We continue to track the status of our El Niño event, as the direction it takes can influence the temperature patterns in the U.S, and therefore impact demand for natural gas. El Niño in summer generally translates to cooler temperatures and lower gas demand.

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This worked out well for the month of June. 

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Recent weeks have brought about a stark weakening of our El Niño event, however, as seen in the latest NOAA data. 

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Despite the weakening, we still have warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific out near the Date Line. 

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Zonal wind anomalies are turning back westerly as well in this region, which simply means a weakening of the trade winds. We have highlighted this in the black box below, as well as the last two times this has occurred in red. 

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These "westerly wind bursts" often tilt conditions more in the El Niño direction. The following image shows the buildup in heat content with each of the last two westerly bursts that were highlighted above. 

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As such, one would expect to see some "bounce back" with the El Niño state in the near future. However, subsurface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have cooled significantly in the last few weeks, with a lot of cooler than normal water showing up. 

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