ENSO Updates (2007 thru 2023)

[cycloneye]

Climate Prediction Center 12/10/12 Weekly update

Wow,a rather big dive now to cool neutral status at -0.1C from the +0.2C that was in last week's update.

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

[TropicalAnalystwx13]

It appears a La Niña is at least trying to form.

[euro6208]

It appears a La Niña is at least trying to form.

if it holds true, the philippines is in BIG trouble as storm formations shifts to the west...almost 1,000 dead so far...next year doesn't look good...

[dexterlabio]

if it holds true, the philippines is in BIG trouble as storm formations shifts to the west...almost 1,000 dead so far...next year doesn't look good...

If there is one lesson i learned from this year, SE Asia or generally the Western Pacific, generates a handful of interesting (and destructive) systems whether it's El Nino, La Nina or neutral. I can now stop thinking that TC activity depends on ENSO, at least in this part of the world.

Another interesting fact to note is that WPAC obtained an average ACE this year after a long time with 303.98 (302 being the yearly average). It even surpassed the ACE back in 2009 when we last had our moderate El Nino.

[cycloneye]

Here is the latest update of MJO by the Aussies. Let's see how strong this pulse will be.

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

Weekly Tropical Climate Note

Issued on Tuesday 11 December 2012

MJO likely to awaken later this month

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) has moved across the Indian Ocean into the Maritime Continent over the past week. However, this MJO pulse has been weak, with little contribution to tropical variability. During this time, pockets of enhanced convection over the Indian Ocean and the Philippine Sea have been observed due to tropical cyclone Claudia and typhoon Bopha (Pablo), respectively.

Recently, a set of weak low pressure systems have developed over the Indonesian region, but convection and cloudiness over the Maritime Continent remains well below average, with easterly anomalies continuing to persist across the region.

Over northern Australia, convection is expected to remain below average over the next fortnight with the heaviest falls likely over parts of northern WA. Later this week, and heading into early next week, a trough extending from the southeast of the country should bring widespread rainfall across the north.

The dynamical forecasts of the MJO are starting to indicate a strengthening of the MJO pulse by the end of the month over the Indian Ocean, but the short-term forecast is for the MJO to remain weak with little to no contribution towards tropical weather. The MJO is as an eastward moving "pulse" of cloud and rainfall near the equator that typically recurs every 30 to 60 days. It is the largest contributor to the variability of the North Australian Monsoon (NAM) through its modulating effects on the “active” and “break” periods of the NAM.

[euro6208]

if it holds true, the philippines is in BIG trouble as storm formations shifts to the west...almost 1,000 dead so far...next year doesn't look good...

If there is one lesson i learned from this year, SE Asia or generally the Western Pacific, generates a handful of interesting (and destructive) systems whether it's El Nino, La Nina or neutral. I can now stop thinking that TC activity depends on ENSO, at least in this part of the world.

Another interesting fact to note is that WPAC obtained an average ACE this year after a long time with 303.98 (302 being the yearly average). It even surpassed the ACE back in 2009 when we last had our moderate El Nino.

i agree...the wpac is an entirely different kind of beast no matter what ENSO we are in...destruction and active seasons are expected...

[Ntxw]

Wpac always delivers . Even though we didn't get an official El Nino the past season, the waters over the WPAC were the warmest of all the regions. So there may have been El Nino-like conditions there especially with the cold waters over the maritimes that brought lower heights over the region.

[Cyclenall]

Climate Prediction Center 12/10/12 Weekly update

Wow,a rather big dive now to cool neutral status at -0.1C from the +0.2C that was in last week's update.

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

There we go, finally in negative territory for Nino 3.4!!! All except one that basically stayed the same and Nino 1+2 which is hopefully just having a gas pass, went down pretty decently. These were my desired values for this week. The only thing that could have been better was Nino 1+2 going to -2.0ºC and the SOI doing the exact opposite of the last 6 days . Regardless, the chances of an El Nino soon is continuing to drop quickly.

It appears a La Niña is at least trying to form.

Keep the hope alive with me!

[Ntxw]

Monthly SOI is back to negative now, after being near La Nina two weeks ago...this has got to be the craziest ENSO year ever, the ups and downs have been ridiculous. TAO maps says no Nina yet as the cooling has backed off due to the westerlies at least for the time being.



If one wants to see a Nina the thermocline needs to set up where hot water is below 140E and cold near the surface to the east above it. Lets see if we can get it to flip 180 from what it looks now.

Example of La Nina thermocline

[dexterlabio]

i can welcome La Nina with open arms next year. but the SOI values have gone crazy again. if the really negative daily SOI is just a noise, then it must be a really, really loud noise. maybe more warm neutral for next year?

[Ntxw]

Latest PDO number is in and it sits at -0.59. That is admittedly much warmer than I thought it would be given the state of ENSO. It's actually become almost obsolete. Warm waters hugging the west coast of NA and cool waters taking over east of Japan is the cause. For a decent La Nina next year we need the PDO to cool much more than it is now.

[Ntxw]

Is this not crazy or what!? All in 2-3 weeks time...



From +5 to -5

[cycloneye]

Climate Prediction Center 12/17/12 update

No big changes occured in Nino 3.4 area as it remains at -0.1C

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

[dexterlabio]

monthly SOI nears -8.0 mark again. uhhh whatever this ENSO has become so crazy to watch.

[Ntxw]

monthly SOI nears -8.0 mark again. uhhh whatever this ENSO has become so crazy to watch.

I have a headache trying to figure out what it will show! It may be that the south Pacific cyclone is muddling the signal, it's still crazy nonetheless.

[cycloneye]

Ntxw,here is the answer about why the soi has crashed recently.

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

SOI shows short-term fluctuation

The tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures remain within the neutral levels. Some cooling of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) has occurred over the past month in the central to eastern Pacific. The latest NINO3.4 SST anomaly is +0.1 °C which is within the neutral range. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) has also shown some fluctuation recently but is still within neutral levels. The latest 30 day SOI to 16 December is -7.5. This sudden drop in the SOI is primarily due to a low pressure trough which formed near Tahiti in the second week of December. Large deviations of the SOI on a weekly scale are common this time of year due to passing weather systems.

[Ntxw]

Thanks cycloneye, I'm not too surprised about some negative levels as they said weekly influences. But the ups and downs this year by it especially since early month have been crazy and to go from +5 to -8 in the span of a few weeks is extraordinary.

[cycloneye]

If the ENSO models in the Mid December update are right, the peak of the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season would be in Neutral but is very early to know for sure.Read the discussion below the graphics.





http://portal.iri.columbia.edu/portal/s ... 2&userID=2

Technical ENSO Update

20 December 2012

Recent and Current Conditions

After a brief period of borderline El Niño SST conditions between July and September 2012, the SST anomaly in October in the NINO3.4 region weakened to become only in the warm half of the ENSO-neutral range, and by the end of November it returned completely to zero anomaly. For November the SST anomaly in the NINO3.4 region was 0.36 C, indicative of warm-neutral ENSO conditions. For September-November the anomaly was 0.39 C. Since late 2011, the IRI's definition of El Niño conditions has become the same as that of NOAA/Climate Prediction Center, in which the SST anomaly in the NINO3.4 region (5S-5N; 170W-120W) exceeds 0.5 C. Similarly, for La Niña, the anomaly must be -0.5 C or less. The climatological probabilities for La Niña, neutral, and El Niño conditions vary seasonally, and are shown in a table at the bottom of this page for each 3-month season. The most recent weekly SST anomaly in the NINO3.4 region was -0.1 C, indicating neutral ENSO conditions in the tropical Pacific; this is cooler than the 0.36 C level observed in November.

Expected Conditions

What is the outlook for the ENSO status going forward? The most recent official diagnosis and outlook was issued earlier this month in the NOAA/Climate Prediction Center ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, produced jointly by CPC and IRI; it stated the high likelihood of neutral ENSO condtions enduring through the first quarter of 2013, with probabilities of El Niño or La Niña each less than 30% through May-July 2013. The latest set of model ENSO predictions, from mid-December, is now available in the IRI/CPC ENSO prediction plume, discussed below. The current east-central tropical Pacific SSTs are in the warm half of the ENSO-neutral range (anomaly of 0 to 0.5 C) in most of the central and east-central Pacific, but slightly below average in the eastern portion of the basin. The NINO4 region, farther to the west, which was well above average during late northern summer and early autumn, has now returned to near average. Subsurface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific have decreased to near average in the upper part of the ocean from near the date line eastward. The thermocline depth along the equator is slightly above average in some portions of the tropical Pacific, but slightly below average at other longitudes. In the atmosphere, the basin-wide sea level pressure pattern (e.g. the SOI), low level zonal winds and anomalous convection have generally been near average, and this was even the case during the past late northern summer while the SSTs were at borderline El Niño levels, causing many to consider the total ENSO situation not consistent with the weak El Niño SST state. Lately the pattern of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) has not exhibited enhanced convection near or east of the dateline, indicative of a neutral ENSO state.

As of mid-December, only 10-15% of the set of dynamical and statistical models models predicts El Niño SST conditions for the Dec-Feb 2012-13 season, and all but one of these predict neutral conditions by Jan-Mar season. For the Dec-Jan 2012-13 season, 12% of models indicate El Niño conditions, 4% indicate La Niña conditions, and 84% indicate neutral ENSO conditions. For Jan-Mar, 92% indicate neutral ENSO conditions, with 4% (i.e., 1 model) indicating each of the other two possibilities. At lead times of 3 or more months into the future, statistical and dynamical models that incorporate information about the ocean's observed subsurface thermal structure generally exhibit higher predictive skill than those that do not. For the Mar-May season, among models that do use subsurface temperature information, 95% predict ENSO-neutral SSTs, and 5% predict El Niño conditions. For all models, the probability for neutral ENSO conditions exceeds 90% from Jan-Mar until the longest lead time (Aug-Oct) (Note 1). Caution is advised in interpreting the distribution of model predictions as the actual probabilities. At longer leads, the skill of the models degrades, and skill uncertainty must be convolved with the uncertainties from initial conditions and differing model physics, leading to more climatological probabilities in the long-lead ENSO Outlook than might be suggested by the suite of models. Furthermore, the expected skill of one model versus another has not been established using uniform validation procedures, which may cause a difference in the true probability distribution from that taken verbatim from the raw model predictions.

[cycloneye]

Climate Prediction Center 12/24/12 update

Nino 3.4 continues to cool down as in this update is down to -0.2C and that is down from the -0.1C that was in last week's update.

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

[Ntxw]

Soi stops it's crash right near the nino threshold and had been rising again much like the fall before the nina numbers. Truly a neutral battle right to the edge! It's like mother nature is teasing us on both ends