You will hear A LOT of talk (especially from us) about the upcoming El Niño and its potential to be the strongest we've seen in decades (possibly strongest on record). But, every summer I have to be reminded that during summer, the correlation between El Niño and the US precipitation pattern is not that strong. It is MUCH stronger for Indonesia/Malaysia/Papua New Guinea, India, and Central America - all of which we are concerned about drought risk this summer. In the US, the correlations between El Niño and the weather patterns is much stronger in Fall, Winter, and Spring. So what do we need to watch over the next 45 days? Watch the Northeast Pacific. Changes in the sea surface temperatures there have a much greater impact on ridge placement in the US for summer. Hotter than normal SSTs and the ridge placement has a higher probability of being over the West/Pacific Northwest. That would send the western states into a very hot a dry summer despite monsoonal storms. Consequently, the Midwest tends to avoid prolonged heat and has increased chances of heavy rains from storms born on Northwest jet stream flow. Flip that narrative and find cooler sea surface temperatures in the Northeast Pacific and the Midwest is hot/dry while the West is cooler/wetter. The figure shows the composite precipitation anomalies for a WARM Northeast Pacific in the top left, a COOL Northeast Pacific in the top right, and their difference in the bottom center. Long story short, there is much stronger correlation with US precipitation patterns in summer with the Northeast Pacific than with El Niño.