ElNino.com Provides Answers to the Elusive Phenomen

Posted on December 10, 1997

After weeks of research, ElNino.com, one of the most comprehensive resource Web sites about El Nino, has launched. The site delivers El Niño facts in layman's terms, plus links to outside resources, satellite photos, local weather information and an "Ask the Expert" forum where an oceanographer answers questions submitted by ElNiño.com visitors.

"The misinformation in the media has been pretty heavy and we were getting a lot of requests for information about El Niño. So, instead of writing a news story every once in a while, we decided to focus our resources on designing a comprehensive Web site that would answer the questions without hype," said Kacey Craig, Source Managing Editor.

Created by the award-winning staff of the San Diego Source, ElNiño.com focuses on the overall picture of El Niño and its effects on business, residences and the world. Instead of solely indexing news stories, the Web site provides facts, history, news, weather and San Diego water information.

The most unique feature of the site is "Ask the Expert," an open online forum for visitors to ask any question about El Niño. The questions are answered by the San Diego Daily Transcript's resident oceanography expert, Christina S. Johnson, a former Staff Research Associate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, a former Managing Editor of The Journal of Environment & Development and the recent author of The Future of the Sea, a children's book on the sea. Johnson holds a M.S. degree in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a B.A. in mathematics from Washington University in Saint Louis.

Numerous questions have been posted from all over the world including a chocolate manufacturer in Amsterdam curious about the effects of El Niño on the cocoa crop and data transfer interruptions in Texas.

In the first five days of being live, ElNiño.com received 8,000 hits per day. "We estimate, based on these figures, that we will be getting up to 20,000 hits per day in one and a half to two weeks," said Craig.

Note: The ElNino.com site is no longer live.