Not sure if “vortices” is a word

Sure is a word, used to describe spiral of air that form at surface discontinuities.

Examples are those deliberate;y created on aircraft aerofoils in order to improve boundary layer control and thus preserve lift. Dog-tooth wing leading edges Hawker Hunter, F4 Phantom, wing fences DH Sea Vixen, vortex generators spanwise on aircraft as on the Blackburn Buccaneer and the recent use at wing tips by upturns at tips.

It is — similar to “indices” and “matrices”.

There’s a book by César N. Caviedes that might interest you: El Niño in History: Storming through the Ages (University Press of Florida, 2001)

That’s if you don’t already know about it…