2014 ENSO Mega Thread

[GaWx]

They did release a slightly warmer +0.5 for 3.4, up from +0.4. This is tied for the warmest for the summer/fall period. Slowly but surely?

Other regions: Niño 4 warmed the most (0.2) to +0.7. Niño 3 cooled from +0.6 to +0.5.

Niño 1+2 warmed from +0.6 to +0.7.

So, for the first time since late June, all regions are at least touching Niño territory.

It is conceivable that Oct. starts a string of Niño months. Obviously, the next few weeks will be pretty crucial to the possibility that we're now beginning an official Niño.

[Kory]

The Australians are a bit more generous with their weekly Nino indices.  All of the Nino regions have recorded a spike in water temp anomaly.  They're about 0.1-0.2 degrees higher on their Nino 3.4 and 4 anomaly temps.  This is a good sign that the current EKW is surfacing. 

 

[GaWx]

Things are looking up for a weak to low end moderate Nino to verify:

1) Recent SOI's have been solidly negative (four days in a row of -10 or lower), which is the first time for that kind of thing in three weeks. The Euro suggests that the next week or so will be dominated by negatives (say mainly -5 to -20). This is enough to tell me that a final Oct SOI of, say, -4 or more negative is likely. That would make it the 5th -SOI month in a row, which is a rather sig. indicator for the start of El Nino based on 135+ years of data.

Well, the Euro did quite well with its prediction of domination by -SOI's. If anything, the -SOI's verified slightly stronger than the model suggested.

Looking ahead per this morning's Euro: major changes coming quickly (most abrupt in quite some time). Starting with tomorrow, SOI's should rise pretty sharply and should be +'s soon. The peak +SOI should be ~10/31 to 11/1 (could be a couple of pretty solid +SOI's, the highest in quite awhile) though it appears that +SOI's should still dominate at least through 11/5. Nevertheless, the current MTD SOI of ~-9 should be enough to allow for October as a whole to still end up near the -6 to -7 range, meaning the 5th -SOI month in a row and a pretty reliable indicator when combined with other things that El Niño is quite likely.

[Kory]

We should definitely see some increases at the Nino 3, 3.4, and 4 indices.  Slightly cooler water in the middle of 3.4, but that should be offset by the much warmer waters in the aforementioned regions.  

 

[griteater]

Another subsurface warm bubble near the dateline is moving east...

 

[Kory]

Another subsurface warm bubble near the dateline is moving east...

 

 

That Kelvin wave is surfacing in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific.  Evident by the increases in Nino 1+2 and 3.  Nino 3.4 and 4 remained the same as last week, but that SST anomaly map suggests ongoing warming in Nino 4.  

[griteater]

yeah Kory, I was mainly referring to the next kelvin wave with the warm anomalies building in the subsurface near the dateline and just east at the end of that loop

[Kory]

yeah Kory, I was mainly referring to the next kelvin wave with the warm anomalies building in the subsurface near the dateline and just east at the end of that loop

I wasn't disagreeing...just pointing something else out.      The westerlies west of the dateline are helping to feed the subsurface warm pool you mentioned.  

[Mike.Ventrice]

No real trade signature over the East Pacific- more anomalous westerly flow over the eastern half of the basin.. Still looking good for future warming of the 3.4 index (in addition to the newly formed downwelling oceanic Kelvin wave signature now expressed in sub-surface SSTA as discussed above.

 

[griteater]

Each step down in sea surface temperatures has been higher and higher over the past 3 months.

 

[Isotherm]

Latest Aussie values are the warmest thus far for this ENSO event:

 

Region 4: +0.88c

Region 3.4: +0.62c

Region 3: +0.72c

Region 2: +0.80c

Region 1: +0.55c

 

All regions now solidly within weak Nino territory; region 4 actually high-end weak.

[hurricaneman]

looking at the tropical tidbits site under ocean anaysis it shows an El Nino madoki emerging and I don't know what happens across the US during a Madoki but its probably not good for California as they need the rain desprately and if it happens to be a madoki during the hurricane season it could lead to big problems so I do hope it goes more towards the traditional el nino as it would help out California in terms of moisture

[Kory]

looking at the tropical tidbits site under ocean anaysis it shows an El Nino madoki emerging and I don't know what happens across the US during a Madoki but its probably not good for California as they need the rain desprately and if it happens to be a madoki during the hurricane season it could lead to big problems so I do hope it goes more towards the traditional el nino as it would help out California in terms of moisture

Certainly doesn't look Modoki to me currently...

 

[hurricaneman]

is it possible that the tropical tidbits site has errors in the data as it completely disagrees with the NOAA charts

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

Certainly doesn't look Modoki to me currently...

It looks like it's in the beginning phase of it. The warmer waters pushing westward and the upwelling of cooler waters in the Eastern Regions, slowly following the westward propagation. It will be an incomplete El Nino Modoki by DJF.

[GaWx]

Modoki or not, any Niño looks to be on the weaker side. That combined with a solid +PDO and -AO just about would guarantee a cold winter for a good portion of the E US.

[Kory]

Modoki or not, any Niño looks to be on the weaker side. That combined with a solid +PDO and -AO just about would guarantee a cold winter for a good portion of the E US.

And I don't see much relief for California...

[Isotherm]

Whether the event becomes modoki or not is unimportant given the weakness of the +ENSO. It'd be much more crucial if we were expecting peak region 3.4 anomalies of +1.0c or greater. Weak events show little variance in terms of the placement of warmest SSTA's and the corresponding sensible weather pattern. 1976-77 was an "east based" weak el nino event, for example.

[Chaser25973]

Unrelated but wow look at the ocean temps on a global scale. Very warm.

[griteater]

[Kory]

This Nino is finally looking decent.  I'm guessing Nino 3.4 will be up near +0.6.  

 

 

[Kory]

Small subsurface pocket of +4.0 anomalies near the dateline.  

 

[griteater]

Small subsurface pocket of +4.0 anomalies near the dateline.  

 

 

That's a fairly stout looking kelvin wave.  The thermocline slope there just east of the dateline between 100-200m on the top image shows the effects well.  Some more relaxation in the trade winds showing up in the forecast also.

[Kory]

This makes the 3rd week of Nino 3.4 temps at or above Nino threshold.  3.4 increase +0.1 over last week's reading. 

 

Niño 4 0.8ºC

Niño 3.4 0.6ºC

Niño 3 0.9ºC

Niño 1+2 0.6ºC

[uncle W]

The most impressive thing going on in the Pacific right now is the strength of the +PDO

signature for the fall season. September came in at 1.08 and it looks like the final October

number may come in above 1.00 again. If we can pull off a SON of greater than 1.00, then

it would be the first time since 1997, 1993, 1987, and 1976 that we pulled this feat off.

September was already the highest reading for the month since 1997.

 

Fall(SON) PDO above 1.00 since 1950:

 

1997.....1.64

1993.....1.40

1987.....1.76

1976.....1.06

 

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest

 

SEPT.gif

 

OCT.gif

 

NOV.gif

1997 was a cooler fall than this one...1976 already had temperatures 10 degrees colder than we are to this point in time...1987 had a major snowstorm in upstate NY in early October...1993 saw 80 degrees in mid November before it got cold...this year is on the mild side but the storm track has been great...

[GaWx]

The most impressive thing going on in the Pacific right now is the strength of the +PDO

signature for the fall season. September came in at 1.08 and it looks like the final October

number may come in above 1.00 again. If we can pull off a SON of greater than 1.00, then

it would be the first time since 1997, 1993, 1987, and 1976 that we pulled this feat off.

September was already the highest reading for the month since 1997.

Fall(SON) PDO above 1.00 since 1950:

1997.....1.64

1993.....1.40

1987.....1.76

1976.....1.06

Not surprisingly, three of the four are El Niño's and we're already Ninoish. Also, 1993 was +Ensoish.

[GaWx]

This makes the 3rd week of Nino 3.4 temps at or above Nino threshold.  3.4 increase +0.1 over last week's reading. 

 

Niño 4 0.8ºC

Niño 3.4 0.6ºC

Niño 3 0.9ºC

Niño 1+2 0.6ºC

One thing to keep in mind is that the trimonthlies have been quite a bit cooler than the underlying weeklies would suggest (not surprising since they're based on different datasets). For example, JAS averaged over +0.2. However , the trimonthly was only 0.0. If that cool bias doesn't go away, then we'd probably need like a +0.7 or +0.8 average of the weeklies to get a +0.5+ trimonthly. Nevertheless, I've seen past cases when the bias disappears pretty quickly.

[Kory]

That's a fairly stout looking kelvin wave.  The thermocline slope there just east of the dateline between 100-200m on the top image shows the effects well.  Some more relaxation in the trade winds showing up in the forecast also.

Winds over the equatorial Pacific do look more favorable. 

 

[GaWx]

Nevertheless, the current MTD SOI of ~-9 should be enough to allow for October as a whole to still end up near the -6 to -7 range, meaning the 5th -SOI month in a row and a pretty reliable indicator when combined with other things that El Niño is quite likely.

 

The October SOI ended up at -8.2, a bit more negative than my -6 to -7 prediction. This is the 5th (and 3rd solid) -SOI month in a row, a solid indicator of a likely El Nino per historic correlations since the late 1800's.

[GaWx]

Yeah, the recent model updates from the CFS and POAMA  maintain a steady weak El Nino signal going forward.

The CFS and the LDEO actually show further warming next spring. But we'll have to see if more models come

onboard and monitor how things develop in coming months to know if they are correct.

 

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/why-past-enso-cases-aren’t-key-predicting-current-case

 

Do late-starting El Niño events tend to endure into a second ENSO cycle and take two years instead of one to run their course? While that is a topic for another post, let’s just say that there have been so few cases of two-year events that it would be foolhardy to actually predict one without more evidence. Interestingly, though, two of the models on this month’s IRI/CPC ENSO forecast plume (Fig. 3) do suggest the possibility of an El Niño both this year and a second year (2015-16). One of those models is NOAA/NCEP’s own CFSv2, and another is the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) intermediate model. Could they be on to something?

nino34Sea.gif

 

P.png

 

Bluewave,

 I do think it could be onto something based on the late starting 1952, 1939 (lead to only three winter Nino since 1870's), and the pretty late starting 1913 (lead to two winter Nino). Note that these late starters had a weakish first winter. Also, in my mind, a muliyear Nino isn't as rare as it may seem. When just looking at the post 1950 era, there have been as many as three of these double year Nino's:

1953-4 (if this is countable as two year), 1968-70, and 1986-88. (I'm not counting double Nino's with an offseason break like 1976-7 and 1977-8). Compare the three to the 16 single year Nino's. So, the ratio of single to double has been 16/3 or about 5:1. The last 7 have been singles. Prior to this 7 streak, the two single Nino streaks were each 4 long. Before that, the streak was only 1 single Nino (1951-2). Going back further, the prior single Nino streaks were only 3, 0, 1, 1, and 3. So, with the current single streak of 7, we're really quite "due" for a double imo. If this really is sort of a cyclical thing, maybe we're about to get the double.