Abstract This study investigates the role of far eastern Pacific (FEP) sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in shaping El Niño development, focusing on the 2023–2024 event. Unlike most post‐1980 El Niño events, which are characterized by central–eastern Pacific–dominated growth and strong air–sea coupling, the 2023–2024 event featured early FEP warming and weak central Pacific westerly anomalies during its development. Linear decomposition shows that a substantial portion of FEP variability is not explained by canonical El Niño–Southern Oscillation dynamics, and this residual FEP component plays a key role in the evolution of the 2023–2024 event. This FEP warming is accompanied by subtropical northeastern Pacific cooling and suppressed convection, inducing off‐equatorial northeasterlies that weaken central Pacific westerlies. Such FEP‐dominant characteristics occurred more frequently in pre‐1980 El Niño events, consistent with decadal thermocline changes that may modulate the relative sensitivity of eastern and central Pacific SSTA growth.
Jiang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.