2021-2022 ENSO

[StormchaserChuck!]

On 11/8/2021 at 9:32 PM, stadiumwave said:

This La Nina is dying. Who would've thought a month ago?

Lol @ CFS strong Nina forecast 

They usually don't die this early, 1954,1956, then 1974. 1956 was followed by 5/7years +ENSO, and 3 El Nino's - 0 La Nina's, 1974 was followed by 6/7years +ENSO, and 4 El Nino's to 0 La Nina's. 11/14, and 7-0, if you call 1954-1956 all one thing. (Those are the ONI's that rose in La Nina from OND to NDJ

[raindancewx]

When I did my outlook, I found that the rising solar years that were cold ENSO winters often failed as La Ninas in the actual winter, despite the tendency for many of the years to be quite cold briefly early or late.

Rising solar + cold ENSO:

1955 & 2010 are pretty strong La Ninas and relatively well behaved

1946, 1947, 1948, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1996, 2000, 2011, 2012 are all cold, and near La Ninas at least at times, to fairly healthy events - but they all have some weird properties too. 

We seem to have at least some of the properties of the second group. A lot of severely cold Decembers in the East don't have H1 November cold in the East (think 2000 - when it was cold West). Will be interesting to see how the second part of this month shakes out. 

 

[raindancewx]

The rapidity of the subsurface warming this month will be a good hint on how December and the rest of winter play out.

1983, 1984, 2011 all had a substantial weakening of the subsurface from October to November.

Year        Oct         Nov

1983:     -2.25      -1.81

1984:     -0.96      -0.63

2011:      -1.26       -0.92

Blend:    -1.49        -1.12

2021:     -1.61          ????

Too early to generate a close match on the subsurface warming, but this is what you get from those three La Nina years with a lot of subsurface warming October to November:

When I say substantial, I mean a 0.3 or greater warm up from a cold October subsurface for the top 300m of the 100-180W zone. 

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

That three year look is actually pretty close (albeit exaggerated warm and cold) to what I forecast for December.

[StormchaserChuck!]

1997, believe it or not

1997   10     1.35      2.05       2.56
1997   11     1.19      1.94       2.30
1997   12      .56      1.15       1.02
1998    1     -.24       .16        .00

1982   11     1.20      1.74       1.92
1982   12      .80      1.26       1.45
1983    1     -.10       .15        .05

(I think we'll do a 1986 similarity(opposite))

1986   10      .60       .81        .95
1986   11      .38       .53        .52
1986   12      .59       .77        .97
1987    1      .54       .93       1.22
1987    2      .15       .37        .17

[StormchaserChuck!]

My idea of subsurface progression could look like this for the Winter. 

https://ibb.co/V9L4QSV

[StormchaserChuck!]

Fwiw, 1987-88 was a subsurface La Nina with an El Nino at the surface, I think the EastCoast would do well snow this Winter only if that happened (subsurface turns positive in all regions Dec-Jan, very low chance)

https://ibb.co/d2JGy2n

^Subsurface going negative well before surface changes. Like I said, subsurface correlation is 0.90+0 with the pattern, surface is 0.75+0. (actually, that's just to prove a point, it's more like 0.82 vs 0.77, but lack of data. It beat everytime I think since 1979.) 

[raindancewx]

From Nate Mantua today - first monthly reading under -2.0 since September 2012.

2021 PDO Index monthly values:

January   -0.16

February -0.54

March     -1.17

April        -0.91

May        -0.94

June      -1.18

July        -1.87

August   -1.12

September  -1.53

October     -2.55

[raindancewx]

All the coldest waters are now east of Nino 3.4, the 120-170W zone. Warmth is already almost to 140W.

[StormchaserChuck!]

TAO maps are now warm, no real chance it strengthen beyond the cold subsurface wave we just saw/passed. Weak Nina at best as a ONI peak. 

For 2 years, these do the best as analogs

1970	0.5	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.0	-0.3	-0.6	-0.8	-0.8	-0.7	-0.9	-1.1
1971	-1.4	-1.4	-1.1	-0.8	-0.7	-0.7	-0.8	-0.8	-0.8	-0.9	-1.0	-0.9

 

2007	0.7	0.2	-0.1	-0.3	-0.4	-0.5	-0.6	-0.8	-1.1	-1.3	-1.5	-1.6
2008	-1.6	-1.5	-1.3	-1.0	-0.8	-0.6	-0.4	-0.2	-0.2	-0.4	-0.6	-0.7

 

2016	2.5	2.1	1.6	0.9	0.4	-0.1	-0.4	-0.5	-0.6	-0.7	-0.7	-0.6
2017	-0.3	-0.2	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.1	-0.1	-0.4	-0.7	-0.8	-1.0

3/3 El Nino's the following year, fwiw https://ibb.co/GPfszSF  https://ibb.co/N2WFLcs

 

I still like the solar ascension phase underperforming, which gives more La Nina tendency:

2009	-0.8	-0.8	-0.6	-0.3	0.0	0.3	0.5	0.6	0.7	1.0	1.4	1.6
Year	DJF	JFM	FMA	MAM	AMJ	MJJ	JJA	JAS	ASO	SON	OND	NDJ
2010	1.5	1.2	0.8	0.4	-0.2	-0.7	-1.0	-1.3	-1.6	-1.6	-1.6	-1.6
2011	-1.4	-1.2	-0.9	-0.7	-0.6	-0.4	-0.5	-0.6	-0.8	-1.0	-1.1	-1.0
2012	-0.9	-0.7	-0.6	-0.5	-0.3	0.0	0.2	0.4	0.4	0.3	0.1	-0.2

 

09-10 is the anomaly. I think we could go weak El Nino conditions in the Spring, then fade out, giving us another Winter of -PNA, next year, 22-23. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

TAO maps are now warm, no real chance it strengthen beyond the cold subsurface wave we just saw/passed. Weak Nina at best as a ONI peak. 

For 2 years, these do the best as analogs

1970	0.5	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.0	-0.3	-0.6	-0.8	-0.8	-0.7	-0.9	-1.1
1971	-1.4	-1.4	-1.1	-0.8	-0.7	-0.7	-0.8	-0.8	-0.8	-0.9	-1.0	-0.9

 

2007	0.7	0.2	-0.1	-0.3	-0.4	-0.5	-0.6	-0.8	-1.1	-1.3	-1.5	-1.6
2008	-1.6	-1.5	-1.3	-1.0	-0.8	-0.6	-0.4	-0.2	-0.2	-0.4	-0.6	-0.7

 

2016	2.5	2.1	1.6	0.9	0.4	-0.1	-0.4	-0.5	-0.6	-0.7	-0.7	-0.6
2017	-0.3	-0.2	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.1	-0.1	-0.4	-0.7	-0.8	-1.0

3/3 El Nino's the following year, fwiw https://ibb.co/GPfszSF  https://ibb.co/N2WFLcs

Agree for the most part, but it could still sneak into moderate ONI.

2/3 strong el nino the next year, too.

[raindancewx]

For comparison:

The 'weak' 2017-18 La Nina...and whatever this is. You do have to add the -0.5 to +0.5 zone as white for a true comparison, but still, no meaningful warmth mid November 2017 in 120-170W.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I think we are just looking at the last few March-May's warming tendency. That 160W area is a big one though.. notice the +PNA now. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

Big -PNA signal for December.. let's see if the subsurface cold restrengthens

[raindancewx]

Still nothing special at the surface. 

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA

 06OCT2021     21.0 0.2     24.7-0.3     26.1-0.6     28.0-0.7
 13OCT2021     20.7-0.2     24.4-0.7     26.0-0.8     28.1-0.5
 20OCT2021     20.3-0.7     24.2-0.8     25.9-0.8     28.1-0.6
 27OCT2021     20.6-0.6     24.1-0.9     25.6-1.1     28.2-0.5
 03NOV2021     20.6-0.8     24.4-0.7     25.8-1.0     28.0-0.7
 10NOV2021     20.9-0.7     24.5-0.6     26.0-0.8     28.0-0.7

 07OCT2020     20.1-0.7     24.1-0.9     25.8-0.9     27.9-0.7
 14OCT2020     20.5-0.4     24.1-0.9     25.6-1.1     27.8-0.8
 21OCT2020     20.5-0.6     24.2-0.9     25.5-1.3     27.8-0.8
 28OCT2020     20.3-0.9     23.8-1.3     25.0-1.7     28.0-0.7
 04NOV2020     20.5-0.9     24.0-1.1     25.3-1.5     27.9-0.8
 11NOV2020     21.1-0.5     24.2-0.9     25.7-1.0     28.1-0.6

It's been amusing seeing how the subsurface has been assessed this year compared to last year...it's nearly identical? At least right now.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Yea, I actually listed last year as one of the best ENSO analogs in terms of placement of anomalies, but I agree this season will be weaker with respect to ONI. Of course, its much more couple than last season, so it probably won't "act" weaker...

Bottom line is that season should "look" more like a la nina when all is said an done, despite being "weaker".

[40/70 Benchmark]

I think 2010 is actually a pretty good match, too...albeit it also stronger.

[raindancewx]

Date	Tahiti (hPa)	Darwin (hPa)	Daily Contribution	30 day Av. SOI	90 day Av. SOI
16 Nov 2021	1012.45	1009.25	2.03	6.11	9.19
15 Nov 2021	1010.86	1009.05	-6.81	6.70	9.13
14 Nov 2021	1012.05	1008.05	7.12	7.88	9.19
13 Nov 2021	1012.51	1007.50	13.55	8.36	9.16
12 Nov 2021	1012.61	1007.40	14.82	8.47	9.01
11 Nov 2021	1013.19	1006.85	22.01	8.46	8.80

Took about a week longer than I expected in my winter forecast from last month, but with the La Nina subsurface weakening dramatically, the models are back to actually showing storms moving across the Southwest, which would be a nice change of pace from the lack of rain/snow since 9/30.

Euro, GFS, and Canadian have been showing some type of big system moving through here around Thanksgiving. We had a big snow storm for Thanksgiving 2019, with snow pre-Halloween last year, and the heavy Fall snows do cluster together in the data records locally. The image below is consistent with the SOI crash +10 day rule I like to use to look for real storms instead of digital storms. This run is from this morning, so it's really day 7.5-8.5 and day 8.5-9.5 below.

For the 1950-2020 period, Nov-Jan precipitation is pretty correlated in the Southwest to total Atlantic ACE (r-squared is 0.13). So as much as I like 2017-18 as an analog, we had 80 ACE less than 2017-18. Total ACE was unknown when I did my outlook. But I did mention that the hottest Septembers in the Southwest tend to precede at least one wet month from October-December...and the strongest signal for that is November. Even in non-El Nino years, the odds of a wet month Oct-Dec are about 3:1 over the past 100 years following a hot September. The WPO was neutral/negative in December with the NAO negative in my analogs, so I look alright at the moment. Suspect the super warmth the CFS has for December at the moment won't last much longer.

[raindancewx]

Took a while, but we're finally moving toward what my analogs had for the La Nina. This was near the front of my outlook from 10/10 -

[StormchaserChuck!]

It's a little weird, honestly, that we have La Nina/-PDO strong, +AMO, and going to have -NAO/-PNA Winter. These were the '60s winters, that I thought we would be +PDO-PNA/+NAO by now(that was the decadal trend). 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

It's a little weird, honestly, that we have La Nina/-PDO strong, +AMO, and going to have -NAO/-PNA Winter. These were the '60s winters, that I thought we would be +PDO-PNA/+NAO by now(that was the decadal trend). 

I went into the seasoning envisioning some of those -PDO/NAO 60's seasons, though obviously modified. 

[raindancewx]

Coldest waters continue to push east and surface. We're still following 2011 below the surface pretty closely. That year did have a brief cool down in December before the subsurface completely collapsed after.

[Mr. Kevin]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

Coldest waters continue to push east and surface. We're still following 2011 below the surface pretty closely. That year did have a brief cool down in December before the subsurface completely collapsed after.

Raindance, what would that mean if it continues in terms of sensible weather?

[StormchaserChuck!]

165W in the subsurface is a big area.. I don't actually remember ever watching it where the ENSO state was crossed in November. I'm pretty sure +2 to +3 there means the La Nina will die, definitely by March-April. may be a build back west of the cold pool in Dec-Jan, but it won't be strong. 

[raindancewx]

1 hour ago, Mr. Kevin said:

Raindance, what would that mean if it continues in terms of sensible weather?

Generally, any type of warming y/y or long-term favors the West, somewhere, for cold and storminess. Canada has been getting pummeled, and parts of New Mexico & Arizona will pick more rain/snow than during the entire October-mid-February portion of the 2017-18 La Nina in some places during the next week.

Last year was essentially a hot winter in the West, but the two cold outbreaks in the Plains were severe enough in Oct & Feb for us to have a good snow year with average to cold DJF temperatures in CO/NM/TX. The cold was deep enough to move over the Rockies, it didn't have to squirt through the passes. October was one of the only times in ten years I've had snow here on a North wind - it's very rare in the Rio Grande Valley. That's pretty consistent with a cooling trend y/y disfavoring Western cold/wetness. Sure as hell wasn't wet overall

I generally look for warming trends y/y in La Nina to have an unusually strong subtropical jet for a La Nina OR for the Northern jet to be pushed super far to the South at times with blocking. Might have both this year. Warming trends y/y in El Nino tend to see extremely strong lows - even closed surface lows down here, or just extremely strong subtropical jet moisture dumps. High solar activity + El Nino is also a notorious heavy snow / blizzard pattern for us, as Rex Blocks can set up for the Southwest in March with huge cold highs over Wyoming and moisture from Baja lows streaming into the mountains for days. I call it the legendary pattern. It may happen 2-3 times in the next 6-7 high solar years. I had 10 inches of snow 2/26-2/28 in 2015...but the mountains had 70-100 inches in spots. Even for the spots that get 400+ inches on average down here, that's a lot of snow for a few days, especially in the absence of a low directly over head.

 

[StormchaserChuck!]

the subsurface will start cooling in 2 weeks. https://ibb.co/233ND55

[raindancewx]

This is the subsurface in 2011 v. 2021. The blue line that goes all the way to month 12 (Dec) is 2011. Part of why December was cold in 2011 in the West, I assume is because October was, with the subsurface cooling, and so when December went back to cooling, it was cold again. October 2011 almost looks like a combination of the October 2021 and November 2021 looks nationally for temperatures.

[Mr. Kevin]

16 hours ago, raindancewx said:

This is the subsurface in 2011 v. 2021. The blue line that goes all the way to month 12 (Dec) is 2011. Part of why December was cold in 2011 in the West, I assume is because October was, with the subsurface cooling, and so when December went back to cooling, it was cold again. October 2011 almost looks like a combination of the October 2021 and November 2021 looks nationally for temperatures.

If its anything like 2011 12 winter, might go ahead and cancel and be done with it lol. Very warm winter.

[George001]

41 minutes ago, Mr. Kevin said:

If its anything like 2011 12 winter, might go ahead and cancel and be done with it lol. Very warm winter.

The La Niña strength is indeed similar to 2011-2012, but that doesn’t mean the weather will be anything like it. The 1995-1996 La Niña was of similar strength as well. Unlike the 2011-2012 winter this La Niña is more east based, where as the 2011-2012 was west based. In my opinion this winter will be closer to 1995-1996 than 2011-2012. The polar vortex isn’t weak right now, but it is expected to weaken soon, where as it was rapidly deepening in 2011-2012.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Cold water all but gone from the subsurface, as per the TAO/Triton maps

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, George001 said:

The La Niña strength is indeed similar to 2011-2012, but that doesn’t mean the weather will be anything like it. The 1995-1996 La Niña was of similar strength as well. Unlike the 2011-2012 winter this La Niña is more east based, where as the 2011-2012 was west based. In my opinion this winter will be closer to 1995-1996 than 2011-2012. The polar vortex isn’t weak right now, but it is expected to weaken soon, where as it was rapidly deepening in 2011-2012.

In terms of snowfall totals, it will probably be closer to 2011-2012 through much of SNE and the mid atl. 1995-1996 was so highly anomalous.