This site corrects factual errors and records them here. A correction is logged when a published claim that a reader could have relied on turns out to be wrong, not for typographical fixes or routine data updates.
How to Report an Error
Use the contact page. A pointer to the specific figure, the page it appears on, and the source you believe is correct will get it fixed faster than a general objection. Corrections are made promptly and are not silently overwritten.
What Gets Logged
- A figure, date, attribution or index label that was wrong.
- A claim that was true when published but has since been overtaken by data, where the page did not make its vintage clear.
- A statement that outran its evidence, even where no individual number was incorrect.
Routine weekly data refreshes are not corrections. Values on this site are revised by NOAA as a matter of course, which is described in the methodology.
Correction Log
Factual error. The 19 August article on Indonesia’s July burned area gave the July–August–September 2023 RONI as +1.0°C. That figure was wrong and matched no published RONI series. The correct value is +0.8°C, from the unrounded +0.79 in NOAA CPC’s RONI.ascii.txt on the ERSSTv6 series. The article has been corrected.
Separately, a dataset-version issue rather than a wrong number. The same article’s 2015 comparison sequence originally read +1.6°C in JAS, +1.9°C in ASO, +2.2°C in SON and +2.4°C in NDJ. Those figures corresponded correctly to NOAA’s archived ERSSTv5 RONI series. However, the article did not identify them as v5, and NOAA’s current operational RONI history had migrated to ERSSTv6. The comparison has therefore been updated to the current ERSSTv6 series: +1.5, +1.8, +2.0 and +2.3 (unrounded +1.54, +1.80, +2.03, +2.25, from RONI.ascii.txt). The ERSSTv5 series remains published by CPC at /roni/v5/.
Neither change alters the article’s argument. JAS 2019 is −0.12 on both series, so 2019’s fire season still did not run under active El Niño conditions, and the ordering of the three comparison years is unchanged.
Two pieces published this week, the 13 August article on the historic threshold and Market Watch Edition 3 on 14 August, described NOAA CPC’s highest ENSO strength category as though it were capped at +2.0°C. One said the +2.5°C “historic” threshold “sits above the highest bin the table publishes”; the other said the top category “stops at +2.0°C.”
Both are wrong. CPC’s very strong category is written as Index ≥ +2.0°C and is open-ended. A +2.5°C outcome would still be classified very strong. “Historic” is not a category above very strong; it is an additional, more demanding threshold nested inside that open-ended band.
Related, same date. The June 2026 article “Is this going to be a super El Niño?” defined the term as a peak seasonal Niño 3.4 relative anomaly above +2.0°C and then listed 1972-73, 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 as qualifying events. That list was inconsistent with the definition printed beside it: on the RONI series, 1972-73 peaks at +1.97°C and does not qualify, while 1991-92 peaks at +2.12°C and does. The list has been removed rather than restated, because which events qualify depends entirely on the index and threshold chosen, and the article’s terminology section has been corrected. The event descriptions elsewhere in that article, which are stated on the conventional ONI and labelled as such, are unaffected.
The conclusion drawn in both articles was unaffected and still stands: CPC’s table publishes no split above +2.0°C, so the 69% probability of reaching +2.5°C cannot be read from the table and appears only in the discussion narrative. Both articles have been corrected in place and carry a dated correction note. The error was ours, not CPC’s.
The article stated a "+0.8°C relative-index threshold for El Niño" and contrasted it with a +0.5°C threshold for the traditional ONI. This was wrong. CPC's operational definition sets the El Niño threshold at RONI greater than or equal to +0.5°C, the same numerical threshold ONI used. The article also quoted a weekly value "for the week ending July 12"; CPC weekly values are centred on a date, not ended on one. Both have been corrected, and the weekly figure restated as +1.4°C for the week centred 15 July.
NOAA's 21 May seasonal ranges (8 to 14 named storms, 55 percent chance of a below-normal season) were attributed to Colorado State University. They are NOAA's figures; CSU publishes a separate forecast. Corrected, and the full revision sequence added. The article also stated that the season had opened with no tropical activity in the Atlantic basin. That was accurate when written in June but was overtaken by Tropical Storm Arthur in June and Tropical Storm Bertha in July, which made two landfalls. The page has been updated and now records what actually happened.
Both pages described 2015-16 as the strongest El Niño on record since 1950 without naming the index. That claim holds on ONI and does not hold on RONI, where 1982-83 ranks ahead, because 2015-16 occurred on a warmer background ocean and ONI counts that warmth as part of the event. Both pages now state the index alongside the ranking.
The page mixed two reference dates. Its title, meta description and several sentences used 11 June values (+2.1°C Niño 1+2, +0.7°C Niño 3.4) while its own data table and stat cards used 22 June values (+2.4 and +1.1). One sentence stated that Niño 3.4 and Niño 4 were "tied at +0.7°C" directly above a table showing +1.1 and +0.8. The page has been standardised on the 22 June values throughout, with the 11 June discussion values retained only where explicitly labelled as such.
Sixteen pages cited the CPC ENSO Diagnostic Discussion by date while linking to the rolling URL, which always serves the current month's discussion. Those citations would have pointed at the wrong document once the August discussion published. All have been repointed to CPC's dated archive URLs. One page citing the 11 June discussion had already been pointing at the July document.
Corrected before publication and recorded here for completeness. A draft described cocoa inventories as having risen to a near two-year high, using a figure that was current in mid-July rather than at month end; visible stocks had in fact drawn down to below 3.0 million bags by 29 July. The draft also stated there was no evidence of crop damage, which was overtaken by Ghana's COCOBOD projecting a decline of at least 16 percent for 2026/27 on 30 July.
Entries are listed most recent first. This log begins on 1 August 2026, when the policy was formalised. Corrections made before that date are reflected in the articles themselves but are not itemised here.