Hi Bob,

Thanks for sending that interesting paper. The ENSO prediction team doesn't tend to forecast for CP/EP, nor classify events retrospectively, although we do have some discussion of ENSO flavors here on the Blog. The difference in SST maxima locations between the two events is likely part of the difference between the Southwest precip outcomes, but there are a lot of things going on in any one winter that contribute to variability. For more reading, check out the BAMS paper (led by Michelle) on observing and predicting the 2015/16 event and this paper about the variability in US precip during El Nino events.