The Pacific Ocean has officially fallen into a neutral ENSO state. This is not very pleasant news for weather forecasters, because this is a period when global weather becomes more unpredictable than ever.
ENSO is the largest climate coordinator on the planet, affecting atmospheric flows and weather from Asia, the Americas to Africa. While El Nino typically causes droughts in Southeast Asia and heavy rains in South America, La Nina cools the global atmosphere and makes storms more prone to explosion.
But as both of these states do not appear as they are now, the world enters an unpredictable period of silence: ENSO is neutral. That is the time when weather forecast models and seasonal storm forecasts lose their main "cast", making it more difficult to predict rain, hot weather, and frost.
According to the latest data, the central tropical Pacific Ocean will see temperatures just below average of 0.2 degrees Celsius in May - too low to be classified as La Nina. The Walker atmospheric system, which is ENSO's "blood vessel", is also operating near normal, although there are still some signs of a "Mild La Nina" such as heavy rain in Indonesia or stronger trade winds.
Climatologist Caihong Wen from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s US Climate Prediction Center said there is an unusually warm underground strip running along the equator, while the two sides are cold underground water.
This is a model that has appeared before the long La Nina periods in the past such as 2008, 2011 or 2017, but is not strong enough to make a solid conclusion.
According to analysis of major climate models such as the North American Multi-Model Ensemble, it is likely that the neutral ENSO will last until the end of the summer. In the fall, the chance of La Nina increases but is still lower than neutral: Forecasts from November 2025 to January 2026 show a neutral probability of 48%, La Nina 41%, and El Nino only 11%.
This means that even though La Nina may return, meteorologists are still listening carefully to every small change in the ocean floor to catch up with the signal. Any change in groundwater temperature, wind flow or rainfall in a remote tropical area could signal a climate underwater wave in the next few months.
