El Niño Temperatures Highest Since 2012, but NOAA Drops El Niño Odds to 58%

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2857

NOAA dropped their odds of an El Niño event forming this winter from 67% in their October outlook to 58% in their November outlook, but a surge of warm water over the equatorial Eastern Pacific over the past week could signal the onset of El Niño. The departure of sea surface temperature (SST) from average in the equatorial Pacific region 120°W - 170°W, 5°S - 5°N (called the Niño 3.4 region) crossed the +0.5°C from average threshold in mid-October, and as of November 10, these temperatures were +0.8°C from average--the greatest weekly anomaly since late August 2012. By definition, an El Niño episode occurs when SSTs are at least +0.5°C from average in this region for five consecutive months, with each month representing a 3-month average. Furthermore, ocean currents along the Equator flowing from east to west have weakened significantly over the past week, as apparent from plots made using NOAA's Ocean Surface Current Analyses - Real time web site. This sort of weakening typically happens at the onset of an El Niño event.