ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[cycloneye]

Mid-November update of ENSO Models

Almost all the models are in Neutral phase thru early Summer 2013. Is interesting to note that the only model that goes away from the consensus is one of the most followed and important one. (CFSv2)

[NDG]

Today's ECMWF's Seasonal Range Forecast update is still persintent of steady warm neutral conditions at Nino 3.4 through January but more of its ensembles' members are starting to trend of it going possibly to a cool netral phase by early Spring.

[jinftl]

From Dr. Jeff Masters blog today:


El Niño watch discontinued

Neutral El Niño conditions exist in the equatorial Pacific, where sea surface temperatures were 0.4°C above average as of November 12. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has cancelled their El Niño watch, and expects neutral El Niño conditions for the coming winter. Temperatures in the equatorial Eastern Pacific need to be 0.5°C above average or warmer to be considered an El Niño. El Niño conditions tend to bring cooler and wetter winter weather to the Southern U.S.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2295

[Ntxw]

If today's TAO/Triton and SST anomaly charts are correct, the area bound by 120W and 170W is averaging between 1c and 1.3c for the past 5 days. Of course this is the daily average combined of the entire region, it could be higher when looking at individual areas. If the rise is correct, it would be the greatest rise (weekly) for any enso event that I can recount. Though to make it clear I do not expect the update to show such a drastic rise, perhaps in the range of 0.3 to 0.5c (anything higher than 0.5 rise is a likely a record).

[CrazyC83]

I have this sinking feeling now that 2013 could be similar to 2005 in this pattern...

[Ptarmigan]

I have this sinking feeling now that 2013 could be similar to 2005 in this pattern...

Hope you are wrong as that would be a very bad thing. 2005 had many storms that made landfall and were devastating. Since 2010 we had 19 storms back to back (some of the storms would not be named had there been no satellites).

[LarryWx]

Folks,
El Nino is NOT even close to being dead now!

Ntxw is on the right track imho. I recently found that NOAA uses the maps from the SST anom. loop that I've been looking at as opposed to TAO. I just found out that the loop is based on OISST data. TAO and this loop, which is based on OISST data, have not been in synch recently. Link to loop of OISST anom.'s:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/s ... .week.html

Eyeballing the latest map's anomalies for 3.4 (for 11/16) from that loop, I see some cooling back vs. yesterday's +1.50, which is the estimate per StormVista (SV), an internet wx site. However, I'm roughly estimating that it is still up at ~+1.30-5. Based on the SV #'s, my estimates for today and Sunday 11/11, and my guess that tomorrow will be a little cooler than today (say ~+1.15), I'm estimating that StormVista's weekly average for 11/11-17 will be ~+1.10 to 1.15.

Assuming that the released NOAA 3.4 weekly will be a little below that (based on precedent), I'm thinking that Monday's 3.4 release may be as warm as +1.0! IF that were to occur, it would mean a warming of 0.6 in just one week from +0.4, which would be a larger weekly warming than that for any that occurred during the seven oncoming Ninos between 1991 and 2009 and it would tie for the strongest weekly warming of ANY week since records began in 1990! The current largest warming for any oncoming Nino week is 0.5.

At the very least, I'd think it would rise to 0.8 and likely at least 0.9. Even just a +0.8 would be a big game changer for Nino chances compared to how it looked only one week ago. That would mean that only an average of +0.7 would be needed for the subsequent two Monday reports to get the weekies to average +0.5 for SON and keep the +0.5+ streak going at four trimonths in a row with Dec. still to go to see what the fifth trimonth does. If Monday's weekly turns out to be a +1.0, it would be the warmest week of the year to date, the warmest week since 3/24/2010, warmer than ANY week of the 2004-5 weak Nino, only 0.1 cooler than the same weeks both in 1994 (oncoming moderate Nino) and 1991(oncoming strong Nino), and only 0.2 cooler than the same week in 2006 (oncoming borderline moderate/weak Nino).

So, if Monday's release were to be +1.0, I'd probably raise the odds for a Nino to at least 60%. As it stands now, I'm already raising the chance for El Nino from 40% to 50%. I had it at only 15% one week ago after it had been as high as 40% as of ~11/1! This week has represented such a huge move toward a Nino being that just one week ago it was bordering on being declared dead. As a matter of fact, about one week ago I had posted at another BB that I could come close to declaring it dead during next week absent any warming during the current week ending today. My have things changed in a hurry! November is such a crucial month.

[Ntxw]

It does look like we've held on long enough to the warm anomalies all week to likely see a significant warming as of the update tomorrow at 3.4.

As with the sub-surface, a new region of growing warm anomalies is once again building in the west of 3c+. What this likely means that somewhere down the road we'll see perhaps another warming period after this one. But it will take awhile for that to propagate. I don't think the warming we had last week will be sustained in the near future, but that doesn't mean we can't hold on to the already warm anomalies for a week or two at least.

The global wind pattern is shifting (finally) away from favoring easterlies, as long as it remains in high amplitude region, we'll continue to see periods of warming.

[Kingarabian]

So subsurface waters are finally reaching the surface and staying?

[NDG]

Looks like they are only going to raise Nino 3.4 Region to .5 or to .6 at the most on today's update.

[Ntxw]

^ If that is the case, there is something very wrong. There is no charts or satellite maps that depict anything less than 0.7, heck even less than 0.9 seems weird. We should look back at the other weeks that showed warming yet didn't happen with the CPC, very fishy.

[cycloneye]

^ If that is the case, there is something very wrong. There is no charts or satellite maps that depict anything less than 0.7, heck even less than 0.9 seems weird. We should look back at the other weeks that showed warming yet didn't happen with the CPC, very fishy.

Let's see what they say in the text. Comming shortly.

[LarryWx]

Folks,
This morning was very strange with regard to the weekly NOAA Nino update. They had asterisks for a good while until just a little while ago in place of actual new numbers. Normally, the new number would have been released a couple of hours ago. Also, the full weekly ENSO writeup has yet to be released as of 9:40 AM. So, I'm educatedly guessing that they saw the OISST data and wouldn't believe what they saw. After some investigation, they must have done one of three things:

A. decided not to believe it and use an alternate source like TAO or whatever; B. adjusted/corrected OISST and used that; or C. arbitrarily assumed slight warming without having anything to back them up.

Anyway, the numbers were finally released near 9 AM and it has 3.4 at +0.5, which is only 0.1 warmer than the prior week's +0.4. There is absolutely no way that this +0.5 is based on the OISST maps we've been seeing. However, it is totally believable based on TAO as I've been mentioning. This is all very strange!

[Ntxw]

Folks,
This morning was very strange with regard to the weekly NOAA Nino update. They had asterisks for a good while until just a little while ago in place of actual new numbers. Normally, the new number would have been released a couple of hours ago.

Larry, I saw the number too. Any reason they center it around on the 14th? Is that a base point or is it only seen up until that day?

[LarryWx]

**Bulletin from NOAA**

I just got off of the phone with Michelle at NOAA. She's trying to get the weekly ENSO update out by 10 AM. I asked her why there were asterisks initially instead of numbers. She said that there was "a bug in the data". The data has been rerun. So, they clearly think that OISST was erroneous.

Edit:
ntxw,
Each week's date is a Wednesday because the numbers are based on calendar week averages and Wed is the middle of the week. 11/14 was this past Wed.

[Ntxw]

**Bulletin from NOAA**

I just got off of the phone with Michelle at NOAA. She's trying to get the weekly ENSO update out by 10 AM. I asked her why there were asterisks initially instead of numbers. She said that there was "a bug in the data". The data has been rerun. So, they clearly think that OISST was erroneous.

Since you've mentioned they comprise updates based on OISST data, does that mean previous weeks may possibly have been tampered with/possibly effected?

[cycloneye]

Text of 11/19/12 Climate Prediction Center update

Nino 3.4 went up to +0.5C and that is up from +0.4C that was at last week's update.

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

[LarryWx]

**Bulletin from NOAA**

I just got off of the phone with Michelle at NOAA. She's trying to get the weekly ENSO update out by 10 AM. I asked her why there were asterisks initially instead of numbers. She said that there was "a bug in the data". The data has been rerun. So, they clearly think that OISST was erroneous.

Since you've mentioned they comprise updates based on OISST data, does that mean previous weeks may possibly have been tampered with/possibly effected?

Ntxw,
1) Each week's date is a Wednesday because the numbers are based on calendar week averages and Wed is the middle of the week.

2) Excellent Q. There's no telling. I'm going to call Michelle later and see if she's going to give me more details. However, I've never seen anything like this past week and I've been following this for almost ten years.

[Ntxw]

2) Excellent Q. There's no telling. I'm going to call Michelle later and see if she's going to give me more details. However, I've never seen anything like this past week and I've been following this for almost ten years.

This has bigger implications than just the tropical Pacific, if there is faulty data, many data comes from OISST's too and calculations such as the PDO (especially the warm pool in NW Pac) goes in question as well as other basins, Indian Ocean monsoon data etc.

I decided to go back and instead of looking at anomalies, looked directly towards sea surface temperatures for the past Nino/Nina/Neutral events. It is clear based on what I see that the western basin is not what it was. It seems the 2010 change in base period (1981-2010 instead of 71-00, it is now warmer) has effected it. The sea surface temperatures are not that different than other warm events almost identical to some, but yet register cooler anomalies than they. This makes sense since a warmer base requires even more warming to account for the anomalies. I'll see what else I can come of it, thanks for the replies.

http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/las/getUI.do

[euro6208]

i am excited at the same time worried for our next eastern based el nino like 1997...10 cat 5 in one year like 1997? i doubt it but activity should be very very active...although central based can be very active too...el nino just fuels the fire in what we know as the west pacific!