Generally, droughts in the Southwest are caused by La Niña, the weather pattern involving cooling of waters in the Pacific, which pushes warm, dry air inland, shifting the rains away from Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
With most energy supplied by hydropower, cities are also affected by the weather patterns, especially lack of rain.
By the end of January, when the weather pattern was becoming apparent, the price of home heating oil began to plunge, falling as low as 52.54 cents a gallon on March 5 , 1997
The most popular phrase used by meteorologists this season was, "The weather pattern looks like it will change in the next week or two".
One is a series of unseasonably dry years attributed to El Niño, the name given to the weather pattern generated by warm Pacific currents off the South American coast.
Mumbai has a remarkably stable climate all throughout the year, except for the monsoon season, where the weather pattern is overwhelmed by heavy rainfall.
Nothing definitive is known about the island's biogeography at the time of the colonization, however, the paleoclimate (ancient weather patterns) may have been affected by the Madagascar's location below the subtropical ridge at 30° S latitude and disruption of the weather patterns by India as it drifted northward.
Ecuador's economy shrank by 7.3percentt last year after a pounding by the El Nino weather pattern, the near collapse of its banking system and the demise of the sucre currency, which was abandoned this year in favor of the United States dollar.
The drought is believed to be caused by the El Nino weather pattern which has also brought drought to neighbouring South Africa - the region's largest maize grower.
