Some regions are helped by the increased rainfall, others are damaged.
Some areas experience a boon in fish production, others a bust.
For decades scientists have noted the dramatic changes in ocean temperatures which appear every three to seven years in the Pacific Ocean around Christmas. This second phenomenon is known as La Nina, and it creates its own benefits and problems for the economies of Latin America. The near record high ocean temperatures in 1997 abated over the first four months of 1998 as ocean temperatures cooled. The cooling was atypical, however, in that water off the coast of Ecuador and Peru did not cool proportionally to the rest of the pacific waters. Offshore temperatures were cooler than usual, setting up a greater temperature oscillation then had previously been experienced.