super-Niño

plural super-Niños

1. An exceptionally large form of the El Niño invasion of warm water into the surface of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru and Ecuador every four to seven years that causes changes in local and regional climate.

   It is possible, given the context of calamities wrought by the weather (prolonged droughts and a super-Niño) and the probable political strife due to Wari expansion, that this phenomenon was a response to a crisis situation.

   2008, Krzysztof Makowski, “Andean Urbanism”, in Helaine Silverman, William H. Isbell, editors, Handbook of South American Archaeology, page 648

   1 more example

   Grodzicki describes the event as even greater than the one that struck Peru in 1983 with which he was familiar. This Super Niño could be the same one documented by Elera and Pinilla (1992) for the Salinar occupation at Puémape on the north coast, […] Grodzicki (1990:93) calculates that the event caused 4,200 millimeters of rain to fall within a few days.

   2002, Helaine Silverman, Ancient Nasca Settlement and Society, page 24