It might even lend predictability to those regions. At the moment, climate researchers consider ENSO the predominant atmospheric spoon. Although its stirring may not perfectly determine all of the changes in North American weather, it occurrence is, to a significant extent, predictable. In the absence of a strong ENSO event, global circulation patterns may be driven by the stirring of other spoons. At the moment, neither El Ni o nor La Ni a is happening.
Conditions are pretty much normal.
In other words, with no El Nino to stir the glass this season, predictions of what this winter will bring are dicey. ENSO is a cyclical change in surface-water temperatures of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. Convection is the process in which air close to the surface is warmed and then rises. As air rises from one region, air from surrounding areas is drawn in. The altering pattern of how this occurs over the Pacific with the occurrence of an ENSO event changes the way air circulates across the globe.