El NINO on the way in

[wxmann_91]

This hasn't been "Quiet"

Active seasons are measured by named storms not landfalls, we're on pace with 1999.

Quiet in comparison to this active cycle.

I know that statistically this year has been "normal" and not "quiet".
However after a season with 27 storms it's all relative.

After last season's record number of storms; only 8 days in September/October with no storm to track and 15 storms in 2004....
2006 seems to be a very quiet season to most of us!!

And with a pending El Nino; we may be in for more than one of these "Quiet" seasons.

After the pounding and multiple poundings many of us have taken over the past 2 years, this is a WELCOME RELIEF!!!!

I agree with that it's a welcome relief for you guys.

Although statistically it is normal, I'm only talking about in comparison to this cycle.

The ACE is well below normal compared to the mean ACE from 1995-2005, and one could argue that the season is on a pace to be the quietest since 2002.

[Jim Hughes]

If you can't forecast El Nino... you might as well give up the seasonal forecast business. It is a shame but few experts were expecting this... and no one exactly got it right. In addition no one knew whether it was going to be an El Nino like 2004.. which had ZERO impact on the hurricane season. We have a long ways to go to understand the ocean/atmosphere coupling that happens to start an El Nino. In fact this time the MJO was very weak, as opposed to the 02 event beforehand it was very strong. There are a lot of ways to start an El Nino..

It is space weather forced Benny . Plain and simple. NOAA and CPC will be clueless until they consider this. I can not understand why the people within the meteorological-climatological community let this type of consistent innaccuracy go unchallenged.

Really if it is that simple... then it should be easy to prove. But it isn't. It is one of those things that is even below seasonal forecasting on the list of acceptable scientific topics. Where is the science? Why doesn't the NOAA Space Environment Center talk about this? Getting one forecast right does not make the method work all of the time. When does it fail? Why does it fail? Hell why does it work? How does the QBO fit into all of this? These are all open questions. Why do most scientists stay away from it? Why does it fall on the fringe? Is your forecast for more positive AO-type winters for the next 11 years because of solar activity?

Jim if it is meaningful.. then publish it. Scientists only ignore evidence for so long. After a while there are only a few doubters.. then they die. I'm just trying to be helpfully critical here. I enjoy reading it but it hard for a meteorologist to understand why a certain type of solar energy from the sun would have anything to do with El Nino. What is the connection? I do value the input.

Benny you are sadly mistaken if you think that this is the first El Nino that I have forecasted.

I have never made a EL Nio-La Nina forecast that did not occur. The only one I did not forecast since 1997 was the 02-03 (Which I sort of did anyway in an Solar e-mail discussion) . The reason was the birth of our twins 18 months before, during the fall of 2000. I was basically on a hiatus for most of the time afterwards. Two infants will do this. I only sent research related e-mail discussions out and a couple of minor forecasts about Washington DC weather.

There are solar - El Nino research out there Benny. Have you ever read Theodor Landscheidts work into this? Do a search for him and the ENSO. His research deals with the formation of the EL nno and La Nina and where it tends to form during the solar cycle.

I know space weather better than Theodor and I use specifics to forecast. As for NOAA and SEC. Come on Benny . That have to be willing to listen before they then can learn.

I talked to several "new" people in the field during the past couple of weeks in regards to them reading my PET Cycle research paper. No takers.

I also talked to two other people over the phone, who are fairly well known, and they are going to read it. One is more versed in space weather and the other may be a little young but he is somewhat of an atmospheric wizard. Both have been on an e-mail discucssion list of mine for years.

So the people that know me, and my past forecast record, are willing to read it. But the others say they do not have the time to read my work.
( I also never said they had to read it immediately or even this month. ) The latter speaks volumes about the mindset of the community. Which happens to be a great percentage.

[Jim Hughes]

If you can't forecast El Nino... you might as well give up the seasonal forecast business. It is a shame but few experts were expecting this... and no one exactly got it right. In addition no one knew whether it was going to be an El Nino like 2004.. which had ZERO impact on the hurricane season. We have a long ways to go to understand the ocean/atmosphere coupling that happens to start an El Nino. In fact this time the MJO was very weak, as opposed to the 02 event beforehand it was very strong. There are a lot of ways to start an El Nino..

It is space weather forced Benny . Plain and simple. NOAA and CPC will be clueless until they consider this. I can not understand why the people within the meteorological-climatological community let this type of consistent innaccuracy go unchallenged.

Speaking of space weather Mr. Hughes, I'm curious how your hurricane season forecast for 2006 has come out thus far?

He said early on in the season (January) that he highly doubted that we would see a CAT 5 and that this year would have alot less tropical storms and hurricanes than last year.

I might have been leaning that way becuase of what type of space weather lied ahead. (Very low compared to 2005)

But I honestly do not recall ever making this statement. Any link to this?

[Jim Hughes]

If you can't forecast El Nino... you might as well give up the seasonal forecast business. It is a shame but few experts were expecting this... and no one exactly got it right. In addition no one knew whether it was going to be an El Nino like 2004.. which had ZERO impact on the hurricane season. We have a long ways to go to understand the ocean/atmosphere coupling that happens to start an El Nino. In fact this time the MJO was very weak, as opposed to the 02 event beforehand it was very strong. There are a lot of ways to start an El Nino..

It is space weather forced Benny . Plain and simple. NOAA and CPC will be clueless until they consider this. I can not understand why the people within the meteorological-climatological community let this type of consistent innaccuracy go unchallenged.

Speaking of space weather Mr. Hughes, I'm curious how your hurricane season forecast for 2006 has come out thus far?

I never gave out official numbers but if you have been reading my El Nino comments all summer you would know that I did not buy into these higher numbers.

The lack of a forecast was not a cop out. I have been doing long term forecasting since 1994 and I take this very seriously and I go on record with news contacts and science writers when I do this. So I do not make guestimates.

I am not going to put out an ATL forecast just to have one. I need to do the proper research before hand. I was also in the middle of gathering data for a research project of mine that I considered more important. So I passed on the ATL research because of lack of time.

I really felt that this area was already covered anyway in regards to my El Nino forecast.

[AussieMark]

check out this animation of evolution of el nino events

1997/98
1994/95
1991/92
1982/83
Animation

[Portastorm]

If you can't forecast El Nino... you might as well give up the seasonal forecast business. It is a shame but few experts were expecting this... and no one exactly got it right. In addition no one knew whether it was going to be an El Nino like 2004.. which had ZERO impact on the hurricane season. We have a long ways to go to understand the ocean/atmosphere coupling that happens to start an El Nino. In fact this time the MJO was very weak, as opposed to the 02 event beforehand it was very strong. There are a lot of ways to start an El Nino..

It is space weather forced Benny . Plain and simple. NOAA and CPC will be clueless until they consider this. I can not understand why the people within the meteorological-climatological community let this type of consistent innaccuracy go unchallenged.

Speaking of space weather Mr. Hughes, I'm curious how your hurricane season forecast for 2006 has come out thus far?

I never gave out official numbers but if you have been reading my El Nino comments all summer you would know that I did not buy into these higher numbers.

The lack of a forecast was not a cop out. I have been doing long term forecasting since 1994 and I take this very seriously and I go on record with news contacts and science writers when I do this. So I do not make guestimates.

I am not going to put out an ATL forecast just to have one. I need to do the proper research before hand. I was also in the middle of gathering data for a research project of mine that I considered more important. So I passed on the ATL research because of lack of time.

I really felt that this area was already covered anyway in regards to my El Nino forecast.

Fair enough .... and please understand I'm not out to bash you. I have an open mind about all of this and just wanted to see how your thoughts on the ATL tropical season have shaken out thus far.

And to your credit, I did backtrack and look at some previous posts from you. In the spring you already mentioned a developing El Nino for the latter half of the tropical season and your thoughts that the experts would probably drop their numbers of predicted storms.

I mistakenly confused your thoughts on space weather with Theo ... who actually laid down a number of predictions. Forgive me.

[SouthAlabamaWX]

NOAA will issue there El Nino report this week (Wednesday). They expect a weak to even a moderate El Nino this year and could last until Summer of 2007.

[AussieMark]

BOM updates their outlook tomorrow

[Jim Hughes]

Fair enough .... and please understand I'm not out to bash you. I have an open mind about all of this and just wanted to see how your thoughts on the ATL tropical season have shaken out thus far.

And to your credit, I did backtrack and look at some previous posts from you. In the spring you already mentioned a developing El Nino for the latter half of the tropical season and your thoughts that the experts would probably drop their numbers of predicted storms.

I mistakenly confused your thoughts on space weather with Theo ... who actually laid down a number of predictions. Forgive me.

Don't worry about it. I never thought you were bashing me. But you can bash way if the El Nino forecast fails. The weekly SST numbers show the warming continuing.

Region 1+2 and 4 are both at +1.0 now. The other two, Regions 3 and 3.4 are each at +.7 .

You have to go back to January 03 to see this kind of warmth all the way across the board.

[Jim Hughes]

check out this animation of evolution of el nino events

1997/98
1994/95
1991/92
1982/83
Animation

Nice animations. Thanks for sharing this.

[AussieMark]

Jim what site u use to get the anomalities from for each nino region?

[HurricaneBill]

The 2006-2007 cyclone season will be starting soon in the Southern Hemisphere.

During an El Nino, I think Australia is usually "safe" from intense cyclones. As the 2005/2006 season showed, it's during La Ninas when the intense storms strike.

The SPAC usually has intense storms during El Ninos.

I don't know how the SIO is affected by El Nino in regards to storms striking Madagascar and such.

[AussieMark]

Generally if Nino region 4 is warm we get way less activity

and in La Nina years we get a lot

check out 1998/99 - 2001/02

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

The Return of El Nino this Winter, is a good bet if you ask me. The over all Pattern seem to show it is coming.

[Jim Hughes]

Jim what site u use to get the anomalities from for each nino region?

The weekly data I was quoting was from here. BTW I had to correct/edit my earlier comments. Region 3.4 is +.7 and Region 4 is +1.0. It makes a difference since Region 3.4 is the guideline.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst.for

[AussieMark]

El Nino-Southern Oscillation Update
The 30-day SOI rose this week, and at 9 September was -6. Contributing pressure anomalies were +1.3hPa at Darwin and +0.3 at Tahiti. Positive values of the SOI during the past southern hemisphere summer peaked at +20 in mid-April. Following then, the SOI has dropped and been mostly one standard deviation or more below the long-term mean since June. The official monthly SOI for August was -15, and its 5-month running mean centred on June was -5.

Since May, sea-level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than average. Over the last month or so warm sea-surface temperature [SST] and upper-ocean heat content anomalies have increased in the near-equatorial central Pacific, while the SST cool tongue in the near-equatorial far-eastern Pacific has weakened, with warm anomalies now evident there. In the atmosphere, there has been an increase in convective activity in the central Pacific, with a typhoon developing in that region during August, and westerly wind anomalies have been evident across much of the near-equatorial Pacific.

The recently observed conditions described above are consistent with the developing stage of a weak El Nino event, though have occurred somewhat later in the year than is typical. Interestingly, most ENSO forecast models are not predicting the development of a strong El Nino event, and instead indicate the SST pattern in the Pacific will remain near or even below thresholds typically associated with El Nino events. Given current circumstances though, there is a risk that the trend toward a weak El Nino-like state may continue in the short-term at least, and this will be monitored closely. See the Bureau's "ENSO Wrap-Up" at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ which includes links to a compilation of ENSO model predictions.

Source

[AussieMark]

The 30-day SOI remained steady this week, and at 16 September was -6. Contributing pressure anomalies were +1.8hPa at Darwin and +0.9 at Tahiti. The SOI has mostly been near one standard deviation or more below the long-term mean since June. The official monthly SOI for August was -15, and its 5-month running mean centred on June was -5.

Since May, sea-level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than average. Over the last month or so warm sea-surface temperature [SST] and upper-ocean heat content anomalies have increased in the near-equatorial central Pacific, while the SST cool tongue in the near-equatorial far-eastern Pacific has weakened, with warm anomalies now evident there. At the same time in the atmosphere, there has been an increase in convective activity in the central Pacific, with a typhoon developing in that region during August, and westerly wind anomalies have been evident across much of the near-equatorial Pacific.

The recently observed conditions described above are consistent with the developing stage of a potential El Nino event, though most have occurred somewhat later in the year than is typical. Interestingly, most ENSO forecast models indicate the SST pattern in the Pacific will remain near or even below thresholds typically associated with El Nino. Given current circumstances though, there is a risk that the trend toward an El Nino-like state may continue in the short-term at least, and this will be monitored closely.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/tropnote/tropnote.shtml

[Jim Hughes]

The 30-day SOI remained steady this week, and at 16 September was -6. Contributing pressure anomalies were +1.8hPa at Darwin and +0.9 at Tahiti. The SOI has mostly been near one standard deviation or more below the long-term mean since June. The official monthly SOI for August was -15, and its 5-month running mean centred on June was -5.

Since May, sea-level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than average. Over the last month or so warm sea-surface temperature [SST] and upper-ocean heat content anomalies have increased in the near-equatorial central Pacific, while the SST cool tongue in the near-equatorial far-eastern Pacific has weakened, with warm anomalies now evident there. At the same time in the atmosphere, there has been an increase in convective activity in the central Pacific, with a typhoon developing in that region during August, and westerly wind anomalies have been evident across much of the near-equatorial Pacific.

The recently observed conditions described above are consistent with the developing stage of a potential El Nino event, though most have occurred somewhat later in the year than is typical. Interestingly, most ENSO forecast models indicate the SST pattern in the Pacific will remain near or even below thresholds typically associated with El Nino. Given current circumstances though, there is a risk that the trend toward an El Nino-like state may continue in the short-term at least, and this will be monitored closely.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/tropnote/tropnote.shtml

I have to seriously womder what they, or what the models think, is going to happening to all of those warmer anomalies below? There is a pretty large patch of + 2-3 degrees.

It takes a while for that to be removed or changed. So even a drastic subsurface change would not show up top for a while. So we are definitely into November with above average SST's. That would be three positive months (Aug, Sept, Oct) and counting.

And this is if the hypothetical scenario went their way.

[cinlfla]

The 30-day SOI remained steady this week, and at 16 September was -6. Contributing pressure anomalies were +1.8hPa at Darwin and +0.9 at Tahiti. The SOI has mostly been near one standard deviation or more below the long-term mean since June. The official monthly SOI for August was -15, and its 5-month running mean centred on June was -5.

Since May, sea-level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than average. Over the last month or so warm sea-surface temperature [SST] and upper-ocean heat content anomalies have increased in the near-equatorial central Pacific, while the SST cool tongue in the near-equatorial far-eastern Pacific has weakened, with warm anomalies now evident there. At the same time in the atmosphere, there has been an increase in convective activity in the central Pacific, with a typhoon developing in that region during August, and westerly wind anomalies have been evident across much of the near-equatorial Pacific.

The recently observed conditions described above are consistent with the developing stage of a potential El Nino event, though most have occurred somewhat later in the year than is typical. Interestingly, most ENSO forecast models indicate the SST pattern in the Pacific will remain near or even below thresholds typically associated with El Nino. Given current circumstances though, there is a risk that the trend toward an El Nino-like state may continue in the short-term at least, and this will be monitored closely.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/tropnote/tropnote.shtml

I have to seriously womder what they, or what the models think, is going to happening to all of those warmer anomalies below? There is a pretty large patch of + 2-3 degrees.

It takes a while for that to be removed or changed. So even a drastic subsurface change would not show up top for a while. So we are definitely into November with above average SST's. That would be three positive months (Aug, Sept, Oct) and counting.

And this is if the hypothetical scenario went their way.

Jim I remember a few years back you were talking about the correlation between space and weather, I was wondering if its possible to read any of the articles or papers that you have wrote on this subject and are they available on the internet?

[Jim Hughes]

The 30-day SOI remained steady this week, and at 16 September was -6. Contributing pressure anomalies were +1.8hPa at Darwin and +0.9 at Tahiti. The SOI has mostly been near one standard deviation or more below the long-term mean since June. The official monthly SOI for August was -15, and its 5-month running mean centred on June was -5.

Since May, sea-level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than average. Over the last month or so warm sea-surface temperature [SST] and upper-ocean heat content anomalies have increased in the near-equatorial central Pacific, while the SST cool tongue in the near-equatorial far-eastern Pacific has weakened, with warm anomalies now evident there. At the same time in the atmosphere, there has been an increase in convective activity in the central Pacific, with a typhoon developing in that region during August, and westerly wind anomalies have been evident across much of the near-equatorial Pacific.

The recently observed conditions described above are consistent with the developing stage of a potential El Nino event, though most have occurred somewhat later in the year than is typical. Interestingly, most ENSO forecast models indicate the SST pattern in the Pacific will remain near or even below thresholds typically associated with El Nino. Given current circumstances though, there is a risk that the trend toward an El Nino-like state may continue in the short-term at least, and this will be monitored closely.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/tropnote/tropnote.shtml

I have to seriously womder what they, or what the models think, is going to happening to all of those warmer anomalies below? There is a pretty large patch of + 2-3 degrees.

It takes a while for that to be removed or changed. So even a drastic subsurface change would not show up top for a while. So we are definitely into November with above average SST's. That would be three positive months (Aug, Sept, Oct) and counting.

And this is if the hypothetical scenario went their way.

Jim I remember a few years back you were talking about the correlation between space and weather, I was wondering if its possible to read any of the articles or papers that you have wrote on this subject and are they available on the internet?

Some discussions are around here while some others are at some other places. I also have sent out some lengthy e-mail research discussions in the past.

I will PM you.