ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[NotSparta]

There is a large cold pool of water in the dateline. Will that trim El Niño?

https://i.imgur.com/hNoGr1g.jpg

El Niño is probably peaking soon, the cold pool developing is probably the beginning of the end. We might get another downwelling Kelvin wave but this tells us the WPAC heat has been exhausted and the El Niño will end in a few months

[Category5Kaiju]

So considering that this El Nino officially attained "strong status," does that necessarily mean it'll likely be some time before we are able to get an El Nino again?

[Dean_175]

So considering that this El Nino officially attained "strong status," does that necessarily mean it'll likely be some time before we are able to get an El Nino again?

Yes, but not necessarily longer than usual. However, after this year's strong El Nino, we are likely to go into La Nina or at least cool neutral next year. ENSO has a frequency of about 3-6 years, though 2 years has been seen before. Judging by the past, we probably won't see another El Nino until 2026 or later. After the very strong 2015 El Nino, El Nino was again present 3 years later in 2018. In fact, at some point before 2017 went La Nina; that year had a brief period in the spring-early summer where Nino3.4 anomalies were at about +0.3C and the NWS consensus highlighted that a relatively early return of El Nino was at least moderately possible by winter/with La Nina and neutral also having similar decent odds. Take a look at this: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/b ... ye-la-niña At a very early point in that year, NOAA actually "gave a slight edge to El Nino developing.... with around a 50 percent chance", but it ended as a second year La Nina instead. Some weak El Nino probably could have happened that year if conditions were somewhat different. That was somewhat of a hard year to predict for ENSO. After the moderate 2009 event, it took 5 years. After the weak 2018 event, it also took 5 years unless you consider 2019 an unofficial El Nino. There isn't a strong correlation with the intensity and the duration of the ENSO cycle.

[Dean_175]

From observations since 1850, if you have a triple La Nina followed by an El Nino, then the next year will always be neutral or El Nino. Will 2024 be the first Nina?

Yes, it probably will be. Consensus has (cool) neutral slightly favored through much of summer, but with escalating odds of La Nina. That will probably escalate further when we can project further into the year until La Nina is >50percent for fall or winter. For example, almost all of the CFS ensemble members show La Nina. Triple ninas are somewhat small in number, even going back to 1850, so that is a small sample size. I don't think the triple Nina is that relevant now after the Nino.

[cycloneye]

CPC weekly update of 12/18/23 has Niño 3.4 up to +2.0C.

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

[869MB]

CPC weekly update of 12/18/23 has Niño 3.4 up to +2.0C.

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

Yeah, I still believe this El Nino will likely not peak until early January, mid mid-January at the latest. The overall large-scale atmosphere has yet to fully couple with this El Nino. One clue to this is the fact the latest SOI trends are still not reflective of a moderate to strong El Nino as of this time.

As far as when the next El Nino may roll around, after very quickly eyeballing past ENSO events in conjunction with the state of the PDO, I noticed El Nino events, even the weaker ones, were slightly more prevalent during periods of +PDO as compared to periods of -PDO. Therefore, since we're experiencing a fairly significant Negative PDO as of now, my 1st guess would be it may be a few more years before we see another moderate or strong El Nino.

[Kingarabian]

CFS showing the El Nino low level bias to continue over the dateline through the spring.

Possibility is there for a slow crawl towards La Nina vs a rapid transition.

[Dean_175]

CPC weekly update of 12/18/23 has Niño 3.4 up to +2.0C.

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

Yeah, I still believe this El Nino will likely not peak until early January, mid mid-January at the latest. The overall large-scale atmosphere has yet to fully couple with this El Nino. One clue to this is the fact the latest SOI trends are still not reflective of a moderate to strong El Nino as of this time.

As far as when the next El Nino may roll around, after very quickly eyeballing past ENSO events in conjunction with the state of the PDO, I noticed El Nino events, even the weaker ones, were slightly more prevalent during periods of +PDO as compared to periods of -PDO. Therefore, since we're experiencing a fairly significant Negative PDO as of now, my 1st guess would be it may be a few more years before we see another moderate or strong El Nino.

This event is coupled. 1972 didn't show nearly the swing in SOI as in say, 1982. It was more consistent with a weaker event. But if you look at the pattern of precipitation anomalies in the tropical Pacific, Indian Ocean, and central Africa for the last months, they are consistent with El Nino. Enhanced precipitation near the dateline and suppressed over Indonesia is consistent with El Nino. We never see nearly persistent westerly wind anomalies and bursts like we have this year since late summer in a neutral year. It is possible that even though the models are mostly against further strengthening, that we see a weekly reading higher in the next few weeks during early January. This current WWB may have a slight brief warming effect before the real cooling trend of the anomalies begins.

[Kingarabian]

Looks like a -SPMM setting up.

[cycloneye]

Looks like a -SPMM setting up.

What does it mean?

[Kingarabian]

Looks like a -SPMM setting up.

What does it mean?

Not much yet but it means cooler than normal waters in the SEPAC which typically is seen in La Nina's.

[zzzh]

long range models are showing strong IO wwb.

[Kingarabian]

long range models are showing strong IO wwb.

Yeah thats also another sign that things are breaking from El Nino, but we need to see the trade bursts become less frequent there though.

[NotSparta]

The cool pool has definitely really gotten going after the +IOD collapse



With an IO WWB and Pacific easterlies on the way we're probably about to begin the descent from strong Nino where we are now

[Ntxw]

There are only a couple of things that would give pause to a Nina, after triple La Nina or such a long duration cold ENSO, there isn't that many cases of another La Nina post Nino. The 50s/70s/80s/90s stretch after the Nino was either another Nino or warm neutral. Sample size for this is small. The second case is the least coupled the ENSO event during its lifetime tends to extend it. Meaning there is a long lag response in the atmosphere, so what prevented it from going off in the first place later on is slower to flip the other end since ENSO is self terminal. You need the ocean-atmosphere couplet to fully respond to complete the cycle and create the balance for the reverse event.

All that being said the PDO is still very deeply negative. But it's negative because the NW Pacific is exceptionally hot still. So I think cold neutral or La Nina is likely the better bet right now.

[weeniepatrol]

Trade burst underway along and west of the Antimeridian.



Chances of Niña increasing by the week IMO

[weeniepatrol]

26 Dec 2023 weeklies:

Nino 4: +1.4 C
Nino 3.4: +2.0 C
Nino 3: +2.1 C
Nino 1+2: +1.6 C

Last update of the year. Hope yall had a great 2023.

[weeniepatrol]

Some excerpts from recent CPC MJO discussion:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjoupdate.pdf

The MJO is likely to destructively interfere with both the +IOD signal over the Indian Ocean and the El Niño signal during the next few weeks. Despite this interference, ENSO will likely remain a strong driver of global tropical convective anomalies.

Negative upper-oceanic heat anomalies expanded eastward to the Date Line associated with the upwelling phase of the oceanic Kelvin wave. SSTs across the West Pacific remain above-average, however.

First upwelling Kelvin wave of 2024 is initiating.

[DorkyMcDorkface]

 https://twitter.com/cyclonicwx/status/1740148317747834915



 https://twitter.com/cyclonicwx/status/1740148321036202124



 https://twitter.com/cyclonicwx/status/1740148323972251882

[Kingarabian]

Despite where Nino 3.4 has peaked, the SOI resembled something closer to 2018.