2021-2022 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, George001 said:

Yeah it looks like the recent rise in subsurface temps is hinting at the dynamical guidance camp (faster decay of the nina) having the right idea rather than the statistical guidance that Keeps the La Niña at low end moderate well into winter. If that is the case, the MEI number will start increasing soon. It will be interesting to see what the September guidance looks like.

Like I said in the blog last month, statistical guidance is skewed by the fact that it's one of the most potent cool ENSO events on record in terms of the MJJ and JJA ONI, but dynamical guidance has a better handle on what is going on in the atmosphere...which is what is most important. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

I know it looks like the IOD and ENSO are perfectly in sync and mutually re enforcing one another and I'm sure that they are to a degree, but what will be obvious when la nina folds like a cheap tent is that mature, stagnant ENSO events have a more difficult time initiating and coupling with the IOD than ones that develop during the early portion of the summer. This is part of why the dynamical guidance is less aggressive. Remember,  ENSO at baseline is self destructive, and it will do so at least excuse imaginable....this particular event is on borrowed time as it is.

[raindancewx]

None of the cold-ENSO events in the past decade have been particularly strong in the winter at the surface. We've not had a winter finish 25.50C or colder since 2010-11. Think about that - it's coming up on 12 years.

It's been ages since anything has been below 25.0C for DJF - although 2007-08 was close. These are not impressive events by historical standards, something like 50-70% of all La Ninas (<26C in DJF) in the past 100 years have been colder in winter than the recent years. Most of you don't actually look at the temperatures, you look at the anomalies, so it never comes up that 2011-12 and 1995-96 are almost the same by actual temps (~25.75C DJF), because CPC uses warming baselines for newer events. That's why I look at stuff like ACE to distinguish between the La Nina behavior, 1995 is a super-ACE year, and those are all pretty hot in the West and tend to be stormy east.

 1995  27.57  27.49  27.75  28.10  27.82  27.59  27.08  26.23  25.88  25.84  25.60  25.65
 1996  25.69  25.89  26.67  27.35  27.55  27.29  26.85  26.64  26.27  26.27  26.29  25.95

 2011  25.00  25.64  26.36  27.05  27.41  27.35  26.87  26.21  25.92  25.67  25.52  25.54
 2012  25.67  26.08  26.67  27.32  27.61  27.75  27.54  27.32  27.10  26.98  26.86  26.34

The long-term baseline is 26.50C in Dec-Feb in Nino 3.4.

I know it's been colder relatively in Fall/Spring, but the real impact is getting those waters right at the equator well below the normal ~80 degrees. It doesn't really matter that much if the waters are ~1C below average but still ~80F in the Fall/Spring off-season like we saw this Spring.

I personally don't care at all about ENSO strength outside the winter. It's actually not really that relevant in winter either. I mostly look at strength to match on the y/y trends, which have far more predictive power.

My ideal for this winter would be for it to be much warmer than last year in Nino 3.4, which favors colder here (warming trend y/y), and then an El Nino next year.

That'd be two good winters in a row out here, following a decent run lately, with 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 all seeing pretty good snows locally (I've had accumulating snow at my place every month from October to April in the past four winters, including close to two feet outside Dec-Feb, with ~9.5" in October 2020, ~4.5" in March 2022, ~8.5" in Nov 2019. Nearly snowed September 2020 too, with flurries in April 2020).

My research indicates that years during the AMO transition disfavor heavy snows in the Southwest in Dec/Jan, and favor "off-season" snow, so I do think we're getting close to the cold-AMO flip mid-decade to 2030. These fluky off-season snows show up a lot every 60-70 years if you look back through newspaper accounts (lots of very early season / very late SW US / Mexico snow in the 1960s, 1890s, 1830s, 1770s, etc). The peak of it will probably be something like the Mexico blizzard of January 1967.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Considering ENSO intensity irrelevant in winter is a fool's errand to be sure, as is basing an entire outlook off of it. Its easy to see that it matters when you look at the composites, but obviously there are other factors at play. Its more an issue of strong vs weak, as it doesn't really matter if its 0.8 ONI vs 1.1....there are other factors that are usually more important in that case.  Its also crucial to consider how the manner in which ENSO interacts with other factors around the globe is changing due to climate change.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Probably some subsurface cooling coming in 10-14 days, making it a Moderate-La Nina again. 

170E subsurface at -200M has been hanging around +2c for 3 years now.. First time in history I think (Seems to connect with the N-C Pacific -PDO warm pool)

[StormchaserChuck!]

-EPO Oct's since 2015

300dm+PNA

[raindancewx]

I've decided on a blend of six analogs and three anti-logs for this winter.

For the anti-logs, the plan is to use 1995-96 and 2004-05, and one other I'll leave a mystery for now. Both are relatively low solar, high ACE, and they have pretty opposite temp/precip patterns. The anti-logs also fix some of the issues with the analogs.

The 1995-96 and 2004-05 structures both favor warmth West / Coolness east by the equator in a relative sense, which is opposite what the models have been showing. They're also very cold off the East Coast, Japan, and Indonesia, all opposite now, and likely opposite for winter.

Some high ACE years - a cold / warm ring in the West basically in the same place but sign flipped.

Sign flip again in winter? We'll see. But I've got my winter blend.

[Great Snow 1717]

On 8/22/2022 at 3:24 PM, GaWx said:

 We're headed toward a third fall/winter in a row with cold ENSO. Eight others since 1850-51 are as follows based on Eric Webb's research:

1874-5, 1894-5, 1910-1, 1916-7, 1956-7, 1975-6, 1985-6, and 2000-1

 I'll discuss the SE US since I'm there and most familiar with their history in addition to not many folks posting about it in this thread. However, some of this is similar in much of the E 1/3 of the US in general.

 Regarding these 8 winters:

 - 1874-5: nothing of note

 - 1894-5: Feb was the coldest and snowiest Feb on record with back to back extreme cold plunges and heavy snow to the Gulf coast; also, late Dec. had one extreme cold plunge and Jan pretty cold overall

 - 1910-1: cold Dec and an Arctic plunge early Jan; otherwise nothing of note

 - 1917-8: Dec-Jan along with 1976-7 within the two coldest Dec-Jan periods on record and included well above normal wintry precip. in many areas to the Gulf coast

 -1956-7: nothing notable/mild winter

 -1975-6: cool to cold Dec-Jan overall with several Arctic plunges

 - 1985-6: cold Dec; several Arctic plunges through the winter 

 - 2000-01: one of coldest Decembers on record; some had generous snow in Dec. as compared to climo such as 3" at Atlanta

 

 Summary of temperatures for analogs:

- Dec: 5 of 8 cold to cool along with an Arctic plunge in one of the other 4 with only one mild

- Jan: 3 of 8 cold with only one mild

- Feb: 6 of 8 mild although 1895 coldest on record

 

 My conclusions for SE US this winter:

- Although sample size isn't that big, this analog set is encouraging me to feel that there's a very good shot at a chilly Dec and a decent chance at a chilly Jan.

- These analogs suggest a very good chance for a mild Feb although 1895 says don't assume anything.

- With 3 of these 8 analogs having historic 1-2 month periods of cold accompanied by ample to historic wintry precip (1894-5, 1917-8, 2000-1), I think there's a good chance for a memorable several week+ period for cold and wintry precip. this winter.

----------------------

 I used this from Eric Webb to find the 8 ENSO analogs:

https://www.webberweather.com/uploads/1/1/9/9/119943685/ens_oni_magi_definitions_timeseries_jan_1850_-_jul_2022.xlsx

Personally, I would never consider using analog years from 100+ years ago. 

[Terpeast]

1 hour ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

Personally, I would never consider using analog years from 100+ years ago. 

Or even 50. I wouldn’t use analogs earlier than 1980, even though the 70s are interesting ones to look at. 

[Great Snow 1717]

23 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Or even 50. I wouldn’t use analogs earlier than 1980, even though the 70s are interesting ones to look at. 

Agree, climate change has just had too much of an impact.  I'd be very cautious about using analog years from the 1980's.   

[Hoosier]

The problem with cutting out earlier analog years is that it leaves an even smaller sample size (not like 8 3rd year Ninas is huge to begin with).

[40/70 Benchmark]

35 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

The problem with cutting out earlier analog years is that it leaves an even smaller sample size (not like 8 3rd year Ninas is huge to begin with).

Agree...I go back to 1950.

I think we all understand that the globe has warmed....I don't think anyone using an analog from the 60's would expect it to be as cold today given an identical global evolution. Using 1951-2010 as the base climo period alleviates that issue, somewhat.

[Great Snow 1717]

45 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

The problem with cutting out earlier analog years is that it leaves an even smaller sample size (not like 8 3rd year Ninas is huge to begin with).

The issue is the entire sample size we have to work with is small considering the age of the earth. We really do not know how many 3rd year Ninas there has actually been. Add in a climate that has fluctuated over time and it makes the use of analog years  "risky" when it comes to predicting weather. 

As a chess player knowledge is power. Most chess databases contain millions of games. I can search the database for moves and positions.  I can find the results for the games that had a certain move played at a certain time in the game. The break down is percent of wins for white, the percent of wins for black and the number of draws.  Since there are so many games in the sample size it makes trusting those percentages far easier.  Unfortunately for mets and weather enthusiasts no such weather  database comes close to having the amount  information found in most chess databases so it makes determining outcomes far more difficult. 

Far into the future the database for weather will be far better than what it is currently. The sample sizes by then will be quite a bit larger. Of course by then there may be the equivalent of the chess super program Alpha Zero that predicts weather with a 99 % accuracy rate. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2022/09/enso-continues-to-stagnate-as-winter.html

[raindancewx]

Some quick thoughts:

- The 1988 hurricane season in the Atlantic, after a slow start, had a cat 4, a cat 5 in September...and then one more cat 4 in October. ACE has been very similar to that year, even though storm paths and sensible weather are quite different. But my point is that that year finished around 100 for the season. My estimate for the season was 50-100, and I was expecting around 80 - but 100 is probably pretty realistic at this point.

- Locally, there really aren't many bad "snow" years following over 5.5 inches of rain in Albuquerque, and that holds true in the high terrain spots that average 100-400 inches of snow from what I can see too. It's not really something that changes with ENSO either. The general signal for weaker La Nina snow is much weaker following wet Summers.

1963 is going to finish as the objective best match for Jan-Sept highs and precipitation locally. It's not a bad match for Sep nationally, and it followed a volcanic eruption. Check out 10/1963 and 10/2022 on the CFS. My analogs stay pretty warm in the Fall in Nov, as 1963 does. Will be very interesting to see if that holds, as 1963 is an El Nino. But it's also the "single most extreme" month down here since 1892 - February 1964 is 13.5F below the long-term average high, which I don't buy.

[so_whats_happening]

Looks like the CFS is pushing west with the higher anoms fits with the idea of the -EPO pattern. This opens up the door for another recurving hurricane as you mentioned with the potential of another FL east coast rider if one were to occur. The highs coming in the east are rather impressive coming up. At least for the foreseeable future west coast ridge east coast troughing should occur. 

We seem to be having another broad wind event across the Pac so this should help spread the Nina out a bit and allow a little relaxing period again toward early November where the 1+2 and 3 region warms up as the waters push back to 3.4 and 4. Subsurface still looks pretty intact though.

[George001]

The ACE index is increasing a lot after a slow start. Average is around 120, and we are currently on pace for around 110 but the models are showing a more active pattern coming up. Due to this it may not be a low ACE year after all. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

ENSO is nothing to sneeze at. 

This is after anomalously below average/East coast trough Sept 23 - Oct 10. Last time it happened was 2003. 14 analogs since 1986: 70>dm +PNA. 4 months. quite a signal. last Winter I had 20 analogs for 2 months giving a +70-100dm PNA/NAO signal, it verified with strong gravity-pull, I saw. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

weak

 

[raindancewx]

I included this in my winter outlook. The Euro is much more confident in an early demise to this event than the 2020 event, even though surface conditions have been much colder, like 0.2-0.4C colder, for months now v. 2020. Euro has La Nina conditions at 50/50 for January 2023, while it had 50/50 for La Nina conditions into April 2021 at this point.

[StormchaserChuck!]

La Nina redeveloping in subsurface

[40/70 Benchmark]

MEI held serve at -1.8 for AS.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:08 AM, StormchaserChuck! said:

La Nina redeveloping in subsurface

3.4 remained steady at -0.8 at of 10/5. This event is running out of time pretty quickly to even peak as a bonafide moderate event, especially if it decays as quickly as guidance suggests.

[so_whats_happening]

Subsurface warming starting to dip in the normal location may be the end of the subsurface look for the Nina at least as we move into November. Im not sure we fully get out of cold neutral through most of the winter though, especially 3.4/4 as expected, have to see how this materializes.

[raindancewx]

Worth noting that the subsurface in the 100-180W zone got to -1.59 last October. But October 2020 was -1.11. We're closer to 2020 right now.

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

v. 2021, we have a colder surface / warmer subsurface. 

I buy into ENSO order as a predictive variable, but not a fan of the "third year La Nina" crap that goes around. I don't see any particular reason why third year La Ninas should be colder than second year. You have plenty of cold second year La Ninas (1974, 1984 nationally, many others more regionally).

We're about at that time where everyone and their mother tries to force square pegs into round holes as to why December will finally be the COLDEST EVA in the East. So let's go through the coldest December La Nina / cold ENSO events since 1980.

December - Cold East (MJO in Oct) (ACE) (Prior Winter)

1983: Cold East (5-6-Neutral), (17) (El Nino)

1985: Cold Midwest/East (Neutral-6-1) (88) (La Nina)

1995: Cold East (dead/7), (227), (El Nino)

2000: Cold East (2-6), (119), (La Nina)

2005: Cold East (Neutral, 1-5), (245), (El Nino)

2010: Cold East (3-6), (166), (El Nino)

2017: Cold NE US (Neutral, 4-7), (225) (La Nina)

December - Cold West (MJO in Oct) (ACE) (Prior Winter)

1984: Cold West (Neutral, 5-8), (84), (La Nina)  (2022: Neutral, 5-??) (82??), La Nina)

1988: Cold West / Maine (5-7), (103), (La Nina) (2022: Neutral, 5-??) (82??), La Nina)

1996: Cold N. Plains (Neutral), (166), (La Nina)

1998: Cold NW US (5-6-neutral), (182), (El Nino)

2007: Cold West (Neutral, 8-1), (74), (El Nino)

2008: Cold West & North (Neutral, 3-5), (146), (La Nina)

2011: Cold SW US (6-2), (126), (La Nina)

2016: Cold NW US (5-neutral), (141), (El Nino)

2021: Cold West (5-neutral), (146), (La Nina)

Other patterns -

1999: no cold (2-neutral), (177), (La Nina)

2020: Cold FL (5-7), (180), (El Nino)

 

Matches on ACE, MJO Timing, ENSO Order:

3/3: 1984, 1988

2/3: 1985, 2000, 2021

October starts in MJO 5:

1983: Cold East

1984, 1988, 1998, 2016, 2020, 2021: Cold West/or warm all

October 2011, 140 ACE, 6-2 in October - by no means perfect, but the MJO is only off one tick.

[snowman19]

6 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Subsurface warming starting to dip in the normal location may be the end of the subsurface look for the Nina at least as we move into November. Im not sure we fully get out of cold neutral through most of the winter though, especially 3.4/4 as expected, have to see how this materializes.

Like you said, I very seriously doubt we go officially neutral/La Nada until April. At least in regions 3.4, 4 and possibly 3. I think we see a late November or early December peak with a slow rise out of moderate territory during the winter. I’m not buying the models showing a rapid rise after December, they have grossly underestimated this Niña event for the last 3 years

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Like you said, I very seriously doubt we go officially neutral/La Nada until April. At least in regions 3.4, 4 and possibly 3. I think we see a late November or early December peak with a slow rise out of moderate territory during the winter. I’m not buying the models showing a rapid rise after December, they have grossly underestimated this Niña event for the last 3 years

I'm not sure of the relevancy of that because we have yet to see the death of this 3 year event. This season we will. That said, it wouldn't shock me if the decay were a bit slower than modeled, since guidance tends to rush most changes.

This event will erode rather rapidly, though IMO....we have also yet to see the intensification that we have been hearing about all fall with the weekly anomaly still at -0.8. We need to see weekly numbers well below -1 soon if we are indeed going to see anything more than a peak ONI greater than the weak/moderate threshold.

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm not sure of the relevancy of that because we have yet to see the death of this 3 year event. This season we will. That said, it wouldn't shock me if the decay were a bit slower than modeled, since guidance tends to rush most changes.

This event will erode rather rapidly, though IMO....we have also yet to see the intensification that we have been hearing about all fall with the weekly anomaly still at -0.8. We need to see weekly numbers well below -1 soon if we are indeed going to see anything more than a peak ONI greater than the weak/moderate threshold.

We’ll see what happens by November and you’re right, guidance is notoriously way too fast with the demise of Nina’s and Nino’s

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

We’ll see what happens by November and you’re right, guidance is notoriously way too fast with the demise of Nina’s and Nino’s

Even with respect to synoptic patterns, we often see transitions initially rushed. But I think this one will be on its way out rather quickly this season.

[raindancewx]

We have had a nearly perfect, canonical look in October to MJO phase 5. Lovely to see, since phase five is quite cold here in mid-winter, and the MJO cycles every 45-days.

Wet NE & SW US? Check.

Cold East & Parts of the SW US? Check