what causes el nino weather patterns

It's all about the tilt of the earth, really. When I'm out at sea, you notice these things a bit more because the angle of the sun changes how we navigate and even how the light hits the deck. The earth isn't spinning perfectly straight up and down; it's tilted at about 23.5 degrees. That tilt is the whole reason we get those shifting patterns throughout the year.

Because of that tilt, different parts of the planet get hit by more direct sunlight at different times as we orbit the sun. When the northern hemisphere is leaned toward the sun, we're soaking up that direct heat, which is why it gets all summery. Meanwhile, the other side is tilted away, dealing with winter. It's pretty wild to think that if we weren't tilted like that, we wouldn't have any of these changes at all, just the same weather day in and day out.