2019 ENSO

[raindancewx]

I'm in the cold-neutral camp myself. I don't think the tendency to be warmer but kind of similar looking to 2017 is going to change much. Blending warm Nino 4 years (El Ninos) with cold Nino 1.2/3 years seems to be matching my Summer weather. I do think Nino 3 is probably going to be essentially La Nina-ish for several months. It's hard to find big -SOI September years that are La Nina years in winter. Since Nino 3.4 was only 25.7C or so in 2017-18 (-0.8C v. 1951-2010), running 0.3-0.5 above it as we seem to be in Nino 3.4 is a cold Neutral. 2012-13 and 2013-14 were both in the 26-26.5C zone, near La Nina, not quite. 2012-13 was actually pretty cold here in the SW, but dry while 2013-14 was warm/dry. The 26.0-26.5C zone for Nino 3.4 seems to produce pretty wildly different outcomes depending on the other factors. 

[raindancewx]

Not really seeing any reason for Nino 4 to cool off given how the subsurface looks. The Nino 3 should remain quite cold, with Nino 3.4 in between. Nino 1.2 looks like it may warm up some going forward. Less cold than in previous months underneath the surface in Nino 1.2

[raindancewx]

More cooling this week, especially in Nino 1.2 and Nino 3 where the subsurface is very cold. Still warmer than 2017 overall.

               Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 14AUG2019     20.0-0.7     24.7-0.3     27.0 0.1     29.5 0.8
 21AUG2019     20.3-0.3     24.7-0.3     26.8 0.0     29.5 0.8
 28AUG2019     20.2-0.4     24.6-0.3     26.5-0.2     29.2 0.6
 04SEP2019     19.8-0.6     24.9 0.0     26.6-0.2     29.1 0.5
 11SEP2019     19.1-1.3     24.4-0.5     26.4-0.3     29.0 0.3

 16AUG2017     19.9-0.7     24.5-0.5     26.4-0.5     28.8 0.1
 23AUG2017     19.6-1.0     24.6-0.4     26.7-0.1     28.9 0.2
 30AUG2017     20.3-0.2     24.5-0.4     26.5-0.2     28.8 0.2
 06SEP2017     20.4-0.1     24.3-0.6     26.2-0.6     28.7 0.1
 13SEP2017     19.7-0.7     24.0-0.9     26.1-0.6     28.7 0.0

I'm working on my winter outlook. Will link to it in a month or so. My hunch is we're nearing the minimal depatures for Nino 1.2, probably -1 to -1.5 in Sept or Oct, and then it warms up relatively speaking. Nino 3 sees a later, but less pronounced minimum in October/November. Nino 3.4 doesn't get as cold, relatively, but remains fairly steady for a longer period. Nino 4 may briefly go negative against its long-term averages if the cold from the east washes west, but I don't think it lasts, and you'll see a rebound.

[raindancewx]

MJO looks like it will reach phase 1 around 10/1. That is very similar to last year. September looks a lot like a blend of 1995, 1953 and 2018 at the moment.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Here comes the La Nina.

My prediction is developing La Nina. 

[raindancewx]

To be honest, while I don't expect a La Nina to be the "classified state" for the winter, it probably will be close enough in the eastern zones that I do plan on using some La Nina analogs in my winter blend. The La Nina winters after El Nino winters tend to be wetter in the SW as a composite too, for what it is worth. IRI was still mentioning warm neutral / El Nino as possibilities for this winter based on the dynamical and statistical models as recently as this week - which I think is a bit insane.

I was playing around with re-calibrating the subsurface color scheme from CPC, since they added in a light blue/orange for -0.5 to +0.5. If you make the scale the same for 2017 and 2019 for September 10 both years, it's a lot clearer that there is just less subsurface coolness at the moment compared to 2017, and more warmth too. I've been looking at 1953/2009 (much warmer anomalies Nino 4 than Nino 1.2) at the solar minimum in a blend with some kind of combination of 1983, 1995 (positive PDO La Ninas after El Ninos), with 1992/2018 thrown in to fix a couple other issues with the blend. Still working on the weighting, but it is probably those six years that I'll use for winter.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

I really don't think warm neutral is insane, but we'll see. I'm certainly betting against a classified la nina.

[Treckasec]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I really don't think warm neutral is insane, but we'll see. I'm certainly betting against a classified la nina.

When considering the expanse of the cooler SSTAs, it seems like the ENSO should lean on the cooler side, rather than on the warmer side. Unless we lose those cooler subsurface + surface waters, I would think that a cool neutral is more probable.

[raindancewx]

The SOI is around -17.5 for 9/1-9/19. It looks fairly negative for October on the model pressure pattern depictions too.

1980, 1990, 1992 and a few other years with fairly cold Nino 3.4 readings have neutral or negative SOI values in September, but nothing like this year, i.e., below -8. 

I do think 1992 is worthy as a comparison, in at least some capacity. Nino 3.4 was 26.65C, with a +0.7 SOI. I incorporate solar stuff into my analogs, so 1992-93 is a bad match on that. It's not great since it is a volcanic winter and had a colder AMO. But it is very close, at least over the Summer for the Nino zones.

 28AUG2019     20.2-0.4     24.6-0.3     26.5-0.2     29.2 0.6
 04SEP2019     19.8-0.6     24.9 0.0     26.6-0.2     29.1 0.5
 11SEP2019     19.1-1.3     24.4-0.5     26.4-0.3     29.0 0.3

 26AUG1992     20.3-0.3     24.8-0.2     26.7-0.1     28.9 0.3
 02SEP1992     20.3-0.2     24.4-0.5     26.3-0.4     28.6 0.0
 09SEP1992     19.7-0.8     24.4-0.5     26.4-0.3     28.7 0.1

The blend I like for winter actually has a stronger -NAO signal than I realized for winter, but it still has a pretty extended +NAO phase in Jan and probably half of February. Will be interesting to see if Dec comes in negative, I think it is possible if Nino 4 doesn't get near 29.0C by December.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 9/19/2019 at 6:11 AM, Treckasec said:

When considering the expanse of the cooler SSTAs, it seems like the ENSO should lean on the cooler side, rather than on the warmer side. Unless we lose those cooler subsurface + surface waters, I would think that a cool neutral is more probable.

Yea, def. looking more neutral...which side is debatable. Gotta be careful with the subsurface becuase it doesn't always continue to translate to the surface, especially with negative SOI maybe keeping rosby waves in check. I've caught myself snickering at IRI before, but they usually end up more correct than we are.

[raindancewx]

For reference, even though it is only September, the SOI is a fairly strong temperature signal for December & February in the US. Not really true for precip. Generally the deeper correlations "win" if the SOI is extremely positive or negative. It's a cold SE/warm NW signal for February, and a cold Northern Plains signal for Dec. 

Wet California signal is consistent with the La Nina after El Nino signal. Dry signal over the Midwest is actually pretty strong for February. My general hunch for this winter is it will be wet for many, but fewer, stronger storms than last year. As opposed to many weak storms. We'll see. A lot of our really crappy winters out here will have like 2-4 inches of rain (2x-4x average) in September. We may get an inch or so, but it's not looking like 1995, 2013, or 2017 wetness in late September just yet - all terrible winters here - despite the possibility of a big cut off low over the SW this week.

[Maestrobjwa]

Can anybody point to a reliable source for ENSO history? (I'm looking to compare snowfall during neutral winters for my region, lol)

[raindancewx]

The raw data CPC uses is reliable. They just think the ENSO thresholds for La Nina and El Nino are warming over time, and I don't think that is really true. So +0.5C in 2019 is warmer than +0.5C in 1959 if you look here - 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

 YR   MON  TOTAL ClimAdjust ANOM 
1950   1   24.56   26.18   -1.62

2019   1   27.21   26.45    0.76

The El Ninos in the 1950s with DJF Nino 3.4 readings above 27C act like modern El Ninos. The others don't, at least that is what I find. 26-27C ish works well in winter for Neutral conditions. A lot of what they think is warming thresholds seems more likely to be biases from small data where you happen to have 12 El Ninos in 30 years, instead of 10. Over 60 years, with more balanced positive PDO and negative PDO data, you find pretty steady concentrations of ENSO at 26C or less or at/above 27C in winter.

For the older data sets, if you correlate the 1950s-now data with the same data, and then roll it back, you can get a good idea on older years generally. This is at attempt to do something similar to what I did, and nearly matches my data, for pre 1950 ENSO, using constant ENSO thresholds.

https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

[jaxjagman]

48 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The raw data CPC uses is reliable. They just think the ENSO thresholds for La Nina and El Nino are warming over time, and I don't think that is really true. So +0.5C in 2019 is warmer than +0.5C in 1959 if you look here - 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

 YR   MON  TOTAL ClimAdjust ANOM 
1950   1   24.56   26.18   -1.62

2019   1   27.21   26.45    0.76

The El Ninos in the 1950s with DJF Nino 3.4 readings above 27C act like modern El Ninos. The others don't, at least that is what I find. 26-27C ish works well in winter for Neutral conditions. A lot of what they think is warming thresholds seems more likely to be biases from small data where you happen to have 12 El Ninos in 30 years, instead of 10. Over 60 years, with more balanced positive PDO and negative PDO data, you find pretty steady concentrations of ENSO at 26C or less or at/above 27C in winter.

For the older data sets, if you correlate the 1950s-now data with the same data, and then roll it back, you can get a good idea on older years generally. This is at attempt to do something similar to what I did, and nearly matches my data, for pre 1950 ENSO, using constant ENSO thresholds.

https://www.wWe ebberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

We are in our worse drought sorta speaking since since 1954 in the Tn Valley,around Nashville is on pace to be the driest for Sept and even warmest on record with temps of 90 plus  for the year,seems like a more LaNina but isnt.i have  hard time to believe this will be cold and not warm in our area especially if we don't get any rain upcoming into our dry Oct season upcoming

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Was the winter of 2014-2015 considered a warm neutral ENSO?

[raindancewx]

Tropical Tidbits has a nice rebound in Nino 3.4 from a few days ago.

Nino 3.4 was over 27.0C at around 27.2C in winter 2014-15, and the PDO was at record positive values from Nov-Apr, around +2. For the six month period, that's as high as it ever gets. The value last year was around 27.4C, but the PDO was much less positive.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

Was the winter of 2014-2015 considered a warm neutral ENSO?

Weak el nino.

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

18 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Weak el nino.

What is this winter expecting?  Does anyone know when a triple-phase storm is expected?

[yoda]

44 minutes ago, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

What is this winter expecting?  Does anyone know when a triple-phase storm is expected?

Triple phase LMAO

[raindancewx]

This would be classified as a Neutral if the look held, since CPC uses 120-170W, 5S-5N as its zone for designating El Nino and La Nina. However, the Modoki zones are 165E-140W, 10S-10N, for Box A, 110W-70W, 5N-15S for Box B, and 125E-145E, 10S to 20N for Box C. That's basically an idealized El Nino Modoki on the Japanese definition, at least for 9/22, were it to hold. Much of the warmth in Box is north of 5N and west of 170W.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

I don't know, it would be hard to bet against a shorter term La Nina, at least in Nino 3. The subsurface warmer pool will push a cold wave to the surface in Nino 1.2 and 3 for at least the next month. 

 

[raindancewx]

One of the old Jamstec runs had a cold Nino 3 / 1.2 peaking in SON, before decaying in winter. That seems more or less right to me. I don't disagree at all about Nino 1.2/3 remaining cold. But the +2 and -2 cold pools on the image above are both at the edges of Nino 3.4, at similar depth and similar magnitude. So I don't see any reason for warm west / cold east to change. The trick is Nino 3.4.

This is the July run for SON. Looks like right now in the Nino zones. But then it had a decay in DJF. Nino 1.2 has a tendency to predict PDO changes, so the PDO zone is less positive than depicted, but otherwise, this was a good map. I think the weeklies will show some warmth recovery in Nino 4 and maybe Nino 3.4 this week, probably not to the extent Tropical Tidbits has though.

[raindancewx]

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for
    
               Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 28AUG2019     20.2-0.4     24.6-0.3     26.5-0.2     29.2 0.6
 04SEP2019     19.8-0.6     24.9 0.0     26.6-0.2     29.1 0.5
 11SEP2019     19.1-1.3     24.4-0.5     26.4-0.3     29.0 0.3
 18SEP2019     19.1-1.3     24.2-0.6     26.5-0.2     29.3 0.6

Nice rebound in Nino 4. Nino 3.4 hanging tough.

 30AUG2017     20.3-0.2     24.5-0.4     26.5-0.2     28.8 0.2
 06SEP2017     20.4-0.1     24.3-0.6     26.2-0.6     28.7 0.1
 13SEP2017     19.7-0.7     24.0-0.9     26.1-0.6     28.7 0.0
 20SEP2017     19.3-1.1     23.9-1.0     26.3-0.4     28.7 0.0

A warm September in Nino 4 is a strong cold signal for a lot of the US, and that's broadly what my analogs have for October.

[raindancewx]

The IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole) is pretty interesting for how the Tropical Pacific looks right now. The set up in the Indian Ocean is more consistent with an El Nino. Part of me thinks this event will transition back to an El Nino, later in 2020 and then after that we'll get 2-3 La Ninas in a row, which will be terrible for most of the West.

The SOI is still around -15 for September, which is broadly speaking a wet signal for the West but not so much where I am.

The NAO looks like it will crash again for a bit late this month. I'm curious to see what the final NAO value is for September. My hunch is the NAO will be more volatile than predominantly negative or positive this winter. My tentative analogs have one -NAO month, one near average, and one +NAO month. We will see. September relative to March and May relative to April as a blend works pretty well in figuring out the predominant NAO state the next winter I find.

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, raindancewx said:

The IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole) is pretty interesting for how the Tropical Pacific looks right now. The set up in the Indian Ocean is more consistent with an El Nino. Part of me thinks this event will transition back to an El Nino, later in 2020 and then after that we'll get 2-3 La Ninas in a row, which will be terrible for most of the West.

The SOI is still around -15 for September, which is broadly speaking a wet signal for the West but not so much where I am.

The NAO looks like it will crash again for a bit late this month. I'm curious to see what the final NAO value is for September. My hunch is the NAO will be more volatile than predominantly negative or positive this winter. My tentative analogs have one -NAO month, one near average, and one +NAO month. We will see. September relative to March and May relative to April as a blend works pretty well in figuring out the predominant NAO state the next winter I find.

 

 

Why do you think that would be terrible for the west? 

Volatile NAO should yield a stormy look.

[Typhoon Tip]

There's unusual eddy forcing all over the place because of the modulating impact of the expanded Hadley Cell into the Ferrell latitudes ... That's a large anomaly that's greater than single-seasonal and more a reflection of the state of the planetary system.  This causing anomalies compared to the previous classic systemic model, and [ likely ] obscuring the "real" state of the oceanic indices due to those stresses.  

Things may look IOD (-)(+) but be ephemeral ...? They are responding to local time-scale disruptions that are part of that larger modulation.  They would be faux presentation of states ... or, if they are real and integrating, it may not be readily coherent if they carry the same forcing weight because they are not differentiating the same way as they did in the previous model. 

A ballooned(ing) Hadley repositions the gradation of heights at mid latitudes. This effects a slew aspects in the on-going, longer term eddy forcing around the Hemispheres.  I just think we cannot be as ENSO reliant at relative measures/observations, to known or suspected results, when those Climatologies are based upon a different era when these macro physical states of the environment dictated a different interrelationship among these various fields - or is strongly hypothetically supported as being different via convention academia and a-priori experience as to how this shit works.

 

  

[Maestrobjwa]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

There's unusual eddy forcing all over the place because of the modulating impact of the expanded Hadley Cell into the Ferrell latitudes ... That's a large anomaly that's greater than single-seasonal and more a reflection of the state of the planetary system.  This causing anomalies compared to the previous classic systemic model, and [ likely ] obscuring the "real" state of the oceanic indices due to those stresses.  

Things may look IOD (-)(+) but be ephemeral ...? They are responding to local time-scale disruptions that are part of that larger modulation.  They would be faux presentation of states ... or, if they are real and integrating, it may not be readily coherent if they carry the same forcing weight because they are not differentiating the same way as they did in the previous model. 

A ballooned(ing) Hadley repositions the gradation of heights at mid latitudes. This effects a slew aspects in the on-going, longer term eddy forcing around the Hemispheres.  I just think we cannot be as ENSO reliant at relative measures/observations, to known or suspected results, when those Climatologies are based upon a different era when these macro physical states of the environment dictated a different interrelationship among these various fields - or is strongly hypothetically supported as being different via convention academia and a-priori experience as to how this shit works.

 

  

But wait...then how do we know what kind of ENSO we're in? (And are we reaching a point where we can't rely on history/analogs as much? And if we can't...how do ya make predictions? I'm particularly thinking about last year and how a lot of people got it wrong...partly because a weak El Niño was showing yet didn't behave like one. Are we entering uncharted weather territory overall due to the changing climate? If so...woe to the folks trying to make accurate predictions, lol

[raindancewx]

Honestly, you guys seem to be over-reacting a bit to last year. Conceptually, if you split the lower 48 into four regions, the strongest indicators for a cold winter are something like:

NE 1/4: -NAO, or a Modoki El Nino with high solar (2014, 1977, 2002, 1968, etc)

SE 1/4: +PDO. Much stronger correlation to southern cold than any ENSO state if you look historically. 1983-84 and 1995-96 were both +PDO years for Nov-Apr.

SW 1/4: An El Nino (>=27.0C) winter after a La Nina winter (<=26.0C). This is actually becoming rarer as a lot of years are cold Neutrals now instead of weak La Ninas. (2018, 2009, 2006, 1976, 1972, 1951, 1965, etc). In the SW, warming up from a cold Nino 3.4 dramatically y/y is a pretty strong indicator for cold if in the initial year is cold. Even 2011, a La Nina but much warmer than 2010, but fairly cold in New Mexico is an example of this, despite not being an El Nino.

NW 1/4: A La Nina after an El Nino (2016, 2010, 2007, 2005, 1998, 1995 etc). I believe each of these since 1995 has been cold somewhere between the Dakotas and N. California, even 2005-06 was relatively cold in this zone v. the rest of the US.

Last year, conceptually fit the SW cold pattern. However, if you recognize that the SOI jumped to +9 in Dec 2018 after being -3 in Dec 2017....that's actually close to a "La Nina after an El Nino" jolt to the SOI. Shockingly, the atmosphere responded and it got stupid cold in the NW & Plains in February, it snowed in Malibu, Billings had its coldest month since 1936, and so on.

For these splits, the r-squared values approach 0.5 over long periods for indicating cold. It isn't that there aren't exceptions, but I tend to view these relationships as robust, as you get the opposite effects in each region when the relevant sign is reversed. ENSO has always been over-rated as a live indicator for seasonal stuff, it's more important for telling you where things are coming and where they came from.

[Treckasec]

@raindancewx

 

Thank you for sharing the basic methodology with which you decide on your forecasts!! At least, it's neat to see what major factors you look into to determine what the winter might be like.

 

Regarding last year, I think that it's understandable that many were caught off-guard after seasonal models (and eventually, weeklies) were pushing for a -NAO to develop, with subsequent eastern U.S. troughing... Of course, these things never transpired! But given the persistence of weather models—which we give more credit to than us humans—it seemed that a cold winter was inevitable! Until it wasn't, of course : )

So with that said, I don't think that people were outrageous to have expected a cold winter, and I was personally expecting to have one as well! But I enjoyed reading your posts and your reasonings for why you believed that the winter would not be as snowy/cold in the NE as people said... And it turned out you were right! I definitely look forward to your next forecasts, whether they spell out a warm or cold winter in the eastern states

[Typhoon Tip]

On 9/26/2019 at 2:24 PM, Maestrobjwa said:

1 But wait...then how do we know what kind of ENSO we're in? (2 And are we reaching a point where we can't rely on history/analogs as much? And if we can't 3 ...how do ya make predictions? I'm particularly thinking about last year and how a lot of people got it wrong...partly because a weak El Niño was showing yet didn't behave like one. 4 Are we entering uncharted weather territory overall due to the changing climate? If so...woe to the folks trying to make accurate predictions, lol

1  The short answer?   The same way.  ENSO (warm)(cool) phases are a 'climate cyclic' - and climate is inherently defined by ( events/n-events ).   Particularly in the summer, when eddy forcing is more dictated by local scaled ( both time and space ) ephemeral anomalies, SS stressing can cause transient index topographies - but, when the autumn's kick the gradients in and the flows become for structurally defined those break down and the longer term residence re-emerges/gets exposed. 

2  ..Approaching?  most likely ...  There? not likely ...  Kinda of how to look at it. 

3   Veerrry carefully - haha. I like qualification tactics because they are valid?   One should mention their caveat emptors when discussing findings/foresight - that's more true to the scientific theme, anyway, because even Einstein said "Theory" within his title of General Relativity - even though at scales above Quantum Mechanics ... the rules that precipitate out of his tensor analysis' are incontrovertibly clad and he could have said, General "God am I smart, my way or the highway" Relativity. 

4  Absolutely yes!