It also helped keep the average global temperature below recent trends, leading to 2011 tying with 1997 for the 14th-warmest year on record.

The 2009–2010 El Niño event started in the Pacific Ocean during July 2009, before it reached it peaked during December and broke down during the first quarter of 2010.

[7] Over the next month the Pacific Ocean started to show various signals that indicated a La Niña event was developing and as a result, a La Niña watch was issued by the United States Climate Prediction Center during their June 2010 ENSO diagnostic discussion.

[5][8] As the ocean's surface temperature cooling progressed, more colder anomalies appeared at the International Date Line rather than over eastern Pacific, what allowed calling this event as a Modoki one.

[10] Meanwhile, the 2011 Groundhog Day blizzard caused record snowfall in Chicago and forced the city to shutdown.