On 29/01/2017 19:50, Graham P Davis wrote:
OK, I know the answer from specialists would be "no" but I wonder what
the locals in S America would say. Sea-surface temperatures along the
coast are as much as 4C above normal. I don't see why this wouldn't be
causing all the usual catastrophic symptoms of an El Nino such as the
death of local fish. In the past, El Nino events would have been defined
by the state of the waters along the coast, not by anomalies way out in
the Pacific.

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/oper/...maly_oper0.png


http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/an....1.26.2017.gif

It looks like the warmest anomalies are restricted to the Nino 1 and 2
regions. Nino 3.4 (for which the anomaly is used as a benchmark) looks
to be near neutral. The classic El Nino signature has the warm anomalies
way out to about 160W. What do the trade wind anomalies look like? It is
changes in the Walker circulation which cause the changes in weather
patterns around the globe and resultant destruction.