El Nino 2023-2024

[so_whats_happening]

1 hour ago, so_whats_happening said:

I finally was able to find past TAO/Triton Data here is the monthly mean break down since March. Unfortunately the data only goes back to June of 1989.

 

Took a little time to do the monthlies for 1997 and 2015 while at work. March to December monthly means for both years. Once we get October monthly we may a different picture from the previous post. Ill check other years weak, moderate, strong to see if we can see a somewhat similar evolution taking place.

 

[bluewave]

With the current upper ocean heat value just under +1, we continue to see Nino 3.4 pulling back from the highs in late September. The current daily value of +1.44 is well below the Euro monthly average forecast of 2.03 for October. So this could be one of the greatest Euro forecast misses issued in September for October. 

https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/?enso_tab=enso-sst_table

ECMWF	2.03

 

 

[GaWx]

6 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Since the IOD is not projected to go completely neutral until February, along with the atmospheric lag thereafter, I would expect it to go all the way through winter into March/April

 Weak 8-1-2 dominating during El Niño often favors a cold to very cold E US, especially SE US. As one who prefers cold, I would want a lot of weak 8-1-2 to keep cold chances the highest.

 Back in the 2010s, I analyzed the SE US going back to the 1970s and found that in general, weak left side of MJO diagram, including inside the COD, was coldest, while right side of diagram outside of COD, was warmest. Weak averaged colder than strong for all phases. This was often the case also for a good portion of the E US.

 Here are 15 MJO diagrams covering El Niño periods with weak MJO, (dominated by the left side in almost all cases) with inside the COD or just outside for (almost) all of the days, along with temp. anomalies for ATL and NYC:

 

-Jan 1-Feb 2, 1977 (red/green): ATL -13, NYC -9

 

-Dec 21-30, 1977 (blue): ATL -9, NYC 0

-Jan 1-13, (red) and Feb 11-22 (green) 1978: ATL -7, NYC -4

 

-Feb 1-20 (green) and Mar 1-4 (blue), 1980: ATL -10, NYC -4

 

-Jan 12-Feb 13 (red/green) and Mar 9-31 (blue), 1983: ATL -5, NYC +1

Jan 1-16, 1988 (red): ATL -8, NYC -7

 

Jan 30-Feb 10, 1995 (red/green): ATL -6, NYC -4

 

Dec 1-15, 1997 (blue): ATL -6, NYC -2

 

Jan 11-27, 2003 (red): ATL -10, NYC -8

 

Dec 14-28, 2004 (blue): ATL -8, NYC -5

 

Feb 27-Mar 10, 2005 (green/blue): ATL -8, NYC  -5

 

Jan 28-Feb 19, 2007 (red/green): ATL -8, NYC -9

 

Dec 1-21, 2009 (blue): ATL -5, NYC -3

 

Jan 1-14 (red) & Feb 14-Mar 22 (green/blue), 2010: ATL -9, NYC +1

 

Feb 12-28, 2015 (green): ATL -14, NYC -15

 

 These 15 diagrams cover periods that were during 12 of the 16 (75%) El Niño winters between 1976-7 and 2018-9. The only 4 of these El Niño winters not covered by a diagram were 1986-7, 1991-2, 2015-6, and 2018-9. Other than Dec of 1986, those 4 didn’t have many weak left sided MJO days.
 

 So, for ATL, these 15 portions of El Niño winters with weak mainly left-sided MJO averaged a very cold 8 BN over 346 days. The 15 periods varied between -14 (MBN) and -5 (BN) with 11 MBN and 4 BN.

 So, for NYC, these 15 portions of El Niño winters with weak mainly left-sided MJO averaged a cold 4 BN over 346 days. The 15 periods varied between -15 (MBN) and +1 (N) with 5 MBN, 6BN, and 3N. 
 
 So, with @snowman19 now suggesting weak 8-1-2 MJO likely to dominate much of the upcoming winter, I feel the chances for a cold E US winter and especially SE US are elevated vs if that weren’t the case. Now if we could get the cold Oct I’ve been hoping for since that’s a leading indicator!

[DarkSharkWX]

how exactly would the +IOD enforce forcing over mjo 8/1/2 instead of 6/7 over the io/mc?

j curious

[Terpeast]

Excellent post on the MJO by @GaWx! 

I think what would really help with our winter outlooks is to project which MJO phases will be “open for business”, and we can start with looking at the warmest ssts adjacent to the greatest gradients in the MJO field:

Right now, and this is just today’s snapshot, we could say that 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8 could potentially be open for business, or at least get the MJO out of COD for those phases. 

We probably don’t want 4, but this winter I think we’ll have to deal with short lived incursions into the right side of the graph… wait them out until it rotates back to the left side. 

[Daniel Boone]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

Excellent post on the MJO by @GaWx! 

I think what would really help with our winter outlooks is to project which MJO phases will be “open for business”, and we can start with looking at the warmest ssts adjacent to the greatest gradients in the MJO field:

Right now, and this is just today’s snapshot, we could say that 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8 could potentially be open for business, or at least get the MJO out of COD for those phases. 

We probably don’t want 4, but this winter I think we’ll have to deal with short lived incursions into the right side of the graph… wait them out until it rotates back to the left side. 

Good post and excellent points on your part too man ! 

[raindancewx]

One of the more fascinating things about the big volcano + El Nino blend is that they all seem to feature an unusual (for an El Nino anyway) dry spot in the Northeast.

It's not just the recent eruptions either. So 1991-92 and 1982-83 have the dry patch, but years like 1963-64 that also had tropical eruptions of lesser magnitude seem to feature it too. It's not like 1991/1982/1963 are particularly similar El Ninos, or in similar background states for other features. So I do think it's somehow tied to the ITCZ getting messed up to the north/south of the usual spot from volcanic activity.

[Maestrobjwa]

21 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

One of the more fascinating things about the big volcano + El Nino blend is that they all seem to feature an unusual (for an El Nino anyway) dry spot in the Northeast.

It's not just the recent eruptions either. So 1991-92 and 1982-83 have the dry patch, but years like 1963-64 that also had tropical eruptions of lesser magnitude seem to feature it too. It's not like 1991/1982/1963 are particularly similar El Ninos, or in similar background states for other features. So I do think it's somehow tied to the ITCZ getting messed up to the north/south of the usual spot from volcanic activity.

Now, seeing as this is water vapor instead of ash (sulfur?)...is the comparison to other volcanos the same? Seems to me it would be a little more unknown, no?

[GaWx]

29 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Now, seeing as this is water vapor instead of ash (sulfur?)...is the comparison to other volcanos the same? Seems to me it would be a little more unknown, no?

 Because it is mainly water vapor, it is having a net warming effect on the troposphere vs the typical net cooling from sulfur. Some of the unexplained significant GW this year could very well be explained by this. However, despite the net GW from the volcano, it varies quite a bit both regionally and seasonally. Also, the volcano is expected to have a longer term significant effect of ~7 years total with a higher than normal chance of a multiyear El Niño this decade, which could interestingly enough then actually cause some cooling during winter in the SE US/Mid Atlantic states along with strong warming in the NW US as per Nino climo.

[Itryatgolf70]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

 Because it is mainly water vapor, it is having a net warming effect on the troposphere vs the typical net cooling from sulfur. Some of the unexplained significant GW this year could very well be explained by this. However, despite the net GW from the volcano, it varies quite a bit both regionally and seasonally. Also, the volcano is expected to have a longer term significant effect of ~7 years total with a higher than normal chance of a multiyear El Niño this decade, which could interestingly enough then actually cause some cooling during winter in the SE US/Mid Atlantic states along with strong warming in the NW US as per Nino climo.

Why was 1994-95 winter so warm? What was the main culprit in that winter?

[raindancewx]

1994-95 is when all the sulfur fell out of the sky from what I've seen. So the cooling / aerosol effect vanished all at once for a period of rapid warming. 

Here is a quick look at why I'm optimistic for Southern snow this year. All of these dates are "clusters" in my analog group, i.e. periods when the same date shows up across multiple analog years for seeing measurable snow in Albuquerque. It's like...13 periods. Surely some of those have to be big storms for other areas?

By the way, the Bering Sea Rule implies that the first date could verify. Big system south of Kamchatka on 10/10 should pass over the Southwest US in 17-21 days per the correlation point rule.

You can see the quiet spell around 3/1 plus or minus two weeks. That's my target period for big eastern storms. It'll be in the transition from healthy El Nino to La Nina in Summer, so "weak El Nino conditions" and/or Modoki influence, with the least interference from the -PDO. 

You also have the standard MJO / harmonic signature in the snow data in the analogs, at 45-day separation between events for the italicized, bold, and underlined events. You can see though...1972-73 was awesome. Shame it's not a better analog.

Oct 29-31 (2009, 1991) 
Nov 12-15 (1972, 1991, 1997) 
Nov 24-28 (1972, 1982) 
Dec 8-12  (1972, 1982, 1997, 2009) 
Dec 20-21 (1951, 1991, 1997) 
Dec 26-30 (1972, 1982, 1991) 
Jan 9-13  (1972, 1991, 1997) 
Jan 25-31 (1972, 1982)  
Feb 3-4   (1982, 1997)  
Feb 15-18 (1972, 1997)  
Mar 13-20 (1951, 1972, 1982, 2009) 
Mar 24    (1972, 2009)  
Mar 29-30 (1972, 1997) 

[40/70 Benchmark]

I'd take 1982 and 1963 snowfall....1991 can peace out.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, Itryatgolf70 said:

Why was 1994-95 winter so warm? What was the main culprit in that winter?

 Looking at the indices: despite a solid +PNA, there was a strong +AO and +NAO. Also, Jan MJO was strongly concentrated on the warm right side. Now, Feb was a cold month though despite no AO/NAO blocking.

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Looking at the indices: despite a solid +PNA, there was a strong +AO and +NAO. Also, Jan MJO was strongly concentrated on the warm right side. Now, Feb was a cold month though despite no AO/NAO blocking.

+PNA can also really mimic an RNA if it is west biased, as was the case last January...devil is in the details.

[bluewave]

Hopefully, the MJO 4-6 doesn’t rebound as much as we saw with the last record +IOD back in 19-20. That event only suppressed convection near the Maritime Continent into early December. So IODs are mainly a fall event and the influence wanes by the winter. Once the IOD dropped under +1 in December 2019, the Maritime continent convection returned.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The subsurface doesn't have much, if any subsurface negative anomalies now (<0). It was proved earlier in this thread that ENSO events graduate over a longer period of time than 1 year, vs the belief that they change like a magnet one year to the next. I've said before that some of the big events of the past had opposite subsurface conditions, creating a different pattern like Pacific warmth across the country. That there are little to no negative subsurface anomalies now tells me:

1) There is more general tendency for +PNA vs -PNA going forward. 

2) We are less likely to have a La Nina next year, and it could continue going neutral to ENSO positive. There is still time for negative anomalies to develop, but some of the El Nino years that flipped the following year already had negative subsurface at this time. 

[griteater]

Oct release of Copernicus C3S follows with the trends of the seasonal models slowly edging away from a stock El Nino look.

Here is the 3-run trend of the C3S for January (500mb):

 

Of the Copernicus model suite, the JMA is the most wintry looking.  It starts out wintry in the west in Dec, then goes -EPO/+PNA in Jan-Feb.  With the low frequency tropical forcing focused in and around the dateline, I'd say some bits and pieces of those ideas aren't far-fetched...just maybe not as locked in as the JMA is showing.

 

Here is the JMA 850mb temp map for January:

[Terpeast]

19 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Hopefully, the MJO 4-6 doesn’t rebound as much as we saw with the last record +IOD back in 19-20. That event only suppressed convection near the Maritime Continent into early December. So IODs are mainly a fall event and the influence wanes by the winter. Once the IOD dropped under +1 in December 2019, the Maritime continent convection returned.

There’s a chance it does. As I showed in my mjo field, 4 is still open for business despite current suppression. 

We’d just have to wait it out.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

There’s a chance it does. As I showed in my mjo field, 4 is still open for business despite current suppression. 

We’d just have to wait it out.

I doubt it will be very prevalent with the el nino of appreciable intensity...but it will probably be responsible for the thawing periods.

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I doubt it will be very prevalent with the el nino of appreciable intensity...but it will probably be responsible for the thawing periods.

The good thing about the mjo is that once it gets into phase 7, it opens up the possibility for a big EC snowstorm. Look closely at @GaWx charts… the biggest KUs start as waves entering the CONUS when we’re in 7. 

[so_whats_happening]

3 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

The good thing about the mjo is that once it gets into phase 7, it opens up the possibility for a big EC snowstorm. Look closely at @GaWx charts… the biggest KUs start as waves entering the CONUS when we’re in 7. 

Yes phase 7-1 is rather good for snowstorm potential in the east. If we can get more consistent neutral or positive PNA regimes (preferably positive) I would agree otherwise the cold and storm action spills into western plains and mountains as we have seen the last 3 years, which puts the storm track further west. I would like to think that we have at least some opportunity for more consistent +PNA patterns with this upcoming winter.

Phase 3 and 7 are the transitionary phases from Nina to Nino atmospheric responses, vice versa. 

[bluewave]

MJO 7 region forcing west of the Dateline like we are currently getting can mimic a MJO 5 when the PDO is very negative. 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

PDO isn't going to remain extremely negative through winter....

[snowman19]

 Weak 8-1-2 dominating during El Niño often favors a cold to very cold E US, especially SE US. As one who prefers cold, I would want a lot of weak 8-1-2 to keep cold chances the highest.
 Back in the 2010s, I analyzed the SE US going back to the 1970s and found that in general, weak left side of MJO diagram, including inside the COD, was coldest, while right side of diagram outside of COD, was warmest. Weak averaged colder than strong for all phases. This was often the case also for a good portion of the E US.
 Here are 15 MJO diagrams covering El Niño periods with weak MJO, (dominated by the left side in almost all cases) with inside the COD or just outside for (almost) all of the days, along with temp. anomalies for ATL and NYC:
 
-Jan 1-Feb 2, 1977 (red/green): ATL -13, NYC -9

 
-Dec 21-30, 1977 (blue): ATL -9, NYC 0


-Jan 1-13, (red) and Feb 11-22 (green) 1978: ATL -7, NYC -4

 
-Feb 1-20 (green) and Mar 1-4 (blue), 1980: ATL -10, NYC -4

 
-Jan 12-Feb 13 (red/green) and Mar 9-31 (blue), 1983: ATL -5, NYC +1


Jan 1-16, 1988 (red): ATL -8, NYC -7

 
Jan 30-Feb 10, 1995 (red/green): ATL -6, NYC -4

 
Dec 1-15, 1997 (blue): ATL -6, NYC -2
 
Jan 11-27, 2003 (red): ATL -10, NYC -8

 
Dec 14-28, 2004 (blue): ATL -8, NYC -5

 
Feb 27-Mar 10, 2005 (green/blue): ATL -8, NYC  -5

 
Jan 28-Feb 19, 2007 (red/green): ATL -8, NYC -9

 
Dec 1-21, 2009 (blue): ATL -5, NYC -3

 
Jan 1-14 (red) & Feb 14-Mar 22 (green/blue), 2010: ATL -9, NYC +1

 
Feb 12-28, 2015 (green): ATL -14, NYC -15

 
 These 15 diagrams cover periods that were during 12 of the 16 (75%) El Niño winters between 1976-7 and 2018-9. The only 4 of these El Niño winters not covered by a diagram were 1986-7, 1991-2, 2015-6, and 2018-9. Other than Dec of 1986, those 4 didn’t have many weak left sided MJO days.
 
 So, for ATL, these 15 portions of El Niño winters with weak mainly left-sided MJO averaged a very cold 8 BN over 346 days. The 15 periods varied between -14 (MBN) and -5 (BN) with 11 MBN and 4 BN.
 So, for NYC, these 15 portions of El Niño winters with weak mainly left-sided MJO averaged a cold 4 BN over 346 days. The 15 periods varied between -15 (MBN) and +1 (N) with 5 MBN, 6BN, and 3N. 
 
 So, with @snowman19 now suggesting weak 8-1-2 MJO likely to dominate much of the upcoming winter, I feel the chances for a cold E US winter and especially SE US are elevated vs if that weren’t the case. Now if we could get the cold Oct I’ve been hoping for since that’s a leading indicator!

Just keep in mind that in strong/super Ninos the MJO may be a complete non factor at times (COD), possibly a lot, and the Nino standing wave runs the show, as is typical for the stronger events. When there is MJO activity however, I expect more 8-1-2 weak, fast moving wave activity as opposed to the 15-16 unusual Niña phases due to the very strong +IOD. As you can see here, the Nino is exerting its force:

[bluewave]

26 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

PDO isn't going to remain extremely negative through winter....

It doesn’t have to if the -PDO is coupled well. We can remember back in the 18-19 El Niño that struggled to couple how the well coupled  -0.42 -PDO was enough to place the trough in the West. But each winter is different so we’ll just have to see how things play out. Plenty of variables and combinations to factor in. 

 

[so_whats_happening]

35 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

The subsurface doesn't have much, if any subsurface negative anomalies now (<0). It was proved earlier in this thread that ENSO events graduate over a longer period of time than 1 year, vs the belief that they change like a magnet one year to the next. I've said before that some of the big events of the past had opposite subsurface conditions, creating a different pattern like Pacific warmth across the country. That there are little to no negative subsurface anomalies now tells me:

1) There is more general tendency for +PNA vs -PNA going forward. 

2) We are less likely to have a La Nina next year, and it could continue going neutral to ENSO positive. There is still time for negative anomalies to develop, but some of the El Nino years that flipped the following year already had negative subsurface at this time. 

The below normal subsurface areas has fluctuated all season but one thing that is definitely different is the placement of such anomalies. By mid to end of Summer we should have a much greater region of negative anomalies in the WPAC and near region 4 than we currently do in both surface and subsurface. Of course each Nino will be different in evolution but I have found only one Nino that has even remotely this type of look come September/ October and that is 2009-10. We didn't have the large cold pool like many Ninos had going into fall and got an rather vigorous KW pattern that came about in October and lasted through most of the winter with a strong subsurface. There were 2 years in the 50's that were similar in style 1951-52 and 1957-58 (this led to a multi year Nino with a strong intially to weak Nino).

The other years had some sort of strong surface cooling established by this point in the WPAC and either a developing or a subsequent subsurface cooling. Here is 1957 VP from March to Sept compared to now. 1963 is another solid match for the positive anomalies over SA with weaker over the Maritime continent (MC). Years that have very similar VP anomalies were quite abound in the 1950's and 60's with more concentration of +VP over South America versus MC. The only time since then was 1977 and 2006 where the more positive forcing was focused more to SA and Central America versus MC. 2018 was rather wonky.

[bluewave]

25 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

As you can see here, the Nino is exerting its force:

Tug of war between El Niño in the tropics and -PDO in subtropics or extratropical regions.

 

[so_whats_happening]

There seems to be a more consistent signature showing up of EPAC and eastern Central Pac winds quieting. This would go into late October and beginning of November where in November we could potentially see warming of regions take a sharper turn. Still well off in the distance and will need to be watched but the overall weakening of trades in 1+2 and eastern 3 should warrant some warming over the next week or so before we get better ideas toward the end of the month.

There have been many EPAC wind weakening events this season and very few consistent WPAC induced weakening events.

[40/70 Benchmark]

21 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It doesn’t have to if the -PDO is coupled well. We can remember back in the 18-19 El Niño that struggled to couple how the well coupled  -0.42 -PDO was enough to place the trough in the West. But each winter is different so we’ll just have to see how things play out. Plenty of variables and combinations to factor in. 

 

Because that event never coupled itself....really not relevent.

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, griteater said:

Of the Copernicus model suite, the JMA is the most wintry looking.  It starts out wintry in the west in Dec, then goes -EPO/+PNA in Jan-Feb.

 

Here is the JMA 850mb temp map for January:

 These JMA maps for Jan and Feb look much more -EPO than +PNA to me with the lowest ht anomalies centered in the Lakes to NE and not in the SE and the highest H5 anomalies centered Alaska and NW Canada instead of further E from N Idaho northward. Regardless, I take these seasonal predictions of models with a huge grain, especially this far out due to limited accuracy.