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Possible strong/super El Niño forming?


snowman19

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57-58 had a trimonthly peak of 1.7c in DJF. So if we had a peak of 1.7-2.0c, it wouldn't be significantly stronger. As I posted last week, the models forecasting a trimonthly peak of 2.7-3.0c are highly unlikely to verify due to past years' forecasts from July being significantly more amplified than reality. I cannot see how this +ENSO event surpasses or even attains a trimonthly peak on par with 1997-98 (2.3c).

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Looking at the two El Nino's from this depiction, how can they even be compared?

 

You can look at the left one, then the right one,....then back left again ;)

 

In all seriousness, it seems that there is no telling at present whether November 2015 will resemble November 1997 with respect to the NE PAC warm pool currently raging.  (Notice that the left figure shows November 1997, not July 1997 when, based on what others have said, the NE PAC also looked more favorable).

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There is an absolute monster oceanic kelvin wave that has formed and is progressing east. It's set to surface by early September. This one is the one to watch. It is going to bring about explosive strengthening of this event. Eric Blake posted a nice animation of it: https://mobile.twitter.com/ericblake12/status/624346585581899777

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I know Levi Cowan's site isn't always the most accurate but it sure is showing a recent crash in 1&2.

As Isotherm and others stated, 1+2 is very volatile and can vary a lot from week to week. Week to week changes are noise at this point. The important thing is, no cold tongue has formed west of South America, that alone is indicative of a very strong event. Also, the westerly wind anomalies in the central and eastern tropical pacific have been more persistent this year than they were in 1997 and they continue. Very impressive WWBs continue. There is no doubt this event will continue to strengthen the next several weeks and the real huge spike looks to come around early September when that oceanic kelvin wave surfaces
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Yeah, you can see how much cooler we are now compared to 1997 along the South America Coast into the Nino

1+2 region. The warmer SST's over the Central Pacific and and off the US Pacific NW Coast also stand out.

 

attachicon.gifCK71TJMVAAA5R0F.png

Absolutely. While some of the modeling remains very aggressive, my early thoughts are that this El Niño probably won't reach or surpass the 1997-98 one. I could see it reaching the 1972-73 one or perhaps even the 1982-83 one in magnitude (trimonthly ONI in the +2.0°C to +2.1°C vicinity). Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty and some individual ensemble members worry me suggesting that there remains some chance--probably a small one--of a record-breaking event. But overall, the modeling has tended to be over aggressive so I'm hedging lower than what is shown right now. 

 

IMO, it remains too soon to write off the coming winter, at least in its entirety. I could easily see something reasonably similar to what happened during the 1965-66 El Niño event with at least a decent period of cold and opportunities for snowfall, even as the winter would wind up on the warm side of normal. A much warmer, much less snowy outcome also remains on the table, but isn't anything close to a certainty right now.

 

The evolution of the El Niño and blocking will be critical. Hopefully, Region 1+2 will cool significantly in the months ahead (an absence of a rebound later this fall would be ideal), the Gulf of Alaska will retain its warm anomalies and the Atlantic will cooperate.

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There is an absolute monster oceanic kelvin wave that has formed and is progressing east. It's set to surface by early September. This one is the one to watch. It is going to bring about explosive strengthening of this event. Eric Blake posted a nice animation of it: https://mobile.twitter.com/ericblake12/status/624346585581899777

Nice tweet by Eric Blake. I agree that this bears watching. I think the evolution of this wave will begin to provide greater clarity as to the likely strength and character of the El Niño event and some indication as to which models are handling it best.

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Nice tweet by Eric Blake. I agree that this bears watching. I think the evolution of this wave will begin to provide greater clarity as to the likely strength and character of the El Niño event and some indication as to which models are handling it best.

Yea Don, I think by the very beginning of September when this massive wave should surface, we will know for sure if this event is to surpass or equal '97-'98. I agree, '72-'73 and '82-'83 are definitely doable
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I think that the amount of warming in Nino 4 will be key to getting the colder solutions of the NMME and ECMWF.

A warmer Nino 4 region would help anchor the Aleutian low far enough west to allow the strong ridge over NW Canada

and a more -EPO.

get_legacy_plot-atls16-95e2cf679cd58ee9b4db4dd119a05a8d-SaxwKb.gif

If there actually is a -EPO along with a super El Niño in region 3.4 this winter, it would be unprecedented. There are no analogs whatsoever that featured a very strong/super Nino and -EPO, zero. Such a scenario would be a historical first in all the years of weather record keeping
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Recently, SST's have been warming around Australia - not the direction one would want to head if the hope is a record breaking El Nino event on par / surpassing 1997. My continued thinking is that probabilities are extremely low for a trimonthly peak at or above 2.3c (1997-98 magnitude), and a fairly low chance for a > 2.0c trimonthly peak.

 

Current:

 

anomnight.7.27.2015.gif

 

 

 

 

July 29th, 1997:

 

anomnight.7.29.1997.gif

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The WWBs continue as do the downwelling kelvin waves. Mike Ventrice showed that the El Niño forcing and atmospheric coupling is totally off the charts and the area of the main forcing is in basically the same location as it was back in 1997: https://twitter.com/mjventrice/status/626741478929395712

I like this link to the TAO site

it shows 5 day means for wind anomalies, depth temps, etc.; just scroll over each map and click on it for a larger pic

http://tao.ndbc.noaa.gov/refreshed/index.php

the 5 day mean wind map on the top row, far left is pretty impressive and stronger than I recall it showing around this time in 2009

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I like this link to the TAO site

it shows 5 day means for wind anomalies, depth temps, etc.; just scroll over each map and click on it for a larger pic

http://tao.ndbc.noaa.gov/refreshed/index.php

the 5 day mean wind map on the top row, far left is pretty impressive and stronger than I recall it showing around this time in 2009

The westerly wind anomalies have been more persistent and stronger this year so far than they were back in 1997. The southern hemisphere booster circulation is locked in and very strong this year
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maybe peaking?

It's not even close to peaking right now. There is a downwelling kelvin wave in progress as we speak, very strong wwbs continue and are amazingly persistent, more so then 1997 was actually and a collosial oceanic kelvin wave is set to surface in early September
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It's not even close to peaking right now. There is a downwelling kelvin wave in progress as we speak, very strong wwbs continue and are amazingly persistent, more so then 1997 was actually and a collosial oceanic kelvin wave is set to surface in early September

Scripps and BC are maxing 3/4 at 1.66 or so

http://www.ocgy.ubc.ca/projects/clim.pred/NN/index.html

 

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/elnino.html

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The SST profile over the Pacific Basin continues to evolve differently than at this point in 1997.

SST's today are much cooler along the West Coast of South America into the Nino 1+2 region.

160 W all the way back into the Eastern Indian Ocean is much warmer. And the warm pool

continues to stand out off the PAC NW Coast where Seattle just saw their warmest

month on record.

https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/627432565956194304

All time warmest month in Seattle. Average temperature in July was 71.2 degrees. Previous record was Aug 1967 with 71.1.

1997.gif

I think there is a red flag that just went up last month. The Aleutian Low was displaced well east of its normal position in July. Come fall, it would be very easy to upwell and eat away at those current warm anomalies like we saw briefly last October and like we really saw in October of 1997. If this trend continues this fall, I'd be very worried about keeping a -EPO. This needs to be watched very closely the next several months
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