Emphasis is on seabirds and changes to marine ecosystems, but we include other reports that may expand our understanding of effects. These might include rainfall, flooding, or associated disease outbreaks. We try to be inclusive and to let hindsight separate ENSO from other effects. There is continuing concern over the onset of a cold-water La Nina event. Events set in motion by the ENSO event continue to affect the planet.
Conditions are or have returned to normal in Galapagos and Peru.
Vegetation growth from ENSO-rains in California is expected to generate brush fires later in the year. In California and elsewhere, vectors of diseases such as plague. Lyme Disease and hanta viruses are abundant, suggesting increases in these diseases will occur. In Africa, the cholera epidemic that began in eastern Africa during heavy rains at the turn of the year has now spread to central Africa and continues to be a problem in Ecuador and parts of Central America. Dengue continues throughout Oceania.