SOI & MJO/Upcoming totals overblown

[Jim Hughes]

I have decided to give out my own opinion on the rest of the season after reading parts of Dr Gray's forecast today and hearing everybody Else's outlooks the past week or so.

I am not going to give numbers today ....just speaking ...

I am in no way saying that the rest of the season is going to be quiet but Gray's recent numbers suggest that the current ratio of hurricanes to named storms is going to change from 4/1 to 1.5/1...... (Named storms/hurricanes)

NOAA"s forecast earlier in the week also suggested this but they do not give out exact numbers like Gray so you can not talk exactly about what they state.

I could not argue with Gray's August's forecast for named storm days of 20 considering Harvey has been around for almost three days now and it will be around for another day or two. So we only need about 15 more days and this total could be reached....especially with the Cape Verde season kicking in. But what about that?

An outlook for 20 named storm days says that the other four named storms will only be around for fifteen days though...lets see Intense storms usually imply Cape Verde ... Cape Verde storms tend to be around longer....How can we see an increase in hurricanes and intense days but only see 15 more named storm days.

Most people have been saying all season that the warmer SST's are going to make these systems stronger, then that would imply that they would intensify quicker, there by bringing up the hurricane and intense day totals also.

This does not really add up but I guess it is possible.

The MJO has suppressed things recently because certain elements within the atmosphere have changed. If anyone follows Long Paddocks, daily Southern Oscillation Index readings, they may have noticed that the SOI has gone into a phase of moderate to strong the past week or more and I believe this will continue well into the third week of August.


http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/Seaso ... index.html

I believe this trend will continue on and off basically into the fall most likely, with another strong negative SOI phase showing up in the late fall, most likely November.

Phases in the MJO have been linked to SOI and vice versa so I tend to think that this will limit the totals being talked about.

I also need to read Gray's Sept-on forecasting tools.

Some of my reasoning of less activity has to do with many of the July variable readings that he relies on . In my opinion July was a freak and things should flip flop or at the very least be neutralized.

So if he's relying on a continuation of this pattern he will be wrong. A delayed feedback could be different story of course , but I believe that the atmospheric changes that are going on , should disrupt the historical correlation that he is basing this on.

He lists only five enhanced variables for August and they are all based on July readings. I grant you that some other variable relationships could flip flop but he seems to be basing allot of things on how the atmosphere was behaving in July.

I know people will disregard this but my outlook some 24 hours ago called for Harvey not getting better organized today and it has not. I also see that the well defined TD 9 is not as well organized today either.

Both of these systems would have intensified much quicker 3-4 weeks ago. The atmosphere has waves and the tropics feed off of them. I am just pointing out non favorable upcoming waves.



Jim

[vacanechaser]

I will just say one thing to your post, the SOI has not been strong in the negative.. The mid teens are not that negative.. True it has been in the tank for a few days now and that is something that cant be argued. However, strongly negative would be -25 30 plus or negative IMO... But we have seen it turn arond the other way quickley.. Also, it was in the negative phase if i remember correctly during a few of the storms this year. Just a thought and thinking it out loud.. Nice post though..


Jesse V. Bass III
http://www.vastormphoto.com
Hurricane Intercept Research Team

[Guest]

[Jim Hughes]

I will just say one thing to your post, the SOI has not been strong in the negative.. The mid teens are not that negative.. True it has been in the tank for a few days now and that is something that cant be argued. However, strongly negative would be -25 30 plus or negative IMO... But we have seen it turn arond the other way quickley.. Also, it was in the negative phase if i remember correctly during a few of the storms this year. Just a thought and thinking it out loud.. Nice post though..


Jesse V. Bass III
http://www.vastormphoto.com
Hurricane Intercept Research Team

I tend to somewhat disagree with you about my SOI comments. I believe I stated that it was moderate to strong. Maybe moderate would have been a much better term to use.

I have no idea how much you follow the SOI readings..daily ....30 & 90 day averages....but I have been following them religiously, on almost a daily basis, for the past eight years. I have all the daily data/averages in front of me.

The average for the last nine days is - 15.0 . I would not exactly call this this barely negative but on the flip side but I would agree with you if you had said that there have been much stronger trends...recently like in February ...May etc..

I know that it can have swings like this and they can mean absolutely nothing but the 30 day average had been in a positive state since June 30th but it is now weakening. This is significant to me.

There also have not been nine consecutive negative days in a row since May 19th-27th. (-10.0 and above)

The timing of this change the past nine days goes along with a time frame that I wrote about last March in both e-mail discussions and in the TWC forum. I had given the date of August 9th to watch out for patterns changes in the SOI averages. I believe this is taking place now. So I was off by about 10 days or so five months ago. Sorry...

This is why I like to give out long range outlooks. It can increase your confidence when they start to actually occur. Like forecasting snowstorms way out....

I believe this pattern is a fairly strong wave for this time of the year...non typical.... and I believe this is changing things. Time will tell whether I am right or not.


Jim