As the El Niño continues to weaken, colder than normal water is starting to emerge in the eastern Pacific Ocean where unusually warm water previously resided. This is a sign that the El Niño will soon be gone, although the process for declaring it ended usually takes several months to make sure that the event is over. Climate.gov has a post on this here.
The latest forecasts for what happens next show the very high likelihood of a La Niña occurring, perhaps as soon as mid-summer. Keep in mind that a new event is not declared until 4-5 months of La Niña conditions are consistently present, so we can often seen the effects before the new event has “officially” started.
