The El Niño weather pattern is having devastating effects in South America

The weather pattern known as El Nino is having devastating effects in South America. Unusually dry weather has led to water rationing and even power cuts. Colombia's capital city of Bogota is now rationing water for the first time in decades. Manuel Rueda has a story.

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MANUEL RUEDA, BYLINE: Steven Ramos (ph) runs a coffee shop outside el Externado, a large university in Bogota. But today there's no tap water, so he can't use his espresso machine. Instead, Ramos makes filtered coffee for his customers using a large bottle of water.

STEVEN RAMOS: (Speaking Spanish).

RUEDA: "Many people aren't going to their offices or to the university on the days without water," he says. "So my sales are suffering."

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE RUMBLING)

RUEDA: Officials in Colombia's capital began to ration water this month by dividing the city into nine areas that are cut off from the water supply on a rotating basis. The drought has depleted local reservoirs and officials are trying to limit water consumption to give them time to recover.

NATASHA AVENDANO: It's been very dry and very hot.

RUEDA: Natasha Avendano runs Bogota's water company, the EAAB.

AVENDANO: Both things have led us to have higher levels of evaporation of water. And of course, people consume more water because it's been very, very hot.

RUEDA: To reduce consumption, Bogota officials aren't just rationing water, they're also asking people to change their habits.

AVENDANO: No car washing, no floor washing. We need to take care of every drop of water.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRD TWEETING)

RUEDA: Climate experts say the dry weather in Bogota and much of Colombia is due to warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which are known as El Nino events. This weather pattern happens every two to seven years. And it can have drastic effects around the world, especially in South America says Andrea Devis, an oceanographer in Bogota's Rosario University.

ANDREA DEVIS: We have a lot of rain along the coast during El Nino, the Pacific rains a lot. But on the other side of the Cordillera, we don't have any rain because all the rain was poured in the Pacific Coast.

RUEDA: The current El Nino event began last June. In Chile, dry weather contributed to forest fires in February. And in Ecuador, officials declared a state of emergency last week and began to ration electricity because of the lack of rainfall. Seventy-five percent of Ecuador's electricity comes from hydroelectric plants, but the dams in the mountains are at historic lows.