Los Angeles Times: Hurricane Patricia, which formed in the Pacific and struck Mexico over the weekend, was one of the strongest hurricanes on record. According to climate scientists, its strength came from El Niño, a weather phenomenon associated with the upwelling of warm water in the eastern Pacific. During the last major El Niño event in 1997, a similar hurricane—Pauline—struck western Mexico and killed more than 200 people; it was just one of three major hurricanes to do so that year. Last week the waters in the eastern Pacific reached 87 °F (31 °C) while Patricia was forming, said Daniel Swain of Stanford University. That is three to four degrees warmer than average and near the warmest ever recorded there for this time of year.
