2021-2022 ENSO

[StormchaserChuck!]

It's not holding up in the subsurface, when PNA leads, it means something for 1 year ahead. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

What's interesting is that lately, since 1980, cold Pac NW first 5 days of January, Jan 1-5, is followed by +PNA/El Nino-like February

I say that's interesting because cold Pacific NW is a -PNA pattern.

Extend it out to top 20 years since 1948, and this is what you get for February. 

 

One more time to show you what I'm describing  v same dataset/time

[StruThiO]

stronger than last year (despite claims to the contrary....)

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, StruThiO said:

stronger than last year (despite claims to the contrary....)

It is not in terms of ONI, which is what I think those people are referring to. I know I am. But I agree that this event is definitely more coupled and is obviously a more prominent driver than last year's la nina.

[EasternLI]

On self destruct for next year?

 

[StormchaserChuck!]

^ That's some +5> subsurface water, while the -PNA Is 640dm (5std over a month)

 

 

Quote

On self destruct for next year?

 

Even though we look like we have a Strong El Nino brewing, it will take more than 1 year to recover globally from the Nina-phase. 

[EasternLI]

20 minutes ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

Even though we look like we have a Strong El Nino brewing, it will take more than 1 year to recover globally from the Nina-phase. 

Agree. 

[StruThiO]

9 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It is not in terms of ONI, which is what I think those people are referring to. I know I am. But I agree that this event is definitely more coupled and is obviously a more prominent driver than last year's la nina.

Yeah the atmosphere-ocean coupling has been impressive, along with the PDO this winter. FWIW, MEI also stronger than last year. ONI is quite an arbitrary metric.. but I understand why it's followed.

6 hours ago, EasternLI said:

On self destruct for next year?

Now through SPB will be interesting. It would not surprise me if self termination is beginning and the first moderate (or stronger) nino since '15 begins to initiate. Will be fun to monitor the imminent downwelling kelvin wave and whether persisting trades can attenuate - otherwise big implications for next year

[EasternLI]

Yeah, this should be quite interesting. Especially with this feedback loop happening. I'm curious what ultimately breaks this down. 

 

[StormchaserChuck!]

Love MJO7. But it's bad news that PNA is not positive for 15 days, so the swing will probably be less. MJO7=-PNAto+swing, I think. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, EasternLI said:

On self destruct for next year?

 

ENSO ultimately always self destructs...whether it be via the walker cycle, or the MJO...this is why the opposite ENSO state is favored from year to year, all else being equal...especially for stronger events. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, StruThiO said:

Yeah the atmosphere-ocean coupling has been impressive, along with the PDO this winter. FWIW, MEI also stronger than last year. ONI is quite an arbitrary metric.. but I understand why it's followed.

Now through SPB will be interesting. It would not surprise me if self termination is beginning and the first moderate (or stronger) nino since '15 begins to initiate. Will be fun to monitor the imminent downwelling kelvin wave and whether persisting trades can attenuate - otherwise big implications for next year

Totally agree.....regardless of ONI, this is the most impressive la nina since 2010-2011.

[Mr. Kevin]

6 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Totally agree.....regardless of ONI, this is the most impressive la nina since 2010-2011.

Hello Ray. Any chance to get the alutian ridge to weaken or shift enough to allow the pna to somewhat go less negative? Or what do we need to happen? Lol. I'm still optimistic we get a few weeks of cold weather east of the rockies

[raindancewx]

December is still a much weaker La Nina at the surface than last year. This is easiest to see with duller scales.

I've been quite pleased with the winter progression overall. I had this as a cold Northwest winter back in October, hot winter for the South. That looks fine so far. The idea was real simple - in 2014-15, you had ridging from Alaska to Mexico at times with a record +PDO Nov-Apr. This year has (maybe?) a record -PDO for Nov-Apr, so I went with the opposite of 2014-15, but filtered with solar/amo/enso in there too.

 

If you look at Nino 3.4, we keep trending warmer and warmer v. last year at the surface, regardless of the subsurface. The subsurface doesn't always translate to Nino 3.4. I mentioned in my outlook that I thought the La Nina might develop like 1967, with the cold struggling to penetrate west of 150W. That's been a good call so far if you look at the map above 12/1-12/20.

Nino 3.4

        -1.6   -1.4    -1.3       -1.1        -0.2        +0.1        -0.1        +0.1       +0.3       +0.3 +0.5 (+0.3?)

 2020  27.15  27.12  27.76  28.18  27.66  27.39  26.99  26.26  25.89  25.46  25.28  25.44
 2021  25.54  25.75  26.49  27.10  27.48  27.45  26.91  26.34  26.16  25.77  25.81 -99.99

[Mr. Kevin]

59 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

December is still a much weaker La Nina at the surface than last year. This is easiest to see with duller scales.

I've been quite pleased with the winter progression overall. I had this as a cold Northwest winter back in October, hot winter for the South. That looks fine so far. The idea was real simple - in 2014-15, you had ridging from Alaska to Mexico at times with a record +PDO Nov-Apr. This year has (maybe?) a record -PDO for Nov-Apr, so I went with the opposite of 2014-15, but filtered with solar/amo/enso in there too.

 

If you look at Nino 3.4, we keep trending warmer and warmer v. last year at the surface, regardless of the subsurface. The subsurface doesn't always translate to Nino 3.4. I mentioned in my outlook that I thought the La Nina might develop like 1967, with the cold struggling to penetrate west of 150W. That's been a good call so far if you look at the map above 12/1-12/20.

Nino 3.4

        -1.6   -1.4    -1.3       -1.1        -0.2        +0.1        -0.1        +0.1       +0.3       +0.3 +0.5 (+0.3?)

 2020  27.15  27.12  27.76  28.18  27.66  27.39  26.99  26.26  25.89  25.46  25.28  25.44
 2021  25.54  25.75  26.49  27.10  27.48  27.45  26.91  26.34  26.16  25.77  25.81 -99.99

Do you think we can get a big shakeup  to change things or is it not happening this winter?

[raindancewx]

Did you read my forecast? I had the pattern go batshit nuts in February-March. Idea was March as a blend of 3/2019 and 3/2021 essentially. February with severe cold but shifted West of last year, and not as intense, mostly missing Texas and the deep south. February 2021 resembled a blend of February 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 in terms of space and magnitude.

So I assumed February 2022 might look like February 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019. Here is why I think I'm on the right track:

I don't think January will be that cold overall, despite the cold shot modeled currently. A lot of warmth will show up at some point. I thought December would feature at least some record warmth if we got even remotely near MJO phase five, and we were early in the month. Idea for winter overall was a cold NW look warm SE look. Went +3 to +5 for winter in the south, locally hotter with the PDO the most negative in 50 years. There was record cold in the South in February 2015...I don't it's crazy to think the opposite is possible with the PDO as opposite as is physically possible to 2014-15.

 

[Mr. Kevin]

27 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Did you read my forecast? I had the pattern go batshit nuts in February-March. Idea was March as a blend of 3/2019 and 3/2021 essentially. February with severe cold but shifted West of last year, and not as intense, mostly missing Texas and the deep south. February 2021 resembled a blend of February 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 in terms of space and magnitude.

So I assumed February 2022 might look like February 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019. Here is why I think I'm on the right track:

I don't think January will be that cold overall, despite the cold shot modeled currently. A lot of warmth will show up at some point. I thought December would feature at least some record warmth if we got even remotely near MJO phase five, and we were early in the month. Idea for winter overall was a cold NW look warm SE look. Went +3 to +5 for winter in the south, locally hotter with the PDO the most negative in 50 years. There was record cold in the South in February 2015...I don't it's crazy to think the opposite is possible with the PDO as opposite as is physically possible to 2014-15.

 

We already have warm weather coming for Christmas and new years apparently so its here lol. I'm just trying  to be optimistic we can get a shakeup so we can at least have a week or two at some point this winter 

[raindancewx]

If you wanted to be optimistic for January:

Jan 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019 is very cold nationally. But I don't think that will be the look. You have 30C waters by Indonesia which create a psuedo MJO permanent phase five look for Nov-Jan regardless of the RMM

But, Feb 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 worked for Feb 2021. December 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 is not bad for this year with the cold coming.

[Mr. Kevin]

31 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

If you wanted to be optimistic for January:

Jan 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019 is very cold nationally. But I don't think that will be the look. You have 30C waters by Indonesia which create a psuedo MJO permanent phase five look for Nov-Jan regardless of the RMM

But, Feb 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 worked for Feb 2021. December 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 is not bad for this year with the cold coming.

So, if it gets cold, our most realistic opportunity will be February? What makes you lean that way? 

[raindancewx]

The -PDO and how rare and widespread the cold was last year, rolled forward one year, with December 2021 matching. PDO is a big deal in February. Those third yellows in California mean r is up to 0.7. If you square r you get the coefficient of determination and it means that up to half the variation in temps can be explained by the PDO, for the South it's 10-25%.

Look at February 2015 (record +PDO):

[LibertyBell]

On 12/21/2021 at 10:41 AM, StormchaserChuck! said:

Strongest -PNA probably on record now.. I don't know about the early 1900's, but I think that was mostly +PNA/+PDO. late 1800s maybe. For this time of the year, Dec 1955 and 2010 hold 2nd and 3rd place, both Strong Nina's. As I guessed, central and eastern subsurface have cooled +0days with -PNA pattern. 

great -AO in 2010 controlled our weather

 

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Did you read my forecast? I had the pattern go batshit nuts in February-March. Idea was March as a blend of 3/2019 and 3/2021 essentially. February with severe cold but shifted West of last year, and not as intense, mostly missing Texas and the deep south. February 2021 resembled a blend of February 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 in terms of space and magnitude.

So I assumed February 2022 might look like February 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019. Here is why I think I'm on the right track:

I don't think January will be that cold overall, despite the cold shot modeled currently. A lot of warmth will show up at some point. I thought December would feature at least some record warmth if we got even remotely near MJO phase five, and we were early in the month. Idea for winter overall was a cold NW look warm SE look. Went +3 to +5 for winter in the south, locally hotter with the PDO the most negative in 50 years. There was record cold in the South in February 2015...I don't it's crazy to think the opposite is possible with the PDO as opposite as is physically possible to 2014-15.

 

aren't we in the middle of the negative phase of the PDO cycle now?

I see some predictions for a big east coast winter next year hopefully we get a big el nino which is whats needed to make that happen.  I hope the Pacific gets so hot that steam is rising from it.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I can't believe the -PNA on GFS ensembles at 384 (Jan 10th), mean average is almost +400dm, still! That's about what we will be Dec - Jan 10 at that point (+400).. nothing before this (since 1948) was over +200. It may take several years to cool off of that, maybe 5. 

[George001]

8 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

aren't we in the middle of the negative phase of the PDO cycle now?

I see some predictions for a big east coast winter next year hopefully we get a big el nino which is whats needed to make that happen.  I hope the Pacific gets so hot that steam is rising from it.

We need a weak nino not a big one

[LibertyBell]

14 minutes ago, George001 said:

We need a weak nino not a big one

we might need a big one to counteract the -PDO which might be the new base state

 

[raindancewx]

On 11/4/2021 at 5:20 PM, raindancewx said:

Jan-Oct comparison for 2021 v. my main analogs with the update today. All Nino zones remained warmer at the surface than last year this October.

Here is how November finished for reference:

Nino 4: 28.01C  Nino 3.4: 25.81C   Nino 3: 24.17C  Nino 1.2: 20.67  QBO: -19.78

I did use other years for my forecast. But I still don't see any reason for the La Nina or QBO to rapidly move away from the 1974 and 2017 blend.

I'm not a QBO guy anyway. Wasn't the whole point of the QBO nonsense this year that December should have been cold when blended with the ENSO base state? My opinion has always been that the QBO looks like it drives certain patterns because it has one or two heavy anchoring analogs that are very cold or very hot that mask the variation when you run the composite....so this year isn't exactly changing my mind.

Maybe someone who actually believes in the QBO can offer their thoughts though.

 

[StormchaserChuck!]

2010 was the last time we had record -PNA (+300dm in December) and we did bounce back a few years later in the PDO:

2014	0.30	0.38	0.97	1.13	1.80	0.82	0.70	0.67	1.08	1.49	1.72	2.51	1.13
2015	2.45	2.30	2.00	1.44	1.20	1.54	1.84	1.56	1.94	1.47	0.86	1.01	1.63
2016	1.53	1.75	2.40	2.62	2.35	2.03	1.25	0.52	0.45	0.56	1.88	1.17	1.54

[raindancewx]

Have to see how we do in New Mexico with the storm going through, but Flagstaff getting 1.6 inches of precipitation in a single La Nina storm can't be super common. Much of the Southwest is going to finish wetter than average for the month, especially with another big system around 12/30 or 12/31. I think Flagstaff averages about two inches in December, but I'd have to look. It's certainly close to a month of precipitation for them just with the one system, with more coming. Phoenix has been doing very well today too - up to 0.80 inches so far. That's at least a month of rain for them for sure.

https://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KFLG.html

https://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KPHX.html

Some of the years I used in my forecast have been showing up recently in the 6-10 and 8-14 outlooks from CPC. They currently have January 1962 as a similar pattern to week one of January 2021.

 

[EasternLI]

5 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Here is how November finished for reference:

Nino 4: 28.01C  Nino 3.4: 25.81C   Nino 3: 24.17C  Nino 1.2: 20.67  QBO: -19.78

I did use other years for my forecast. But I still don't see any reason for the La Nina or QBO to rapidly move away from the 1974 and 2017 blend.

I'm not a QBO guy anyway. Wasn't the whole point of the QBO nonsense this year that December should have been cold when blended with the ENSO base state? My opinion has always been that the QBO looks like it drives certain patterns because it has one or two heavy anchoring analogs that are very cold or very hot that mask the variation when you run the composite....so this year isn't exactly changing my mind.

Maybe someone who actually believes in the QBO can offer their thoughts though.

 

I've done quite a bit of reading on the qbo. From what I've gathered, it doesn't quite work that way. I used to think of it in a very similar way. So I understand where you're coming from. Think of it as more of a modulator not so much as a driver. Which can constructively or destructively interfere with, well many various things allegedly. It's actually quite complicated. However, it's starting to be revealed to be quite important. Definitely not fully understood, and is a hot topic of recent and further research. Most notably in more recent research, it has a strong connection with how the mjo is able to propagate, it's amplitude, and ability to have effectiveness. This happens only during boreal winter and is strongly linked. 

So, for example, we have a la Niña plus EQBO. Research says that because of this, the MJO should be more active. Also, it should be able make it beyond the Maritime Continent barrier. While, under WQBO plus la Niña, that would be the opposite. If it were an el nino, it wouldn't matter for the MJO. But also, the MJO is less effective in those cases. This is just one example, it goes beyond the MJO as well. The MJO relationship has just been the focal point more recently. Here's one recent paper which goes over some of this. Hopefully this is somewhat useful information for you. 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16742834.2019.1588064

[raindancewx]

One issue I have with the QBO is the height of the anomaly use varies in the research, and people don't seem to reconcile that when they use it. You can see that paper uses 700 mb heights. But CPC tracks it at 30 mb heights.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/qbo.u30.index