NOAA Changes El Niño Forecast From "We're All Gonna Die" to "Weak to Moderate"

But gentle reader probably knew this was coming.*
From the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang:

El Niño plays coy with forecasters in 2014

Global sea surface temperature anomaly. (NOAA/ESRL)

Earlier this year, forecasts were hot and heavy on the development of El Niño. Conditions seemed favorable, and California is praying for a wet winter given the continued drought conditions. However, the trends shifted in the spring, thus leaving us wondering – is this El Niño really going to come to fruition? Forecasters (and the atmosphere) are waffling somewhat.

In an update on Thursday, scientists at the Climate Prediction Center continued to issue favorable odds  of an El Niño developing this year (70 percent chance this summer, 80 percent by early next winter), and an El Niño watch remains in effect. However,  they suspect this El Niño’s intensity to only reach weak-to-moderate strength, which is a far cry from the “super El Niño” that some forecasters  once thought was possible.

At its core, El Niño is the warm phase of a sea surface temperature pattern near the equator in the Pacific Ocean.  Right now, water temperatures are above normal in all the right regions, however, they’re not warm enough yet for scientists to officially declare it an El Niño event.

Time series of ocean heat content anomaly over the past year. After a spike in temperature in early 2014, the ocean heat content in the Pacific has been steadily declining. (Climate Prediction Center)

Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University at Albany, hypothesizes that the current “neutral” state is actually a warm phase (El Niño) with a cooler anomaly layered on top. He suspects that as this cool anomaly begins to wane, El Niño will pop through:

Think of [this] as a few weeks of colder conditions superimposed on a background of warm conditions. The combination of these two signals yields an impression of a condition near normal, but the cool conditions do not last as long, and after they move out of the equatorial region or dissipate, the warm state is left behind.

Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters suggests that the atmosphere is presenting El Niño signs. He writes on Wednesday...MUCH MORE

Here's the Climate Prediction Center: "EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION"

*See, for example:
"U.S. Private Weather Agencies Predict WEAK El Niño in 2014"
"What If We're Waiting For the Wrong Kind of El Niño? Colorado State Bumps Up Their Estimate Of The Hurricane Season"
Despite Recent Stories to the Contrary El Niño Has Not Yet Arrived