Places as far apart as Australia and North America, Peru and India are affected by recurrent climatic anomalies known as El Niño. Originating in the Pacific region, El Niño effects a reversal in the direction of winds and ocean currents, and changes in ocean temperature between Indonesia and the Pacific coir South America. These climatic changes regularly result in torrential rain and floods in the Pacific coastal countries of South America. Further from the epicentre of these disturbances, El Niño's climatic effects are less predictable, bid equally destructive.