El Nino 2023-2024

[griteater]

^ Yeah bluewave, the idea of trade winds being a red herring with ENSO is a red herring.

Tropical pressure patterns lead tropical wind patterns, which lead warm & cool water movement (upwelling / downwelling), which leads low frequency Thunderstorm / Convection cell locations, which lead mid-latitude weather patterns.

This El Nino development is definitely on the struggle bus at the moment

[snowman19]

 Though far from perfect, I've found based on looking at many years of SOI/SST anomaly data that monthly SOI drops are often a pretty good 30-60 day leading indicator for Nino 3.4 SST anomaly rises. So, with a solidly -SOI in May, I'll be looking to see if there's a significant 3.4 anomaly rise in June-July.

Yes, I believe there is a lag effect with the SOI

[thunderbolt]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Yes, I believe there is a lag effect with the SOI

Speaking of lag affect is it one month or two months before you would see the effects in the atmosphere or does it depend on the strength if it’s stronger will happen faster if it’s weaker will happen later?

[snowman19]

Speaking of lag affect is it one month or two months before you would see the effects in the atmosphere or does it depend on the strength if it’s stronger will happen faster if it’s weaker will happen later?

I have to look up the article on the specifics of exactly how long the lag takes. It’s an old article. I know in winter, there is a lag on the atmospheric response from when there is a major SOI drop to when its effects are felt in sensible weather patterns. The SOI drops and the lagged troughing in the east (that JB always loves to use) only applies when an El Nino is in place. His followers were trying to use that this past winter every time the SOI dropped substantially and it didn’t work out because of the La Niña that we had

[GaWx]

49 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Need to see the SOI to  line up with the EOI for there to be more of a Nino-like atmospheric response.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13351-020-9195-6

An Equatorial Oscillation Index (EOI) is defined, based on the zonal gradient of sea surface pressure between the western Pacific and eastern Pacific along the equator, to describe the distribution of wind and pressure within the equatorial Pacific. The EOI has a stronger correlation with the Niño3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), as well as with westerly/easterly wind bursts (WWBs/EWBs), showing a superiority over the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). In general, the EOI is consistent with the SOI, both of which reflect large-scale sea level pressure oscillations. However, when there are inconsistent SSTAs between the equator and subtropical regions, the SOI may contrast with the EOI due to the reverse changes in sea level pressure in the subtropical regions. As a result, the SOI fails to match the pattern of El Niño, while the EOI can still match it well. Hence, the EOI can better describe the variability of the Niño3.4 SSTA and WWBs/EWBs. The correlation between the SOI and Niño3.4 SSTA falls to its minimum in May, due to the large one-month changes of sea level pressure from April to May in the subtropical southern Pacific, which may be related to the spring predictability barrier (SPB). The newly defined EOI may be helpful for monitoring El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and predicting ENSO.

 

 

 Regardless, the correlation between a sub -9 May SOI and whether or not an oncoming Nino actually occurs has been pretty strong. Since 1950, there have been 14 sub -9 Mays. The only ones not followed by El Niño were the -11.7 of 2005 (that was attributed to lingering effects of the 2004-5 Nino) and the -9.9 of 2001. So, 2001 is the only one of the 14 without explanation.

 Is there a website to follow the daily EOI? Also, I'd like to see historical EOI data to analyze that is comparable to the SOI historical data that goes way back into the mid 1800s. Are there specific locations' SLPs that determine the  EOI like Tahiti and Darwin of the SOI?

[so_whats_happening]

7 hours ago, bluewave said:

The current influence of the SOI looks restricted to the Southern Hemisphere. Notice how strong the trades have been across the Central to Eastern Pacific. This is the opposite of what we typically see during El Niño development. So the El Niño development has stalled out for the current time. Need to see the WWBs reach the Central to Eastern Pacific in June to make it to stronger El Niño status. Never had a strong El Niño before with the trades continuing from May intoJune. Later relaxing trade wind patterns have resulted in weak to moderate events. Just look at the May into June trade wind anomalies below to see how the El Niños turned out.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/cpac850

Yes you can see what the lack of westerlies across the dateline region has done. The subsurface has not punched the warmth eastward allowing for large scale cool anomalies in the the IO west pacific to pop up. The development while definitely warmer has an overall 17-18 vibe still with lack of subsurface warm pool transport as we saw in other solid El Nino events. Still a weee bit early to call it a head fake though.

I feel we keep kicking the can down the road in expecting a solid transition it was march when we saw the intense warm up in 1+2 and here we are almost 2 months later without a substantial switch up to warrant many in here to say above moderate status is likely. I personally still feel pushing moderate is a bit much but we shall see i think it slowly can get its way up there. Trimonthlies will be the test of course.

If we dont see a solid reaction in june from this ongoing wwb i doubt much will come of it at this rate because soon enough july will hit lol.

[GaWx]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:53 AM, snowman19 said:

JB all in on a very strong El Niño….never thought I’d see the day

 But today he posted like the traditional JB as a result of a cool 6Z CFSv2 run for DJF resulting largely from a strong -NAO:

 

[George001]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

 But today he posted like the traditional JB as a result of a cool 6Z CFSv2 run for DJF resulting largely from a strong -NAO:

 

Good ol Joe, his forecasts are about as reliable as the Celtics and Bruins!

[snowman19]

 But today he posted like the traditional JB as a result of a cool 6Z CFSv2 run for DJF resulting largely from a strong -NAO:
 

There it is! As predictable as the rising sun. El Niño coming and the 57-58, 02-03 and 09-10 analogs come flying from him. 76-77 will be next. Without fail. Hit the repeat button. Groundhog Day

[Terpeast]

Broken clock is right twice a day. Or at least we hope. 

[GaWx]

 The volatile weekly Nino 1+2 region SST anomaly just released (for last week) dropped pretty sharply from +2.4 to +1.7, the coolest in two months. The other three regions changed little or none.

  The daily SOI plunged to -43. It will be even lower tomorrow, which should be the low point of the month.

[GaWx]

37 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Just goes to show how difficult it has been to get a big east based El Niño since 97-98. That event didn’t see any pullback in Nino 1+2 following its first month over +2. In fact, the 1+2 SSTs steadily increased to +4. The subsurface and stronger trades now won’t support readings that warm. This is like a stronger version of the spring 2017 coastal El Niño. 1+2 also pulled back after going above +2. So the evolution of this El Niño going forward is in question. Trades continue to be strong and we are getting the surface SSTs leveling off or declining. Subsurface readings have also cooled slightly in recent weeks instead of increasing. So the combination cooling in the east and stronger trades in the central Pacific will prevent Nino 3.4 from making any big moves higher in the near term.

 Based on past instances following a sustained strong SOI drop like we've had and which will last a couple more days before rising substantially making it a 17 day solid -SOI, the weekly 3.4 SST anomalies would often rise a few tenths ~3-4 weeks afterward. In this case, that would mean early to mid June. As of last week, 3.4 was still at +0.5. Let's see whether or not there's a rise to +0.8 or so by mid June.

 Keeping in mind what you said about this case differing quite a bit from other sub -9 Mays, I realize that the typical reaction in Nino 3.4 may not occur. It will be interesting to follow!

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

2 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

[roardog]

Anyone else remember 20+ years ago when Accuweather had videos called Point Counterpoint with Joe Bastardi and Ken Reeves. This thread reminds me of that. lol

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Based on past instances following a sustained strong SOI drop like we've had and which will last a couple more days before rising substantially making it a 17 day solid -SOI, the weekly 3.4 SST anomalies would often rise a few tenths ~3-4 weeks afterward. In this case, that would mean early to mid June. As of last week, 3.4 was still at +0.5. Let's see whether or not there's a rise to +0.8 or so by mid June.
 Keeping in mind what you said about this case differing quite a bit from other sub -9 Mays, I realize that the typical reaction in Nino 3.4 may not occur. It will be interesting to follow!

Agreed. Besides the tanked SOI, look at the tweets I just posted….there’s +6C subsurface anomalies barely below the surface in regions 1+2 and 3. Not really sure where people are getting that this event is an east-based El Niño fail….the 20C isotherm is just below the surface in those regions and the warmest SSTs in the tropical Pacific are currently in ENSO regions 1+2 and 3. How some people think that’s an east-based Nino fail is beyond my comprehension. The MJO stalled in phase 7 is going to produce WWBs across the tropical PAC soon

[roardog]

51 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Agreed. Besides the tanked SOI, look at the tweets I just posted….there’s +6C subsurface anomalies barely below the surface in regions 1+2 and 3. Not really sure where people are getting that this event is an east-based El Niño fail….the 20C isotherm is just below the surface in those regions and the warmest SSTs in the tropical Pacific are currently in ENSO regions 1+2 and 3. How some people think that’s an east-based Nino fail is beyond my comprehension. The MJO stalled in phase 7 is going to produce WWBs across the tropical PAC soon

Maybe the MJO doesn’t stall in phase 7. Euro keeps it moving with a split in its members between weak phase 8 or into the circle. JMA takes it straight into the circle while Australian model takes it fairly strongly into 8 but that run was from a couple of days ago. It seems the trend has been for weaker MJO forecasts. The GEFSv12 seems to kind of be on its own here. 

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, roardog said:

Anyone else remember 20+ years ago when Accuweather had videos called Point Counterpoint with Joe Bastardi and Ken Reeves. This thread reminds me of that. lol

Yep, I remember that like it was yesterday! I'm sure you remember Ken (RIP) closing with "We are the Weather Warriors".

[snowman19]

This:

[bluewave]

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Agreed. Besides the tanked SOI, look at the tweets I just posted….there’s +6C subsurface anomalies barely below the surface in regions 1+2 and 3. Not really sure where people are getting that this event is an east-based El Niño fail….the 20C isotherm is just below the surface in those regions and the warmest SSTs in the tropical Pacific are currently in ENSO regions 1+2 and 3. How some people think that’s an east-based Nino fail is beyond my comprehension. The MJO stalled in phase 7 is going to produce WWBs across the tropical PAC soon

Those +6C anomalies below the surface have been there since March and the best Nino 1+2 was able to do before backing off to +1.7 was +2.7. A true east based like 97-98 pushed close to +4 with +10C anomalies below the surface. That year had record WWBs from March onward which has been lacking this year. There haven’t been any big EPAC WWBs after March. So 1+2 couldn’t push to +4 like in 97-98 with the record WWBs. While this has started out east based, there haven’t been any signals yet of becoming a big east based event yet like 97-98. Especially with the record WPAC warm pool this year instead of the cold pool which was in place in 97-98.

 

[GaWx]

On 5/21/2023 at 3:58 AM, GaWx said:

Today's SOI came in at ~-26. I'm very roughly estimating the next four days to come in at -35, -57 (lowest daily since 2/6/2010), -50, and -33 followed by a rapid rise. We appear to be looking at ~-12 for May as a whole, a solid indicator for an upcoming Nino of difficult to predict magnitude.

 Yesterday's was -43 and today's is -62, which is the lowest since 2/6/10 and 12th lowest since dailies started in June of 1991. Though that will end up the low of this stretch, the next two days will still be strong -SOIs (likely sub -25).

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

[GaWx]

 As mentioned, today's well predicted very low SOI is the 12th lowest since dailies started in June of 1991. The seasons since 1991-2 with the 11 lower SOI dailies were 2009-10, 2006-7, 2004-5, 1997-8, and 1991-2. Of these five seasons, one was super strong Nino, two were strong Nino, and two were weak Nino. So, they were all over the board in terms of El Niño strength with ONI peak ranging from +0.7 to +2.4.

[snowman19]

[Terpeast]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Stronger trades causing Nino 3.4 to drop back to neutral from the recent borderline weak.

 

 

Forecast looks to weaken the trades slightly at or slightly east of the dateline over the next ~7 days. 

[raindancewx]

My current working blend for Summer, at least for precipitation is May 1972/1997. I think maybe 1972/2012 is better for temperatures, but haven't really looked at that yet.

Here is that blend in May v. May 2023 to date. You can see the wet spots are similar running up the front range, NE, and in the SW, with the dry spots similarly placed too.

Keep in mind, I'm incorporating this verifying in some form by month end -

[George001]

5 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

That has a warm bias I believe but it did not back down at all. Even if it’s too warm by 1C, that would still be quite a strong nino.