and the productivity of local marine life. (Readers interested in NOAA buoy data may find more information on the World Wide Web at: http://www.nws.fsu.edu/buoy/sw.html )