By Katie Frankowicz, The Daily Astorian

Imagine a hangover that lasts for years.

In 2013 and 2014, a mass of warm water formed off the West Coast. The Blob, so named by Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond, persisted through 2015 and 2016 after a massive El Nino event hit and kept it alive. Temperatures inside the Blob were recorded at nearly 3 degrees C warmer than normal.

These were years marked by drought, sea bird and salmon die-offs, marine mammal starvation, extensive harmful algal blooms, razor clam and Dungeness fishery closures and beautiful warm summer days for North Coast residents.

The effects of each single event have bled into the following year. This year, the Blob might be gone and ocean conditions may have returned to something closer to normal, but Oregon and Washington state are still nursing a hangover.

That hangover is particularly apparent in low salmon returns to the Columbia River this fall, Bond said in a talk titled “The Blob, El Nino and Climate Change: Looking for a Hot Time in the Pacific Northwest?” He kicked off this season’s Columbia Forum speaker series Tuesday night.