El Nino 2023-2024

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I couldn't agree more with the first in the series facets, related to being cognizant of background global SST anomaly. 

I'll add to that "...Since the 1990s..." with an op ed: 

The recent global 'warm burst' ( which is still being analyzed for veracity vs instrumentation, granted - ) that too unprecedented form during the Feb-early Apr period, seemed to coincide with the demise of the -ONI - perhaps related, perhaps not.  It may present certain challenges to straight up linear assessment.

1 ...The SOI is (albeit weakening..) still technically in the positive mode, which in addition to being [actually] not correlated with the warm ENSO - NINO 4 vs 3.4 VS  1+2 quadrature, notwithstanding - the deltas were behaving/weakening like a typical dying La Nina as of April.

2022   +0.8   +1.8   +2.9   +2.8   +2.4   +2.8   +1.3   +1.7   +2.7   +2.8   +0.5   +3.5
2023   +2.3   +2.3   +0.3   +0.4

           (  Jan         Feb        Mar        Apr   ... )

The present warmth that is noted everywhere associated with the 'warm burst' phenomenon, precedes(ed) the  SOI - very institutional/physically clad means for assessing the state the llv mass flux associated with the ENSO phases.  Positive wind anomalies --> negative ENSO, and vice versa.

2 ... The "effectiveness" of the ENSO toward forcing/modulating the climate becomes questionable.  The last "super Nino" that occurred was noted as being only tepidly disruptive around the typical climate expression avenues of the larger environmental manifold - above or below medium impact.  This "absorption" phenomenon by the total system, lowers gradient between the tropics and the mid latitudes ... which changes the triggers in the total physically integrated sense.  In other words, the warmer than normal total oceanic space out side, as it is already quasi coupled to the atmosphere, may be subsuming some of the mechanical forcing of ENSO.  

I wonder if cool ENSO forcing is accentuated and warm ENSO forcing attenuated under the warming global canvass....

[Typhoon Tip]

16 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I wonder if cool ENSO forcing is accentuated and warm ENSO forcing attenuated under the warming global canvass....

Yeah... it's something we've discussed in the past - I don't dislike the notion.  

 

[Typhoon Tip]

I'm not sure, though ... For now, I just suspect that the some of the climate inconsistencies might be related, in general ... , to the background offsets.   We'll see. 

Last season's California onslaught/'River' stuff was more of a strong warm ENSO thing, happening in 3rd year La Nina.  Yet, CPC discussions frequently cited the Pacific as having a La Nina footprint - so there's some sort of incongruency about their/that assessment, vs what happened out west.

Unless I'm wrong... I've read more places than one to tie-in River events to El Nino...

Anyway, that event would suggest that typical La Nina didn't behave normally, either.

[GaWx]

On 5/12/2023 at 11:04 AM, snowman19 said:

Not so sure the atmosphere isn’t responding….the SOI is dropping like a rock

  As of 5/13, the SOI MTD is averaging -6, with the two stations contributing about equally to this modest negative. Looking at the model consensus out two weeks, it does appear that Tahiti SLP anomalies averaged out will be negative and Darwin positive. If anything, it appears to me that the SOI MTD will probably drop further as we go through the next two weeks. Thus, I see a realistic chance for -10 or so for full May SOI. IF that occurs, that would give this month the lowest SOI in at least 3 years and would be the lowest May SOI since 2015 and a decent signal for an oncoming El Niño. 

 Since 1950, these Mays have had a sub -9 SOI: 1951, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1972, 1977, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2015

 Of those 14, all were prior to an oncoming fall/winter Nino except 2001 and 2005. So, a sub -9 May is a pretty good indicator of an oncoming Nino.

 

[snowman19]

 

The most detailed winter outlook I’ve ever seen. It didn’t work out like you thought but it also didn’t for some big name pros like HM, DT and Larry Cosgrove. HM completely missed the late Dec and Jan/Feb torch a rama, he thought the early-mid Dec blocking was going to lock in. Larry Cosgrove was expecting a 95-96 type of winter from Dec-Mar, a very bad bust for him and he kept saying it was coming right to the bitter end. DT thought it was going to be a big winter initially then he relented in Jan. I know I enjoyed reading through your forecast even though we disagree alot

[Stormchaserchuck1]

3 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I'm not sure, though ... For now, I just suspect that the some of the climate inconsistencies might be related, in general ... , to the background offsets.   We'll see. 

Last season's California onslaught/'River' stuff was more of a strong warm ENSO thing, happening in 3rd year La Nina.  Yet, CPC discussions frequently cited the Pacific as having a La Nina footprint - so there's some sort of incongruency about their/that assessment, vs what happened out west.

Unless I'm wrong... I've read more places than one to tie-in River events to El Nino...

Anyway, that event would suggest that typical La Nina didn't behave normally, either.

I had found that the ENSO subsurface correlates more to the N. Hemisphere pattern than the surface, by a pretty strong difference, actually, that is since satellite era in 1979 and 1948. In the past, this difference had usually been a temperature difference, but last Winter there was a very strong STJ when the subsurface was Moderate El Nino, hard to tear them two apart. It was actually the strongest surface-subsurface difference since the -subsurface/+surface of 1987-8, which was a High pressure pattern. 

we may make it to Weak-Moderate El Nino, because so much is going for it, but this -PNA is not what you like to see in a developing Strong Nino. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

If you want to make a correlation with 87-88 as an opposite analog..

88-89 was probably the most relative La Nina on record, since 1948 (relative to surrounding ENSO states and PDO). Could support our El Nino here. 89-90 acted like a weak El Nino. 

90-91 was positive ENSO

91-92 was El Nino, 92-93 and 93-94 were subsurface El Nino's. 94-95 was El Nino. 95-96 was the start of switch back, weak La Nina, but strong +PNA on the surface. So 6-7 years of +ENSO... could support that we are still in a long term cycle of La Nina or -PDO, if you use just that one factor, it could be a lag factor occurrence too.  

[bdgwx]

5 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I wonder if cool ENSO forcing is accentuated and warm ENSO forcing attenuated under the warming global canvass....

Maybe.

I created the following chart using ERSSTv5 using the published ONI method. The official ONI is plotted in blue. I then removed the global trend and plotted the result in orange.

For those that may not be aware the ENSO 3.4 region has actually cooled slightly while the globe as a whole has warmed significantly. This causes negative ENSO phases to be accentuated and positive phases to be attenuated when viewed against the backdrop of the globe average. I have no idea what effect this has on ENSO forcing though.

ERSSTv5 data for the ENSO 3.4 region is available here. The global data can be downloaded via the WRIT website here.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The most detailed winter outlook I’ve ever seen. It didn’t work out like you thought but it also didn’t for some big name pros like HM, DT and Larry Cosgrove. HM completely missed the late Dec and Jan/Feb torch a rama, he thought the early-mid Dec blocking was going to lock in. Larry Cosgrove was expecting a 95-96 type of winter from Dec-Mar, a very bad bust for him and he kept saying it was coming right to the bitter end. DT thought it was going to be a big winter initially then he relented in Jan. I know I enjoyed reading through your forecast even though we disagree alot

This season was a perfect example of why we can't be too reliant on ONI...it doesn't tell the whole story. While ONI was unremarkable,  the context of protracted period of potent negative MEI was not. Believe me, I don't put that much time and effort in to produced a biased product...otherwise why bother to be exhaustive. That said, I am human, so I appreciate someone like you bringing it to my attention if you feel as though bias may be creeping in.

I will remember that point about MEI context moving forward. 

[chubbs]

3 hours ago, bdgwx said:

Maybe.

I created the following chart using ERSSTv5 using the published ONI method. The official ONI is plotted in blue. I then removed the global trend and plotted the result in orange.

For those that may not be aware the ENSO 3.4 region has actually cooled slightly while the globe as a whole has warmed significantly. This causes negative ENSO phases to be accentuated and positive phases to be attenuated when viewed against the backdrop of the globe average. I have no idea what effect this has on ENSO forcing though.

ERSSTv5 data for the ENSO 3.4 region is available here. The global data can be downloaded via the WRIT website here.

 

ENSO region 3.4 has warmed along with the rest of the globe. As described in the enso blog linked below, NOAA uses a 30-year ONI baseline which is updated every 5-years. Note also that baselines are centered, so recent years don't have their final ONI values yet. 2023 wont be finalized until the 2006-2035 baseline is available.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/watching-el-niño-and-la-niña-noaa-adapts-global-warming

 

 

 

[bdgwx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

ENSO region 3.4 has warmed along with the rest of the globe. As described in the enso blog linked below, NOAA uses a 30-year ONI baseline which is updated every 5-years. Note also that baselines are centered, so recent years don't have their final ONI values yet. 2023 wont be finalized until the 2006-2035 baseline is available.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/watching-el-niño-and-la-niña-noaa-adapts-global-warming

 

 

 

It has certainly warmed since 1936-1965. However, more recently it has actually cooled. Note that I'm analyzing 1979/01 to 2023/04. Over that period the ENSO 3.4 trend via ERSSTv5 is -0.05 C/decade. From the 2011/01 to 2023/04 (not included in the chart above) this trend is -0.35 C/decade. The values I plotted above are the official ONI values using the published method with the centered 30 year baseline updated every 5 years.

Here is the spatial distribution of SST changes since 1993 provided by Copernicus. Notice the cooling that has occurred over much of the ENSO region over the last 30 years.

[chubbs]

5 hours ago, bdgwx said:

It has certainly warmed since 1936-1965. However, more recently it has actually cooled. Note that I'm analyzing 1979/01 to 2023/04. Over that period the ENSO 3.4 trend via ERSSTv5 is -0.05 C/decade. From the 2011/01 to 2023/04 (not included in the chart above) this trend is -0.35 C/decade. The values I plotted above are the official ONI values using the published method with the centered 30 year baseline updated every 5 years.

Here is the spatial distribution of SST changes since 1993 provided by Copernicus. Notice the cooling that has occurred over much of the ENSO region over the last 30 years.

OK, I see your point. recent favoring of La Nina has had an impact on trends in this region. Per chart below I can go with roughly flat since 1979, which represents a cooling relative to the global mean.

As to climate effects on enso. Don't think that has been resolved. A couple of recent papers linked below:

1) Recent favoring of La Nina could indicate a climate forcing that was not predicted by climate models

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL100011

2) Climate change could increase enso amplitude

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33930-5

 

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

On 5/13/2023 at 9:48 AM, snowman19 said:

So far, this Nino event is concentrated in regions 3 and 1+2. Back in the day, they used to use region 3 instead of 3.4 to officially determine Nino strength https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino3.png

The WWBs are still pretty far west of 180° even with the big dip in the SOI. In years like 1997 and 2016, the WWBs were already east of 180° from March onward. So the east based warming focus should continue for the present time. Need the WWBs to shift east and the WPAC warm pool to weaken a bit for Nino 3.4 to start catching up with 1+2 and 3.

 

 

[jconsor]

I would recommend being wary/skeptical of MJO forecasts showing a shift of the main negative velocity potential cell (and thus a WWB) into the Eastern and Central Pacific.  This has been a persistent model bias amongst multiple ensembles (both GEFS and EPS) since Apr.
 

 

[snowman19]

The WWBs are still pretty far west of 180° even with the big dip in the SOI. In years like 1997 and 2016, the WWBs were already east of 180° from March onward. So the east based warming focus should continue for the present time. Need the WWBs to shift east and the WPAC warm pool to weaken a bit for Nino 3.4 to start catching up with 1+2 and 3.


 

 

Paul Roundy thinks this WWB is going to be legit

[bluewave]

27 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Paul Roundy thinks this WWB is going to be legit

Those ECMWF charts are 15N to 15S. We are mainly focused on closer to the equator for impacting the El Niño. Need the WWB to focus within about 5N-5S to be effective. Notice how the WWBs have been closer to the equator in the IO. But too far north near 15N to have an impact on ENSO near equator. That’s why those Euro charts look more impressive than they really are.

 

[jconsor]

 

[bluewave]

Great points by @jconsoron how the WWBs and VP anomalies have been shifting west of Dateline from the long range until we get to within 10 days. So the El Niño atmospheric response keeps getting pushed back. This would keep 3.4 neutral warm to weak for a while. It could also limit 1+2 to the +2s range instead of making a move higher. Stalling out near around +2 to +3 could signal an early peak since we haven’t had any follow up EPAC WWBs since the big one back in March. The strongest east based years like 97-98 and 82-83 were able to top out over  +4 for the monthly average 1+2 anomalies. 

https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/dashboard.html

 

[Typhoon Tip]

20 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I had found that the ENSO subsurface correlates more to the N. Hemisphere pattern than the surface, by a pretty strong difference, actually, that is since satellite era in 1979 and 1948. In the past, this difference had usually been a temperature difference, but last Winter there was a very strong STJ when the subsurface was Moderate El Nino, hard to tear them two apart. It was actually the strongest surface-subsurface difference since the -subsurface/+surface of 1987-8, which was a High pressure pattern. 

we may make it to Weak-Moderate El Nino, because so much is going for it, but this -PNA is not what you like to see in a developing Strong Nino. 

 

The other aspect ...well 'aspect for me,' I should say, is that I'm leery of the boreal summer hemisphere vs ENSO derivatives.  For the usual reasons surrounding larger scope coherency break downs.   That pattern is more apt to meander because of perennial R-wave fracturing.

 

[GaWx]

22 hours ago, GaWx said:

  As of 5/13, the SOI MTD is averaging -6, with the two stations contributing about equally to this modest negative. Looking at the model consensus out two weeks, it does appear that Tahiti SLP anomalies averaged out will be negative and Darwin positive. If anything, it appears to me that the SOI MTD will probably drop further as we go through the next two weeks. Thus, I see a realistic chance for -10 or so for full May SOI. IF that occurs, that would give this month the lowest SOI in at least 3 years and would be the lowest May SOI since 2015 and a decent signal for an oncoming El Niño. 

 Since 1950, these Mays have had a sub -9 SOI: 1951, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1972, 1977, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2015

 Of those 14, all were prior to an oncoming fall/winter Nino except 2001 and 2005. So, a sub -9 May is a pretty good indicator of an oncoming Nino.

 

Followup: similar with good chance of significantly BN SLP at Tahiti much of next week due to several pretty strong low pressures moving by to the south. It appears that most days for the rest of the month will be negative as it looks right now per model consensus.

[raindancewx]

I'm always amused by the talk of ENSO losing effectiveness over time as a driving factor. The truth is, it was never particularly important as a driver of temperature for most of you. I talk about it, because it is actually important where I am. But it's not really relevant in the Northeast really. PDO is more predictive for temperatures by a country mile in the NE US.

In the deserts, you get phenomena if you really look through the records. In the high/colder desert/steppe land, the increase in cloud cover, snow and rain is correlated to lowering highs much more than lows in El Nino. In the warmer deserts at higher lattitudes, this is also true, but the effect is much more pronounced in Spring when there is hardly any rain normally. In La Ninas, you tend to have colder nights in the deserts as the dry air is even drier. Also fewer than average cloudy nights.

As an example, we had well over 110 lows 32F or colder for Oct-May 2023, most since 2009-10, and well above the 30-year average of 92. It was 21F as recently as early April with dew points near 0F.

When I look at only El Nino years, the biggest y/y changes in Nino 3.4 account for anywhere from 0.25 - 0.55 r-squared for changes in winter highs in the high terrain of NM and also old Mexico, parts of AZ and TX.

[snowman19]

Followup: similar with good chance of significantly BN SLP at Tahiti much of next week due to several pretty strong low pressures moving by to the south. It appears that most days for the rest of the month will be negative as it looks right now per model consensus.

A +IOD is starting to take shape, this is expected to really strengthen over the summer and constructively interfere with El Niño development

[40/70 Benchmark]

16 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I'm always amused by the talk of ENSO losing effectiveness over time as a driving factor. The truth is, it was never particularly important as a driver of temperature for most of you. I talk about it, because it is actually important where I am. But it's not really relevant in the Northeast really. PDO is more predictive for temperatures by a country mile in the NE US.

In the deserts, you get phenomena if you really look through the records. In the high/colder desert/steppe land, the increase in cloud cover, snow and rain is correlated to lowering highs much more than lows in El Nino. In the warmer deserts at higher lattitudes, this is also true, but the effect is much more pronounced in Spring when there is hardly any rain normally. In La Ninas, you tend to have colder nights in the deserts as the dry air is even drier. Also fewer than average cloudy nights.

As an example, we had well over 110 lows 32F or colder for Oct-May 2023, most since 2009-10, and well above the 30-year average of 92. It was 21F as recently as early April with dew points near 0F.

When I look at only El Nino years, the biggest y/y changes in Nino 3.4 account for anywhere from 0.25 - 0.55 r-squared for changes in winter highs in the high terrain of NM and also old Mexico, parts of AZ and TX.

Very true, but there is a correlation between the PDO and ENSO, so ENSO is not entirely moot. However, from about the latitude of Boston points northward, snowfall is more closely correlated to precipitation than temps, anyway. Obviously seasons like this past year are exceptions given the degree of warmth.

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 hours ago, snowman19 said:

A +IOD is starting to take shape, this is expected to really strengthen over the summer and constructively interfere with El Niño development

Even if it ends up being another rough winter, I am just glad this stagnant pattern is finally changing....man, I was sick of la nina.

[snowman19]

Even if it ends up being another rough winter, I am just glad this stagnant pattern is finally changing....man, I was sick of la nina.

I think we’re done with the Niña background state. The big +AAM run back in January proves it wants to change. As the El Nino continues to build I expect more +AAM/-SOI runs in the future as the atmosphere couples and feedsback as the Bjerknes effect gets stronger with time

[roardog]

It looks like the sub surface/heat content cooled a little on the weekly update.

[snowman19]

It looks like the sub surface/heat content cooled a little on the weekly update.

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I think we’re done with the Niña background state. The big +AAM run back in January proves it wants to change. As the El Nino continues to build I expect more +AAM/-SOI runs in the future as the atmosphere couples and feedsback as the Bjerknes effect gets stronger with time

The WPAC warm pool is still doing most of the forcing this month. There continues to be an extension to south of Hawaii like we saw last winter. That’s what gave California the localized more Nino-like record precipitation. Need the WPAC warm pool to cool enough to allow the El Niño forcing to develop. It’s an unknown how much Nino 3.4 needs warm to overcome the WPAC warm pool. Will +1.0 be enough or do we need at least +1.5 for the El Niño circulation to dominate. Remember, we had a super El Niño +2.5 range in December 2015  and still got the WPAC forcing with the record MJO 4-6. It’s possible the WPAC forcing can hold on and prevent a canonical El Niño response and we get some type of hybrid Pacific response that the long range seasonal models will miss. So it’s possible just looking at ENSO may not tell the whole story.

 

http://seasonal.meteo.fr/content/PS-previ-cartes?language=en