What’s up with El Nino? Short answer is still not too much. The monthly El Nino summary has been posted today at the Climate Prediction Center (see link below). The basic message is that reaching El Nino conditions is still likely (now 58%) lower than last month. Conditions in the Pacific are still not coming together well in the coupling between ocean and atmosphere. Sea surface temperatures are relatively warm.
The long range outlooks still are based on El Nino conditions occurring (updates will come out in 2 weeks). But the weak El Nino would allow other variables to impact what happens this winter including changes in the North Pacific, North Atlantic and over the pole.
End result is that some things that look like El Nino are still likely to happen during the winter. But the confidence of being a very warm winter in the northern US is somewhat less. The likelihood is lower because of the reduced El Nino chances. And even if El Nino does occur, weak El Ninos have less overall influence and can more easily be modified by other conditions.
See the full outlook from the Climate Prediction Center:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/
