El Nino, Global Warming, and Anomalous U.S. Winter Warmth
This poses the first obvious conundrum for the pure "El Nino" attribution of the current warmth: since we were actually in a (weak) La Nina (i.e., the opposite of 'El Nino') last winter, how is it that we can explain away the anomalous winter U.S. warmth so far this winter by 'El Nino' when anomalous winter warmth last year occured in its absence?

The second conundrum with this explanation is that, while El Nino typically does perturb the winter Northern Hemisphere jet stream in a way that favors anomalous warmth over much of the northern half of the U.S., the typical amplitude of the warming (see Figure below right) is about 1C (i.e., about 2F). The current anomaly is roughly five times as large as this. One therefore cannot sensibly argue that the current U.S. winter temperature anomalies are attributed entirely to the current moderate El Nino event.

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Europe mops up after storm kills 46
"We've never had such a situation in Germany," Deutsche Bahn CEO Hartmut Mehdorn said.

More than 1 million homes had no electricity in the Czech Republic, which was hit by winds of up to 112 mph. A million households in Germany suffered blackouts and tens of thousands of homes in Poland and Austria also were hit.

The storm led to the deaths of at least three people in the Czech Republic, 12 in Germany, 14 in Britain, six in the Netherlands, three in France, two in Belgium and six in Poland.

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