In the News
NOAA Puts the Odds of a Record El Nino at 83%. The Risk Most Families Miss Is in the Kitchen.
The head of the Weather Service says plan ahead. Asheville's water crisis ran 53 days. The households that stay covered aren't the ones with the most water stored. It's the ones with a way to make more.
MBy the MINIMLS Team
Updated November 2026 · 8 min read
On October 8, 2026, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center put out its monthly El Nino discussion. The wording was dry. The numbers weren't.
- An El Nino Advisory is in effect. This isn't a watch. It's already here.
- A strong-to-very strong event is likely through January-March 2027, at greater than an 83% chance.
- Sea temperatures in parts of the eastern Pacific have run more than 4 degrees Celsius above normal.
Those aren't the odds of a bad season. Those are the odds of a record.
A week later, NOAA's U.S. Winter Outlook favored a wetter winter across the southern tier and up the East Coast. Ken Graham, who runs NOAA's National Weather Service, said the pattern "tilts the odds toward stormier weather across the South." He warned that "too much precipitation on dry soil can fuel destructive flash floods and mudslides."
Then he said this:
"Now is the time for communities and individuals to plan ahead for the upcoming winter."Ken Graham, director of NOAA's National Weather Service
Most of the coverage is about snow and rain totals. Those matter. But they aren't what catches a family off guard.
What catches a family off guard is the kitchen tap.
See What Keeps the Water Coming★★★★★ 4.8 stars, 2,318 reviews
The storm leaves. The bad water stays.
Your tap doesn't fail because it rains. It fails because of what the storm breaks, and that can take far longer to fix than the storm takes to pass.
If you're on a well, your pump runs on electricity. No power means no water, even when every pipe is fine.
If you're on city water, flooding and storm damage can knock out a plant or drop the pressure in the pipes. Then the utility issues a boil notice, and it stays up for as long as it takes.
Sometimes that's a day.
Sometimes it isn't. These weren't El Nino events, but they show how long the water can stay wrong after the weather's gone.
Those were American cities, in states with working governments and working economies. Everyone knew. Everyone was trying. And it still took that long.
Now go look at your faucet and ask yourself how you'd get through that.
"I'll just pick some up at the store."
You won't. You know you won't.
The forecast changes and the bottled water aisle is the first one to go. It's the most predictable thing about any disaster. The water's gone the day the storm shows up on the news, not the day it lands.
By the time you're sure you need it, so is everyone else in your county.
The sum nobody does until it's too late
The CDC advises at least 1 gallon of water per person per day, for 3 days, and a 2-week supply if possible. For a family of four, two weeks is 56 gallons.
That's about 19 cases of bottled water and about 470 pounds. You have to buy it, haul it, stack it and find room for it. Then look at Asheville again.
Fifty-three days. For four people, that's 212 gallons. About 71 cases.
Nobody stores that. No garage in America holds that much.
So here's the idea that changes the whole problem.
Store what you can. Please do. But stored water is a number that only goes down. You use a little, and there's less. You can't refill it from your pantry.
The households that come through a long one aren't the ones who stored the most. It's the ones with a way to make more.
See the Way to Make More30-day money back.
Picture it at your house
Say a winter storm takes the power with it. Not for a day. For two weeks.
Day 1 is fine. There's food in the fridge and whatever you picked up at the store. It almost feels like an adventure.
Day 3, the jugs are down to one. The stores are closed or picked clean, and the road to the next town is under water.
Day 5, nobody's had a real wash. There are dishes in the sink you can't run water over. Your grandson is asking for a bath, and you're counting cups.
Day 7, you've stopped telling people it'll be back soon.
And the whole time, there's water around you. It's in the rain barrel. It's in the creek out back and the pond down the street.
You can see it from the window. You can't drink any of it the way it is.
That's the real emergency. Not a house with no water. A house with water all around it that nobody can trust.
What's in that water, and who it hits hardest
You can't see any of this in a clear glass.
The CDC lists stomach cramps that can be severe for both E. coli and Salmonella. It says Giardia symptoms can last 2 to 6 weeks. And it says children under 5 and adults 65 and older are more likely to get infected with E. coli and Salmonella.
Your grandchild. Your spouse. You. In a house with no way to wash your hands, and a road you can't get down to reach a doctor.
Now run the same two weeks with a small filter in the drawer
You walk out with a bottle and fill it from the rain barrel.
You thread on a filter straw, turn it over and squeeze. Filtered water runs into a pitcher.
Then once more for the dishes. Again for washing up. Again for your grandson's bath.
Same storm. Same two weeks. Same water in the barrel. The one difference is that now you can use it.
Not every straw is built for this
You've probably seen a filter straw hanging on a peg at an outdoor store. A lot of those were designed for hikers: one person, a clean trail, a weekend.
That's a different job from a house in week two.
Many are rated at 0.1 or 0.2 micron. And marketplaces are full of cheap look-alikes with big claims and no way to check them. So ask what's inside, what it's rated for, and what it can't do. Here's our answer.
How the MINIMLS straw works
The MINIMLS Emergency Water Filter Straw is mechanical. No batteries. No pump. No moving parts. Nothing to charge, and nothing to wait on.
- A screen stops sand and visible grit.
- A medical-grade PP cotton layer pulls out fine sediment.
- A flow layer evens out the pressure so the draw stays steady, which matters when a child or an older adult is the one drinking.
- A hollow-fiber membrane with 0.01 micron pores removes 99.99% of bacteria and protozoa, including E. coli, Salmonella, Cholera, Giardia, Cryptosporidium and Legionella.
It's up to 20 times finer than a 0.2 micron hiking straw. It also blocks microplastics. The materials are BPA-free and FDA food-contact-compliant. IV filters and infant feeding equipment use that same material standard.
One straw weighs 2 ounces and is rated for 1,800 gallons, which is more than 550 cases of bottled water. Muddy water shortens that, like it would with any filter. That's the "make more" part: years of clean water from a single straw.
And it isn't only a straw. Thread it onto a standard bottle, fill the bottle, turn it over and squeeze. That's how you get water for cooking, for dishes and for washing yourself.
Drinking is the obvious use. Staying clean is what makes a long outage livable.
Emergency Preparedness Sale ends in
- Filters 99.99% of bacteria and protozoa
- Rated for 1,800 gallons
- No batteries, no pump, no expiration when stored dry
Up to 67% off. Try it for 30 days. If you're not happy, email us and we'll refund you. Not sold on Amazon. 100,000+ happy customers.
What it doesn't do
We'd rather you hear this from us.
The straw doesn't remove viruses, chemicals, heavy metals or salt. When viruses are a concern, boil or add tablets. The CDC calls boiling the best way to deal with germs in water. Don't drink water you suspect is chemically contaminated. If you've got a notice from your utility, follow it.
One rule for a flood: don't use floodwater. Water standing in the yard after a flood can carry fuel and chemicals. Use the cleanest fresh source you can find, and keep your stored water too. A filter needs a source.
Be careful of anybody who tells you a straw makes any water safe.
The questions you're asking right now
"Will I manage it?" Yes. The first few draws take some effort, and that's normal. Thread it on a bottle and squeeze, and there's no pulling at all.
"Will it keep till I need it?" It has no expiration date when stored dry. Keep it from freezing, and let it dry before you put it away. That's the whole care list.
"Does it really work?" It's third-party lab tested for bacteria and protozoa removal, and pressure-tested for membrane integrity, seal strength and leak resistance. It's tested to the rated figures, with 4.8 stars across 2,318 reviews. And you can run a bottle through it at your own sink inside your 30 days.
"I don't live in the South. Why should I care?" NOAA's own discussion says the chances of El Nino-type impacts are "larger, though not guaranteed," and the outlook favors a drier winter in parts of the North. It's a forecast for an ocean, not your street. But a water main doesn't read the outlook. In the 2021 Texas freeze, more than 14 million people were affected by boil notices at one point.
In the wetter zone, ask what a flood would do to your water. Anywhere else, ask what a long outage would do. It's the same kitchen, and the same question.
One isn't a plan
A straw covers one person, and no family is one person.
One per person. One in each car. One in the bag by the door. One for your parents, who are the least likely to buy it for themselves and the first people you'd worry about.
A family of four with a go-bag is at five. The Family Pack is 5 straws, 1 free included, for $79.99, about $16 a straw. Five singles would cost $149.95, so you keep $69.96. You buy it once, and there's nothing to refill.
Buying for more people? 10 straws, 2 of them free, are $129.99, about $13 a straw. The 20- and 40-packs come to about $10 a straw.
Why you'd do this now, and not when the forecast changes
The Emergency Preparedness Sale takes up to 67% off, and it is on now.
But the sale isn't the real deadline. The real deadline is the first forecast with your county in it. A package takes days. When the news turns, the water aisle empties first, and everyone's looking for the same things on the same afternoon.
The head of the National Weather Service has told you to plan ahead. So what's your plan if the water goes before the storm does?
And the risk here is all ours. Try it for 30 days. If you're not happy, email us and we'll refund you. Unused or used.
You don't need a bunker. You need the bare minimum, in place before the rain.
Same storm. Same two weeks. This time your grandson gets his bath, and the pitcher on the table is full.
works good. light. kept one in the tackle box
Mike R.Feels sturdier than I figured for the price. Caps fit tight.
Walt E.It's a filter. If you know that going in you'll be happy.
Ed V.
Try it for 30 days. If you're not happy, email us and we'll refund you.
Get the Family Pack: 5 Straws for $79.9930-day money back.
P.S. Quiet winter where you live? Your straw stays in the drawer, dry, with no expiration date, for the next storm. The storm that costs you is the one that finds the drawer empty.
Sources: NOAA Climate Prediction Center, ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, October 8, 2026. NOAA, U.S. Winter Outlook, October 15, 2026. CDC on E. coli, Salmonella and Giardia. CDC, emergency water supply and water treatment guidance. WUNC on Asheville. Fox Weather on Jackson. Fox 5 on Texas.