ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[NotSparta]

Other than SOI, are there any other indexes or ways to see how conductive the atmospheric conditions are for Niño development? Thanks

[Kingarabian]

The current warm pool is impressive, but weaker than the warm pool of 2014 - which was nearly a failed El Nino. It took a secondary warm pool to initiate El Nino in 2014, and this was not until November. The current warm pool, as it spreads eastward and upward towards the surface, should be enough to dissipate the La Nina and turn ENSO neutral by May. We will need to watch if the warm pool weakens as it nears the surface. But it may take a second warm pool to start an El Nino, as well as a sustained period of westerly wind anomalies beginning in May/June. If the warm pool weakens as it reaches the surface and there isn't a second warm pool to follow it up, ENSO would probably stay neutral during this summer.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any subsurface ENSO data at this time from 2006 and 2009, which were late-blooming El Ninos? I'm interested to see how they compare to this year.

Don't have the nice CPC animations to compare from 2006 and 2009.

2006 and 2018 comparison:


2009 and 2018 comparison:

[Kingarabian]

Other than SOI, are there any other indexes or ways to see how conductive the atmospheric conditions are for Niño development? Thanks

SOI is your best bet, especially the 90 day SOI average. 30 day average has a lot of noise. Also speaking of the SOI, the last 3-4 daily readings seem to be off.

[NotSparta]

After looking at reanalysis what did the 2006 La Niña in and turned things to cool neutral was this WWB. Doesn't look like the subsurface warm pool will be surfacing soon, so unless we get something like this soon, La Niña will probably stick around until mid-late April imo

[StruThiO]

One things for sure its insane how little of a handle we have on this when it affects so much globally especially hurricane season. While Kingarabian and others have brought up a good point about this upcoming May/June being so important especially because of 2006, 2009, it feels like we're starting to run against the clock as we enter April for ENSO to dramatically affect this upcoming tropical cyclone season for a certain basin.

The warm pool while strong seems to be meandering in place and the SOI is rather positive atm (again, I know these things can and will change). If you look at the OLR anomalies convection appears to continue to be suppressed along the pacific but enhanced in parts of the maritime continent. Overall the atmosphere seems biased towards la nina still. Again, with that warm pool we definitely have many pieces to the puzzle yet many are still missing to complete it. Unfortunately, all it seems we can do right now is continue to wait and see what happens (Argh!)

Disclaimer: this is just a total newbie's thoughts. I would like to thank this community for being so informative and friendly. This is all so fascinating to me.

[Ntxw]

With ENSO sometimes it is better to step away from the ties to the hurricane/typhoon seasons. You can probably find some stat or info to fit the narrative and that's what can derail from the good stuff. Follow the buoys and readings from instruments and wind stress forecasts. That will go a much longer way.

The MJO is still cycling roughly 30 days or so. Much like the end of Feb, and end of March, the second half of April will likely yield another WWB. Nino 3.4 as in the name is tied to Nino 3 and Nino 4. Where those two head, 3.4 likely follows.

[StruThiO]

Yeah, I don't like associating ENSO with that so much like i've done; it feels like a bastardization of ENSO in a certain way. I'm just worried about that, is all. Anyways. I have a question

What factors drives the MJO's amplitude? Looking at CPC's website, it mentions that the MJO is "quite variable with periods of moderate-to-strong activity followed by periods of little or no activity" and also that it is "most active during ENSO neutral years...absent during moderate-to-strong el nino and la nina events". OK, but why? Why does it have this natural variability? Is it absent during moderate/strong ENSO events because their affect on the atmosphere directly and destructively interferes with the MJO? Thanks, all

[Ntxw]

It would take too long to extensively discuss the MJO on here and quite complex. One of the past ENSO blogs at the CPC is a good starting block

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-mjo-and-why-do-we-care

In essence you can view the MJO as a shorter span of convective favor-ability in the terms of days and weeks. ENSO is a collection of this favor-ability in the span of months and seasons. This longer term smoothing dilutes or averages some effects of the MJO. During an El Nino the background forcing is in the Pacific, thus you will see an enhanced version of the MJO in the Pacific phases. During a La Nina that enhancement is over the Maritime continent, that is the basic black and white look with many gray areas to explain. Without the longer term effects of ENSO the MJO will appear to be moving at a good pace as it circles the globe without such background interference.

[USTropics]

:uarrow: Yeah, I don't like associating ENSO with that so much like i've done; it feels like a bastardization of ENSO in a certain way. I'm just worried about that, is all. Anyways. I have a question

What factors drives the MJO's amplitude? Looking at CPC's website, it mentions that the MJO is "quite variable with periods of moderate-to-strong activity followed by periods of little or no activity" and also that it is "most active during ENSO neutral years...absent during moderate-to-strong el nino and la nina events". OK, but why? Why does it have this natural variability? Is it absent during moderate/strong ENSO events because their affect on the atmosphere directly and destructively interferes with the MJO? Thanks, all

Although it specifically deals with the WNP basin, you can find most of the answers here (below is a pretty detailed excerpt too): https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10 ... 11-00337.1

The asymmetric background modification by ENSO is found to greatly affect the extent of MJO modulation under different ENSO conditions. First, MJO activity is intensified and extends farther eastward during El Niño years, instead of being confined west of 150°E as in neutral and La Niña periods. Thus, the influence of MJO is stronger and more zonally widespread in El Niño years, causing significant differences in cyclogenesis parameters in most parts of the WNP. In El Niño years, cyclogenesis is further enhanced in the active phase due to synchronization of MJO signals with favorable background ENSO conditions. While in the inactive phase, the dominance of the strong MJO signals leads to further suppression in TC formation. This leads to overall enhancement of the MJO–TC relationship during El Niño years. On the other hand, the MJO signals confined to the western region west of 150°E in neutral and La Niña years lead to changes in TC-related parameters mainly in the western region, which contribute to the comparatively weaker TC modulations. It can thus be concluded that the MJO has an asymmetric modulation on cyclogenesis in the WNP under different ENSO conditions.

[Digital-TC-Chaser]

Other than SOI, are there any other indexes or ways to see how conductive the atmospheric conditions are for Niño development? Thanks

ESPI is also a indicator of how the atmosphere is in enso.

https://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/trmm_rain/Ev ... y_day.html

[CyclonicFury]

The current warm pool is impressive, but weaker than the warm pool of 2014 - which was nearly a failed El Nino. It took a secondary warm pool to initiate El Nino in 2014, and this was not until November. The current warm pool, as it spreads eastward and upward towards the surface, should be enough to dissipate the La Nina and turn ENSO neutral by May. We will need to watch if the warm pool weakens as it nears the surface. But it may take a second warm pool to start an El Nino, as well as a sustained period of westerly wind anomalies beginning in May/June. If the warm pool weakens as it reaches the surface and there isn't a second warm pool to follow it up, ENSO would probably stay neutral during this summer.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any subsurface ENSO data at this time from 2006 and 2009, which were late-blooming El Ninos? I'm interested to see how they compare to this year.

Don't have the nice CPC animations to compare from 2006 and 2009.

2006 and 2018 comparison:


2009 and 2018 comparison:

Thanks. 2009 warm pool looks stronger than this year, but 2006 looks weaker.

[NotSparta]

The current warm pool is impressive, but weaker than the warm pool of 2014 - which was nearly a failed El Nino. It took a secondary warm pool to initiate El Nino in 2014, and this was not until November. The current warm pool, as it spreads eastward and upward towards the surface, should be enough to dissipate the La Nina and turn ENSO neutral by May. We will need to watch if the warm pool weakens as it nears the surface. But it may take a second warm pool to start an El Nino, as well as a sustained period of westerly wind anomalies beginning in May/June. If the warm pool weakens as it reaches the surface and there isn't a second warm pool to follow it up, ENSO would probably stay neutral during this summer.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any subsurface ENSO data at this time from 2006 and 2009, which were late-blooming El Ninos? I'm interested to see how they compare to this year.

Don't have the nice CPC animations to compare from 2006 and 2009.

2006 and 2018 comparison:


2009 and 2018 comparison:

Thanks. 2009 warm pool looks stronger than this year, but 2006 looks weaker.

A big part of 2006's transition was a bunch of WWBs, not so much warm pools afaik

[StruThiO]

NCDC PDO went from -0.17 for Feb to -0.51 in March.

[NotSparta]

NCDC PDO went from -0.17 for Feb to -0.51 in March.

The positive streak ended?

[StruThiO]

NCDC PDO went from -0.17 for Feb to -0.51 in March.

The positive streak ended?

Jisao is the one with the positive streak I think. Their value takes a while to come out it seems

[cycloneye]

The next CPC ENSO Diagnostic complete update that is issued every month on the second Thursdays (April 12) should give us plenty of information and we will see if El Niño Watch is issued.The March update had El Niño chance for ASO at 33%.Also,on that date,CPC ENSO BLOG will have the discussion about their thinking on why they did what the update says.

[Kingarabian]

As some of us on here have been saying, developments in March have disturbed the atmospheres La Nina base state and currently resulted into a shift back to neutral.

 https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/981635039699132418

[Kingarabian]

CDAS 850mb wind analysis continues to show deepening westerly wind anomalies across the eastern pacific basin:

[Kingarabian]

For future purposes, looking @ 150E-160E at 100-150 meters. Keeping eye there, as another down welling Kelvin wave may have been triggered due the strong March WWB. We can also see this development on the TAO buoys.



Edit: Also looks like an upwelling Kelvin wave developing there at the same time. Not on the buoys yet.

[Digital-TC-Chaser]

Email Service emailservice stormvistawx
date: Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 9:15 PM
subject: ENSO/SST Tracker (04/03/2018)



https://imgur.com/ppsfu1A



https://imgur.com/OnjIO5a


kw wiping out whats left of nina as expected by models.


........................................................................................................
Edit added later.
As for a new k/w ? http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display ... ?a=wwb_slp
not seeing that myself.

KW
https://imgur.com/hNQSJDl

mjo
https://imgur.com/3P9aqiR