El Nino 2023-2024

[mitchnick]

27 minutes ago, griteater said:

MEI Charts below comparing this year to Super Ninos / Strong Ninos / Moderate Ninos / Weak Ninos.  This is MEI v2 data which only goes back to 1979.  I used 2 Bi-Monthly readings for better smoothing with the chart lines.  As has been discussed in here, the current year is most similar to prior Moderate and Weak El Ninos, and most dissimilar to the Super El Nino years.

 

 

 

 

Charts Copernicus forecast starts on September 1 and has the 9/1 anomaly at +2. 1-2.2C for 3.4. That's wrong. Oisst had it at +1.55C. So if you subtract the .6 error from the max forecast of +2.2 +/-, you get something much more in line with moderate Niño MEI's...coincidentally? 

[Terpeast]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The upper ocean heat is currently on the low side if you want to see a super El Niño out of this event. While the sample size is small, none of the events went super with such low upper ocean heat figures. So it makes sense that the OISST which has been tracking with the official ERSST has been struggling to get much past +1.5. The Jamstec + PDF corrected CFS both level off around these current figures. So the RONI would continue to remain in weak territory if this event can’t push much higher. Then we would continue to have coupling issues. 

 

 

 

Most statistical models had this peaking at 1.0 ONI and dynamic at 2.0 ONI. We’re already at 1.5 on the dailies/weeklies, so it’s reasonable to think that we’ll split the difference at 1.5 ONI peak. 

The WPAC warm pool has cooled slightly in recent weeks, so given a couple of months for the MEI to catch up, I’m fairly confident of a 1.0 MEI going into winter. There’s also time for another chance for a KW to induce further a bit more warming, but I think its pretty safe to say that super is off the table at this point. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, griteater said:

Copernicus Multi-Model Seasonal Ensemble (C3S) September update is out.  Lots of data / maps if interested: Charts | Copernicus and C3S Model - Global | CyclonicWx

Just glancing thru everything, I'd say they bumped a touch more super nino-ish with less eastern U.S. troughing

Here is a compare of the Aug run vs. the new Sep run for January (500mb pattern)

 

On the bright side, the -OLR and -VP Walker Cell uplift zones bumped west this run along the Dateline (January maps shown)...

 

 

For the Euro component of the output...for stratospheric zonal winds at 10mb, it's still showing a weaker than normal strat PV develop by Jan, though not quite as robust as last month's version

Looks like primarily noise to me.

[40/70 Benchmark]

The pattern looks the same...no large scale shifts.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

Most statistical models had this peaking at 1.0 ONI and dynamic at 2.0 ONI. We’re already at 1.5 on the dailies/weeklies, so it’s reasonable to think that we’ll split the difference at 1.5 ONI peak. 

The WPAC warm pool has cooled slightly in recent weeks, so given a couple of months for the MEI to catch up, I’m fairly confident of a 1.0 MEI going into winter. There’s also time for another chance for a KW to induce further a bit more warming, but I think its pretty safe to say that super is off the table at this point. 

Question about the WPAC warm pool...how long has it been like this? (that is, being so warm until now)

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

The upper ocean heat is currently on the low side if you want to see a super El Niño out of this event. While the sample size is small, none of the events went super with such low upper ocean heat figures. So it makes sense that the OISST which has been tracking with the official ERSST has been struggling to get much past +1.5. The Jamstec + PDF corrected CFS both level off around these current figures. So the RONI would continue to remain in weak territory if this event can’t push much higher. Then we would continue to have coupling issues. 

 

 

 

1) 1st year Nino OHC peak month since 1979:

1979: Nov

1982: Oct

1987: Jan

1992: Feb

1994: Nov

1997: Oct

2002: Oct

2005: Mar

2006: Nov

2009: Nov

2014: Nov

2018: Oct

-None of the 12 1st year El Niño events peaked earlier than Oct for full month average

-Avg is Nov/Dec; median is Nov

-The warmest so far this year per 3rd column of monthly OHC link below is +1.40 of June. Out of 12 1st year Niños, 10 warmed 0.6+ above June to reach peak. The smallest warming above June was the 0.31 of 1997. 

-Thus the odds that the OHC already peaked in June or even this month are low and an ultimate peak of +1.7+ is heavily favored.

 

Monthly OHC:

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

 

2) The PDF corrected CFS is predicting only ~+1.1 for Sep Nino 3.4. In order for that to verify, Nino 3.4 would need to plunge to ~+0.75 within the next two weeks or so. Thus the PDF corrected CFS is almost definitely going to verify way too cool for Sep. Griteater said it was "on crack":

 

[raindancewx]

For Boston, if you graph all El Ninos out by the PDO value for Nov-Apr, there is a pretty clear signal for the -PDO El Ninos to see less snow. That signal vanishes completely by the time you get to Philadelphia, and we also have no PDO snow signal in El Nino locally. Every blend I've been able to come up with has near normal snow for most of the Northeast US, outside of Southern New England, which is generally consistent with the image below.

 

 

[GaWx]

23 minutes ago, bluewave said:

None of the El Niño  years since 1980 had an OHC this low in August into early September and then went onto super status. Granted the sample size is low, but it’s all we have to work with. So I will continue to take the under on an official super El Niño being declared based on the official ERSST ONI.  2004 with a RONI similar to this event had an OHC peak in September so it isn’t that uncommon. 
 

OHC: Aug to peak warming:

-1991-2 1.49

-2009-10 0.96

-1997-8 0.77

-2002-3 0.67 

-2018-9 0.66

 With August of 2023 at +1.09, these five suggest a peak of +1.75+ and two of them even suggest a peak of +2.0+. My point is that I feel that it is too early to have a lot of confidence that the OHC won't make it to +1.75+ for this event. Also, consider how fast it rewarmed from late July to late August.

[GaWx]

4 minutes ago, bluewave said:

A monthly reading that high is only possible if the atmosphere fully couples which still hasn’t happened yet so anything is possible.

"Anything is possible" as you just said I agree with 100%. That is my main point. It is still early.

[snowman19]

OHC: Aug to peak warming:
-1991-2 1.49
-2009-10 0.96
-1997-8 0.77
-2002-3 0.67 
-2018-9 0.66

 With August of 2023 at +1.09, these five suggest a peak of +1.75+ and two of them even suggest a peak of +2.0+. My point is that I feel that it is too early to have a lot of confidence that the OHC won't make it to +1.75+ for this event. Also, consider how fast it rewarmed from late July to late August.

Agreed. Since we have 2 1/2 more months to go until the OHC normal peaks (November), trying to say it already peaked on 9/10 is kind of ridiculous, no offense

[griteater]

3 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Charts Copernicus forecast starts on September 1 and has the 9/1 anomaly at +2. 1-2.2C for 3.4. That's wrong. Oisst had it at +1.55C. So if you subtract the .6 error from the max forecast of +2.2 +/-, you get something much more in line with moderate Niño MEI's...coincidentally? 

The default page for the Copernicus SST plumes is for Nino 3 instead of 3.4 (which is dumb).  So, I'm wondering if you were looking at Nino 3??

It has the Nino 3.4 value here in Sep around +1.5

[snowman19]

The default page for the Copernicus SST plumes is for Nino 3 instead of 3.4 (which is dumb).  So, I'm wondering if you were looking at Nino 3??
It has the Nino 3.4 value here in Sep around +1.5

I was wondering the same thing, it has a pretty accurate region 3.4 reading for September so far…actually a tick too cool since it’s over +1.6C right now. It gets the Nino to super in the NDJ time frame

[mitchnick]

47 minutes ago, griteater said:

The default page for the Copernicus SST plumes is for Nino 3 instead of 3.4 (which is dumb).  So, I'm wondering if you were looking at Nino 3??

It has the Nino 3.4 value here in Sep around +1.5

Yep. That's what happened.  My mistake. 

EDIT: But as a comment, they don't start the observation on 9/1. It's  8/15 when it was a touch over +1.3. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 hours ago, raindancewx said:

For Boston, if you graph all El Ninos out by the PDO value for Nov-Apr, there is a pretty clear signal for the -PDO El Ninos to see less snow. That signal vanishes completely by the time you get to Philadelphia, and we also have no PDO snow signal in El Nino locally. Every blend I've been able to come up with has near normal snow for most of the Northeast US, outside of Southern New England, which is generally consistent with the image below.

 

 

Seems like a sample size fluke to me. I have a hard time envisioning a physical reason why Philly would be better of in a -PDO than Boston. But I'm all ears....maybe -PNA not allowing s stream to amplify enough??

[Terpeast]

18 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Seems like a sample size fluke to me. I have a hard time believing there is a physical reason why Philly would be better of in a -PDO than Boston.

Worth pointing out that in my own statistical research, the PDO is most strongly anti-correlated with MA snowfall out of any SST index, including ENSO. 
 

Correction: PDO is positively correlated (not negatively correlated) with MA snowfall. My bad 

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Worth pointing out that in my own statistical research, the PDO is most strongly anti-correlated with MA snowfall out of any SST index, including ENSO. 

Anti correlation...meaning negative correlation, correct?

[40/70 Benchmark]

2009 and 1972 stick out as -PDO el nino seasons that screwed Boston...but 1958 certainly did not.

[Terpeast]

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Anti correlation...meaning negative correlation, correct?

Yeah that’s what I mean, I use those interchangeably 

[bluewave]

7 hours ago, GaWx said:

"Anything is possible" as you just said I agree with 100%. That is my main point. It is still early.

Confidence has been fairly low even in the early fall with El Niño development since 2012. Our only reasonably good ENSO forecast was in 2015 but that was much stronger and better coupled than we are seeing now. So each ENSO attempt outside 2015 had some major model error. We have been seeing rare instances of an early fall forecast barrier which used to only be reserved for the spring before the WPAC warm pool become such a prominent feature.

[Terpeast]

WPAC, while still quite warm, is cooler than the large area of warmest ssts around the dateline. 

That wasn’t the case up until a month or two ago, if I remember correctly, before which the WPAC was warmest. 
 

[raindancewx]

I looked at all the "counter" cyclical winters for PDO v. ENSO today, using Nov-Apr for the PDO.

I'm using the old PDO index, not the stupid normalized index that replaced it. So 2009-10 as an example comes in slightly positive for Nov-Apr.

Anyway, these are the El Ninos with a -PDO or a La Nina with a +PDO. Just about all of them have a major "snow hole" in the Northeast, which I'm defining as Virginia and north. When I say snowless/low snow, I don't mean no snow. Just that the entire region is below average in a notable way, despite surrounding areas or neighboring areas of the US/Canada being quite snowy.

I'm basing these on snow maps for July-June from the MRCC site. The counter cyclical ENSO/PDO years seem to have more consistent storm tracks. So the Northern stream stuff whacks the same areas over and over and the southern stream stuff whacks areas over and over, and those tracks don't really vary much. A lot of other years have much less consistent tracks, and so you get less spread in the anomalies whether high or low for a given spot.

https://mrcc.purdue.edu/CLIMATE/welcome.jsp

1933-34 - interior NE snowless
1938-39 - interior Virgina snowless
1942-43 - New England snowless
1983-84 - NJ / CT / E. PA snowless
1984-85 - Snowless outside W. NY
1985-86 - snowless outside W. NY
1995-96 - very snowy
2000-01 - snowless PA/VA
2005-06 - snowless NE US
2017-18 - snowles central VA/DC

1951-52 - low snow NJ, e. PA, W. NY
1953-54 - snowless
1958-59 - low snow NJ, E. PA, CT
1963-64 - low snow Maine, W. NY
1965-66 - low snow NY/CY/N PA
1968-69 - low snow PA, NJ, VA, W. NY
1972-73 - low snow PA/NJ/Southern NY & New England
1994-95 - snowless
2006-07 - low snow outside W. NY/PA
2019-20 - low snow outside Maine

[40/70 Benchmark]

42 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

I looked at all the "counter" cyclical winters for PDO v. ENSO today, using Nov-Apr for the PDO.

I'm using the old PDO index, not the stupid normalized index that replaced it. So 2009-10 as an example comes in slightly positive for Nov-Apr.

Anyway, these are the El Ninos with a -PDO or a La Nina with a +PDO. Just about all of them have a major "snow hole" in the Northeast, which I'm defining as Virginia and north. When I say snowless/low snow, I don't mean no snow. Just that the entire region is below average in a notable way, despite surrounding areas or neighboring areas of the US/Canada being quite snowy.

I'm basing these on snow maps for July-June from the MRCC site. The counter cyclical ENSO/PDO years seem to have more consistent storm tracks. So the Northern stream stuff whacks the same areas over and over and the southern stream stuff whacks areas over and over, and those tracks don't really vary much. A lot of other years have much less consistent tracks, and so you get less spread in the anomalies whether high or low for a given spot.

https://mrcc.purdue.edu/CLIMATE/welcome.jsp

1933-34 - interior NE snowless
1938-39 - interior Virgina snowless
1942-43 - New England snowless
1983-84 - NJ / CT / E. PA snowless
1984-85 - Snowless outside W. NY
1985-86 - snowless outside W. NY
1995-96 - very snowy
2000-01 - snowless PA/VA
2005-06 - snowless NE US
2017-18 - snowles central VA/DC

1951-52 - low snow NJ, e. PA, W. NY
1953-54 - snowless
1958-59 - low snow NJ, E. PA, CT
1963-64 - low snow Maine, W. NY
1965-66 - low snow NY/CY/N PA
1968-69 - low snow PA, NJ, VA, W. NY
1972-73 - low snow PA/NJ/Southern NY & New England
1994-95 - snowless
2006-07 - low snow outside W. NY/PA
2019-20 - low snow outside Maine

Off the top of my head, 1963, 1965 and 1968 were good here....in fact, the latter was one of the best in history....but there are some duds.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah that’s what I mean, I use those interchangeably 

I'm not sure how -PDO correlates to more snowfall in the mid Atlantic. Doesn't make sense to me.

[raindancewx]

-PDO doesn't favor snow in the Mid Atlantic in El Nino. I said no correlation, not positive. They get so little snow that their good years are more fluky, even in El Ninos or favorable periods. But it is a negative feature for areas in the Northeast with more snow.

In non-El Nino years, -PDO is bad for all of you, since it usually comes with La Ninas. Typically it is bad for the Southwest as well. The -PDO years favor warmth in the East and dryness in the Southwest deserts.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Yea, that is counterintuitive that -PDO is more detrimental to NE snowfall then mid Atlantic snowfall...I'll bet it has to do with the greater variance up here.

[George001]

Aren’t La Ninas decent in New England and only really bad in the mid Atlantic? Even strong ninas aren’t that bad in Boston. We actually do better in strong ninas than strong and super ninos snowfall wise. 

[snowman19]

The new POAMA run isn’t backing down on the Nino, still showing a trimonthly super ONI for NDJ…has Nov at +2.6C, Dec at +2.9C and Jan at +3.0C: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ocean/outlooks/#region=NINO34

It’s also showing a strong +IOD now, the new run increased its strength from now through Jan, it has Nov as the peak, gets it up to +1.7, it doesn’t go back to neutral until Feb: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ocean/outlooks/#region=IOD

[mitchnick]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The new POAMA run isn’t backing down on the Nino, still showing a trimonthly super ONI for NDJ…has Nov at +2.6C, Dec at +2.9C and Jan at +3.0C: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ocean/outlooks/#region=NINO34

It’s also showing a strong +IOD now, the new run increased its strength from now through Jan, it has Nov as the peak, gets it up to +1.7, it doesn’t go back to neutral until Feb: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ocean/outlooks/#region=IOD

July 1 POAMA forecast says 3.4 is +2.3C while reality was +1.55C. Even current forecast has 9/1 at +1.9C.

Seems to start off wrong and that error gets magnified over time.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, mitchnick said:

July 1 POAMA forecast says 3.4 is +2.3C while reality was +1.55C. Even current forecast has 9/1 at +1.9C.

Seems to start off wrong and that error gets magnified over time.

The model is clearly showing excessive momentum. It had +2.25 to +2.50 for early September from May and we are only around +1.55. 

 

[mitchnick]

9 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The model is clearly showing excessive momentum. It had +2.25 to +2.50 for early September and we are only around +1.55. 

 

For June and July forecasts for September, even the CFS was around +1.8-1.9. Sorry Snowman .