I think hammering was definitely an extreme way to put it and our discussion relatively speaking was pretty stimulating, but Im also well aware of a lot of other fairly negative chatter outside of here (for example S2K when I mentioned AEI, etc.) and needed a time and place to vent... Oth, there was a lot of evidence even a month ago that I mentioned here (VP200 (e.g. AEI), OLR, zonal wind anomalies, historical ENSO precedence, dynamical/statistical climate models, T depth anomalies, etc) which supported the premise that the odds of an El Nino wasn't anywhere close as likely as you were asserting, even if you assumed ENSO is "continually evolving" (which by itself is a bad idea because you end up on a never ending wild goose chase and there are a plethora of indicators and physical interactions which are foreseeable weeks-months, (in some cases years) in advance, you just need to do some research and literature reading).
Ah, left out the last part of that statement "without appreciable intensification"... It was pretty apparent even a month ago, even with supposed support from the SOI (lol), with the lack of help from the northern hemisphere side of the Pacific, strong easterly trades near the dateline the past 3 months or so, and a dearth of substantial + temperature anomalies @ depth, plus lack of historical support for another El Nino within 2 years after the ending of a strong-super event that without a major change in the base state of the tropical Pacific, an El Nino was not sustainable (while not dynamically impossible, it's unlikely-very unlikely to see another NINO within a few years following a large event, and this may be tied to the evolution of slower propagating, off equatorial rossby waves whose phase speed and period is a function of latitudinal distance from the equator (EQ Rossby Waves move slower and have longer periods further from the equator) that in some cases are refracted off the western boundary as upwelling kelvin waves year or so after the initial series of downwelling Kelvin waves in the eastern Pacific are reinforcing El Nino, may act to thwart oncoming El Nino event for up to 2 years after a major NINO event, effectively serving as a low frequency delayed oscillator which becomes increasingly prevalent after powerful El Ninos.)
