The cause: a warming climate and a superstrong El Nino. El Nino is a weather phenomenon out of the Pacific Ocean that hits every few years and affects weather globally. It starts with a large body of unusually warm weather in the western Pacific that sloshes eastward; it changes wind and weather patterns as far away as the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Together, climate and a very strong El Nino pushed the average temperature in the U.S. up over its 20th century average by 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
And even when the atmosphere is only that much warmer, it holds more moisture, leading to record snows in the Northeast last February and March, and record rain in the South and Midwest. NOAA'S Deke Arndt says he and other climate scientists expect more of the same.
"The fact is, we live in a warming world," Arndt says, "and a warming world is bringing more big heat events and more big rain events to the United States."
All this weather led to 10 extreme events that each did at least $1 billion in damage. These events included drought, flooding, severe rainstorms, big wildfires and winter storms. That's a wider variety of different types of $1 billion-plus weather events than usual.
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/07/462265900/u-s-weather-wet-and-wild-in-2015-though-no-big-hurricanes
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