if el nino was coming on it would have started in the summer.. just about always does. moot point that there's not going to be one this year. SOI, which is an indicator that leads ENSO has been strongly positive all october... it's just switching, but it would be camping negative for weeks on end in negative territory were the forcing for ocean warming the pacific in place. we've been en neutral to weak ENSO warm (moderate el nino in 2002, neutral in 2003, weak el nino in 2004, neutral in 2005). if anything we're due for la nina to come back around. note that even with a weak el nino circulation in 2004, we still had a very active season with multiple major hurricanes making landfall in the u.s. ENSO has to be quite strong to really affect the activity in the atlantic, especially since the AMO is cranking and ocean temperatures have been and should stay consistently above normal in much of the basin.
HF 2120z30october