I decided to compare two El Ninos today. (Actually three: but I realized very quickly that the exceptional 1997-1998 event defies comparison.) What I did was go to the SST anomaly page and compare mid-September 1997 to mid-September now. That told me that the 1997 event was much, much bigger than what's happening now. So I checked in with the next El Nino, in 2002, which was MMM (much more moderate). Below are the SST anomalies as of September 16, 2002 (on the top) and September 14, 2009 (on the bottom).
What's interesting to me is that while the 2002 even looks a bit stronger over the Equator, the area of warm anomaly was much narrower than the current state. I don't know if that means anything or not. The SST anomalies south of Central America look about the same.
So is this one going to hang on 'til winter? Still too soon to tell.
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