Weather experts joke that everything but dandruff and athlete's foot is thought to be caused by El Nino.
A raindrop hit your head? Must be El Nino.Wind blow over your trash can? Blame it on El Nino.
In fact, El Nino episodes generally only occur about every five years - and sometimes have limited impact on weather patterns in many parts of the world.
Still, weather types are keeping their eyes to the skies and their toes in the ocean water this year.
Dramatic, unprecedented warming in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific in recent months will likely mean a wet winter in the southern United States and warmer than normal conditions from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Lakes, according to Vernon E. Kousky, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Although this year's El Nino could alter rainfall in many extreme climes, said Kousky, don't sell your oceanfront property and move to Kansas just yet.
"This doesn't mean we're going to have floods, this doesn't mean California is going to fall into the ocean," said Kousky, who taught at the University of Utah in the early '70s.
And what about Utah?
El Nino is not expected to have a direct impact on much of the Beehive State, although southern regions of the state could be a little wetter than normal this winter, said Kousky.
Still, with an expected increase in west-to-east storm flows, mountains along the Wasatch Front could intercept a lot of snow.
"It bears monitoring," said Kousky.
For many areas of the world, this El Nino could have a dramatic impact.
El Ninos are disruptions of the Pacific's ocean-atmosphere system generally found when tropical water temperatures rise above normal. El Nino has already caused abnormally wet conditions in place like Ecuador and Peru, while depriving areas like Indonesia and Australia of rainfall.
The disruption could also play a role in the world's approaching hurricane season. El Ninos tend to increase the numbers of tropical storms in the Pacific Ocean.
Still, predicting exact future conditions is speculative.
"We'd be forecasting the forecast," said Kousky.