In early 2014, before the current El Nino fully formed, the scholarly publication Nature Climate Change published an article saying greenhouse gases could double the frequency of major El Nino events.

Not everyone agrees, of course. U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who views climate change science as something of a scam, shrugged off the question last week.

“Here’s the funny thing about that,” he said. “Back in the 1990s, we had some unusually cold weather. All of the advocates ... said, ‘No, this is weather. Weather has nothing to do with climate.’ Now are they going to turn around and say weather does? ... I just throw that back at them.

“Climate changes,” Inhofe said. “It continues to change. The question is, how does it work out over the long term ... and is it caused by man-made gases? That’s the issue.”

Historical precedence

As it turns out, severe drought followed by torrential rain is not unusual. State climatologist Gary McManus points out that perhaps the worst drought in state history, from 1952 to 1956, was followed by Oklahoma’s wettest year (1957) on record up until 2015.