CyclonicFury wrote:Kingarabian wrote:CyclonicFury wrote:Shocking to see the Niño 3.4 cool so much during the WWB. It could be a delayed response, but so far this WWB did not do what it needed in order to kick start the Niño into steady growth. We are still in an El Niño for the time being, but with the subsurface quite cool and this downwelling KW not looking very impressive so far, ENSO dropping into warm neutral territory at some point this summer is not out of the question.
Cooling happening east of where the WWB is occurring where the trades are still running above average. The Euro forecast shows that the trades will slow down considerably for the rest of the month so we will likely see Nino 3.4 fluctuate between +0.4C/+0.8C until June.
Slow down considerably? Hasn't the WWB already peaked? It does appear that trades will be relaxed, but the peak of the WWB has already occurred.
You don't need a WWB to slow down trades. A true WWB actually has RAW westerlies not just easterly reduction. Anything else, like yellow or orange shading on the hovmollers, will mean the trades are running below average. The models are forecasting the trades to slow down probably due to the MJO moving into phase 8 (CPAC/EPAC). It's apparent that the trades need to run at a certain Ms to cool surface sea temperatures and I believe with what the Euro and GFS are showing, will not be enough to significantly cool ENSO further. We seen this episode in early 2017 before the La Nada and 2018.