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A few weeks ago I was in New Orleans to take part in the Ocean Sciences meeting of the American Geophysical Union. It is only mid-February and the weather is then supposed to be gentle in this part of the US, as the winter is slowly giving way to spring. Not this year: The whole of Thursday evening I spend looking through the window of my room on the tenth floor of the Marriot hotel. The view is spectacular. Dark mammatus clouds, heavy lightning and dense rain showers that at their peak even manage to chase away Donald Trump from the television screen. The TV is on because there is a tornado watch. I should be in the basement, but wait anxiously to see a touchdown. There were 8 this evening, with serious damage. This is the kind of weather you expect in summer when the heat is on in Tornado Alley!

The weather around the world is clearly behaving erratically because of this years’ El Niño, one of the strongest on record. And El Niño itself appears to evolve in a unique, unknown way, too! All predictions beyond a few months ahead have proven wrong, including mine (see IMAU newsletter February 2014). I had a bet with the US’s ‘Mister El Niño’ about the size and timing of the next event: I said big, he said small. We both lost. El Niño peaked almost a year later then both of us predicted (see Claudia Wiener’s contribution elsewhere in this newsletter). But with both of us being losers we will now have two dinners, because in our bet the loser has to pay dinner for two! Once more, El Niño has confronted us with the limits of climate predictability. We’ll keep on trying…

For IMAU this is also a continuing battle. We didn’t even predict that we would last for half a century, but we made it. A good reason for a party. We celebrate this golden jubilee on the 23rd of June, see announcement in this newsletter.

Will de Ruijter

Professor of physical oceanography and scientific director of the IMAU, Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ