2019 ENSO

[Typhoon Tip]

I don't mind a back-loaded winter idea ...  Hate it, but can see intellectually why one may assess things that way - if they are considering the latest school of what's happenin' now.

The Hadley Cell ( ambient tropical height bulge that extends some latitude N/S of the equatorial trough ...usually terminating in the subtropical band(s) ) has been expanding over recent decades:     Birner, T., S. M. Davis, and Dian J. Seidel, 2014: The changing width of Earth’s tropical belt. Physcis Today, 67, 38–44, doi:10.1063/PT.3.2620.

Why that is important:  It may be over a lot of readers heads in here ? ( seems that way... but I don't know ), but, when you have a surplus thermal energy source in a system that relies upon systemic circulation/integrated with thermodynamics to remove it, that is going to take more time than when/if said region does not have said surplus.  

This happened last year.  As late in the season as early February ... NCEP noted that the atmospheric circulation in the broader scope and scale was not demonstrating that it was coupled to the ENSO state... In simple terms, the El Nino - regardless of its form - was irrelevant.  

A mild warm ENSO event will not couple to the atmosphere as readily during an expanded Hadley Cell, as it will when said tropical circulation is less expanded. The reason for that is "integrate-ability"   ... You need gradient to do that... When the Hadley balloons, the gradient which is where the Hadley Cell kisses the Ferral Cell latitude, slips too far N or S of the ENSO latitudes and that's kinda of a geo-physical ball-game.

So,... long about early mid February... the "deflating" processing had elapsed long enough that the gradient crept south and then... boom, we triggered more atmospheric response.  The only problem is... February is a spring month already for the kiss-latitudes of the HC and FC circulation eddies of the large scaled general circulation of the atmosphere... Anyway, if a given ENSO event is more intense, that may 'trigger' earlier in this sense....  to which this ain't that.   We are supposedly in a modest warm anomaly that is < +.5 and should fit all safe a snug inside the confines of the HC... and the surrounding atmosphere's of the mid levels/latitudes will remain blissfully unaware because of it... I could see that lasting similar to last year... As an after though, it may be why the flow has at times looked more NINA -like despite.

But ... this isn't absolute.  Anomalies relative to anomalies happen too - we could be right about all this and still clock a 30" juggernaut on December 10, just before going back to the same mildish ennui.  And everyone would claim this circuitry of reasoning above isn't true because of that storm ... of course.

[40/70 Benchmark]

45 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I don't mind a back-loaded winter idea ...  Hate it, but can see intellectually why one may assess things that way - if they are considering the latest school of what's happenin' now.

The Hadley Cell ( ambient tropical height bulge that extends some latitude N/S of the equatorial trough ...usually terminating in the subtropical band(s) ) has been expanding over recent decades:     Birner, T., S. M. Davis, and Dian J. Seidel, 2014: The changing width of Earth’s tropical belt. Physcis Today, 67, 38–44, doi:10.1063/PT.3.2620.

Why that is important:  It may be over a lot of readers heads in here ? ( seems that way... but I don't know ), but, when you have a surplus thermal energy source in a system that relies upon systemic circulation/integrated with thermodynamics to remove it, that is going to take more time than when/if said region does not have said surplus.  

This happened last year.  As late in the season as early February ... NCEP noted that the atmospheric circulation in the broader scope and scale was not demonstrating that it was coupled to the ENSO state... In simple terms, the El Nino - regardless of its form - was irrelevant.  

A mild warm ENSO event will not couple to the atmosphere as readily during an expanded Hadley Cell, as it will when said tropical circulation is less expanded. The reason for that is "integrate-ability"   ... You need gradient to do that... When the Hadley balloons, the gradient which is where the Hadley Cell kisses the Ferral Cell latitude, slips too far N or S of the ENSO latitudes and that's kinda of a geo-physical ball-game.

So,... long about early mid February... the "deflating" processing had elapsed long enough that the gradient crept south and then... boom, we triggered more atmospheric response.  The only problem is... February is a spring month already for the kiss-latitudes of the HC and FC circulation eddies of the large scaled general circulation of the atmosphere... Anyway, if a given ENSO event is more intense, that may 'trigger' earlier in this sense....  to which this ain't that.   We are supposedly in a modest warm anomaly that is < +.5 and should fit all safe a snug inside the confines of the HC... and the surrounding atmosphere's of the mid levels/latitudes will remain blissfully unaware because of it... I could see that lasting similar to last year... As an after though, it may be why the flow has at times looked more NINA -like despite.

But ... this isn't absolute.  Anomalies relative to anomalies happen too - we could be right about all this and still clock a 30" juggernaut on December 10, just before going back to the same mildish ennui.  And everyone would claim this circuitry of reasoning above isn't true because of that storm ... of course.

I'd keep an eye on the MEI....it was +.30 as of AS value. SO should be higher.

[Maestrobjwa]

5 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I don't mind a back-loaded winter idea ...  Hate it, but can see intellectually why one may assess things that way - if they are considering the latest school of what's happenin' now.

The Hadley Cell ( ambient tropical height bulge that extends some latitude N/S of the equatorial trough ...usually terminating in the subtropical band(s) ) has been expanding over recent decades:     Birner, T., S. M. Davis, and Dian J. Seidel, 2014: The changing width of Earth’s tropical belt. Physcis Today, 67, 38–44, doi:10.1063/PT.3.2620.

Why that is important:  It may be over a lot of readers heads in here ? ( seems that way... but I don't know ), but, when you have a surplus thermal energy source in a system that relies upon systemic circulation/integrated with thermodynamics to remove it, that is going to take more time than when/if said region does not have said surplus.  

This happened last year.  As late in the season as early February ... NCEP noted that the atmospheric circulation in the broader scope and scale was not demonstrating that it was coupled to the ENSO state... In simple terms, the El Nino - regardless of its form - was irrelevant.  

A mild warm ENSO event will not couple to the atmosphere as readily during an expanded Hadley Cell, as it will when said tropical circulation is less expanded. The reason for that is "integrate-ability"   ... You need gradient to do that... When the Hadley balloons, the gradient which is where the Hadley Cell kisses the Ferral Cell latitude, slips too far N or S of the ENSO latitudes and that's kinda of a geo-physical ball-game.

So,... long about early mid February... the "deflating" processing had elapsed long enough that the gradient crept south and then... boom, we triggered more atmospheric response.  The only problem is... February is a spring month already for the kiss-latitudes of the HC and FC circulation eddies of the large scaled general circulation of the atmosphere... Anyway, if a given ENSO event is more intense, that may 'trigger' earlier in this sense....  to which this ain't that.   We are supposedly in a modest warm anomaly that is < +.5 and should fit all safe a snug inside the confines of the HC... and the surrounding atmosphere's of the mid levels/latitudes will remain blissfully unaware because of it... I could see that lasting similar to last year... As an after though, it may be why the flow has at times looked more NINA -like despite.

But ... this isn't absolute.  Anomalies relative to anomalies happen too - we could be right about all this and still clock a 30" juggernaut on December 10, just before going back to the same mildish ennui.  And everyone would claim this circuitry of reasoning above isn't true because of that storm ... of course.

So we're essentially facing the same setup as last year? (correct me if I'm oversimplifying). If so...wouldn't that make the winter forecast easier, since you could just go by last year, and go from there? Both weak ninos...the Hadley cell thing you mentioned: would it stand to reason the process will pretty much go the same way? (of course I'd like better than last year, but...if we're dealing with this "not coupling to the atmosphere" again...I won't put my expectations past last year)

[raindancewx]

Last year behaved like Neutral PDO El Nino, which dumps cold in the West and Plains typically. I use 0, +/-0.5 for Nov-Apr, for the PDO as that designation. The composite is basically the same post 1950 (kind of looks like this October which is interesting). Box C (the waters by the Philippines) in the Modoki calculation is fairly strongly correlated to colder Western winters, and that zone has been relatively cold compared to recent years.

Low solar El Ninos also tend to be less reliably "back-loaded" for the East in February - look at February 1931, 1954, 1964, 1966, 1977, 1987, 1995, 2007, 2010, 2019 - definitely a variety there compared to the high solar El Nino February years.

Our high terrain never stopped being cold this year, a lot of the populated towns still had frosts in June, July and August.

At this point, things look at least somewhat promising for the West. Here are some pictures from New Mexico today -

Angel Fire Ski Resort

Red River - 

[40/70 Benchmark]

February 2007, 1995 and 2010 are all patterns that I would take another roll of the dice with, though.

[raindancewx]

The warmth is still moving East. Really not that different from last year. Main difference is there is more cold water around this year.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

22 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So we're essentially facing the same setup as last year? (correct me if I'm oversimplifying). If so...wouldn't that make the winter forecast easier, since you could just go by last year, and go from there? Both weak ninos...the Hadley cell thing you mentioned: would it stand to reason the process will pretty much go the same way? (of course I'd like better than last year, but...if we're dealing with this "not coupling to the atmosphere" again...I won't put my expectations past last year)

Speculatively ?  Yes.   

Certitude mm  ...certainty is a difficult word for scientists. 

I think last year had some legit bad luck - if you will.  We can get a lot of nickle and dime events out of fast flows in an overall speed rich environment, but the storm track last year averaged ever so slightly too far NW - which unfortunately is prescribed in the EXC model.. But, it can slip back SE all of 200 miles and still satisfy both worlds.

[40/70 Benchmark]

56 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Speculatively ?  Yes.   

Certitude mm  ...certainty is a difficult word for scientists. 

I think last year had some legit bad luck - if you will.  We can get a lot of nickle and dime events out of fast flows in an overall speed rich environment, but the storm track last year averaged ever so slightly too far NW - which unfortunately is prescribed in the EXC model.. But, it can slip back SE all of 200 miles and still satisfy both worlds.

Shift last season a bit se, and it would have been good. It has incorrectly gotten associated with some pretty awful seasons by people staring at the KBOS seasonal total on an excel file....but it really was not like those years.

Don't get me wrong..consensus forecast of banner year bombed, but it was not an awful pattern...more a serviceable pattern during which southern New England was snake bitten.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/24/2019 at 8:39 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

February 2007, 1995 and 2010 are all patterns that I would take another roll of the dice with, though.

Skip 1995, I was hoping you'd say either 1994 or 1996

 

[raindancewx]

I keep seeing people referencing 2013 as an analog because of the blob, but the pattern nationally really is closer in the East so far to 2018 than to 2013, which to me implies it isn't much of a factor due to differences in the PDO structure. That light blue area should end up very close to Mexico by the end of October 2019, but the issue with both years is they were too cold in the SW and too warm in the NW.

Nino 3.4 readings will be similar in October 2014 and 2019, but the US pattern is completely different. The strongest response for US temps to winter from the PDO are in the NW US and SE US. So the very cold NW / very warm SE October has some resemblance to a -PDO for Winter 2019-20, while the very warm NW / relatively cold SE in 2014 has some resemblance to what would become the super positive PDO winter of 2014-15, when the PDO was +2.07 for Nov-Apr (sort of the PDO equivalent of a Super El Nino). The October 2014 'cold' spot is right where the deep purples are for the winter correlation. 

[uncle W]

I still like 1959 for enso, qbo and the ao forecast going into November...The ao was very negative in November 1959 and there was a major cold shot after mid month...

Oct 1959 compared to 2019 and Nov 1959...

[raindancewx]

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 25SEP2019     20.0-0.5     24.8-0.1     27.2 0.5     29.7 1.1
 02OCT2019     20.0-0.6     25.1 0.3     27.2 0.5     29.7 1.0
 09OCT2019     19.7-1.0     24.8-0.1     27.1 0.4     29.5 0.9
 16OCT2019     20.6-0.2     25.3 0.4     27.5 0.8     29.7 1.1
 23OCT2019     19.7-1.3     25.0 0.1     27.3 0.6     29.7 1.0

Subsurface heat is up again on the ENSO weekly PDF. Five weeks in a row of El Nino level heat in Nino 3.4. CPC uses 26.75C as the baseline, and Nino 3.4 is around 27.3C. Nino 1.2 is around 20.0C for October on the weeklies. I don't think the monthly number will be that low for Nino 1.2 - but if it comes in under 20.0C that is a strong indicator since 1950 that the PDO will finish below 0 for Nov-Apr (17/18 cases). Definitely less basin wide than last year and 2014-15 so far. Nino 3.4 and Nino 4 are actually warmer than 2014 now for what its worth, since Oct 2014 came in at 27.16C in Nino 3.4.

 26SEP2018     20.2-0.3     25.5 0.6     27.3 0.6     29.3 0.6
 03OCT2018     21.3 0.7     25.6 0.7     27.4 0.7     29.5 0.8
 10OCT2018     21.1 0.4     25.6 0.7     27.3 0.6     29.5 0.9
 17OCT2018     21.1 0.3     25.9 1.0     27.6 0.9     29.6 0.9
 24OCT2018     21.3 0.3     25.9 1.0     27.7 1.1     29.8 1.1

 24SEP2014     21.2 0.8     25.4 0.5     27.1 0.4     29.3 0.6
 01OCT2014     21.7 1.1     25.4 0.5     27.1 0.3     29.2 0.5
 08OCT2014     21.3 0.6     25.5 0.6     27.1 0.4     29.1 0.5
 15OCT2014     21.5 0.7     25.5 0.5     27.2 0.5     29.4 0.7
 22OCT2014     21.8 0.8     25.8 0.8     27.2 0.5     29.4 0.7

[raindancewx]

It's like magic. I had this map in my forecast from 10/10 (see page 14). https://t.co/1yr0fAbUKK?amp=1

Now look at what the CFS has for November 2019. The CFS actually has decent skill for the coming month just before it start

Also, this looks like an El Nino on the CFS now. Levi fixed his Canadian climatology issue so the Canadian update should be interesting on Halloween (I'll be here to avoid the record cold).

[raindancewx]

Since 1950, these are the Octobers with 27.0-27.6 Nino 3.4 monthly readings, since it looks like we finish with Nino 3.4 at 27.3C.

Oct    3.4
1951    27.20
1957    27.42
1963    27.36
1969    27.34
1976    27.46
1977    27.35
1986    27.53
1991    27.58
1994    27.47
2003    27.14
2004    27.44
2006    27.41
2009    27.60
2012    26.98
2014    27.16

Of these, 1951 is easily closest to highs across the US. Then 1969 (right in the West but too cold in the South - no help moving the high from Camille?). 2004 and 1994 aren't super far off either (neither is last year, at 27.62C). 1957, 1976, 2006, 2009 are too cold. 1963, 1977, 1991, 2003, 2012, 2014 are kind of opposite, and a lot of the other years are just off in various ways. The El Ninos with the lowest annualized solar activity are 1953-54, 2009-10 and 2018-19 - very different winters, but we'll see. 

It's probably not great for a cold December in the East that Oct 1963 is relatively opposite of Oct 2019  nationally - I think the MJO must have gotten stuck in a warm phase back then, and Dec 1963 was the second coldest Eastern December since 1950. I think maybe compared to 1963, the MJO is off by 6-weeks, and compared to 2013, it's off by four weeks but we'll see.

For highs locally, for June-Oct, 1948 is the closest match since 1931 - very hot July-Sept sandwiched between a cold June & October. I wouldn't even mention this normally, but that year went to ridiculous, stupid cold in the West in January, kind of like the recent pattern...but in January and for a much longer period than the recent cold snap. I'll be watching for that. I sincerely doubt January 1949 will come to fruition. But I keep expecting a more recent year to replace 1948 as the best match to highs and it hasn't happened yet. 1948 keeps building its lead over every other year back to 1931.

 

[raindancewx]

SOI should finish around -5 or -6 for October. 1951 is a top Aug-Oct match, which makes sense given that it looks like October.

SOI    Aug    Sept    Oct
2019    -3.1    -12.7    -5.0
1946    -4.0    -13.3    -12.3
1969    -4.0    -10.0    -11.6
1990    -4.4    -7.3    -1.2
1951    -5.2    -11.2    -12.3
1987    -13.1    -10.6    -5.3
1972    -8.2    -14.1    -11.0
 

1972-73 is essentially the best physically possible pattern for the West, will be watching to see if it remains a strong match into November..

 

[raindancewx]

The new Canadian run looks a bit more El Nino-y, especially north of the equator. Tropical Tidbits fixed its climatology (baseline for averages) so these maps work again.

It has a warm US look. The move toward more precip in the SW is likely an indicator that it is starting to sense the warm Nino 3.4

The model doesn't have any long range seasonal skill at this range for winter. This is last year (warmest where it was coldest on Nov 1, 2018)

The October forecast (cold West / warm South) from 9/30 was pretty good. The Oct 31 forecast for November has this - and its not dissimilar to the CFS or my November analogs. A -NAO favors a warm West in November. Most of my top winters are 0-2F above normal in November.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/30/2019 at 11:24 PM, raindancewx said:

SOI should finish around -5 or -6 for October. 1951 is a top Aug-Oct match, which makes sense given that it looks like October.

SOI    Aug    Sept    Oct
2019    -3.1    -12.7    -5.0
1946    -4.0    -13.3    -12.3
1969    -4.0    -10.0    -11.6
1990    -4.4    -7.3    -1.2
1951    -5.2    -11.2    -12.3
1987    -13.1    -10.6    -5.3
1972    -8.2    -14.1    -11.0
 

1972-73 is essentially the best physically possible pattern for the West, will be watching to see if it remains a strong match into November..

 

wasnt that a very strong el nino?

[40/70 Benchmark]

35 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

wasnt that a very strong el nino?

He just means relative to fall sensible weather.

[raindancewx]

Coldest October here since 1986 - 55.4F, around 2.5F below the past 100 years. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

I actually couldn't get a good match on the Aug/Sept/Oct subsurface data this time - it kind of looks a blend of 1991 (big major warm up below the surface in October), but colder. Something like 1991, 1992, 1993 as a blend is kind of close, but still not great, for how it is behaving. The issue with the subsurface matching is that the subsurface was slightly cold in August, neutral (exactly 0) in September, and then very warm in October - that doesn't really exist in the data in a single year. You have to blend like crazy to get it.

Subsurface data came in at +0.7 for 100-180W in October. That's always translated to an official El Nino since the subsurface data has been available in 1979. It's below last year, when the subsurface was +1.58 in October. The subsurface in October 2014 and other actual El Ninos was somewhat cooler than in October 2019.

If you plug in +0.7 along the line, it implies a 27.1C El Nino, give or take about 0.6C, around 80% certainty (32/40) for the last 40 years.

[raindancewx]

We've pulled ahead of the late/fake El Ninos now too. October looks nothing like 2012 for instance. Weaker than last year. North Pacific still neutral for the PDO zone. That cold water by Peru in October tends to rot away the warmth right along the coast of West Canada, as we've seen. Also, sunspots for the year ending October are down to 4.2 - still lower than the comparable time in the last cycle (year ending Oct 2008). The 12-month low last cycle was 2.2. Whether we go lower than that or not, I'd say its 50/50 we hit the 12-month low point of this cycle in the next six months. 

[raindancewx]

Looks like the European was caught with its pants down in Nino 4 this month.

Whole plume for Nino 4 and Nino 3.4 will likely shift up a bit this month. Nino 3.4 is likely about 27.3C for October - the Nino zone data for October will arrive this week.  A 27.3C October is +0.55C on the CPC standard, but +0.8C against 1951-2010. CPC tends to "adjust" data for a month or two after it is in. Even so, ONI for Aug-Oct should be 26.97C or so, and the CPC base for that period is 26.82C, so it's back to +0.15C. The 1951-2010 average is 26.56C - so +0.42C - nearly back to El Nino already, more consistent with the SOI, which is also nearly El Nino for Aug-Oct (-7.03 for Aug-Oct).

[40/70 Benchmark]

@raindancewx Thanks alot for the awesome data updates....very much appreciated. Tough to keep up as much this fall with a newborn.

I remember looking at how paltry the ECMWF was with the ENSO peak last year and Isummarily dismissed it, which I seldom do. I was waiting to include it in my last blog update, but ended up leaving it out. Lol

[raindancewx]

One thing that concerns me this winter is that record cold in the orientation that occurred in October 2019 has occurred with the same blotch of warm waters in the Pacific in previous winters. I'm defining this blob as 150-180W, 30-60N, as opposed to 2013-14, which was 135-165W, 30-60N. See the heat shooting up to Ohio with the cold over Montana and the whole west cold?

Look at this. 30-60N, 150-180W right? Both cases. Both periods, record cord in the West (cooler ring by Western North America around the warmth, with cold south of the equator too.)

That 2013-14 setup was east of this year, and so the cold was centered east. The distance from where the cold is centered and where the blobs are centered is about 15-20 degrees E-W. So it makes sense that the blob in 2013-14 would feature severe cold in the Lakes, while the current one has focused more on Montana and Wyoming. This all assumes these warm patches matter, and that if they do, the current one will persist.

[raindancewx]

QBO is still positive in October: +7.27

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

My analog blend has it at slightly below 0 for Dec-Feb, -6.77 or so. That's probably about right. Last year, the QBO tracked pretty similarly to 1994-95. No reason to expect a radical break from 1995 at this point.

Should cross into negative territory on the monthly data in December or January. Something like 0-6 in Nov, -2 to +2 in Dec, -6 to 0 in Jan, -10 to -2 in Feb. 

1995	8.38	8.01	8.79	11.79	14.92	15.62	11.74	9.53	6.98	3.43	-0.77	-4.57
1996	-5.79	-6.9	-9.92	-11.08	-14.88	-17.03	-23.93	-25.85	-26.02	-23.4	-18.08	-9.86
2019	9.02	9.25	11.82	13.36	14.59	14.36	10.96	9.97	8.25	7.27	-999	-999

 

[EasternLI]

21 hours ago, raindancewx said:

One thing that concerns me this winter is that record cold in the orientation that occurred in October 2019 has occurred with the same blotch of warm waters in the Pacific in previous winters. I'm defining this blob as 150-180W, 30-60N, as opposed to 2013-14, which was 135-165W, 30-60N. See the heat shooting up to Ohio with the cold over Montana and the whole west cold?

Look at this. 30-60N, 150-180W right? Both cases. Both periods, record cord in the West (cooler ring by Western North America around the warmth, with cold south of the equator too.)

That 2013-14 setup was east of this year, and so the cold was centered east. The distance from where the cold is centered and where the blobs are centered is about 15-20 degrees E-W. So it makes sense that the blob in 2013-14 would feature severe cold in the Lakes, while the current one has focused more on Montana and Wyoming. This all assumes these warm patches matter, and that if they do, the current one will persist.

 

If we look at the 2 October's from your example and compare with this October from your post. One is a little more interesting. 

 

[raindancewx]

I'm aware that October 1948 is nothing like October 2019. Worth noting, the 135-165W, 30-60N zone was not warm in October like it now. It developed later. That's why that area of warmth is interesting to me, since it is west of 2013 - when it exists in 1948-49, even with the PDO, AMO, Solar, ENSO, IOD, and global SSTs way different, it still went to the pattern observed in October.

The Oct 2019/Dec-Feb 1948-49 pattern only exists when that warmth is pronounced in the zone I listed. In 2013-14,  you had more success pushing the heat out of the SE US compared to this year. The magnitude of the cold/heat in 2013 is also not really comparable if you use the same scale. A lot of states in the West reported their coldest ever October in 2013, with a lot of states in the South reporting top five hottest ever for October. I'm not trying to rain on parades, but I am seeing a lot of what happened last year, when people kept saying "2002" was similar to Fall, even though the October heat in the East and cold push were both more severe than in 2002. 

[raindancewx]

Date	Tahiti (hPa)	Darwin (hPa)	Daily Contribution	30 day Av. SOI	90 day Av. SOI
4 Nov 2019	1008.28	1010.80	-34.36	-4.51	-7.07
3 Nov 2019	1010.91	1009.65	-10.31	-4.05	-6.62
2 Nov 2019	1011.56	1009.15	-2.99	-4.37	-6.53
1 Nov 2019	1011.89	1008.60	2.61	-4.95	-6.6

Those 20 pt, single day SOI drops are trouble historically. Need to watch for a big time storm mid-month.

 

[Treckasec]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

Those 20 pt, single day SOI drops are trouble historically. Need to watch for a big time storm mid-month.

 

Do you (or anyone else) have any examples of strong storms that followed large SOI drops? I only ask since I've heard a lot before about there being a correlation between the two, but I am not sure how well the connection verifies! 

[raindancewx]

CPC has ONI at +0.1 for ASO. They revised September warmer in the raw data. October came in +0.44C against their baseline. Against 1951-2010 means, it would be +0.69C, and it will probably be revised warmer next month anyway.

Six weeks above 27.0C is an El Nino to me at this time of year. The 27.19C for October is still warmer than October 2014, even though
the weeklies implied 27.3C     
 
                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 25SEP2019     20.0-0.5     24.8-0.1     27.2 0.5     29.7 1.1
 02OCT2019     20.0-0.6     25.1 0.3     27.2 0.5     29.7 1.0
 09OCT2019     19.7-1.0     24.8-0.1     27.1 0.4     29.5 0.9
 16OCT2019     20.6-0.2     25.3 0.4     27.5 0.8     29.7 1.1
 23OCT2019     19.7-1.3     25.0 0.1     27.3 0.6     29.7 1.0
 30OCT2019     20.8-0.4     25.4 0.5     27.4 0.7     29.6 0.9

 

For the SOI stuff, you can look at the BOM data base and see if it has merit yourself. https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/DailySOI1887-1989Base.txt

Blizzard of 1993 was around 3/13 right? That's 31+28+13 days into 1993, i.e. 72 days. Here is the SOI in late Feb / early Mar 1993:

1993  61 1015.53 1008.30   14.95
1993  62 1013.67 1009.25    1.51
1993  63 1010.83 1008.50   -8.55
1993  64 1010.61 1008.80  -10.99

That 20+ point drop is about 10-days ahead of the blizzard. 

The extremely powerful storm this past March had a lesser drop, but it was there:

2019  60 1014.11 1009.00    4.79
2019  61 1012.17 1008.75   -3.30
2019  62 1012.02 1009.00   -5.22

This is the Perfect Storm time frame - (365 = Dec 31, -31 for Dec, -30 for Nov, -3 for Oct, -10 for the SOI lead time, i.e. 365-74 = 291?)

1991 290 1011.85 1012.15  -20.57
1991 291 1011.32 1011.90  -22.34
1991 292 1008.97 1011.55  -35.24

The system (closed low last I looked) coming into the SW this week ties in with the most recent drop. I generally look for a big storm over the SW in 10-days after a big SOI crash occurs in a short period (1-2 days) in El Ninos. But in non-El Ninos it is less reliable for the SW, and the reliability does seem peak from mid-Nov to mid-Apr, it has no use in Summer.

29 Oct 2019	1011.22	1010.05	-11.09	-4.59	-6.94
28 Oct 2019	1011.75	1010.10	-8.00	-4.19	-6.79
27 Oct 2019	1012.01	1008.90	1.42	-3.98	-6.5

[raindancewx]

Nino 4 was 29.5C in October (4th warmest since 1950). Observed record warmth is 29.84C in Nino 4 in October.

1969    29.32
1982    29.44
1987    29.58
1991    29.47
1994    29.45
1997    29.34
2002    29.41
2004    29.46
2006    29.45
2009    29.68
2015    29.84
2018    29.71

Those are your Nino 4 years that hit at least 29.3C in October. Once you get above 29.5C or so, none of the years feature a cold December in the East, the coldest above 29.5C is 2009, and it is average, despite strong counter signals to Nino 4. The map last year looked like a composite of the 29.3C+ Decembers prior to it. Nino 4 is cooler than 2018 though - and it may cool a bit more relative to 2018 by December, so I do think December will be slightly cooler than last year in the East.

MJO should get to phases 6-7-8-1 later in November. I'd imagine a pretty big warm up is coming with it to prevent overall November numbers from getting too out of control cold. All of those phases are warm in the South overall in OND. The subtropical jet is waking up, and the Indian Ocean has been alight with convection recently, both tend to precede warm ups.