Just expounding on this a bit further....if we think back to 1995 and how that season evolved, many in hindsight speculated that the active STJ during that modest cold ENSO event was due to the hemisphere having been dominated by warm ENSO for the previous few years. Well, in this case, we have a robust el nino attempting to assert in the face of one of the more protracted and prevalent cool ENSO events on record, so it stands to reason that there may be some similar lag effects and mixed features here (not using 1995 as an analog). Almost like overrunning when SW flow runs into a cold high...some of that energy is initially spent on producing precipitation until the warm advection eventually overwhelms.
My working theory is we may see a N stream branch every bit as prominent as the STJ at times this season.....how exactly that works and who reaps the benefits and is porked TBD.