Yes, Steven we are in a neutral stage as explained by Jim Salinger in his talk here in ChCh last year.
Augie and La Nina go together. He's adament that we are in a La Nina phase and will be for a long time yet, despite indicators going the other way.
Out of the 2 phases, I prefer the El Nino as that phase is more likely for thunderstorm events to occur in Canterbury.
NZstorm wrote:Latest sea surface temps. Could the cool ocean area visable in the eastern Equatorial Pacific be a La Nina?
No
The historical (statistical) data is stacked heavily in favour of the next significant SO event being an EN, the question is when and how big.
However, given the see-sawingnature of the SOI over the last 4 months, it wouldnt surprise me if the value for April turns out to be more positive than March was (+3), and a shift to the positive makes for more depressions affecting New Zealand. So my pick is that April will be less settled than March.