ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[cycloneye]

Now the question is if this El Nino will be a Modoki or traditional one but if it stays weak wont make a big difference.

[Ntxw]

Westerly wind burst coming is going to push a lot of warm water in the central Pacific. It is not weakened easterlies, it is real westerly winds blowing strong eastward.

[Yellow Evan]

Now the question is if this El Nino will be a Modoki or traditional one but if it stays weak wont make a big difference.

Right now we have a Modoki it seems, as all of the warm waters is near the dateline.

[cycloneye]

Now the question is if this El Nino will be a Modoki or traditional one but if it stays weak wont make a big difference.

Right now we have a Modoki it seems, as all of the warm waters is near the dateline.

Unless the next big WWB warm Nino 1+2 and Nino 3.

[Kingarabian]

Phew. 6 years.

[Ntxw]

A year ago we had a big WWB but SST's were very cold in Nina like territory. This year we have another strong WWB around the same time with El Nino SST's already in place. Will it finally be enough for a bigger event? PDO for February is going to come in solidly positive again. Making it 14 straight months.




Michael Ventrice‏@MJVentrice

Huge westerly wind burst signature over the Date Line in the latest ECMWF weeklies. Another Advancement towards El Nino likely

[Yellow Evan]

Any chance of a super El Nino?

[Dean_175]

Any chance of a super El Nino?

Well - its always a possibility- but I would think that is very unlikely. There is no reason to think that there would be such a strong event.

Last year ,some people absolutely believed 2014 was going to be on par with 1997/1982. At the time, we had a very strong forced kelvin wave develop after a large WWB - causing subsurface temperatures to resemble those of spring 1997. Ocean temperatures did warm to el nino thresholds by summer, but then returned to neutral as the atmosphere completely failed to respond (warmer west Pacific?). It is hard to predict these sort of things.

As defined by ONI, an el nino event began in September (assuming March ONI remains at 0.5 C or higher). This would make for a multi-year el nino if el nino conditions remain through the fall. This in and of itself, would be a rare event that has not happened since 1987. Since we already had an el nino year (2014-2015) , I doubt 2015-2016 would see a super el nino.

We may see something moderate , or at most strong moderate, like 2009-2010.

The above post and any post by Dean_175 is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution including storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to NWS products.

[cycloneye]

Interesting tweet by Dr Ventrice about the SOI.

Michael Ventrice ‏@MJVentrice 3h3 hours ago
Yesterday's 12Z GFS op dropped the SOI to -7.3 sigma yesterday late in 11-15d fcst!

[weatherdude1108]

This declaration counts for 2014-2015 which will have begun in September of 2014 per ONI officially. I don't think this is surprising that they declared it and I even get in a sense from their wording they didn't want to declare but have to given the ONI will be so. But it does appear a multi-year (unbroken) El Nino may happen if we continue this in 2015-2016. The last one was in 1986-1987 and 1987-1988

Not that this is necessarily related to a multi-year El Nino, but 1987 was a VERY WET year in San Antonio when I lived there. Lots of flooding and high water tables.

[cycloneye]

Good discussion by Dr Bob Henson at WU.

More than a year after the prospect of a 2014–15 El Niño event first surfaced, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) issued a long-awaited El Niño Advisory on Thursday. We’re still a long way from a textbook example of El Niño: ocean warming is barely above the standard threshold, and the atmospheric response is not yet fully formed and consistent. One thing we do know is that sea-surface temperatures in the crucial Niño3.4 region of the eastern tropical Pacific have now met the El Niño threshold (0.5°C above average) across four overlapping three-month periods (Sept- Nov, Oct-Dec, Nov-Jan, and unofficially Dec-Feb). A total of five such periods are required before the title “El Niño episode” is bestowed by NOAA, so we could be there by April.



Along with the increased certainty of warm SSTs, the atmospheric response is gradually becoming more coherent, according to CPC forecaster Emily Becker. “For the last few months, we’ve been seeing some suggestions of borderline atmospheric El Niño conditions, but until this month we were below that borderline. This month, we’ve finally crept above it,” said Becker in a blog post at climate.gov. She points to a weakening of equatorial trade winds, as expressed in the Equatorial Southern Oscillation Index, as well as an increase in rainfall across the central tropical Pacific. NOAA’s advisory pegs the odds of El Niño conditions extending into northern summer at 50-60%. Weak El Niño events are much less likely to produce reliable effects on U.S. weather than stronger events, although there could be a El Niño–boosted enhancement of rainfall across the Gulf states this spring. With California’s rainy season winding down, there’s little hope of any major benefit from El Niño.

Seven of the eight global computer models surveyed this week by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology indicate that Niño3.4 temperatures will be above the NOAA threshold (0.5°C) in July. Predictions are most challenging during northern spring, when El Niño episodes are usually on the wane. If this event does mature and extends into next autumn, then 2015 could become one of the rare calendar years that sees continous El Niño conditions from January to December (as measured by the oceanic index described above). Going back to the start of NOAA records in 1950, the only other such years are 1953, 1969, and 1987. A prolonged El Niño event isn’t necessarily a strong one, but several models do push the Niño3.4 index above 1.0°C by this summer. An event under way in July typically strengthens by the end of the year, as climatology becomes more favorable.

[Yellow Evan]

Interesting tweet by Dr Ventrice about the SOI.

Michael Ventrice ‏@MJVentrice 3h3 hours ago
Yesterday's 12Z GFS op dropped the SOI to -7.3 sigma yesterday late in 11-15d fcst!

Remember, it also shows a sub-900 mbar TC in that part of the world.

[Dean_175]

Good discussion by Dr Bob Henson at WU.



Seven of the eight global computer models surveyed this week by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology indicate that Niño3.4 temperatures will be above the NOAA threshold (0.5°C) in July. Predictions are most challenging during northern spring, when El Niño episodes are usually on the wane. If this event does mature and extends into next autumn, then 2015 could become one of the rare calendar years that sees continous El Niño conditions from January to December (as measured by the oceanic index described above). Going back to the start of NOAA records in 1950, the only other such years are 1953, 1969, and 1987. A prolonged El Niño event isn’t necessarily a strong one, but several models do push the Niño3.4 index above 1.0°C by this summer. An event under way in July typically strengthens by the end of the year, as climatology becomes more favorable.

If this becomes a multi- year el nino event, I would think it would be due to the el nino "not full starting " till just now in 2015. There wasn't an atmospheric response along the equator that normally pushes the el nino to maturity and also creates some negative feedbacks (equatorial ocean rossby wave generation and discharge through sverdrup transport-both produced by the effect of westerly wind stress anomalies). Also because of the lack of atmospheric response, the el nino wouldn't have been affected by the shift of the westerly wind anomalies to south of the equator in winter- because there weren't any westerly wind anomalies to begin with.

What I don't understand are the other multi-year el nino events. 1986 was clearly "fully developed",moderate in strength, and had good atmospheric response. Why didn't 1986 start to decay in the late winter/spring and revert to neutral or la nina? What was so different about this event?




The above post and any post by Dean_175 is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution including storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to NWS products.

[Ntxw]

Big, big MJO signal moving into the Pacific. This is the time of year where these events can trigger ENSO and often effects the fate later on, we'll see where it goes. We can pretty much say any chance of La Nina this year is all but done for.

[cycloneye]

Big, big MJO signal moving into the Pacific. This is the time of year where these events can trigger ENSO and often effects the fate later on, we'll see where it goes. We can pretty much say any chance of La Nina this year is all but done for.

Is really one of the biggest signals I have seen in years.

[gatorcane]

Certainly doesn't look like a traditional El Nino here looking at this map of SSTs for Mar 5. Plenty of cooler waters in the Eastern Pacific. I am not sure there will be much of an impact on the Atlantic Hurricane season unless waters across the Eastern Pacific warm considerably.

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomp.3.5.2015.gif

[Yellow Evan]

Certainly doesn't look like a traditional El Nino here looking at this map of SSTs for Mar 5. Plenty of cooler waters in the Eastern Pacific. I am not sure there will be much of an impact on the Atlantic Hurricane season unless waters across the Eastern Pacific warm considerably.

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomp.3.5.2015.gif

Wait for the WWB to penetrate east and by June, I think it'd it could change. EPAC waters can change very quickly. Even aside from El Nino, ATL conditions are downright terrible.

[Yellow Evan]

Big, big MJO signal moving into the Pacific. This is the time of year where these events can trigger ENSO and often effects the fate later on, we'll see where it goes. We can pretty much say any chance of La Nina this year is all but done for.

I'm in the camp that if it continues, we could make a run at strong El Nino status.

[dexterlabio]

I gave up on El Nino way too early.



Just my two cents.....last year we were all watching a huge warm subsurface pool to emerge but the SST's in all Nino regions were way below Nino threshold. This year, weak El Nino condition is present, there is a potent warm pool at the subsurface, AND there is an exceptionally strong MJO signal expected to cross the Pacific. It's hard to bet on a strong EL Nino episode this year (see 2014 super el nino bust) but IMO it's a safe bet that we'll go at least weak El Nino-warm neutral all throughout the year...

[cycloneye]

Warm pool is expanding and getting stronger.Hmmmm. Saved image and loop.