2021-2022 ENSO

[StormchaserChuck!]

2020 was 0.5 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

I just mentioned 2018-2019 in the SNE thread....agree that is a potential early analog.

[raindancewx]

Nate Mantua (JISAO) sent out the May 2022 PDO value. Pretty impressive

https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO

2022 PDO Index monthly values: 

January  -1.24

February  -1.08

March      -1.00

April         -1.51

May.        -1.92

 

Subsurface is marginally positive on the latest ENSO weekly data. Solar data has shot randomly up to 150+ sunspots again too for at least a little bit. Bit hard for me to imagine an El Nino at this point with the PDO so negative. -PDO with El Nino is probably the best pattern for the Southwest to be cold and wet, but I don't really expect it.

 

Statistically the magic trio is El Nino following La Nina with a low-solar setup here. Without low solar, El Nino after La Nina is more a wet pattern here than anything. In the meantime, the usual transition is underway in the Southwest. There is almost always a significant run of warmer-than-average temps right before the monsoon starts. My research shows onset follows final snow melt by two weeks. When I went hiking in early June, the highest peaks were just losing their snow - pretty early. But it does mean this is right on time. It's nothing like early June 2019 when the peaks had five+ feet of snow still in early June.

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Yea, I can't see a full fledged el nino, either, but I do think that warm-neutral remains on the table.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Love to see how this El Nino intersects with -PDO.. +3 about to surface Nino1+2... US is actually leading until PDO/ENSO can prove otherwise. weak El Nino -pdo analogs.. I don't know them. 1966-67?

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/16/2022 at 10:21 AM, StormchaserChuck! said:

Love to see how this El Nino intersects with -PDO.. +3 about to surface Nino1+2... US is actually leading until PDO/ENSO can prove otherwise. weak El Nino -pdo analogs.. I don't know them. 1966-67?

An el nino by CPC standards is very unlikely. The MAM ONI is -1.1. Since 1950, the only two seasons to go on to qualify as an official el nino during the subsequent cold seasons following a MAM ONI of -0.5 or lower are 1976 and 2018...both merely -0.5 MAM ONI.

They each peaked at +0.9 ONI....still weak. Even a recovery that drastic only takes us to a peak ONI of +0.3, which is warm neutral.

Now, this isn't to say that we absolutely can not pull off an el nino like season, as arbitrary thresholds are not the ultimate determinant.

There a small chance....as in addition to last December, the other extreme -PDO Decembers are 1955, 1964, 2008 and 2010.  We would need to pull off a recovery similar to 2009, on the heels of the extreme 12/2008 PDO, which recovered from a MAM 2009 ONI of -0.3 to +1.6 in NDJ. I do not see that, but this kind of PAC reversal would take us back up to a peak of +0.8 ONI for the cold season, which would be weak el nino.

[raindancewx]

Probably time for me to start looking at June 1986 and June 1996 as analogs for later in the year. It's been a long long time since there was a universal agreement for this much rain in June in the Southwest. It's very rare to get this much rain in June, and a lot of the time it does accompany eastern heat waves. I consider 1996 a better match conceptually, it's a "near-La Nina" to me, not an actual one, in part because 1997-98 started to show up in March, and the 1996-97 event collapsed from the East via warming. The cold/wet period in the Northwest, with a heat dome to the east is pretty close to a canonical ideal monsoon look. The wet period in the SW and Eastern heat wave was later in the month in 1996, so the timing is a bit off. Looks like Chicago had some mid-90s the last few days of the month, corresponding to our heavy rains in June 1996.

1996 subsurface Apr/May/Jun: +0.01 / -0.16 / +0.17  and then -0.18 in July

2022 subsurface Apr/May/Jun: -0.34/ -0.10 / +0.02?. Will probably fluctuate pos/neg for a while.

Subsurface might end up as a pretty good match for May-Jul to 1996.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I keep seeing that -PNA's on LR models keep getting veered to neutral over the key-area Aleutian Islands. This has been happening for about 3 months. No 0 -PNA's actually. El Nino tendency

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/20/2022 at 10:21 AM, StormchaserChuck! said:

I keep seeing that -PNA's on LR models keep getting veered to neutral over the key-area Aleutian Islands. This has been happening for about 3 months. No 0 -PNA's actually. El Nino tendency

Even dating back to the JM period last winter...beyond the Dec mega RNA, the PNA was biased a bit more positive than I think most had suspected it would be given the overall state of the PAC.

[40/70 Benchmark]

22 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm fairly confident at this early juncture that we either going to have ENSO neutral or weak la nina conditions for winter 2022-2023.

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2022/06/la-nina-advisory-remains-in-place.html

 

[raindancewx]

With solar above 75 sunspots month-to-date for June, we're officially out of "low solar" conditions for my purposes, with annualized sunspot activity above 55/month once again. The annual average since the SILSO observations began is about 85 sunspots per month.

Subsurface has been positive in the 100-180W zone for a little while now. But soon I think it's going to decay negative again for a while. After that, expecting an early peak for La Nina, and then pretty consistent warming through winter to El Nino conditions by Feb/Mar/Apr. 

Something like this is my current thought. 

June: +0.1

July: -0.1

Aug: -0.3

Sep: -0.6

Oct: -0.8

Nov: -0.5

Dec: -0.2

Jan: +0.1

Feb: +0.3

Mar: +0.7

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 hours ago, raindancewx said:

With solar above 75 sunspots month-to-date for June, we're officially out of "low solar" conditions for my purposes, with annualized sunspot activity above 55/month once again. The annual average since the SILSO observations began is about 85 sunspots per month.

Subsurface has been positive in the 100-180W zone for a little while now. But soon I think it's going to decay negative again for a while. After that, expecting an early peak for La Nina, and then pretty consistent warming through winter to El Nino conditions by Feb/Mar/Apr. 

Something like this is my current thought. 

June: +0.1

July: -0.1

Aug: -0.3

Sep: -0.6

Oct: -0.8

Nov: -0.5

Dec: -0.2

Jan: +0.1

Feb: +0.3

Mar: +0.7

 

I could see something like that. Definitely going to end up el nino next year, and very likely a modoki.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I could see something like that. Definitely going to end up el nino next year, and very likely a modoki.

Would LOVE that (if it wasn't too late for winter, that is) Now why are you confident that that would be the case?

[40/70 Benchmark]

14 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Would LOVE that (if it wasn't too late for winter, that is) Now why are you confident that that would be the case?

I'm not sure it will manifest quickly enough to impact this winter in a big way, so it maybe more for the 2023-2024 season. As far as my modoki assertion, we always have one within a couple of years of emerging from a multi-year cold ENSO event. 1957-1958, 1977-1978, 1986-1987, 2002-2003, 2009-2010 and 2014-2015.

Obviously, the ones that spread the love more and are better for you folks are the more formidable events that invoke the STJ, like 1957-1958, 1986-1987, 2002-2003 and 2009-2010. The weak events like 1977-1978 and 2014-2015 are more N stream dependent and NE focused.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I think we are going full-fledged into El Nino, quickly here now

[raindancewx]

For some context, here is Nino 3.4 in May 2022:  26.78C.

What happened after similar Mays? 

 1955 25.61  25.81  26.22  26.60 26.66  
 1964 27.34  27.13  27.02  26.95  26.82  
 1971  24.81  25.18  25.92  26.63  26.95 
 1973 28.34  27.95  27.55  27.24  26.96  
 1974 24.46  25.10  25.84  26.46  26.64  
 1975 26.09  26.07  26.19  26.86  26.80  
 1985 25.38  26.03  26.50  26.64 26.90 
 1988 27.45  27.03  27.38  27.38  26.68  
 1999 24.86  25.43  26.33  26.70  26.79  
 2022 25.59  25.85  26.30  26.70  26.78 

June 2022 is around 27.0C on the weeklies. 1971, 1973, 1985 looked closest to June 2022. Jan-Jun trends are close to a blend of 1955/1985 in terms of similar warming so far. Worth noting that 1985-86 had mostly positive subsurface anomalies, despite cold surface conditions. Also followed two La Ninas.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/16/2022 at 10:47 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

An el nino by CPC standards is very unlikely. The MAM ONI is -1.1. Since 1950, the only two seasons to go on to qualify as an official el nino during the subsequent cold seasons following a MAM ONI of -0.5 or lower are 1976 and 2018...both merely -0.5 MAM ONI.

They each peaked at +0.9 ONI....still weak. Even a recovery that drastic only takes us to a peak ONI of +0.3, which is warm neutral.

Now, this isn't to say that we absolutely can not pull off an el nino like season, as arbitrary thresholds are not the ultimate determinant.

There a small chance....as in addition to last December, the other extreme -PDO Decembers are 1955, 1964, 2008 and 2010.  We would need to pull off a recovery similar to 2009, on the heels of the extreme 12/2008 PDO, which recovered from a MAM 2009 ONI of -0.3 to +1.6 in NDJ. I do not see that, but this kind of PAC reversal would take us back up to a peak of +0.8 ONI for the cold season, which would be weak el nino.

 

12 hours ago, raindancewx said:

For some context, here is Nino 3.4 in May 2022:  26.78C.

What happened after similar Mays? 

 1955 25.61  25.81  26.22  26.60 26.66  
 1964 27.34  27.13  27.02  26.95  26.82  
 1971  24.81  25.18  25.92  26.63  26.95 
 1973 28.34  27.95  27.55  27.24  26.96  
 1974 24.46  25.10  25.84  26.46  26.64  
 1975 26.09  26.07  26.19  26.86  26.80  
 1985 25.38  26.03  26.50  26.64 26.90 
 1988 27.45  27.03  27.38  27.38  26.68  
 1999 24.86  25.43  26.33  26.70  26.79  
 2022 25.59  25.85  26.30  26.70  26.78 

June 2022 is around 27.0C on the weeklies. 1971, 1973, 1985 looked closest to June 2022. Jan-Jun trends are close to a blend of 1955/1985 in terms of similar warming so far. Worth noting that 1985-86 had mostly positive subsurface anomalies, despite cold surface conditions. Also followed two La Ninas.

A grand total of zero el nino seasons followed those nine analogs.

I rest my case.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I don't know who pays attention, because there are like 2 posts on this forum a day, do different people see different things?
The surface warming hasn't yet begun. I expect some Northern Hemisphere 500mb patterns when that does happen. There is a +3c bubble just below the subsurface. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

Never hit -3

 

[StormchaserChuck!]

It will neutralize the La Nina at least

-PNA will cool the subsurface, but we should go +ENSO by August and September. 

Flirting around low-Weak El Nino for the Fall is still my guess. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

@StormchaserChuck!I agree that la nina is going to neutralize, and it is very possible that we see an el nino like pattern materialize during the cold season. All I am saying is that given the current state of the subsurface and the surface in the equatorial Pacific, an el nino by CPC guidelines next winter is exceedingly unlikely.

Neutral or even warm-neutral is very possible; sure.

[so_whats_happening]

So at this point we are going with the idea of nino 4 holding on to the cold still while 1+2  and 3 should start to warm up slowly and work west over time. Nice move in the upper levels taking place. So probably not quite making third year La Nina status..

[raindancewx]

I don't have a problem with breaking La Nina conditions short term, that's already been observed. But the cycle since 2020 has been for gigantic brief warm ups below the surface and then long-duration, slow cool downs. We'll likely see the warm up continue for at least a little while, and then flip again.

The real trend for the winter seems to show up in July. The correlations between the subsurface and the following winter are basically useless before July from my testing.

Cyclically, many of the objective best two-year matches to each month of precipitation from July 2020 to June 2022 locally by summed absolute value are in that group of similar Nino 3.4 Mays I listed. New Mexico is the most statistically sensitive part of the US to changes in ENSO, so that's a good sign to me.

A stupid thing I look it is just the parameters of change. How many Dec-Feb in Nino 3.4 are warmer than the preceding May since 1950? It ain't many guys - it's eight years from 1950 to 2021. May was 26.78C in 2022, and winter El Nino conditions start at 27.0C historically (warmer if you use the warmed up baseline CPC likes for 1991-2020).

1968, 1972, 1982, 1986, 1991, 1997, 2009, 2015.

Almost of those are pretty strong El Ninos. Largest ever warm up from May to the following Dec-Feb? It was 0.40C in 1982. Sorry - I'd love an El Nino, but it's not super likely to me. We've had brief surface warming in all of these recent events that fizzled. So...in 72 years, matching, or even doubling the largest ever Nino 3.4 May to Dec-Feb warming would only get you to weak El Nino conditions.

(26.78C+0.4 to  26.78+0.8 is 27.18C-27.58C.)

(27.0C is +0.5C in Nino 3.4)

[StruThiO]

Oh, goodness. What on Earth is going on in here. NO we are not transitioning to El Nino right now. Or this winter. Lmao

 

I don't know why people need to hear this, but you're not getting an El Nino with literal 30 kt Pacific trades.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/28/2022 at 11:12 PM, raindancewx said:

I don't have a problem with breaking La Nina conditions short term, that's already been observed. But the cycle since 2020 has been for gigantic brief warm ups below the surface and then long-duration, slow cool downs. We'll likely see the warm up continue for at least a little while, and then flip again.

The real trend for the winter seems to show up in July. The correlations between the subsurface and the following winter are basically useless before July from my testing.

Cyclically, many of the objective best two-year matches to each month of precipitation from July 2020 to June 2022 locally by summed absolute value are in that group of similar Nino 3.4 Mays I listed. New Mexico is the most statistically sensitive part of the US to changes in ENSO, so that's a good sign to me.

A stupid thing I look it is just the parameters of change. How many Dec-Feb in Nino 3.4 are warmer than the preceding May since 1950? It ain't many guys - it's eight years from 1950 to 2021. May was 26.78C in 2022, and winter El Nino conditions start at 27.0C historically (warmer if you use the warmed up baseline CPC likes for 1991-2020).

1968, 1972, 1982, 1986, 1991, 1997, 2009, 2015.

Almost of those are pretty strong El Ninos. Largest ever warm up from May to the following Dec-Feb? It was 0.40C in 1982. Sorry - I'd love an El Nino, but it's not super likely to me. We've had brief surface warming in all of these recent events that fizzled. So...in 72 years, matching, or even doubling the largest ever Nino 3.4 May to Dec-Feb warming would only get you to weak El Nino conditions.

(26.78C+0.4 to  26.78+0.8 is 27.18C-27.58C.)

(27.0C is +0.5C in Nino 3.4)

Complete agreement. Its cool to arrive at the same conclusion via so many different methodologies....lends itself to increased confidence.

I don't see an el nino...doesn't mean that it won't be a good winter in the east, but it is what it is.

[so_whats_happening]

Lol I dont think anyone in here besides stormchaserchuck has mentioned el nino. A gradual waning though for sure seems to be in the picture as we move into winter but I have my doubts we maintain anything more than cold neutral through winter even with this incoming burst. Nino 4 will be the last to warm so it seems while areas in 1+2 and 3 will be a bit back and forth for the rest of summer into fall, 3.4 will be tricky with a balancing affect. 

[George001]

I agree with the idea that in the winter of 2022-2023, El Niño will be nowhere to be found, much like Tatum was nowhere to be found in the finals. For most moderate strength or stronger El Niño years arent you already in El Niño by now? The March April May average is -1.1 which is moderate La Niña (it does appear to be weakening some this month, but still in weak La Niña territory). The latest CPC/IRI projection has the chances we see El Niño during the winter as less than 10%. Not only is it saying El Niño is very unlikely, it is saying if anything there’s a pretty good chance we are looking at another La Niña! That’s kind of cool, you would think there’s a good chance at getting an El Niño since we just had 2 consecutive moderate la ninas, but it looks like that will not be the case.

Another thing that suggests that we could see another La Niña is the MEI index, the MEI index for April and May was recorded as -1.7, which is even lower than it was during winter. If anything, although guidance seems to be keying in on a weak La Niña, there is still a lot of spread. There are quite a few models taking the La Niña to moderate strength with a couple even suggesting we could see a strong La Niña, and only a couple of members even have a weak El Niño. I don’t know if it means anything, but could the extremely low MEI index suggest that the models are underestimating how strong this La Niña could get in the winter? Even if the Nina according to ONI index has weakened some lately, it could easily restrengthen and potentially increase in strength throughout the fall and winter, as we are still a ways away from peak nina climo.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, George001 said:

I agree with the idea that in the winter of 2022-2023, El Niño will be nowhere to be found, much like Tatum was nowhere to be found in the finals. For most moderate strength or stronger El Niño years arent you already in El Niño by now? The March April May average is -1.1 which is moderate La Niña (it does appear to be weakening some this month, but still in weak La Niña territory). The latest CPC/IRI projection has the chances we see El Niño during the winter as less than 10%. Not only is it saying El Niño is very unlikely, it is saying if anything there’s a pretty good chance we are looking at another La Niña! That’s kind of cool, you would think there’s a good chance at getting an El Niño since we just had 2 consecutive moderate la ninas, but it looks like that will not be the case.

Another thing that suggests that we could see another La Niña is the MEI index, the MEI index for April and May was recorded as -1.7, which is even lower than it was during winter. If anything, although guidance seems to be keying in on a weak La Niña, there is still a lot of spread. There are quite a few models taking the La Niña to moderate strength with a couple even suggesting we could see a strong La Niña, and only a couple of members even have a weak El Niño. I don’t know if it means anything, but could the extremely low MEI index suggest that the models are underestimating how strong this La Niña could get in the winter? Even if the Nina according to ONI index has weakened some lately, it could easily restrengthen and potentially increase in strength throughout the fall and winter, as we are still a ways away from peak nina climo.

I don't think it will be anything more than a weak la nina...in fact, I'm pretty confident of that. This is not a bad development....take a weak la nina this season, and by punting on el nino for another year, it really sets us up for 2023-2024 with an easterly QBO and likely modoki el nino. Think of this as the bridge year, and all the chips are laid out in 2023-2024.

As for this year more specifically, the PAC won't be as hostile as it was last season, so its not like we won't have a shot. One thing to watch for is that this could be more of a central-based modoki la nina than last year, which was east-based. That in a vacuum is not good, but its not that big of a deal when the ENSO signal itself is relatively meager, such as it should be this winter. If it is more central based, I feel like this year will be more front loaded than last year, so it maybe a better holiday season and a more subpar mid season relative to last year. The one and only reason last season was not an unmitigated disaster the likes of 2011-2012 is because the la nina was very east-biased, which allowed for that poleward Aleutian ridge mid season to provide a nice wintery stretch....without that, it would have been 3 months of "shut off the lights and close the door".

[GaWx]

On 6/4/2022 at 5:06 PM, GaWx said:

 

 The latest weekly as well as May, 2022, overall, were the coldest for their respective periods in Nino 3.4 since 1999:

Weekly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for

Monthly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ersst5.nino.mth.91-20.ascii

 

 Related to this, the met. spring SOI of +16.8 was the 2nd highest on record by a good margin going back to 1876. Only 1917's +18.3 was higher:

 https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

 This SOI update suggests that a third in a row La Niña fall or winter peak is quite possible, if not likely, and that El Niño won't happen:

- June 2022 SOI of +15.7 is the most positive June SOI since 1950 and second most positive June of last 100 years

- Apr-June 2022 SOI of +18.1 is the second most positive on record by a good margin (back to 1876) with only 1917's +19.2 being higher

- The last time a three calendar month SOI was more positive for ANY three month period than the current +18.1 was the strong La Niña of 2010-11, when it peaked at +22.4.

- Prior to that, the only more positive three calendar month SOI periods of the last 100 years for ANY part of the year were the upper teens to low 20s leading up to or during the strong La Niñas of 1988-9, 1975-6, and 1973-4! Before that, one has to go all the way back to the lead up to the moderate La Niña of 1917-18, when the 3 calendar month hit an all-time record high of +29.5 during July-Sept. Prior to that, you have to go back to the +21.0 of the borderline mod/strong La Niña of 1889-90 and the +20.1 of the lead up to the borderline weak/moderate La Niña of 1879-80.

- The highest 3 month +SOI lead up periods (April-June or later) to the 49 El Niños back to 1876-7 were the +12.9 of Jun-Aug of 1900, the +10.2 of May-July of 1968 and the +10.1 of Apr-June of 1904. Compare those to the current +18.1.

- June-Aug of 1950 was +18.0 and lead up to a cold neutral. Jul-Sep of 1878 was +14.9 and also lead up to a cold neutral. Thus, neutral, especially cold, is still a reasonable possibility, especially considering the recent warming of both Nino 3.4 to -0.6 and the OHC.

- I like to include the SOI in the mix for ENSO predictions because it, especially the 90 day, often is a decent leading (as opposed to lagging) indicator of general trends and the hard data goes back ~150 years making for good opportunities for analysis.

- All of this fwiw because ENSO predicting isn't for the faint of heart as ENSO actuals will surprise you when you least expect it.

Monthly SOI back to 1876:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

[StormchaserChuck!]

Yeah, that 4-6-month SOI was only matched by 2011 (apr 23.9), which was the Dec 2010 I keep comparing too, as a significant anomaly correlation to this last Winter. Then 1994 (reverse) 

1994  4   -19.9  

93,92,91 were all <-10 .. so we are reverse-early 1990s. Wierd because that was a 5-year subsurface El Nino, but surface was Neutral. we are + in the subsurface now, which does not match. Showdown I guess lol.