Paul Beckwith had some interesting videos looking at both the El Niño and the North Pacific blob of warm water. As a forewarning, his video quality isn't exactly the best; I wish he'd get some basic screencap software and learn to make simple cuts and splices, but I still watch them because I'm curious to have a deeper understanding of what's happening. It is neat to just see the raw data. Obviously he's making off the cuff speculation based on recent data, but he says that the North Pacific warm blob could be caused by disruptions to ocean current circulations, perhaps similar to the changes noted in Hansen's paper that are occurring in the North Atlantic, and that the El Niño will increase the warm water in the North Pacific rather than lessen it. He seems fairly convinced that the warm North Pacific is responsible for dry conditions in California, so he doesn't expect any end to the drought.