Emily, Tony and all, Excellent graphic Fig.1 and great case to be made for the skill for ENSO fcst from NMME. From the Fig.1 caption, >> The four "missed" forecasts, and the one false alarm (2012) are highlighted with asterisks. << I notice that of these 5 cases (4 missed + 1 false), 4 happened since 2000 or so in the last 15 years(compared to only one in the previous 18 years). This means we have more of these model forecast 'failures' happening lately? I am inclined to think that this has this got to to do with the 'warming background state' (aka rapid global warming) during which the models are having difficulty with in predicting ENSO! and this is a sign of things to come? As far as the latest fcst for the upcoming ElNino, let us keep our fingers crossed!! :-) Thanks Muthuvel Chelliah