El Nino Watch

TAO/TRITON buoys

About 50 moored buoys along the equatorial Pacific that measure sea temperature (surface and deep), air temperature and wind in real time.

Ocean

The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO/TRITON) array is a line of buoys anchored across the equatorial Pacific, run by NOAA and Japan's JAMSTEC. They measure the temperature from the surface down to about 500 m, plus winds and air temperature.

They were built after the 1982-83 El Nino, which was not detected in time. They show Kelvin waves and wind bursts as they happen.

The app shows the surface temperature from buoys with a recent reading, on the Map (green dots) and the Indices page.

How to read it

Warmer readings in the east than usual = El Nino-like. Buoys go offline for maintenance or damage: a missing buoy is not a signal.

Sources

Related

ENSO status now

ONI (NOAA CPC)
+1.80 °C, JJA 2026 (previous +1.39 °C)
RONI (NOAA CPC)
+1.36 °C, JJA 2026
Nino 3.4 weekly (NOAA CPC / OISST)
+3.0 °C anomaly, week of 16 Sep 2026 (SST 29.6 °C)