These examples [\ref{fig:example_distributions}] show that there are a wide range of observed values, even for the El Niño sample. All the El Niño samples have an average value subtly below zero. However, does this indicate that El Niño periods are more likely to have lower than average rainfall in all these regions, or is the difference in line within the variation in the mean values that we see produced by the random samples?

Ten random samples isn’t enough to give a clear idea, so we consider this procedure for a thousand such samples.