We brought our then-11-year-old nephew out to California for a two-week sight-seeing vacation in late June 1998, which was a major El Nino year, evidenced by the fact that Tioga Road was still closed at the very end of June (it didn't open that year until July 1 -- see Tioga Road, Glacier Point Road, etc. opening and closing dates since 1980).

Out of pure curiosity, I looked up historical El Nino years and found the following of interest:
  • They seem to occur in two-year periods (i.e., 1997-98)
  • Recent major El Nino events were 1982-83 and 1997-98
  • The 1997-98 event was the strongest ever recorded
  • The second year of a two-year period for stronger El Ninos seems to correlate with later-than-normal Tioga Road summer openings (i.e., June 29 in 1983 for the 1982-83 event, June 30 in 1995 for the 1994-95 event, and most notably, July 1 in 1998 for the 1997-98 event)
  • However, this does not seem to hold true for lesser El Nino events (i.e., May 2 in 1987 for the 1986-87 event, May 15 in 1992 for 1991-1992 event, May 31 in 2003 for the 2002-2003 event, and May 11 for the 2006-2007 event)
CaT

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracle of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
- Lyndon Johnson, on signing the Wilderness Act into law (1964)