2019 ENSO

[raindancewx]

Nino 4 looks like it could finish in the 29.0-29.4C range for April 2020. Not exactly a lot a strong cold or La Nina signal historically. In fact it seems almost impossible to get a strong or long-lasting La Nina with Nino 4 that warm going by the historical record. This is the composite of winters after 29.0-29.4C Nino 4 in April. Really only 1995-96, 2005-06, 2010-11 as La Ninas. Only 2010-11 is strong.

 

[thunderbolt]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

Nino 4 looks like it could finish in the 29.0-29.4C range for April 2020. Not exactly a lot a strong cold or La Nina signal historically. In fact it seems almost impossible to get a strong or long-lasting La Nina with Nino 4 that warm going by the historical record. This is the composite of winters after 29.0-29.4C Nino 4 in April. Really only 1995-96, 2005-06, 2010-11 as La Ninas. Only 2010-11 is strong.

 

What’s your definition of strong?

[raindancewx]

The 1951-2010 average temperature in Nino 3.4 is 26.5C for Dec-Feb. A pretty healthy La Nina to me would be under 25.5C. By modern standards, with Nino 4 semi-perpetually warm, I might fudge that by 0.2C. The 2010-11 event was 1.3C below the long term average in winter (25.2C). None of the modern La Ninas since 2000 match the colder/older ones, at <25.0C for a winter, which would be -1.5C or colder long term.

[raindancewx]

April looks like it is going to clinch 2019-2020 as an official El Nino.  But the subsurface heat is gone now.

Still very warm in Nino 4 too.

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 05FEB2020     26.4 0.8     26.1 0.0     26.9 0.2     29.3 1.2
 12FEB2020     26.1 0.1     26.6 0.3     26.8 0.1     28.9 0.9
 19FEB2020     26.5 0.3     26.7 0.2     27.4 0.6     29.2 1.1
 26FEB2020     27.2 1.0     27.1 0.4     27.4 0.5     29.1 1.0
 04MAR2020     27.5 1.1     27.0 0.1     27.5 0.5     29.3 1.1
 11MAR2020     26.7 0.3     27.5 0.5     27.7 0.5     29.3 1.2
 18MAR2020     26.9 0.5     27.6 0.4     28.1 0.8     29.4 1.2
 25MAR2020     27.0 0.8     27.5 0.3     27.9 0.5     28.9 0.6
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9

[The_Global_Warmer]

Equatorial winds suggest a plunge towards la Nina conditions will become favorable as winds currently and forecasted to remain enhanced Easterlies helping totally destroy the slim warm anomolous surface.

[raindancewx]

The core of the cold water anomalies right now are not in Nino 4 - so any transition to a La Nina will likely go through something like an El Nino Modoki look first (warm around 170W), colder east/west of there. The warmth east of 150W is in trouble pretty soon though.

[The_Global_Warmer]

6 hours ago, raindancewx said:

The core of the cold water anomalies right now are not in Nino 4 - so any transition to a La Nina will likely go through something like an El Nino Modoki look first (warm around 170W), colder east/west of there. The warmth east of 150W is in trouble pretty soon though

The warmth really didn't build up very well inspite of a mostly negative soi. 

Even so it will take a while before that warm layer Poof's.

But if winds go nuts for a Nina.  We could deep dive into it. Tho it wont take much for the warm pool to quickly reestablish itself out West.

[The_Global_Warmer]

.com.google.Chrome.Qa85v0

[The_Global_Warmer]

There a huge Nina blitzkrieg

[raindancewx]

It does look like we are trending toward a La Nina - but there is still a lot of warmth at the surface to be eroded.

                 Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7

The data is 'centered'. So this is through April 25th. April will be the month to make this event 'official' as an El Nino. But of course the El Nino is dead now, and CPC's method of classifying is very laggy. Nino 4 does still look like it will be warm for a while.

[raindancewx]

New Canadian has trended the Nino regions colder. I think it is a bad initialization though - it shows Nino 3.4 pretty cold already in May which doesn't look likely going by the weeklies since the surface is still warm. May is forecast to be quite warm though -

[raindancewx]

YR    MON   130E-80W   160E-80W   180W-100W 

2019   10     0.38      0.49       0.70
2019   11     0.34      0.34       0.26
2019   12     0.37      0.45       0.35
2020    1     0.33      0.48       0.49
2020    2     0.32      0.51       0.53
2020    3     0.10      0.19       0.33
2020    4    -0.16     -0.19      -0.22

Subsurface heat for 100-180W is now negative at the equator down to 300m. Usually big drops month.month correspond to a warm month in the US - we'll see. El Nino is over - these measures were still positive last April.

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

[The_Global_Warmer]

The subsurface negative anomalies are a little different than most the last few years that werd much further East than the current cold pool forming over the central Pacific with legs all the way back into the Western Pacific.

Thanks to persistence of the Easterly equatorial winds being anonymously stronger than the average for this time of year the warm surface is already being eradicated as far West as 120W. 

 

The equatorial wind forecast continues to be even more anomalous in favor of intense (relative to swaying equatorial surface sea temps towards one extreme on the enso plane.

 

I attached the wind forecast below that also has the recent observed winds.  It is straight ridiculous.  From essentially all of Enso 3 and Enso 4 we see anonymously strong Easterly winds that really pummel the central Pacific.  This will allow the sub surface cold pool to keep stretching Eastwards towards surfacing near South America.  While the near surface positive anomalies will continue to be eroded but still slowly thanks to:

 

A decently deep reach of the warm pool.

Global warming which has a hard to define very slight bias towards slight anomalous warmth overtime versus when the normal values we're established this is very hard to quantity but is clearly a real thing when you consider the current warm anomalies are always in larger surface area globally versus the established normal 10-40 years ago or 20-50 or 10-50. However you define it.

 

And seasonal variance with the northern hemisphere going into slightly stronger radiative presence this time of year.  Which is amplified by heat trapping gases.  This is get hard to define statistically but we know it's real for the same reasons as argued above.

 

Either way the set up for a MAJOR NINA EVENT IS UNDERWAY.  

WILL THIS TRANSLATE INTO A MAJOR NINA DURING THE UPCOMING COOL SEASON???

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jaxjagman]

The last strong IOD events 1994,1997,2006 all went into a more resurgent Nina or pattern starting into summer into fall 1996,1999 and 2008.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I think the coming Nina will be stronger than 95-96.

 

Somewhere along the lines of 99-01 and 07-09(early).

I can't see an event that lasts 3+ years.

Could definitely see a nina-neutral-weakquicknina-nuetral-nino.

 

Over 2020-2022.

 

We'll see

 

[raindancewx]

Since 2000 we haven't really had a La Nina with a peak below 25.0C in Nino 3.4 in winter and Nino 4 remains very warm. That is my main skepticism for a big time, major La Nina. I was playing with it the other day - and I think something like this may end up happening given how warm Nino 4 is still. Peak cold around 120W, Nino 4 never completely cools off. PDO still negative though. Would "feel" like a La Nina, but we'll see. Obviously it is way early for this. Nino 4 over 29.0C makes it hard for Nino 3.4 to get below 26.0C though. I do think Nino 3 may be pretty cold - in the past winter, Nino 3 had a lot of trouble staying warm for whatever reason.

[Spartman]

FMA came in with 0.5C. JFM is now 0.6C. 2019-2020 is officially another El Nino season.

[raindancewx]

Fairly rapid cooling this week at the surface. Still a ways to go though.

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 04MAR2020     27.5 1.1     27.0 0.1     27.5 0.5     29.3 1.1
 11MAR2020     26.7 0.3     27.5 0.5     27.7 0.5     29.3 1.2
 18MAR2020     26.9 0.5     27.6 0.4     28.1 0.8     29.4 1.2
 25MAR2020     27.0 0.8     27.5 0.3     27.9 0.5     28.9 0.6
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7
 29APR2020     25.1 0.1     27.7 0.4     28.2 0.4     29.0 0.4

The Nino 4 cool down is encouraging for a La Nina. The European has been trying to get it negative sometime mid-summer and that's almost a precursor for a La Nina. Solar activity for the 12-months ending April 2020 was at about 2.5 sunspots/month - so we should be at or very near the absolute floor of this solar cycle too. If that's the case the NAO may behave pretty differently next winter. May v. Apr is one of the better indicators for it at a long-lead, along with Sept v Mar.

 

Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 2010 1.5 1.3 0.9 0.4 -0.1 -0.6 -1.0 -1.4 -1.6 -1.7 -1.7 -1.6 2011 -1.4 -1.1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.5 -0.7 -0.9 -1.1 -1.1 -1.0 2012 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.0 -0.2 2013 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 2014 -0.4 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.7 2015 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.4 2.5 2.6 2016 2.5 2.2 1.7 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.3 -0.6 -0.7 -0.7 -0.7 -0.6 2017 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 2018 -0.9 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 0.9 0.8 2019 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.5 Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 2020 0.5 0.6 0.5

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Looks like a La Nina making. I doubt anything real could develop in this environment. 

[raindancewx]

Cooling continues. Possible we flip some areas to below average at the surface over the next two-three weeks.
Still need a lot of cooling after that to get to -0.5 at the surface. I think it's possible around July though.
            
               Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 04MAR2020     27.5 1.1     27.0 0.1     27.5 0.5     29.3 1.1
 11MAR2020     26.7 0.3     27.5 0.5     27.7 0.5     29.3 1.2
 18MAR2020     26.9 0.5     27.6 0.4     28.1 0.8     29.4 1.2
 25MAR2020     27.0 0.8     27.5 0.3     27.9 0.5     28.9 0.6
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7
 29APR2020     25.1 0.1     27.7 0.4     28.2 0.4     29.0 0.4
 06MAY2020     24.8 0.2     27.4 0.2     28.0 0.2     29.0 0.3

[The_Global_Warmer]

Holy smokes the warm surface has been decimated.

 

Major la Nina incoming...

 

[It's Always Sunny]

I think July is optimistic (I was thinking as early as late August/early September) but if that EWB continues that robust end of July onset could be possible. Latter half of hurricane season should be interesting that’s for sure.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Man the setup is quickly getting primed for a major la nina.

[raindancewx]

The PDO finished Nov-Apr at -0.2. Lowest in a long time on the JISAO method. Will be interesting to see how the winter plays out if that continues. Been a long while since we've had a La Nina with a -PDO for winter. Nino 4 is still very warm, surface, even subsurface in some ways - that is why I'm skeptical of a major La Nina. But I think a 25.5-26.5C DJF in Nino 3.4 is pretty likely.

[Snowstorms]

20 hours ago, raindancewx said:

The PDO finished Nov-Apr at -0.2. Lowest in a long time on the JISAO method. Will be interesting to see how the winter plays out if that continues. Been a long while since we've had a La Nina with a -PDO for winter. Nino 4 is still very warm, surface, even subsurface in some ways - that is why I'm skeptical of a major La Nina. But I think a 25.5-26.5C DJF in Nino 3.4 is pretty likely.

The ONI is more widely used to categorize ENSO events, but I prefer MEI as it takes into consideration more variables. 

The 2010-11 La Nina was the last strong Nina event. The coldest anomalies were centered around Region 1+2 and 3 as opposed to Region 4, atleast in the beginning. So there is a chance we could see a pretty healthy La Nina event if the upwelling continues. Haven't dug deep into this year's ENSO event but will be doing so over the next few weeks. Your posts are always informative, great work! 

[raindancewx]

I'm increasingly looking at the coming Summer/Fall/Winter behaving differently than a lot of the recent winters. If you look at the monthly NAO data, April 2020 was the first -NAO month since April 2010. The difference between May minus April and September minus March as a blend is pretty indicative for the upcoming NAO pattern - so a rise from April to May (even if May is only slightly negative) is pretty different from recent years.

The coming winter should be easier to forecast than last winter - the final data for last winter included a very warm Nov-Apr AMO, a slightly negative Nov-Apr PDO, a high Dec-Feb Modoki value, low annualized solar, a weak El Nino following a weak El Nino, in a year after a weak Southwest Monsoon - all that stuff is in contradiction or unprecedented to some extent with the historical El Ninos in the past 100 years. 

A low solar La Nina after a weak El Nino, with a -PDO/+AMO, should it develop has plenty of precedent. Years would include 1942, 1954, 1964, 1973, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2010, 2016. The national pattern for Spring has a fairly strong resemblance to a blend of a couple of those years. I'll detail that when I do my Summer Outlook. 

Generally speaking, the -NAO in April is cold signal for the SW in June but warm for the NE/MW in June, cold for the SE in July, cold for the NW in September. The big +AO in March is a cold signal nationally for the US in August. Low solar warm for the NE/MW in June, cold for the north-central US in August. The AMO/warm Nino 3.4 Spring are favorable for warmth in the East July-Sept, and nationally in Aug-Sept. It looks like a hot Summer to me, outside maybe TX and the NW. 

 

[raindancewx]

                 Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7
 29APR2020     25.1 0.1     27.7 0.4     28.2 0.4     29.0 0.4
 06MAY2020     24.8 0.2     27.4 0.2     28.0 0.2     29.0 0.3
 13MAY2020     24.5 0.2     27.0-0.1     27.6-0.3     29.0 0.3

Nino 4 remains the big hindrance to a La Nina - but the middle zones are probably going to be colder than average in June. Early May was still warm, so definitely no La Nina this month.

[raindancewx]

https://www.scribd.com/document/462193709/Summer-2020-Final-Outlook

The analogs I used for Summer 2020 imply a 25.75C La Nina in winter as a composite - will be interesting how that changes from now through the Fall when I do my winter outlook. For whatever reason, 2005, 2010, 2016 have not been good matches to US weather yet despite similar SSTs, in low-solar, warm AMO, El Nino to La Nina transitions.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Equatorial winds lessened this week.

 

But are forecasted to explode again over Enso 3-4.

If this wind forecast happens we will definitely negative anomalies really pick up over all of Enso 3 and push into enso 4.

 

[raindancewx]

Looks to me like the observations are broken or down now -

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 04MAR2020     27.5 1.1     27.0 0.1     27.5 0.5     29.3 1.1
 11MAR2020     26.7 0.3     27.5 0.5     27.7 0.5     29.3 1.2
 18MAR2020     26.9 0.5     27.6 0.4     28.1 0.8     29.4 1.2
 25MAR2020     27.0 0.8     27.5 0.3     27.9 0.5     28.9 0.6
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7
 29APR2020     25.1 0.1     27.7 0.4     28.2 0.4     29.0 0.4
 06MAY2020     24.8 0.2     27.4 0.2     28.0 0.2     29.0 0.3
 13MAY2020     24.5 0.2     27.0-0.1     27.6-0.3     29.0 0.3
 20MAY2020     ********     ********     ********     ********

Nevermind - they fixed it

 04MAR2020     27.5 1.1     27.0 0.1     27.5 0.5     29.3 1.1
 11MAR2020     26.7 0.3     27.5 0.5     27.7 0.5     29.3 1.2
 18MAR2020     26.9 0.5     27.6 0.4     28.1 0.8     29.4 1.2
 25MAR2020     27.0 0.8     27.5 0.3     27.9 0.5     28.9 0.6
 01APR2020     26.8 0.8     27.9 0.6     28.1 0.6     29.1 0.7
 08APR2020     26.5 0.8     28.0 0.6     28.2 0.6     29.4 1.0
 15APR2020     25.6 0.1     28.2 0.7     28.5 0.7     29.4 0.9
 22APR2020     25.4 0.2     28.1 0.7     28.4 0.6     29.2 0.7
 29APR2020     25.1 0.1     27.7 0.4     28.2 0.4     29.0 0.4
 06MAY2020     24.8 0.2     27.4 0.2     28.0 0.2     29.0 0.3
 13MAY2020     24.5 0.2     27.0-0.1     27.6-0.3     29.0 0.3
 20MAY2020     23.9-0.1     26.4-0.6     27.4-0.4     28.9 0.1