I can understand how a sense of confusion may exist for "regular folks" like myself and many others. NOAA is always very cautious about committing to firm ENSO predictions during the "Spring barrier" period, and for good reason. We had similar red flags going up at this time last year amid shouts that El Nino was coming in a big way. Hmmm. It's here, but no so menacing. If you go back and look at a lot of what NOAA was saying during the spring of 2014, my perception is it was generally a "Well, maybe.. But let's not get to carried away yet." A major concern for me is that various news outlets from around the world are jumping on the El Nino bandwagon now just as they did last year in the northern hemisphere spring. Being a business owner, I see the issues with predicting El Nino more from a financial side, as opposed to a more science side of things. I don't think it's healthy for news outlets to go way out there and say a major El Nino episode is looming, when the facts are not completely in line with that. When business people, economists, business forecasters make a prediction, the extent to which money is spent (or not spent) in response can be rather wasteful. Not to mention that people who depend on agriculture and fisheries for a living are to some degree getting yanked around here and there. I guess my point is I would like news outlets to back off until May at least before they publish what they (think) is a reliable forecast. Waiting until May or even June is not really bad. If someone asks me during the next few weeks whether or not "major" El Nino episode is looming, I'll tell them to come back and ask me around Memorial Day in the U.S.