MWM: Southwest Weather should be drier and colder this winter. It looks to me at the moment as if the drought condtion is now returning. We should have had some serious rain by now but only a little has come in widely scattered areas. I believe that the net effect of Global Warming and La Nina is to reinforce a droughtlike condition in the Northern desert lattitudes (which are almost the same all around the Earth). If this is true, the Southwest will be plagued with continual drought which gets worse and worse, relieved only by El Nino. Likewise, probably, all droughts will worsen around the world in the areas which have been previously smitten The next El Nino could come as early as 2007, almost definitely by 2008 (though El Nino is sometimes very weak or missing altogether, thus the relief may be sparse).