ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[cycloneye]

Great thread.

 https://twitter.com/TylerJStanfield/status/1378811414148739084




 https://twitter.com/TylerJStanfield/status/1378811422944149510




 https://twitter.com/TylerJStanfield/status/1378812277680406534

[cycloneye]

Bye to La Niña.

 https://twitter.com/webberweather/status/1378709553022332928




 https://twitter.com/EricBlake12/status/1378749437791584259

[Kingarabian]

From Twitter, lot's of goodies in regards to ENSO today.

 https://twitter.com/PaulRoundy1/status/1378821159182073870




I agree with Paul Roundy here. We likely need to see more reinforcements to actually see a switch to +ENSO. The CFS is hinting that there will be.


Also in this Twitter thread there are some very nice GIF's from the UKMO that show the downwelling Kelvin wave moving from west to east.

 https://twitter.com/Recretos/status/1378801161168375817

[Category5Kaiju]

Is there a specific way to know if the expanding warm pool will simply warm up the Pacific versus if the expanding warm pool will warm up the Pacific to the point we actually get a Nino?

[cycloneye]

Only looking at this loop the word is "Yikes".

[ClarCari]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

[DorkyMcDorkface]

Something else to note is that the Indian Ocean has lost quite a bit of warm water as of late. Wonder if this could tamper with the Walker circulation to a point where it would aid the Niña decay process.

[Category5Kaiju]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

[DorkyMcDorkface]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

Full-blown Nño prospects are definitely pretty low at the moment. The SPB doesn't help but we need something truly substantial to reverse the atmosphere into a Niño-coupled state. Right now it just seems to be in "transition-out-of-Niña" mode. Additionally I mentioned this before but we need to watch for the African Standing Wave's comeback this summer which could especially derail any formative Niño possibilities, hence why it's safe to go with neutral for now (cold-biased or warm-biased is up in the air still).

[GrayLancer18]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

Yeah one side of me is saying that there's always a first time for everything and might see an instance of a rapidly developing El Niño to put a lid on the hurricane season; another says not to call game over yet.

[ClarCari]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

Full-blown Nño prospects are definitely pretty low at the moment. The SPB doesn't help but we need something truly substantial to reverse the atmosphere into a Niño-coupled state. Right now it just seems to be in "transition-out-of-Niña" mode. Additionally I mentioned this before but we need to watch for the African Standing Wave's comeback this summer which could especially derail any formative Niño possibilities, hence why it's safe to go with neutral for now (cold-biased or warm-biased is up in the air still).

Perfectly describes what we’re seeing!
I know some may think because the ENSO appears to be warming that the chances of an El Niño have gone up, whereas I disagree and that just because chances of a La Niña reoccurring has gone down, doesn’t mean the it’s opposite‘s chances have gone up.

For example, my thoughts were back in January that an El Niño event had a <5% chance of occurring and a double-dip La Niña had a 50% chance.
Now after the apparent increased warming of the ENSO for the near future, my chances of a double-dip La Niña have gone down to around 25%, but the chances of an El Niño are at <5% still. The chances up or down of one phenomenon does not mean the chances up or down of it’s opposite changing with it.

In this case, climatology tells us better than to think an El Niño has much chance of occurring this year. But the sudden change out of a La Niña and into a possible brief warm period was always a decent possibility.

[Category5Kaiju]

 https://twitter.com/webberweather/status/1378856604909535233

[Kingarabian]

Is there a specific way to know if the expanding warm pool will simply warm up the Pacific versus if the expanding warm pool will warm up the Pacific to the point we actually get a Nino?

Since we're coming off a strong La Nina event, It will take successive downwelling Kelvin waves to sufficiently warm up the surface temperatures across the CPAC and EPAC along with continued relaxation of the trade winds. Even that may not be enough.

The present warm anomalies currently moving from west to east is from a WWB over the WPAC back in February. It takes about 2-3 months for these warm anomalies to reach South America and breach the surface .

A new downwelling Kelvin wave is destined to be triggered due to this substantial WWB that is taking place over the WPAC. There's a lot of intrigue now because it could be that the February WWB->DKW might not be a fluke since we're seeing a follow up of the same thing. Then as Paul Roundy indicated, we will still probably need one more WWB down the line for the base state to actually flip.

[ClarCari]

I have noticed looking at past forecasts that El Niño forecasts bust far more often than La Niña forecasts.
The typical warm shift every spring seems to bring out people who insist an El Niño is coming and later on are proven very wrong.
Not saying this happens much on this board but on twitter wx especially you’ll see people come up with bizarre, dare I say it, weather conspiracies such as one of those above Eric Webb threads where there was one person insisting the solar cycle and ENSO cycle are aligned.
Not saying those 2 phenomenon can’t be loosely linked in some way and is not completely scientifically worthy but those statistics brought up in that thread were inconsistent and wrong at times and is one example where I think some meteorological folk have an El Niño bias that is only ever right when an actual El Niño occurs like a broken clock being right twice a day.

I’m curious as to why it seems, unless I’m mistaken that La Niña forecasts don’t bust as often as El Niño forecasts which within the 5 years have seemed to bust 3 or 4 out of 5 times I think? Could it be the typical spring ENSO warming and/or are there other things?

[Kingarabian]

I have noticed looking at past forecasts that El Niño forecasts bust far more often than La Niña forecasts.
The typical warm shift every spring seems to bring out people who insist an El Niño is coming and later on are proven very wrong.
Not saying this happens much on this board but on twitter wx especially you’ll see people come up with bizarre, dare I say it, weather conspiracies such as one of those above Eric Webb threads where there was one person insisting the solar cycle and ENSO cycle are aligned.
Not saying those 2 phenomenon can’t be loosely linked in some way and is not completely scientifically worthy but those statistics brought up in that thread were inconsistent and wrong at times and is one example where I think some meteorological folk have an El Niño bias that is only ever right when an actual El Niño occurs like a broken clock being right twice a day.

I’m curious as to why it seems, unless I’m mistaken that La Niña forecasts don’t bust as often as El Niño forecasts which within the 5 years have seemed to bust 3 or 4 out of 5 times I think? Could it be the typical spring ENSO warming and/or are there other things?

People have their biases. For some a La Nina means a wetter rainy season (Hawaii for example) and vice versa with El Nino. It's certainly easier to get a La Nina compared to an El Nino. Remember the low level winds are naturally east to west. A lot of people are into climate studies and there's a lot we don't know about ENSO. So when something like what we're seeing occurs, it creates a buzz.

[Shell Mound]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

 https://twitter.com/webberweather/status/1378853491725103105

[ClarCari]

Knowing that things may get chaotic amongst the weather community as the ENSO warms, it’s probably a good idea to remind folks that even if we see a +ENSO this spring which was also a decent possibility, it will almost certainly be temporary before trades dominate once again past the peak of spring and we see a slip back into
-ENSO. Not saying La Niña necessarily, but it is still very very very unlikely to see a warm ENSO during the fall. This was also always one the more likely scenarios if I’m not mistaken.
I too am curious to see how warm this can get tho! A similar setup coming off a less cool ENSO next year could make a warmer pattern more permanent throughout the year.

Yeah I share your thoughts too! While there's much commotion going on about the warming ENSO, we've seen this occur in years like 2008. It's not like this kind of warming right after a moderate La Nina year is abnormal. In fact, I certainly would be quite surprised if a Nino did manage to form given historically speaking no recorded Nino has ever developed the year after a moderate Nina formed.

https://twitter.com/webberweather/status/1378853491725103105

Of course our records only go so far out compared to the history of the Earth but again, it’s a “fools dream” to reasonably expect a warm ENSO for 2021.
I’d argue a 2013 THC weakening is more likely than a warm ENSO for 2021, and that is already stupidly low for any given year.

[cycloneye]

CPC weekly update is at -0.5C.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ ... ts-web.pdf

[cycloneye]

The chatter continues.

 https://twitter.com/AndyHazelton/status/1379074487371632640

[DorkyMcDorkface]

Got the new Euro seasonal out. Almost an even split between warm and cool neutral:

In graphic form for ASO: