Weak La Nina Winter

[andyhb]

8 hours ago, stadiumwave said:

That's very, very weak...barely out of cab. Not much of a player, surprised Ben would even tweet about it. He must be really bored!

I think he's tweeting about it because it is fairly weak.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Here we go... this is not a Strong La Nina

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

1 hour ago, StormchaserChuck said:

Here we go... this is not a Strong La Nina

MJO forcing. Only for the end of November and the first week of December.

[raindancewx]

Nino 1.2 anomaly is positive now for the first time in a long-time - likely June - according to Tropical Tidbits. Should interfere with Nino 3.4 coldness down the road. Would expect Nino 1.2 to spike on the next update of the Nino 1.2 data. Any extended break in the cold in Nino 1.2 will tend to see the SW and TX get wetter (ala last year), via interaction with the GOA pattern / PDO.

My analogs had a peak in Nino 1.2 in mid October to mid November, followed by a re-centering of the coldest anomalies at 115W to 135W in Dec-Feb, with Nino 1.2 gradually becoming warmer (in an anomaly sense) than Nino 3.4. In essence, this means the jet-stream should be able to overcome the SW high more often as Nino 1.2 warms up. 

Nino 1.2	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
1932	21.28	21.48	22.61	24.05	26.47	26.82
1943	21.47	21.41	22.70	24.04	26.22	26.95
1944	20.87	21.37	22.07	23.93	26.62	26.34
1996	20.26	21.09	21.99	24.16	26.29	27.55
2005	20.01	20.48	21.82	24.03	26.65	26.46
2007	19.41	19.93	21.39	23.92	26.16	27.06
2008	20.89	21.68	22.68	24.55	26.01	25.88
2012	20.67	21.42	22.41	24.02	26.00	26.35
Analogs	20.55	21.03	22.15	24.07	26.34	26.74
1951-2000	20.99	21.79	22.84	24.61	26.17	26.71
Anomaly	-0.44	-0.76	-0.69	-0.53	0.17	0.03

 

Nino 3.4	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
1932	0.02	-0.04	-0.41	-0.21	-0.08	-0.20
1943	-0.44	-0.50	-0.42	-0.42	0.16	-0.21
1944	-0.22	-0.35	-0.26	-0.36	-0.47	-0.79
1996	-0.28	-0.30	-0.43	-0.43	-0.24	-0.06
2005	-0.15	-0.44	-0.75	-0.98	-0.71	-0.73
2007	-1.40	-1.58	-1.61	-1.79	-1.70	-1.17
2008	-0.30	-0.37	-0.90	-1.00	-0.71	-0.72
2012	0.23	0.33	-0.13	-0.42	-0.40	-0.14
1951-2000
Analogs	-0.39	-0.50	-0.66	-0.74	-0.54	-0.54

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Agreed it will be hard for Nino 3.4 to sustain Moderate if 1.2 is truly positive.

[WidreMann]

Subsurface is still cold, but I guess that doesn't matter.

[raindancewx]

[Stebo]

14 hours ago, WidreMann said:

Subsurface is still cold, but I guess that doesn't matter.

People are biting a bit hard on this spike in the dailies for 1.2. You can even see there have been previous spikes before over previous months. The point you make about the subsurface is valid though, because it wouldn't take much for things to drop significantly in the 1.2 region. Also the 1.2 as noted before in this thread is the one region that has volatility associated with it during the season.

I am posting the subsurface imagery just to give a representation here for all:

[Stebo]

This should also continue to strengthen the La Nina as well especially in the 3 3.4 4 regions:

[raindancewx]

I like to emphasize Nino 1.2 because it is so tied to precipitation in the SW - no precipitation for where I live for close to 60 days now, which coincides well with Nino 1.2 being very cold. The dryness at this time of year, combined with temperatures, has been pretty similar to 2007, 2012, and a few other years with a very cold Nino 1.2. More generally, the cold pool under the surface in Nino 1.2 will have to re-cool the surface since it has warmed up. The little warm up, even if it only lasts for a few days, seems to be showing up on the models, which are trying to dig snow/precip deeper into the SW for the first time in ages on some of the runs.

[WidreMann]

11 hours ago, Stebo said:

This should also continue to strengthen the La Nina as well especially in the 3 3.4 4 regions:

Also a decent pickup in 1+2. I bet it'll turn cold real quick once those winds switch around. I also noticed that that pile of warm water north of the equator has become much less anomalously warm. Perhaps its influence will wane as well.

[Stebo]

1 hour ago, WidreMann said:

Also a decent pickup in 1+2. I bet it'll turn cold real quick once those winds switch around. I also noticed that that pile of warm water north of the equator has become much less anomalously warm. Perhaps its influence will wane as well.

Yeah especially as we get a couple more troughs into the southwest over the next week or so. Help drive cooler waters down the coast of California and the Baja. That area near Mexico though has been dropping constantly for about 2 weeks now.

[raindancewx]

From the volcano thread for Agung - long-dormant volcanoes that move from stage one to stage two tend to erupt about two weeks after - will be interesting to see what effect that has on the La Nina, assuming the eruption does happen, since Agung is in Indonesia. Agung has had a phreatic explosion - stage two according to the link, after being in stage one in Sept/Oct, and most (97%) started the man eruption within two weeks. Would probably shake up the pattern later in the winter if it is a big explosion.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/node/21527

[WidreMann]

1+2 temps have dropped considerably in the last two days. I don't think this one is dead yet.

[raindancewx]

Of course, now Nino 3.4 is warming a bit: -0.8C on Tropical Tidbits from -1.2C a week ago. The warmth off Mexico is re intensifying a bit too. Agung ash (SO2) was forecast to reach 45k feet earlier today, if it did, would imagine that starts to effect the Nina too.

 

[WidreMann]

38 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Of course, now Nino 3.4 is warming a bit: -0.8C on Tropical Tidbits from -1.2C a week ago. The warmth off Mexico is re intensifying a bit too. Agung ash (SO2) was forecast to reach 45k feet earlier today, if it did, would imagine that starts to effect the Nina too.

 

How specifically will Agung affect the Nina? Is it likely to have a big enough impact on temperatures to matter?

[raindancewx]

My view on ENSO/volcanoes is that, after some lag since it takes a while for the oceans to cool, the big eruptions in the tropics temporarily take you back to older climate normals for getting ENSO conditions. There is no guarantee Agung will have a big eruption..but its not really a long odd event anymore either.

In English: If the 30-year Nino 3.4 mean is X for 1986-2015, but it was X-0.3 in 1946-1976, you could probably get El Nino conditions with lower SSTs, since on a relative basis everything else is cooler. You can get years like 1992-93 (after Pinatubo) where you have El Nino conditions by MEI/SOI standards but almost perfectly neutral ONI (SST) conditions v. 1981-2010. I think it also opens the door for a strong La Nina eventually, without constant interference from the warmth in nearby areas of the Pacific. In my analog process, I have a notation for El Nino, Neutral, La Nina, but to me there are also VEl, VN, VLa years, i.e. volcanic El Nino, Neutral, La Nina years. 1992-93 for instance, is my wettest winter ever, and those of you in the South had the incredible snowstorm in March 1993 - the volcanic winters have some special characteristics.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Moderate to strong event likely?

The only thing strong is that wording.

[raindancewx]

Apparently NOAA didn't buy/see the Nino 1.2 warm up that Tropical Tidbits had. Oh well, at least Nino 3.4 and Nino 4 warmed up. This data set is back only to 1990, so it probably does have a different mean for calculating the anomalies, I reckon 20.6C on the longer Nino 1.2 data would be a different anomaly, but anyway -

 01NOV2017     20.4-0.8     24.4-0.6     26.3-0.4     28.7 0.1
 08NOV2017     20.2-1.2     23.8-1.2     25.6-1.1     28.3-0.3
 15NOV2017     20.6-1.0     23.8-1.1     25.6-1.1     28.2-0.4
 22NOV2017     20.6-1.2     23.9-1.1     25.9-0.8     28.5-0.1

Data is centered on 11/22, so the information is through 11/25. November is probably going to end up around -0.8 or -0.9C in Nino 3.4. Healthy event, but not sure ONI will ever reach moderate status.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

On 11/23/2017 at 8:39 AM, raindancewx said:

I guess this is time updated. The 850mb wind spike hasn't really started. Should be significant push in the next few weeks. My guess for weekly 3.4 peak is -1,7c, could be high unless this event peaks in December. 

[raindancewx]

I'm fairly happy with how the November temperature pattern emerged overall, hot West, cold East pattern was present in my winter analogs from Oct 12 (https://tinyurl.com/yam55n95) Main miss the extremity of the heat in the SW for November. Will be interesting how well the blend holds up in December. Analogs are hand picked from an automated weighted ranking of seven factors on a 15-point scale.

[raindancewx]

On 11/13/2017 at 9:57 PM, raindancewx said:

In this area of the world, the "warm over cold" feature, i.e. warm waters off Mexico/Central America north of cold waters in Nino 3 / Nino 1.2 often predates a dip in the storm track as major thunderstorms kick up on the boundary of the anomalies. Will be interesting to see if that happens in December. It seems like February is the protected month in the NE, January is the protected month in the SE/Midwest, and here in the West its December. "Protected" meaning no warming in high temperatures long-term over most areas. March in the West and December in the East seem to have the opposite tendency, with very fast warming.

I wasn't completely sure when I did my winter outlook if this feature would show up (it wasn't there even two weeks ago), but I thought it might - some of my winter analogs had it. December tends to be cold in the West when that feature shows up.

Look at 1943, 1996, 2008, 2012 - the boxes are warm over cold.

I don't expect this to happen verbatim, but this is why I was interested in the "warm north of cold" feature that showed up in November. This would be after no rain/snow here for 2+ months no less.

[raindancewx]

Two days later, models have nothing down here. Oh well. Since 1931 we've never gone more than 107 days without precipitation here, so should rain or snow at some point in the next two months as we approach 60 days without precipitation. Some of my analogs on the list, so it makes sense.

 

[raindancewx]

New Canadian has trended to a (stronger) Central-Pacific La Nina look than what it had before, but it does retain some cold in Nino 1.2, just less than 3.4. It also trended most of the West, including the SW, cooler. But it remains pretty dry for much of the West. I do like the look of the latest precipitation anomaly for the Midwest/Mid-south.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Subsurface looks to have stopped cooling and is progressing, and favors upwelling for another month before maybe a switch happens, meaning this La Nina has about 30 days to peak! 

The way the pattern is evolving now is very much how many December's in the 2000s have moved, and probably favors some warmer than average temperatures across the US through February. 

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

32 minutes ago, StormchaserChuck said:

Subsurface looks to have stopped cooling and is progressing, and favors upwelling for another month before maybe a switch happens, meaning this La Nina has about 30 days to peak! 

The way the pattern is evolving now is very much how many December's in the 2000s have moved, and probably favors some warmer than average temperatures across the US through February. 

I had a feeling that would happen. I'd say that Mid January to Mid February will have a large thaw for most of the CONUS. With the cold trapped in Canada.

[Paragon]

On 11/21/2017 at 4:39 PM, andyhb said:

There is a lag, but any substantial changes that occur in Dec or Jan are liable to alter forcing for at least a short period of time during the winter.

Another reason we are seeing trades continue this time as opposed to being interrupted is the relatively inactive MJO compared to earlier in the month.

For us we have to keep track of the NAO/AO also.  That is a bigger driver of our weather out here than ENSO is.

[raindancewx]

17 hours ago, StormchaserChuck said:

Subsurface looks to have stopped cooling and is progressing, and favors upwelling for another month before maybe a switch happens, meaning this La Nina has about 30 days to peak! 

The way the pattern is evolving now is very much how many December's in the 2000s have moved, and probably favors some warmer than average temperatures across the US through February. 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

Equtorial Upper 300m temperature Average anomaly based on 1981-2010 Climatology (deg C)
YR    MON   130E-80W   160E-80W   180W-100W 
2017    7     0.13      0.15       0.16
2017    8    -0.19     -0.21      -0.40
2017    9    -0.45     -0.57      -0.79
2017   10    -0.54     -0.77      -0.97
2017   11    -0.42     -0.66      -0.85

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

I think the La Nina will rapidly dissipate, possibly in record time February-March. 

1) Global temperatures are so warm

2) The way the +SSTA has hugged the La Nina 

3) Aesthetic eye for subsurface progression

[raindancewx]

I know people in the East are hyped about a cold December, but the beaches I know from growing up in NJ hint at why I don't think it will be that cold, still 50F waters along the coast of NJ according to NOAA, with the Great Lakes running 4-6F above average as well after the very warm October. The cold shots will come, but the Lakes & Atlantic will dull the effect of it. My analogs did pretty well for November, and they show the cold in the Midwest away from the Ocean & Lakes in December, which again makes sense with how warm those waters are.