Weak-Moderate El Nino 2018-2019

[raindancewx]

The "El Nino" name is from very warm waters surfacing by Peru near Christmas - this year seems pretty textbook.

Will be interesting to see where the month of December ends up, but the warmth does seem be at least temporarily greatest by Peru - that was my point about 1997. It isn't that the waters by Peru are ever going to be +4C like they were in 1997 if I wasn't clear about that, but the shape of the anomalies can matter as much as the intensity. That's a fairly East-based look. Certainly more than I expected at any point in this event.

I think some of the models see that now too as a long-term trend. The Jamstec finally finished updating and reverted to less of a Modoki look, and still maintains a big late peak. This is actually one of the larger shifts in these values I've seen month to month on the model -

I don't think I buy an El Nino for another year...but who knows?

The Euro & GFS are both pretty bullish on end of Dec storms at the moment for the SW, which tends to happen in basin wide/east based Ninos. I've been pretty impressed with the warm up nationally - might be why the Jamstec had flipped so hard on temperatures too. Accuweather has 60F tomorrow (+20F?) as far north as Boston, that is one of the benchmarks I try to use for warm Decembers in the NE. Will be fun watching everything try to get much colder in January.

[griteater]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

I don't think I buy an El Nino for another year...but who knows?

 

 

[griteater]

Nino 3.4 / Modoki Index over the past 2 months (Daily AVHRR Data):

12/19: 0.54 / -0.08

12/10: 0.47 / 0.26

12/01: 0.96 / 0.82

11/20: 0.72 / 0.49

11/10: 0.50 / 0.50

11/01: 1.46 / 0.90

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

21 Dec 2018	1011.94	1005.35	14.89	8.83	2.36
20 Dec 2018	1012.71	1007.00	10.33	8.53	1.91
19 Dec 2018	1013.25	1008.05	7.68	8.40	1.63
18 Dec 2018	1014.64	1006.70	21.90	7.89	1.49
17 Dec 2018	1013.56	1006.50	17.33	6.56	1.17

The SOI is rising once more. The El Niño is being influenced by other external sources. Perhaps the MJO?

[raindancewx]

I'd like to point out that CPC had a very strong forecast for December 2018, especially given that some of the warmth currently present in the SW for December should be destroyed after Christmas. It is a complete 180 from their terrible November outlook. I do think the January outlook will be updated again late this month as they try to get a better handle on the inevitable MJO and SOI changes that are still unknown at the moment.

Will be interesting to see if any of these potential/model depicted snowstorms verify down here by 12/31 for Albuquerque, as we are strongly correlated with total snowfall in each city from Richmond to Boston in the NE/Mid Atlantic coastal plain in El Nino. 

For January, the MJO looks like it will start around the 5/6 transition. What are some El Ninos that started January around the 5/6 transition? I'd go 1998 (x2), 2004 (x2), 2008, 2015 as a blend, but it isn't apparent yet whether the MJO wave will die or not for a while. I'd throw in 2008 to cool off the 1997-98 influence and make the blend low solar. If the wave dies, those years won't work. We'll have to see in a week how the MJO looks.

The SOI is +10.2 for 12/1-12/23. If it holds at about that level, top matches are these for Oct/Nov/Dec -->

Year	Oct	Nov	Dec	Match
2018	2.6	0.6	10.2	0.0
1954	2.2	2.3	11.5	3.4
1996	5.2	-0.1	7.3	6.2
1945	2.9	-3.4	5.4	9.1
2003	-2.9	-2.4	9.0	9.7
1961	4.7	6.8	12.5	10.6
1933	4.1	6.8	6.9	11.0

2003-04 showed up as a potential top MJO match too - that's probably as good of a guess as any at this point. The top SOI match blend is actually pretty interesting overall. It doesn't look super different from December - warm for most of the US (much less than Dec), but Maine and parts of the West cold. The SOI stuff is speculative though, it could still finish between 4.5 and 11.5 for December.

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

22 Dec 2018	1011.39	1005.10	13.34	9.15	2.81
21 Dec 2018	1011.94	1005.35	14.89	8.83	2.36
20 Dec 2018	1012.71	1007.00	10.33	8.53	1.91
19 Dec 2018	1013.25	1008.05	7.68	8.40	1.63
18 Dec 2018	1014.64	1006.70	21.90	7.89	1.49

Now it's staying steady from the previous update. Perhaps it hit a secondary ceiling? Then another potential tank?

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

SOI is too strong to keep the subsurface warming going..

[WidreMann]

Tropical Tidbits shows a lot of cooling in 1+2. I'm not sure how the GFS does SST analysis, so I am often skeptical of what it shows. Still, this doesn't look like a healthy Nino to me. I think we'll probably see the real one next year.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Check out the differences between this year and last year

[raindancewx]

The weeklies are in. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

Still looks like 1994 to me? 2009 and 2014 had bigger gaps between East/West among recent events. Relatively small gaps across the zones this month. 2006 isn't bad either.

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
  Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 05DEC2018     23.1 0.8     26.2 1.1     27.6 1.0     29.7 1.2
 12DEC2018     23.4 0.8     26.1 1.0     27.7 1.1     29.7 1.2
 19DEC2018     23.7 0.7     26.2 1.0     27.6 1.0     29.5 1.0

 07DEC1994     23.3 0.9     26.0 0.9     27.9 1.3     29.6 1.1
 14DEC1994     23.4 0.7     25.9 0.8     27.9 1.3     29.5 1.1
 21DEC1994     23.7 0.6     26.2 1.0     27.9 1.3     29.3 0.9

 20DEC2006     23.7 0.6     26.5 1.3     27.7 1.2     29.4 1.0

I haven't looked recently but a few days ago it did seem like the SOI would crash pretty hard around 12/26, with actual high pressure around Australia and low pressure by Tahiti.

Some of the models have Albuquerque getting 4-8" of snow by the end of December. Weather.com had 3-5" on Friday when I looked. I can't find any years with a Dec SOI over 8 where that has happened, so certainly a bit of a head scratcher if it verifies. Dec 1959 and Dec 2000 were both around +6 to +8 though, and we did have 23.8" in Dec 1959, but it was a high-solar Neutral. Cerotaker in the Western forums here was talking about 2000 as a Fall analog for a long time, and in some ways it did verify, as far as the cold in Nov its interesting to look at that year since it had the great warmth by Japan like this year does.

I will say, if January 1955 ends up as the top SOI match for Oct-Dec, it's sort of a pseudo-Nino pattern anyway, it was extremely cold in California that year, which is consistent with the NAO being very positive in October historically.

You can see to some extent that blotch of blue over the great basin on the temperature maps in Dec 2018 does correlate with the very +NAO in October. The NAO in Nov/Dec would have more predictive power, but it was more neutral both months.

I do think we have to watch out for February if the SOI finishes at like, +12 for December. It's hard to imagine the pattern doing this in February, but who knows at this point?

[WidreMann]

8 hours ago, AfewUniversesBelowNormal said:

Check out the differences between this year and last year

Yep, last year was a La Nino and this year is an El Nino.

[raindancewx]

Models were right - relatively massive SOI drops in recent days. In the past several weeks, we've now had 10 point SOi drops within 48 hours periods several times:

12/23 to 12/25, 12/18 to 12/19, 12/14 to 12/16, 12/7 to 12/9 (close enough), 12/2 to 12/4. Each of these drops has corresponded so far to an impulse here in the SW around 10 days later. Most of them have been dry. The system coming 12/26 here, tied to the 12/14 to 12/16 drop should have some actual moisture with it. The 12/18 to 12/19 drop, relatively massive (14 points in one day, others closer to 10-points in two days), is coming through in a few days, and continues to look like it has pretty impressive cold and decent moisture for the SW US, may be my biggest snow storm since Dec 2015 if the set up evolves as the models show this week. Accuweather / Weather.com have been showing 3-6" for a few days now.

Date	Tahiti (hPa)	Darwin (hPa)	Daily Contribution	30 day Av. SOI	90 day Av. SOI
26 Dec 2018	1008.83	1005.75	-3.32	9.37	3.39
25 Dec 2018	1009.69	1005.60	1.92	9.48	3.37
24 Dec 2018	1010.56	1005.75	5.66	9.41	3.34
23 Dec 2018	1011.65	1005.45	12.87	9.35	3.16
22 Dec 2018	1011.39	1005.10	13.34	9.15	2.81
21 Dec 2018	1011.94	1005.35	14.89	8.83	2.36
20 Dec 2018	1012.71	1007.00	10.33	8.53	1.91
19 Dec 2018	1013.25	1008.05	7.68	8.40	1.63
18 Dec 2018	1014.64	1006.70	21.90	7.89	1.49
17 Dec 2018	1013.56	1006.50	17.33	6.56	1.17
16 Dec 2018	1011.96	1006.00	11.62	5.14	0.90
15 Dec 2018	1012.11	1005.25	16.29	4.29	0.82
14 Dec 2018	1013.05	1005.15	21.69	3.69	0.72
13 Dec 2018	1012.83	1005.20	20.29	2.95	0.59
12 Dec 2018	1011.75	1005.45	13.39	2.36	0.46
11 Dec 2018	1010.69	1006.20	4.00	1.89	0.37
10 Dec 2018	1010.20	1006.30	0.93	2.13	0.39
9 Dec 2018	1010.20	1007.15	-3.48	2.39	0.25
8 Dec 2018	1010.39	1006.25	2.18	2.69	0.03
7 Dec 2018	1010.34	1005.40	6.33	2.58	-0.23
6 Dec 2018	1011.07	1006.20	5.97	2.34	-0.64
5 Dec 2018	1012.80	1007.45	8.46	2.15	-1.06
4 Dec 2018	1013.56	1009.35	2.54	1.78	-1.45
3 Dec 2018	1014.10	1008.80	8.20	1.52	-1.61
2 Dec 2018	1014.79	1008.40	13.86	0.95	-1.74
1 Dec 2018	1014.01	1009.05	6.43	0.49	-1.84

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

What drives MJO? Solar wind?

[raindancewx]

Blizzard warning for...essentially only Albuquerque with the storm. Shades of "Goliath" in 2015. This was Roswell back then -

Snow, then crazy wind. I think this is somewhat overdone for snow, I'm at 2-5", with locally less in the SE and locally more on the West Side, but we'll see. I hope they nail this. Measurements in an accurate way may be near impossible anyway. We should see near record cold here for around Fri-Weds. Some areas in the city will get close to 0F at night if the snow verifies.

...BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM MST SATURDAY...

*WHAT...Blizzard conditions expected. Total snow accumulations of 4 to 8 inches are expected in the Albuquerque Metro area, with the highest amounts expected on the west side of Albuquerque. Between 12 and 20 inches of snow is expected across the Sandia and Manzano Mountains, with locally higher amounts possible. Winds gusting as high as 55 to 60 mph are expected through and downstream of mountain passes, including Tijeras Canyon, shortly after midnight through Friday afternoon. * WHERE...Middle Rio Grande Valley including the Albuquerque Metro Area, Sandia and Manzano Mountains.*

Snow here in El Ninos is negatively correlated to snow in the NE, so will be interesting to see where we finish. We were at 0.8" as of yesterday. Statistically, only half of El Ninos here see more than 7 inches of snow here in the snowiest month between Oct-May, so if we verify at 6"+, this is likely the peak of winter here, and I'd expect a transition to a better Eastern pattern. That said, if we finish with 4-5" from this storm, its more likely than not that another month will beat or match December. I'm increasingly looking at March as that month. There are major hints on the evolution of the pattern with this system. I personally think this part of the pattern resembles Sept nationally in some ways. There will be moments to come when Oct/Nov show up I think, the question is for how long?

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

Just now, raindancewx said:

Blizzard warning for...essentially only Albuquerque with the storm. Shades of "Goliath" in 2015. This was Roswell back then -

Snow, then crazy wind. I think this is somewhat overdone for snow, I'm at 2-5", with locally less in the SE and locally more on the West Side, but we'll see. I hope they nail this. Measurements in an accurate way may be near impossible anyway. We should see near record cold here for around Fri-Weds. Some areas in the city will get close to 0F at night if the snow verifies.

...BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM MST SATURDAY...

*WHAT...Blizzard conditions expected. Total snow accumulations of 4 to 8 inches are expected in the Albuquerque Metro area, with the highest amounts expected on the west side of Albuquerque. Between 12 and 20 inches of snow is expected across the Sandia and Manzano Mountains, with locally higher amounts possible. Winds gusting as high as 55 to 60 mph are expected through and downstream of mountain passes, including Tijeras Canyon, shortly after midnight through Friday afternoon. * WHERE...Middle Rio Grande Valley including the Albuquerque Metro Area, Sandia and Manzano Mountains.*

Snow here in El Ninos is negatively correlated to snow in the NE, so will be interesting to see where we finish. We were at 0.8" as of yesterday. Statistically, only half of El Ninos here see more than 7 inches of snow here in the snowiest month between Oct-May, so if we verify at 6"+, this is likely the peak of winter here, and I'd expect a transition to a better Eastern pattern. That said, if we finish with 4-5" from this storm, its more likely than not that another month will beat or match December. I'm increasingly looking at March as that month. There are major hints on the evolution of the pattern with this system. I personally think this part of the pattern resembles Sept nationally in some ways. There will be moments to come when Oct/Nov show up I think, the question is for how long?

That snow was from Goliath? Wow. That's crazy. 

[raindancewx]

Goliath was a bat-sh&t crazy storm here. I had maybe 2 inches from it, but the drifts from the winds were 0.5" - 8" in places, all slanted, like a kid making a sand castle. We had snow before and after it too, so my 7 inches of snow in Dec 2015 was around for like, three weeks. Very cold here for mid-Dec to mid-Jan that year, warm the rest of the winter.

I wanted to point out that the SOI was near 0 again as of the last update. Also, expecting to see Nino 3.4 come in around 27.6C or 27.7C for December. Very curious to see what the subsurface data comes in at for December too. If the subsurface cools, it has different implications for January v. staying the same or strengthening if you look at the past El Ninos.

The CFS currently shows this for January. I think the CFS may have the right idea for precip, I'm not sure about temps yet. Most of the things I look at imply a very warm and a very cold half to January, but I'm sure in some places one extreme will win over the other.

[IntenseBlizzard2014]

18 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Goliath was a bat-sh&t crazy storm here. I had maybe 2 inches from it, but the drifts from the winds were 0.5" - 8" in places, all slanted, like a kid making a sand castle. We had snow before and after it too, so my 7 inches of snow in Dec 2015 was around for like, three weeks. Very cold here for mid-Dec to mid-Jan that year, warm the rest of the winter.

I wanted to point out that the SOI was near 0 again as of the last update. Also, expecting to see Nino 3.4 come in around 27.6C or 27.7C for December. Very curious to see what the subsurface data comes in at for December too. If the subsurface cools, it has different implications for January v. staying the same or strengthening if you look at the past El Ninos.

The CFS currently shows this for January. I think the CFS may have the right idea for precip, I'm not sure about temps yet. Most of the things I look at imply a very warm and a very cold half to January, but I'm sure in some places one extreme will win over the other.

The CFS isn't that good with the whole SSW portrayal. 

[LibertyBell]

The first blizzard in recorded history for Albuquerque today?

[raindancewx]

First blizzard warning...maybe? Albuquerque can get a blizzard on a West, North or South wind, but not an East wind.

We have a mountain pass east of the city at 7,000 feet, so when the east wind comes over that pass, areas east of me get destroyed with snow. But then it sinks to 5,000 feet here, dries and warms and destroys snow, sometimes even destroys cold rain in Albuquerque. So it is almost impossible to get high (East) wind and heavy snow in Albuquerque itself. That verified again - we had 2 inches of snow officially from 7:30 pm yesterday to about 11 pm, with the standard 15:1 ratio roughly on light winds, not out of the East. The East wind began around 11 pm, and the snow stopped accumulating almost immediately. So we never really had blizzard conditions in the city. Only 0.5" today officially. I went with 2-5", locally 3-7" on the Westside and higher terrain of the city (5500 feet+), locally 0-2" downwind of the canyon in SE ABQ and most places in the city had 2-5", so I'm pretty happy with that. NWS ABQ had 4-8", and hardly anyone had four, and I didn't see measurements of 8" even in the favored areas. 

All that said, when I got north of the snow-destroying east wind, it was snowing heavily with fog on my morning commute. I-25, where I normally go 80-90 mph each morning was going 35 mph with snow on the road and low visibility. Fairly terrifying.

Currently the city has 3.3 inches of snow officially for Dec. That is almost never enough in an El Nino to be the snowiest month here. We probably do have another impulse around 12/31-1/1 or 1/1-1/2 given the big SOI drop around 12/23-12/25, since storms tend to show up here around 8-12 days after 10 pt SOI drops within two days. I expect the next storm being 1/1 centered for us, which means another month, Jan/Feb/Mar is probably going to be a more active month than December in the SW. 

It's interesting - December tends to be much snowier in Albuquerque when the AMO is positive. The relatively average December is consistent with a -AMO or =AMO. January tends to be our top month if the AMO is under -0.1 from Nov-Apr on average, but it hasn't done that in an El Nino in close to 30 years. Neutral AMO (-0.1 to +0.1) is looking likely though, and so if Nov/Dec/Jan are out, it's probably Feb or Mar as the top month at this point. I lean toward March if we are to finish Dec with 3.3 inches of snow (already more than 2002-03 here, and closing in on 2009-10 too).

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

First blizzard warning...maybe? Albuquerque can get a blizzard on a West, North or South wind, but not an East wind.

We have a mountain pass east of the city at 7,000 feet, so when the east wind comes over that pass, areas east of me get destroyed with snow. But then it sinks to 5,000 feet here, dries and warms and destroys snow, sometimes even destroys cold rain in Albuquerque. So it is almost impossible to get high (East) wind and heavy snow in Albuquerque itself. That verified again - we had 2 inches of snow officially from 7:30 pm yesterday to about 11 pm, with the standard 15:1 ratio roughly on light winds, not out of the East. The East wind began around 11 pm, and the snow stopped accumulating almost immediately. So we never really had blizzard conditions in the city. Only 0.5" today officially. I went with 2-5", locally 3-7" on the Westside and higher terrain of the city (5500 feet+), locally 0-2" downwind of the canyon in SE ABQ and most places in the city had 2-5", so I'm pretty happy with that. NWS ABQ had 4-8", and hardly anyone had four, and I didn't see measurements of 8" even in the favored areas. 

 

What is this?

[raindancewx]

Someone was commenting on the blizzard warning here, so I mentioned my issues with it. Back on topic -

If the subsurface warms up in December (100-180W, 300m down) I get this for January:

With fast weakening, the West gets very warm. No weakening is similar to strengthening.

The blend that worked last month that showed a warm December nationally, rolled forward, has the SE cold in January, and some subsurface weakening. The statistical approach has somewhat faster weakening based on 1979-2017 Dec v. 1980-2018 January.

I do think some weakening has occurred but I can't really tell how much from eyeballing it. The bottom two scenarios seem most likely to me. Still a lot of orange on the animation but some blue is showing up now and the depth of the warmth is shallower than before.

[WidreMann]

The aggregate heat content anomalies have dropped quite a bit in the past three months, from near 1.6 to now around 1.0. But even during December, it went from 1.3 to 1.0.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Tao/Triton maps have showed warming in the western subsurface. This was happening despite low SOI. Eventually the persistent SOI became too much and it's been cooling the last 2 weeks. I wonder how many examples of subsurface/SOI disconnect there are. 

[raindancewx]

The image WidreMann posted looks like about +1.1 for the top 300m in Dec 2018, 100-180W, so you'd get a cooler SE relative to norms but not as cold as the bottom left image. I can't do a map, because the ESRL stuff is down, I made those maps before. 

I actually think it might be colder in the SW than shown too, at least in New Mexico, as the whole state looks extremely cold for a pretty extended period at the moment. My high on 1/1 is currently listed as 22F, around 25F below average. I haven't been above freezing since 7:30 pm on 12/27.

There actually are a lot of big -SOI Decembers in La Ninas so I think you just have to decide whether flipping them for a +SOI Dec in an El Nino would work in January or whether its the blend of opposites that matters. For January, I think one of two things happens:

1) La Nina storm track with enhanced moisture from the subtropical jet OR

2) El Nino storm track with diminished moisture from the subtropical jet.

I would say December has been scenario two since about 12/7. But I don't know that January will continue that way. The precip anomalies so far are fairly close to what I expected, I thought the Plains, SW, and SE would be pretty wet overall in winter. I didn't see many forecasts that had the Plains warm and wet like I did (that's actually a very snowy pattern for them, since it is still very cold).

 

 

[raindancewx]

SOI is going to finish December right around 9.5 looks like, it is 9.46 for 12/1-12/30. Top six matches for Oct-Dec will be some blend of these years.

Year	Oct	Nov	Dec	Match
2018	2.6	0.6	9.5	0.0
1954	2.2	2.3	11.5	4.1
1996	5.2	-0.1	7.3	5.5
1945	2.9	-3.4	5.4	8.4
2003	-2.9	-2.4	9.0	9.0
1933	4.1	6.8	6.9	10.3
1961	4.7	6.8	12.5	11.3

January 2004 still looks like a decent MJO match too, I think its safe to assume we will be near the MJO 5/6 transition around 1/1/19. The MJO was near that position in January 2004 too. 1997-98 is still following a similar MJO migration as this year too. Worth noting that almost all of the top SOI matches are low solar years - 1954, 1996, 1933, very low, and the others relatively low.

Date	Tahiti (hPa)	Darwin (hPa)	Daily Contribution	30 day Av. SOI	90 day Av. SOI
30 Dec 2018	1010.45	1005.45	6.64	9.46	4.50
29 Dec 2018	1011.15	1004.35	15.98	9.44	4.16
28 Dec 2018	1010.84	1003.60	18.27	9.33	3.79
27 Dec 2018	1008.54	1004.50	1.66	9.23	3.48
26 Dec 2018	1008.83	1005.75	-3.32	9.37	3.39
25 Dec 2018	1009.69	1005.60	1.92	9.48	3.37
24 Dec 2018	1010.56	1005.75	5.66	9.41	3.34
23 Dec 2018	1011.65	1005.45	12.87	9.35	3.16
22 Dec 2018	1011.39	1005.10	13.34	9.15	2.81
21 Dec 2018	1011.94	1005.35	14.89	8.83	2.36
20 Dec 2018	1012.71	1007.00	10.33	8.53	1.91
19 Dec 2018	1013.25	1008.05	7.68	8.40	1.63
18 Dec 2018	1014.64	1006.70	21.90	7.89	1.49
17 Dec 2018	1013.56	1006.50	17.33	6.56	1.17
16 Dec 2018	1011.96	1006.00	11.62	5.14	0.90
15 Dec 2018	1012.11	1005.25	16.29	4.29	0.82
14 Dec 2018	1013.05	1005.15	21.69	3.69	0.72
13 Dec 2018	1012.83	1005.20	20.29	2.95	0.59
12 Dec 2018	1011.75	1005.45	13.39	2.36	0.46
11 Dec 2018	1010.69	1006.20	4.00	1.89	0.37
10 Dec 2018	1010.20	1006.30	0.93	2.13	0.39
9 Dec 2018	1010.20	1007.15	-3.48	2.39	0.25
8 Dec 2018	1010.39	1006.25	2.18	2.69	0.03
7 Dec 2018	1010.34	1005.40	6.33	2.58	-0.23
6 Dec 2018	1011.07	1006.20	5.97	2.34	-0.64
5 Dec 2018	1012.80	1007.45	8.46	2.15	-1.06
4 Dec 2018	1013.56	1009.35	2.54	1.78	-1.45
3 Dec 2018	1014.10	1008.80	8.20	1.52	-1.61
2 Dec 2018	1014.79	1008.40	13.86	0.95	-1.74
1 Dec 2018	1014.01	1009.05	6.43	0.49	-1.84

[raindancewx]

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA 
 05DEC2018     23.1 0.8     26.2 1.1     27.6 1.0     29.7 1.2
 12DEC2018     23.4 0.8     26.1 1.0     27.7 1.1     29.7 1.2
 19DEC2018     23.7 0.7     26.2 1.0     27.6 1.0     29.5 1.0
 26DEC2018     24.1 0.8     26.0 0.7     27.3 0.7     29.2 0.8

 04JAN1995     24.7 0.8     26.1 0.7     27.6 1.1     29.3 0.9

Some weakening. Basin wide. Nino 3.4 around 27.60C for Dec? Still kind of like 1994 and 2006 relative to 2002 and 2009. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

 09DEC2009     22.7 0.2     26.6 1.5     28.2 1.7     29.6 1.1
 16DEC2009     22.6-0.2     26.7 1.5     28.3 1.8     29.7 1.2
 23DEC2009     23.7 0.5     26.8 1.5     28.4 1.9     29.7 1.3
 30DEC2009     24.3 0.7     26.7 1.4     28.3 1.7     29.6 1.2

 06DEC2006     22.9 0.5     26.1 1.1     27.9 1.3     29.6 1.1
 13DEC2006     22.9 0.2     26.3 1.2     27.8 1.2     29.5 1.0
 20DEC2006     23.7 0.6     26.5 1.3     27.7 1.2     29.4 1.0
 27DEC2006     24.0 0.6     26.6 1.3     27.7 1.1     29.4 1.0

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

-NOI showing up on models. This is like the SOI, but it's connnected to 30N off the California coast, it's a sign of strengthening El Nino. 

[jaxjagman]

On 12/29/2018 at 12:03 PM, AfewUniversesBelowNormal said:

Tao/Triton maps have showed warming in the western subsurface. This was happening despite low SOI. Eventually the persistent SOI became too much and it's been cooling the last 2 weeks. I wonder how many examples of subsurface/SOI disconnect there are. 

Annoying this site got shut down because of the government shutdown

[raindancewx]

The SOI has dropped pretty massively the last two days. I agree about California, there are some signs showing the SW getting a lot of precipitation in Jan. 

The newest Canadian model is in. Here are the trends. The cold in California makes sense to me given the amount of storminess that seems to be coming. NE trended drier. SW colder.

Here is February. Vastly warmer/drier. Dec SOI doesn't have much correation on Jan temps/precip for whatever reason. Tends to show up in February. Might be seeing that below.

Canadian has also trended to a much weaker El Nino, which is interesting.

[raindancewx]

Dec subsurface for 100-180W was officially +1.13. Two easy strong blends for January: 

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

I can't use ESRL, but here are some anomalies v. 1951-2010 highs. I would say this first blend is close to the new Canadian I listed above. This blend tries to focus most on Dec.

Year	Oct	Nov	Dec
1986	0.95	0.52	0.97
2015	1.91	1.78	1.20
2015	1.91	1.78	1.20
Mean	1.59	1.36	1.12
2018	1.58	1.35	1.13

Jan	1987	2016	2016	Mean	Anomaly
Boston	35.6	39.5	39.5	38.2	1.9
JAX	63.5	61.8	61.8	62.4	-2.3
Bismarck	31.9	26.8	26.8	28.5	8.1
Chicago	32.2	31.7	31.7	31.9	1.5
ABQ	46.1	47.5	47.5	47.0	-0.7
Seattle	45.7	49.1	49.1	48.0	2.6
San Diego	64.1	65.5	65.5	65.0	-0.5

This is the other blend. Produces a colder NE, warmer SW. Of course, it looks very cold here short term, and less like the Canadian.

Year	Oct	Nov	Dec
2018	1.58	1.36	1.13
1982	2.07	1.92	1.45
1986	0.95	0.52	0.97
1991	1.41	1.22	1.71
2002	1.72	1.58	0.74
2002	1.72	1.58	0.74
Mean	1.57	1.36	1.12