Over the past few weeks, the equatorial Pacific has been cooling. The extreme tropical temperatures that broke records earlier this winter have waned, and El Niño, though still present, is a shadow of its former Godzilla self. It signals a possible shift to the Pacific’s other phase, La Niña.

The strength of El Niño is measured by how abnormally warm the ocean water is in the equatorial Pacific. El Niño can be classified as “very strong” if surface waters are running at least 2 degrees Celsius warmer than average for at least three months in a row.