To consider the long-term challenges of climate change and the short-term impacts of powerful weather cycles like the El Niño Southern Oscillation is to face down a wild tangle of variables. This is especially true in agriculture, where weather and climatic variations affect precipitation, temperature, and the timing of planting and harvesting.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation is an irregular cycle in which changing temperatures of surface waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean can result in major impacts on global weather patterns.

The current El Niño is on track to be one of the strongest recorded. Indicators of a strong cycle have been increasingly documented over much of 2015 and continued to mount into autumn.

Historically, Wisconsinites have perceived their capital city as primarily a university and government town and, perhaps more recently, as an aspiring tech-industry center. They're not wrong — government is by far the biggest employer in the Madison area.