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El Nino, and your money

El Nino is gaining strength and attention, and it might cost you.

If you're not yet tired of hearing about El Nino, that continent-size expanse of ultra-warm water in the tropical Pacific, give it time – you probably will be.

As of Monday the waters out that way were simmering – about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal – and since weather moves west to east, the heating of the overlying air will affect winds over the Northern Hemisphere from now until spring.

In the old days El Nino brewed in obscurity, admired quietly by an oceanographic subculture. But these days it is an international celebrity.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is holding a media event Thursday at which it will talk about El Nino, its potential impact on the U.S. winter (for a local take, see Glenn Schwartz's excellent post), and likely mention that the world is heading toward a record-warm year.

On Tuesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was starting a special El Nino site that includes, among other things, information about landslides, a big concern in California.

FEMA has a particular interest in all of this since it is responsible for distributing disaster dollars, which, of course, we taxpayers provide generously and mostly without complaint.

And El Ninos are not cheap.

El Nino likely will mean more California and Florida storms and flooding, and more beach-erasing nor'easters, all of which means that repair bills might hit up the federal Treasury.

Given the dramatic increases in disaster declarations and expenditures in the last 20 years, we make comparisons cautiously.

But in 1998, due in part to El Nino-related storms in California, tornadoes in Florida, and nor'easters affecting New Jersey, FEMA distributed $4.1 billion in direct disasters aid – $6 billion adjusted for inflation. Figure in the range of about $50 per U.S. household.

That remains one of the costlier years in the period of record, dating to the 1950s.

In addition, FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program paid out $886 million – $1.3 billion inflation-adjusted – at the time the second-highest total after 1995, also an El Nino year.

Those are significant sums – even given the outlandish 2005 hurricane season, which has cost taxpayers over $40 billion in direct aid and left the flood-insurance program hopelessly buried in a red sea.

Fortunately, the nation had no repeat this year. And although El Nino is about to be blamed for about everything except Chip Kelly's personnel decisions, it probably had a role in that good fortune.

The warming in the Pacific generates powerful upper-air winds from the west that have dampening effects on Atlantic hurricanes, which have been the No. 1 drivers of disaster expenditures.

Thank you, El Nino.