claim: This means it is possible that by some yardsticks, 2016 will be declared as hot as 2015 or even slightly hotter – because El Nino did not vanish until the middle of the year.
evidence: However, the Japan Meteorological Agency declares that an El Nino event has started when the average five month sea surface temperature deviation for the NINO.3 region, is over 0.5 °C ( 0.90 °F ) warmer for six consecutive months or longer.