WARNING:  Contains no actual science, only anecdotal ravings of a madman.  Not responsible for migraines or drinking binge caused by reading this.

During my time on turf, I experienced several El Nino patterns and at least two were The Big Ones.  I didn't know they were El Ninos at the time, but I can look back at my extensive journals, cross-reference with the interweb and clearly see the tell-tale signs of Big El were there.

For me, El Nino was a pattern of winter rain, freight-training endlessly every few weeks.  With Big El, the right temps brought us big snow and the occasional apocalyptic ice storm.  The first example of Big El in my notebooks happened in The Great Ice Storm of January, '73.  It was yuuuuuuge.  We lost 3000 pine trees on a 9-hole course and they all fell down in the fairway.  (That's where I got my chainsaw education.)  An abandoned well opened up in the cart barn and an E-Z-Go fell in.  We had no power for ten days.

Through the years, El Nino hit us with varying levels of severity, prompting me to develop Pavlovian response mechanisms based on things that happened after he left.  Because of the heavy rainfall, flooding and periods where we just did not dry out, I had to learn about Streambank Stabilization.

The decline of stream banks could be sudden and catastrophic.  Once, a stream bank collapsed at a near vertical angle within six feet of a green.  With the help of our county erosion expert, Ginna Tiernan, we stabilized the bank and saved the green by hand-sculpting the edges and then installing Coir logs made from the fiber of coconut hulls.

Native grasses were planted over the log, building root structures very quickly.  A few miles downstream, another golf course had an entire green sucked into the river.

We also used rip-rap, gabions, fieldstone and in a preventative measure, had a Gradall shape the bank in a 45 degree angle, which allowed us to stake in sod.  Some clubs built elaborate masonry walls or brought in massive boulders.  Downstream from my brother's course, an architect sprayed gunite--for that really natural looking water park effect.  I think that fellow needed stabilization more than his creeks did.

I strongly suggest you research every aspect of Streambank Stabilization.  There are experts out there now who understand the legal issues and can help with permit questions and technical strategies.  Do the research now--because things get panicky when streams start caving in and changing directions.

Another post Big El problem we had was tree management.  Recon your trees now, before the March winds hit.  Possibly due to ground saturation, our trees (especially pines) had a disturbing tendency to just fall over after an El Nino.  Hardwoods didn't fall over that often, but they did try to drop big dead limbs on a golfer's head and it was never the golfer we wanted.

Sometimes a drought followed El Nino in our region.  This was a problem for me, because like a fool, I had ignored the irrigation system, thinking the rainfall was here to stay.  Of course, as a Retro-Minimalist, I contend that only green and tee irrigation is necessary.  Fairway irrigation is just for grow-in. Rough irrigation--along with rough--should be outlawed.  

Go ahead and order the irrigation components that stress out easily in a drought, because after a rainy winter, when one develops a sense that it will never stop raining . . . that's exactly when a drought jumps on your head.

One last anecdotal, non-scientific observation ripped from my journals:  Sometimes, a very hard winter falls on the heels of a soft winter.  In '76, February was 70 degree temps and warm sunshine.  The following winter, 1977, it was so cold that we lost 90% of our bermuda and my Dad's course lost 30 acres of 419 fairway and all his 328 greens.

But as I said, it was the 70s.  I don't really remember.