Bab el-Mandeb Strait effectively closed by August 31?

What this question means

Resolved NO, and it was never close. The forecast ran between 0% and 5% across its entire tracked life, sat at 4% a month before the deadline, and finished at zero.

A question that spends its whole existence in the low single digits and resolves as expected is not a failure of forecasting — it is forecasting working. The crowd identified early that the outcome was remote and never wavered.

The successor question on this board, asking the same thing by 31 October, has behaved differently: it has been drifting *up*, from 10% a week ago to 16%. Same strait, same threshold, consecutive windows, opposite direction of travel.

That contrast is the useful record here. This one closed quietly at zero while its replacement climbed — which says conditions changed after this question's window had already passed.