2021-2022 ENSO

[KC Storm]

Are we thinking this Nina ends up with an early peak in December? Similar to last year. With a slow warming trend later in the winter. 

[so_whats_happening]

Subsurface also gaining some momentum

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Subsurface also gaining some momentum

 

That is mainly in the eastern zones, where we want it. 

I'm still not sold on moderate. 

[GaWx]

9 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

That is mainly in the eastern zones, where we want it. 

I'm still not sold on moderate. 

 I’m going moderate La Niña trimonthly peak at some point this fall/winter most likely followed by weak La Niña and then strong La Niña. Keep in mind that the August ENSO models have had on average a 0.25 C warm bias in Nino 3.4 through the fall/winter based on data from 2012-2020. Just last August, the model average for last fall and winter was for merely a borderline weak La Niña and yet it ended up with a solidly moderate trimonthly peak of -1.3 C. The models were similarly off with the prior La Niña in 2017. The last time the models were too cool in 3.4 was in 2016 when that La Niña warmed back to cold neutral more quickly than the model average predicted.

[40/70 Benchmark]

35 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 I’m going moderate La Niña trimonthly peak at some point this fall/winter most likely followed by weak La Niña and then strong La Niña. Keep in mind that the August ENSO models have had on average a 0.25 C warm bias in Nino 3.4 through the fall/winter based on data from 2012-2020. Just last August, the model average for last fall and winter was for merely a borderline weak La Niña and yet it ended up with a solidly moderate trimonthly peak of -1.3 C. The models were similarly off with the prior La Niña in 2017. The last time the models were too cool in 3.4 was in 2016 when that La Niña warmed back to cold neutral more quickly than the model average predicted.

Well, given that the ECMWF peaks at -.52C and the consensus of all guidance is -.55C, that makes sense.

Still argues weak. I would advise caution with respect to persistence forecasting, as it works until it doesn't...case en point the NAO this past winter.

[raindancewx]

At this point of the year, I winnow down my potential analog year blends to a top six blends. Here is 7/23-8/22 for 2021 against 1967, 2001, 2011, 2013, 2020. I looked at four zones that are interesting for each year back to 1950: 

1) a very negative Indian Ocean Dipole (very hot by Indonesian waters, cold by east Africa). Of the years I picked 1967 and 2011 do not have this. This is important for the MJO and how ENSO events sustain/change.

2) a cold ENSO primarily south of the equator in this time frame, with a much weaker area of cold toward Indonesia than by Peru. 2011 has the cold extension south and north of the equator. A lot of "S. Hem" La Ninas seem to be colder in the South (2010, 2011, 2020, etc).

3) the "cold AMO" ring in the East Atlantic. This is fairly close to 1967.

4) a warm, but cooling North Pacific with similar sst configurations generally. This is generally a weakening -PDO look by NE Asia somewhat like 1967 and others shown.

When you roll the 30-day period from blending those years forward, you get decent matches to the most current ocean conditions globally, and also US weather.

August has looked a lot like 1967 and 2001 as a blend. You can see based on the weeklies, that the blend should be pretty close for August in all Nino zones. I added in my local Summer 2021 highs and precipitation on the right - they look close too.

I also rolled forward the top matches for each Nino zone in 2021. Generally, 1967 is an awesome match for 2021 in Nino 3.4/4, but shitty to the east. So each Nino zone is forecast individually. But I'm pretty convinced we won't stray from 1967 much in the western zones through at least December. That means this really isn't likely to be a Modoki La Nina as I thought before, especially since the warmth below the surface is oozing to 170W, the edge of Nino 3.4, already.

The blend selected is also a relatively strong match in the four Nino zones for last winter (2020-21), and I do value the transitions somewhat. My blends weight seven factors for winter at 6.67%-20% weight each, but I treat winter ENSO and year/year transitions as different variables.

My current leading analog package of the six I still like is 1967-68, 2001-02, 2011-12, 2013-14, 2020-21 as a blend, at some weight. I use this period to "test" for winter by seeing how the blends do in September.

Leaning to splitting it up like this:

Temp Analogs: 1967-68 (x2), 2013-14 (x3), +2001-02 to warm it all up.  2011 would be fifth ranked for temps (near perfectly opposite each month since April), and 2020 would be fourth (likely much warmer than the upcoming Dec).

Precip Analogs: 2001-02 (x2), 2011-12 (x3), +2020-21 for -NAO/+WPO periods. 1967 would be fourth, and 2013 would be fifth (nearly opposite hurricane season – very little activity, different monsoon, etc.).

If you look, years like 2016 and 2017 do match US weather at times in recent weeks. The issue is Nino 4 is trending much differently, and the hurricane season of 2017 also looks very dissimilar. I am struggling with what to do with solar, because I don't have a good method for high the activity will get this year. I don't really have an overall weighting yet, but I'm relatively happy splitting the five years as I have for now. 

[George001]

7 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, given that the ECMWF peaks at -.52C and the consensus of all guidance is -.55C, that makes sense.

Still argues weak. I would advise caution with respect to persistence forecasting, as it works until it doesn't...case en point the NAO this past winter.

 

7 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, given that the ECMWF peaks at -.52C and the consensus of all guidance is -.55C, that makes sense.

Still argues weak. I would advise caution with respect to persistence forecasting, as it works until it doesn't...case en point the NAO this past winter.

I am leaning towards a moderate or strong La Niña but this is definitely something to consider. The models have underestimated the strength of la ninas historically, if on average they underestimated the strength of the La Niña by .25 then taking that into account that puts us right at -.8, which is the strength of the 2017-2018 weak La Niña winter. For me, I have been keeping track of the cfsv2 model and paying attention to the trend as well as what the forecast is. Looks like it’s expecting the Nina to peak in the fall at -.1, right on the border of weak/moderate. However, the spread is still very wide, from .5 to -2, with most of the members being -.5 and -1.5. However, there are more outliers in the -2 range than the .5 range, and even more telling is that all of the blue line outliers are towards the lower end of the envelope. This suggests to me that even though a -.8 to -.9 is the forecast right now, if this ends up busting, it’s likely going to be busting warm. 7/8 of the most recent forecast members take the La Niña to -1 or below, solidly moderate. What really tilts this in favor of a stronger Nina for me is that this update of the cfsv2 model is that the members haven’t even ran yet after the drastic drop in temps from -.4 to -.9. Once it does, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the mean drop from -1 to -1.2 to -1.3, possibly even lower.

[raindancewx]

15 minutes ago, George001 said:

 

I am leaning towards a moderate or strong La Niña but this is definitely something to consider. The models have underestimated the strength of la ninas historically, if on average they underestimated the strength of the La Niña by .25 then taking that into account that puts us right at -.8, which is the strength of the 2017-2018 weak La Niña winter. For me, I have been keeping track of the cfsv2 model and paying attention to the trend as well as what the forecast is. Looks like it’s expecting the Nina to peak in the fall at -.1, right on the border of weak/moderate. However, the spread is still very wide, from .5 to -2, with most of the members being -.5 and -1.5. However, there are more outliers in the -2 range than the .5 range, and even more telling is that all of the blue line outliers are towards the lower end of the envelope. This suggests to me that even though a -.8 to -.9 is the forecast right now, if this ends up busting, it’s likely going to be busting warm. 7/8 of the most recent forecast members take the La Niña to -1 or below, solidly moderate. What really tilts this in favor of a stronger Nina for me is that this update of the cfsv2 model is that the members haven’t even ran yet after the drastic drop in temps from -.4 to -.9. Once it does, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the mean drop from -1 to -1.2 to -1.3, possibly even lower.

The models are idiotic, but it's not a consistent idiotic. You don't seem to get that CPC uses a warmer baseline (1991-2020) than the models do (1981-2010). That alone is worth 0.10-0.20C of warming in some months. You can see it plainly in the data:

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_change.shtmlDec 1950: ONI is -0.88C, Nino 3.4 was 25.29C

Dec 2020: ONI is -1.15C, Nino 3.4 was 25.45C.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I consider 1950-51 a much stronger La Nina that 2020-21.

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 hours ago, raindancewx said:

this really isn't likely to be a Modoki La Nina as I thought before, especially since the warmth below the surface is oozing to 170W, the edge of Nino 3.4, already.

I just came to the same, exact conclusion in my blog update on Monday. This is a bit of good news for fans of winter in the east.

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 hours ago, George001 said:

 

I am leaning towards a moderate or strong La Niña but this is definitely something to consider. The models have underestimated the strength of la ninas historically, if on average they underestimated the strength of the La Niña by .25 then taking that into account that puts us right at -.8, which is the strength of the 2017-2018 weak La Niña winter. For me, I have been keeping track of the cfsv2 model and paying attention to the trend as well as what the forecast is. Looks like it’s expecting the Nina to peak in the fall at -.1, right on the border of weak/moderate. However, the spread is still very wide, from .5 to -2, with most of the members being -.5 and -1.5. However, there are more outliers in the -2 range than the .5 range, and even more telling is that all of the blue line outliers are towards the lower end of the envelope. This suggests to me that even though a -.8 to -.9 is the forecast right now, if this ends up busting, it’s likely going to be busting warm. 7/8 of the most recent forecast members take the La Niña to -1 or below, solidly moderate. What really tilts this in favor of a stronger Nina for me is that this update of the cfsv2 model is that the members haven’t even ran yet after the drastic drop in temps from -.4 to -.9. Once it does, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the mean drop from -1 to -1.2 to -1.3, possibly even lower.

I don't have an issue with including some moderate cool ENSO seasons in the analog package, especially moderate seasons that peaked near the weak/moderate threshold, like 2011 and 1984....because the MEI is at -1.5 right now, so this event is very well coupled. But I would not include any strong cool ENSO seasons at this point.

But to each their own.

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 hours ago, raindancewx said:

The models are idiotic, but it's not a consistent idiotic. You don't seem to get that CPC uses a warmer baseline (1991-2020) than the models do (1981-2010). That alone is worth 0.10-0.20C of warming in some months. You can see it plainly in the data:

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_change.shtmlDec 1950: ONI is -0.88C, Nino 3.4 was 25.29C

Dec 2020: ONI is -1.15C, Nino 3.4 was 25.45C.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I consider 1950-51 a much stronger La Nina that 2020-21.

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

Great point...all the more reason to be careful about going too gung-ho with la nina in the analog package.

LOL at the bolded...priceless quote.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Cool..I wonder if the +PDO will take hold

[raindancewx]

August comparison, scaled to find waters cold enough to be a La Nina. Still not ahead of last year at the surface or close to it. Much warmer in the zones, but especially no huge batch of cold waters by South America (blues and purples).

[George001]

On 8/24/2021 at 8:17 PM, raindancewx said:

The models are idiotic, but it's not a consistent idiotic. You don't seem to get that CPC uses a warmer baseline (1991-2020) than the models do (1981-2010). That alone is worth 0.10-0.20C of warming in some months. You can see it plainly in the data:

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_change.shtmlDec 1950: ONI is -0.88C, Nino 3.4 was 25.29C

Dec 2020: ONI is -1.15C, Nino 3.4 was 25.45C.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I consider 1950-51 a much stronger La Nina that 2020-21.

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

Yeah I was not aware of the cdc using a different baseline than the models, that explains why the models appear to underestimate the strength of la ninas. I see what’s going on now, the models aren’t actually underestimating the strength of la ninas consistently, just using a different baseline. 

[GaWx]

On 8/24/2021 at 12:06 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, given that the ECMWF peaks at -.52C and the consensus of all guidance is -.55C, that makes sense.

Still argues weak. I would advise caution with respect to persistence forecasting, as it works until it doesn't...case en point the NAO this past winter.

 

 I dug more into how far each average August model projection for fall/winter trimonthly peak missed for 2012-2020:

Year: Forecast/Actual/Miss

2020: -0.6/-1.3/+0.7

2019: +0.4/+0.5/-0.1

2018: +0.9/+0.9/0.0

2017:    0.0/-1.0/+1.0

2016: -0.6/-0.7/+0.1

2015: +2.3/+2.6/-0.3

2014: +0.7/+0.7/ 0.0

2013: +0.9/-0.4/+1.3

2012: +0.9/-0.4/+1.3

2012-20 avg miss: +0.4

2021: -0.6/????/????

 

 Note that the average miss of +0.4 doesn't tell the whole story as there are two distinct groups:

 - big positive misses: average of +1.1 from +0.7, +1.0, +1.3 +1.3 (2020, 2017, 2013, 2012)

 - small misses: average miss of -0.1 from -0.1, 0.0, +0.1, -0.3, 0.0 (2019, 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014)

 

So, if 2021 ends up in the big positive miss group, the actual trimonthly peak would easily end up at least well into moderate La Nina range.

But if it were to end up in the second group, the actual trimonthly peak would end up either as either weak La Nina or high end cold neutral.

 For reasons given earlier (mainly current weekly Nino 3.4 SST anomaly but with some backing by the July SOI and the OHC), I'm predicting that the fall/winter trimonthly Nino 3.4 peak will be within moderate La Nina (-1.0 to -1.4). That means I'm expecting 2021 to end up closer to the 1st group (big positive miss for August model average prediction) than the 2nd group.

 By the way. I'm expecting a general increase in the SOI over the next week or so. Thus the August to date average should rise. Currently August MTD is only ~+1.5. However, August as a whole should rise to over +3 and may even rise to over +4. Then we'll see whether or not Sept turns out to be a more strongly positive month more like July's +16.

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

 Source of August ENSO model prediction data 2012-20:

 IRI – International Research Institute for Climate and Society | August 2021 Quick Look (columbia.edu)

 

Source of ONI data:

 https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, GaWx said:

 

 I dug more into how far each average August model projection for fall/winter trimonthly peak missed for 2012-2020:

Year: Forecast/Actual/Miss

2020: -0.6/-1.3/+0.7

2019: +0.4/+0.5/-0.1

2018: +0.9/+0.9/0.0

2017:    0.0/-1.0/+1.0

2016: -0.6/-0.7/+0.1

2015: +2.3/+2.6/-0.3

2014: +0.7/+0.7/ 0.0

2013: +0.9/-0.4/+1.3

2012: +0.9/-0.4/+1.3

2012-20 avg miss: +0.4

2021: -0.6/????/????

 

 Note that the average miss of +0.4 doesn't tell the whole story as there are two distinct groups:

 - big positive misses: average of +1.1 from +0.7, +1.0, +1.3 +1.3 (2020, 2017, 2013, 2012)

 - small misses: average miss of -0.1 from -0.1, 0.0, +0.1, -0.3, 0.0 (2019, 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014)

 

So, if 2021 ends up in the big positive miss group, the actual trimonthly peak would easily end up at least well into moderate La Nina range.

But if it were to end up in the second group, the actual trimonthly peak would end up either as either weak La Nina or high end cold neutral.

 For reasons given earlier (mainly current weekly Nino 3.4 SST anomaly but with some backing by the July SOI and the OHC), I'm predicting that the fall/winter trimonthly Nino 3.4 peak will be within moderate La Nina (-1.0 to -1.4). That means I'm expecting 2021 to end up closer to the 1st group (big positive miss for August model average prediction) than the 2nd group.

 By the way. I'm expecting a general increase in the SOI over the next week or so. Thus the August to date average should rise. Currently August MTD is only ~+1.5. However, August as a whole should rise to over +3 and may even rise to over +4. Then we'll see whether or not Sept turns out to be a more strongly positive month more like July's +16.

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

 Source of August ENSO model prediction data 2012-20:

 IRI – International Research Institute for Climate and Society | August 2021 Quick Look (columbia.edu)

 

Source of ONI data:

 https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

Yea, I guess we have different methodologies because quite frankly, I just don't value those statistics very much. Its essentially persistence forecasting with lipstick. It just feels like the mean didn't suite your argument, so you cherry picked the data a bit more.

That said, I am certainly not ruling out moderate la nina, however, I do feel strong is off of the table and weak is most likely. Well see what happens, Larry.

[StormchaserChuck!]

raindancewx might think this is interesting, after 2 years of +IO up to Japan in August (2020-2021). NAO signal is pretty interesting, Siberia doesn't often dominate. 

 

[George001]

Right now my call is -1.6 ONI peak for this La Niña. I am very confident that there will be a La Niña, less so of the strength. 

My current thoughts are:

Super La Niña: 14%

strong La Niña: 35%

moderate La Niña: 30%

weak La Niña: 20%

cool neutral: <1%

warm neutral: 0%

Weak el nino: 0%

moderate El Niño: 0%

strong El Niño: 0%

super El Niño: 0%

What would your guys predictions look like in terms of percentages and ONI peak? For mine one thing to note is I wouldn’t say anything is completely 0, but the odds that we get an El Niño this winter in my opinion are lower than the odds of me getting struck and killed by a giant meteor tomorrow.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I'm calling for ENSO Neutral, as per effects. Might have a -PNA, but whatever..

[George001]

4 minutes ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

I'm calling for ENSO Neutral, as per effects. Might have a -PNA, but whatever..

I do think there will be a La Niña but I agree that the pacific won’t be all that great this winter. There is too much warmth in the Pacific Ocean right now, and I don’t see that going away completely this winter. However I don’t think it will be anywhere near as bad as last winter, and in my opinion we will likely have severe North Atlantic blocking as well as several polar vortex intrusions. In New England we are probably good for at least 3-4 severe blizzards this winter, unlike last winter where we only had one (2 in most areas, that early feb one I got skunked, only 8-9 inches while 15-20 miles NW got 18+ inches). 

[StormchaserChuck!]

Maybe the CDC data is askew, the surface doesn't correlate as much.. 

[raindancewx]

I was looking at arctic sea ice extent mins in September to see if there is any relationship with the various indexes for winter. The sea ice mins correlate relatively well (r-squared is 0.13 or so from 1979-2020) to the winter WPO. But WPO values have been trending more positively in the 1979-2020 period for winter anyway. So it's likely an auto-correlation thing.

The thing with the subsurface is it does correlate with the winter values for Nino 3.4 pretty well in August - r-squared is over 0.7 if you use a polynomial trend line. But the "variance" off the trend line is still +/-0.6C at ~95%. So you can have a -0.8 subsurface in August and end up at a 26.1C Nino 3.4 in winter. The best fit line for a -1.0 subsurface in August is a 25.6C La Nina in winter, about -1.0C against the 1991-2020 baseline CPC uses, but only -0.9C against the 1951-2010 baseline that seems to "work" better for ENSO conditions switching on/off. I think we're closer to -0.8 or -0.9 for August than -1.0 though in the subsurface data.

At the end of the day, there has not been a La Nina stronger / colder than 25.5C in a full winter in over a decade. CPC seems to think La Ninas should be classified based on warming math baselines to account for the warmer oceans. To me, that seems wrong. The "strong" La Ninas in the old/cold days don't look like the modern "strong" La Ninas. There is no guarantee of strong or moderate La Ninas even at a once a decade level for winter. I personally think we're in a broadly similar period to the 1950s/1960s now, and if you look, we went from 1955-56 to 1970-71 without a La Nina below 25.5C in winter, and then we went from 1975-76 to 1988-89 without a La Nina below 25.5C in winter. So even at 11+ years, the current streak of weak La Ninas or warmer is not that close to the 15 year record. (1988 to 98, 1999 to 2007, 2010 to now are the most recent streaks).

[40/70 Benchmark]

17 hours ago, George001 said:

Right now my call is -1.6 ONI peak for this La Niña. I am very confident that there will be a La Niña, less so of the strength. 

My current thoughts are:

Super La Niña: 14%

strong La Niña: 35%

moderate La Niña: 30%

weak La Niña: 20%

cool neutral: <1%

warm neutral: 0%

Weak el nino: 0%

moderate El Niño: 0%

strong El Niño: 0%

super El Niño: 0%

What would your guys predictions look like in terms of percentages and ONI peak? For mine one thing to note is I wouldn’t say anything is completely 0, but the odds that we get an El Niño this winter in my opinion are lower than the odds of me getting struck and killed by a giant meteor tomorrow.

Strong most likely?

Good luck.

[raindancewx]

The 1938 hurricane season, besides the famous New England storm, had a hurricane ("3") hit the central Gulf Coast in August on a path to the west of the Ida. 

It was a La Nina year too.

 

[raindancewx]

On 8/23/2021 at 5:28 PM, raindancewx said:

 

Tentative Jun-Aug SOI matches (if it finishes around +4 in August) include  Jun-Aug 1939, 1947, 1974, 1979, 1999, 2011. 

8/1-8/30 SOI: +3.7

The three La Nina SOI matches for June-August look like what the CFS has for September.

[GaWx]

 Wow, the 3.4 Nino weekly anomaly released today for last week warmed a whopping 0.6 C from -0.9 to -0.3! Whereas I’m sticking with my moderate La Niña call, that much warming was quite the surprise for me and doesn’t exactly help my confidence. We’ll see what the next few weeks bring.

 Looking at records, an anomaly warming of 0.6+ in one week is rare though oddly enough 4 of the 5 occurrences over the last 31 years happened within just the last 2 years:

8/25/21 warmed 0.6 

6/24/20 warmed 0.6

 9/25/19 warmed 0.7

 11/21/18 warmed 0.6

   7/8/92 warmed 0.6

 That's it for warmings of 0.6+ back to 1990!

[raindancewx]

                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 04AUG2021     21.7 0.7     25.1-0.2     26.7-0.3     28.6-0.2
 11AUG2021     20.9 0.1     24.8-0.4     26.5-0.4     28.6-0.2
 18AUG2021     20.5-0.1     24.4-0.6     26.0-0.9     28.6-0.2
 25AUG2021     20.6 0.0     25.0-0.0     26.5-0.3     28.5-0.3

 05AUG2020     19.8-1.3     24.6-0.7     26.3-0.7     28.4-0.4
 12AUG2020     19.9-0.9     24.8-0.4     26.4-0.6     28.3-0.5
 19AUG2020     19.5-1.1     24.3-0.7     26.0-0.9     28.4-0.4
 26AUG2020     20.0-0.6     24.2-0.8     26.1-0.7     28.6-0.2

The blend of the four weekly readings comes out to 26.4C or so in Nino 3.4. Still tracking very similarly to 1967 in the western zones. The blend I'm testing in September is still close 1967, 2001-02 (x2), 2011-12, 2013-14 (x2), 2020-21 (x2) to what the monthly data should be for 2021. If the weeklies are similar to the monthly August data, Nino 1.2 is much warmer than last year, with Nino 3, 3.4 and 4 0.1-0.3C warmer too. Subsurface is probably a touch colder overall in August, but it hasn't worked up yet, and has to wash away much more warmth.

https://www.psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/nina34.data

1967  25.88  26.11  26.50  26.74  27.35  27.47  26.97  26.44  25.86  25.97  26.08  25.95 
2021  25.54  25.75  26.49  27.10  27.48  27.45  26.97  26.45? 99.99 -99.99 -99.99 -99.99 

https://www.psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/nina4.data
1967  27.60  27.41  27.82  28.44  28.76  28.58  28.52  28.32  28.20  28.33  28.34  28.15 
2021  27.26  27.23  27.67  28.19  28.70  28.83  28.68  28.55? -99.99 -99.99 -99.99 -99.99
   

[raindancewx]

Lots of rain in southern New Mexico in May, June, July and August has it looking quite lovely. Probably not so apparent if you just look at the drought monitor instead of the vegetation.

September is negatively correlated pretty well to cold season precipitation patterns in La Ninas down here. This has my attention -

[raindancewx]

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

100-180W subsurface was -0.83 in Aug 2021, compared to -0.80 in Aug 2020.

More rain for me today. A rare, long-lasting light rain courtesy of the death of Nora. Monsoon has now matched last year locally, still a month to go.

[raindancewx]

The relatively strong intensity of the flooding and tornado activity in the Northeast is reminiscent of Allison - another storm that wouldn't see it's upper dynamics completely destroyed by landfall.

I've mentioned previously that I'm looking at 2001 as an analog for seeing similar Nino 3.4 conditions to both winter 2020-21 and July/Aug.

After Ida hit, I noticed that the intensity in millbars was near identical to Carla in 1961, an extraordinary powerful hurricane, famous for damaging or destroying something like 60,000 buildings in Texas. The flood threat with Carla was extensive too.

You can see the spread was similar in breadth to Ida, just further west due to land falling to the west. If you look nationally, the US weather pattern for temperatures has been very close to 1961 since March. You had incredible heat in the NW for instance in June. Locally, the Jan-Aug high temperatures in 2021 are an incredible match to 1961. Third closest match to 2021 in the past 90 years in 1961. 

Can't be easy to get this level of heat in the NW in a cold ENSO year given the Earth has warmed in 60 years. So the 1961 June heat is impressive.