· Analytic
Z4339 NOAA Niño 3.4 SST Anomaly
The raw monthly sea-surface-temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific , the ENSO signal before the 3-month smoothing that produces the official ONI. Faster-moving than ONI, polarity-inverted so La Niña maps to positive signal values. All five verdict tails HAC-t significant.
Current reading
-0.827
Moderate Neg
DAILY · SIGNAL
As of Oct 30, 2026. Updated nightly.
Current composite
-0.8307
On the plus-or-minus one scale; Niño 3.4 SST deeply positive = El Niño regime
Signal state
Moderate NEG
117 consecutive days in episode
All-time percentile
19.8th
Lower-quintile of 36 years
EXTREME_POS corn fwd 60d
+3.49%
3,094 days (34.5% of sample), HAC t +5.42 sig at 1%
EXTREME_NEG corn fwd 60d
-2.21%
2,843 days (31.7% of sample), HAC t -3.73 sig at 1%
Current contribution to ML Auto Corn Composite V9
-0.083
10.0 percent weight × +1 polarity × -0.831 value
OBJECTIVE
The Niño 3. 4 region is a rectangular box in the equatorial Pacific (5°N–5°S, 170°W–120°W) that NOAA uses as the primary SST metric for ENSO monitoring. The monthly Niño 3.4 SST anomaly is the raw ENSO signal , the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is just a 3-month running mean of this series. Readings above plus 0.5 are El Niño conditions; below minus 0.5 are La Niña. This signal reads the raw Niño 3.4 monthly SST anomaly, smooths it with a 30-day trailing rolling mean, z-scores on a 1,260-day rolling window, polarity-inverts so La Niña (negative SST) maps to positive signal, and tanh-bounds. Unlike the companion NOAA Oceanic Niño Index (Inverted, Publication-Shifted) NOAA ONI signal that uses the smoothed 3-month-centered mean, this signal is the FASTER-MOVING raw monthly reading , ENSO-regime shifts show up here several months before they appear in the smoothed ONI. The economic logic is identical to NOAA Oceanic Niño Index (Inverted, Publication-Shifted): La Niña favors South American moisture stress (bull US corn via reduced Argentine competition) and US-Belt late-summer dry (bull US corn via yield stress). The empirical pattern across 36 years is unusually clean. All five verdict states clear HAC Newey-West t-statistic significance in the directionally-expected direction, with EXTREME_POS (deep La Niña after inversion) at plus 3.49 percent corn fwd 60d (HAC t plus 5.42, significant at 1 percent, 3,094 state-days) and EXTREME_NEG (deep El Niño) at minus 2.21 percent (HAC t minus 3.73, significant at 1 percent, 2,843 state-days). The signal reads minus 0.8307 as of October 23 2026, in EXTREME_NEG territory for 117 consecutive trading days at the 19.8 percentile of 36 years. The reading reflects the current El Niño regime , Niño 3.4 SSTs running significantly above climatological norms. The signal contributes 10.0 percent weight to ML Auto Corn Composite V9 ML Auto Corn Composite with polarity sign plus one; the current contribution is minus 0.083.
LIVE CHART
Thirty-six years of NOAA Niño 3.4 raw SST anomaly, 30d-smoothed and polarity-inverted.
The signal has been in EXTREME_NEG for 117 consecutive trading days. Niño 3.4 SST anomalies have been running significantly positive through August-October 2026, consistent with a moderate-to-strong El Niño regime. Signature episodes: EXTREME_NEG firings during the 1997-98 super-El-Niño, 2015-16 strong El Niño, 2009-10 moderate El Niño. EXTREME_POS firings during 2010-12 and 2020-23 triple-dip La Niñas, 1988-89 historic La Niña.
COMPOSITE
-0.8 / 100
STATE
Moderate Neg
PHASE
-1
FWD 60d
+2.93% (baseline +2.31%)
SAMPLE N
9,039 days
TODAY’S PLAYBOOK READING
STATE
Moderate Neg
STATE AND PERCENTILE
EXTREME_NEG at the 19.8 percentile , lower-quintile. Niño 3.4 SSTs running significantly above climatology.
WHY THE SIGNAL IS HERE
Equatorial Pacific SSTs have been in El Niño territory through late 2026. The 30-day trailing smooth integrates recent SST observations without the 2-month centered-mean look-ahead that ONI’s definition carries.
POSTURE FOR THE WEEKS AHEAD
EXTREME_NEG delivers minus 2.21 percent corn fwd 60d (HAC t minus 3.73 sig at 1 percent). Niño 3.4 moves faster than ONI, so this signal would flip into less-bearish territory earlier if the El Niño wanes.
WHAT THE CHART SHOWS
The composite sits at -0.83 in the El Nino Signature band. The polarity-inverted Nino 3.4 SST anomaly reads warm-equatorial-Pacific conditions, which historically correlate with wetter, cooler US Corn Belt summers and comfortable corn growing seasons. CBOT front-month corn (orange, right axis) sits near $4.48/bu.
TOP INPUTS FIRING
- Primary composite -0.83 State El Nino Signature. Polarity-inverted: the raw Nino 3.4 SST anomaly is WARM (El Nino), which the signal inverts to NEGATIVE composite for the bearish-corn interpretation.
- NOAA Nino 3.4 region SST anomaly, monthly Sea-surface-temperature anomaly in the equatorial Pacific Nino 3.4 region. Raw monthly, faster-moving than the official 3-month-smoothed ONI.
- IC vs CBOT corn fwd 60d: Spearman +0.252, p=4.1e-130 (N=8,984) Deeply significant positive IC: positive composite (La Nina signature) predicts positive corn fwd 60d via the US drought-risk mechanism; negative composite (El Nino) predicts negative corn fwd 60d.
THE TAKEAWAY
What this means for you today
THE RAW ENSO SIGNAL VS THE 3-MONTH-SMOOTHED ONI
this signal reads the raw monthly Niño 3.4 SST anomaly with a 30-day trailing smooth. The companion signal NOAA Oceanic Niño Index (Inverted, Publication-Shifted) reads the Oceanic Niño Index , the 3-month-smoothed version of the same underlying data. The RAW monthly reading moves faster: ENSO regime shifts appear in Niño 3.4 approximately 1-2 months BEFORE they appear in ONI. For a forward-return prediction at the 60-day horizon, the raw signal typically arrives earlier than the smoothed signal arrives, trading some noise for leading-indicator value.
THE ENSO-CORN MECHANISM
ENSO’s primary channel into corn is through South American hemisphere planting (Argentine corn harvest runs February-June in the southern-hemisphere growing season). La Niña reduces Argentine moisture → smaller Argentine crop → reduced competition for US corn exports → bull US corn. El Niño does the opposite. Secondary channels include US Corn Belt late-summer moisture (La Niña dries the Midwest in July-August; weak teleconnection but real) and global grain-corridor shipping (La Niña drought risk in Panama Canal). The historical EXTREME_POS fwd 60d of plus 3.49 percent (HAC t plus 5.42) is one of the strongest standalone signal edges in the ML Auto Corn Composite V9 stack.
THE HONEST CAVEAT
this signal shares its underlying data source with NOAA Oceanic Niño Index (Inverted, Publication-Shifted) (NOAA ONI = 3-month smooth of Niño 3.4) and Corn La Niña × PDO Amplifier (Publication-Shifted) (La Niña × PDO Amp uses ONI data). Three ML Auto Corn Composite V9 members totaling 34 percent of composite weight depend on overlapping ENSO data. The LightGBM composite’s statistical fit heavily reflects this ENSO channel. Readers should recognize these as cross-corroborating ENSO reads rather than three independent predictors. Additionally, the raw Niño 3.4 publication lag of approximately 5-10 days (NOAA publishes monthly readings ~5-10 days after month-end) is not explicitly applied in the engine; a `s.shift(10)` patch would address this minor look-ahead.
THE REGIME MAP
The three Nino 3.4 SST ENSO regime states, forward returns and sample share
Behavior across the raw monthly Nino 3.4 SST anomaly signal, polarity-inverted so La Nina maps to positive composite (bullish US corn via warmer dry Corn Belt summers), El Nino to negative (bearish US corn via wetter Corn Belt summers). Faster-moving than the 3-month-smoothed Oceanic Nino Index. CBOT corn benchmark.
| State | Phase | Share | Fwd 60d | HAC t | Edge vs baseline | Last firings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Nino Signature TODAY | – | 38.5% (3486 d) | -2.07% | -2.36pp | May 2026, Mar 2023, Oct 2019 | |
| ENSO Neutral | 0 | 19.2% (1737 d) | -4.66% | -4.95pp | Mar 2026, Mar 2025, Jun 2024 | |
| La Nina Signature | + | 42.2% (3821 d) | -1.09% | -1.38pp | Aug 2025, Dec 2024, May 2020 |
The historical pattern
Methodology
THE TRACK RECORD
State changes
| State | Start | End | Duration | Fwd 60d SPY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 10/23/2024 | 12/06/2024 | 32d | +4.92% |
| Extreme Neg | 12/09/2024 | 03/05/2025 | 59d | -7.29% |
| Normal | 03/06/2025 | 08/11/2025 | 109d | +3.49% |
| Extreme Neg | 08/12/2025 | 03/16/2026 | 149d | +5.43% |
| Normal | 03/17/2026 | 05/07/2026 | 37d | +9.98% |
| Extreme Pos | 05/08/2026 | 10/23/2026 | 117d | +4.36% |
Scroll inside the table for the full history. Forward 60-day SPY is measured from each run’s start date; a reader cannot trade off a start-date they only identify in hindsight, so this is a transparency log, not an alpha claim. Asterisked (*) returns are partial. The run is less than 60 trading days old. The full 60-day comparable fills in as more data arrives.
What this measures
The engine queries NOAA_NINO34 monthly SST anomaly data from the estate weather database. Forward-fills daily. Applies 30-day trailing rolling mean (smooths high-frequency noise but preserves faster signal than ONI’s 3-month). Z-scores on 1,260-day rolling window with 126-day minimum. Polarity-inverts so La Niña (negative SST anomaly) maps to positive signal. Tanh-bounds. Five-state machine on the final the primary composite.
GO DEEPER
Want the full depth?
The full research brief adds methodology detail on the Nino 3.4 region SST measurement, how the raw monthly anomaly compares to the 3-month-smoothed Oceanic Nino Index, and why the polarity inversion is applied. Includes four historical case studies anchored to actual ENSO cycles (2010-2012 La Nina drought era, 2015-2016 El Nino, 2020-2022 triple-dip La Nina), the three-regime state-conditional table, and the methodology for pairing with the sibling ONI signal, Silking Pace, Ending Stocks, and the Corn Cycle DNA playbook.
Taxonomy, polarity, state labels
Not investment advice · The analysis on this page is informational and educational. Signal readings, historical case figures, and empirical statistics are derived from publicly available data and are provided without warranty. Hypothetical performance results have inherent limitations, including the benefit of hindsight. Readers who intend to trade should consult a licensed investment professional and see the research brief for the full disclaimer.
Last refreshed Nov 02, 2026 12:05 PM ET