The most recent prediction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the chance of an El Niño emerging during the next two months at 50 to 60 percent, after which they foresee a neutral state existing.

In spite of another Pineapple Express that soaked Northern California, Oregon and Washington at the beginning of this month, the jury is still out on whether a true El Niño will form this year and deliver the precipitation that drought-stricken areas of the U.S. are hoping for.

As recently reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate.gov site, there are some promising signs but because of all the fluctuations over the past year, ''It will take more than a couple of weeks to convince us El Niño has really locked in.''

Those signs include more rainfall than average around the International Date Line during the last couple of weeks in January, and westerly wind anomalies that developed just east of the Date Line in the middle of January.

Climate.gov cautions however that El Niño is a climate phenomenon - an average state over several months or seasons, and not a short-term weather event. So even though the tropical Pacific Ocean's sea surface temperature readings resemble an El Niño state, the atmosphere sometimes does not play along, leaving us in a neutral phase.