El Nino Impacts: Winter 2009-2010

This paper highlights the impacts of persistent anomalies seen during winter 2009-2010. Driving these were the nearly unprecedented combination of an extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO)coupled with a moderate-to-strong El Nino. Extreme anomalies of temperature, precipitation, snow, wild fires, and other climate and weather-related extreme events were observed over a number of locations, world-wide. This paper discusses these impacts, and places 2009-10 into context with 2008-09 and 2010-11.