I have been looking at the monthly Oceanic Heat Content (OHC) data from CPC and seem to have a correlation (with 2 major caveats) When looking at the difference between the average OHC in bin 160E to 80W and bin 180W-100W, the monthly delta between these *seems* to be a diagnostic predictor of ENSO. In my very cursory analysis the current biannual changes in the OHC do not support an El Nino, but rather a warm neutral ENSO; basically ONI below +0.5 through the upcoming winter. CAVEAT 1: The OHC data from CPC is available from 1979 on, so it is possible that I'm seeing a sample size issue. CAVEAT 2: I used the BEST and MEI data to define ENSO versus the ONI data from CPC. Obviously, a lot more work is needed in this area.