A strong El Niño continued during December 2015 with well above average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, according to NOAA Climate Prediction Center’s monthly El Niño advisory update.
“El Niño is Strong!” “No, it’s Moderate!” “But the [insert your favorite ENSO indicator here] is the largest it’s been since the El Niño of 1997-98!”
Guest blogger Dennis Hartmann makes the case that warm waters in the western tropical Pacific—part of the North Pacific Mode climate pattern—are behind the weird U.S. winter weather of the past two seasons.
How El Niño is like different flavors of ice cream. Seriously.