El Nino 2023-2024

[snowman19]

 In order for the upcoming Nino to end up as just weak, the ONI would need to peak at +0.9 at most. The May BoM is forecasting a +2.5+ peak. So, a weak peak would require a +1.6+ miss for the May BoM. Nothing even close to that much of a miss for the May BoM has occurred since way back in 2011. Then, in May it predicted +1.1 for ASO and ASO verified way down at -0.9 for a whopping +2.0 miss. But that was during a period (2008-12) when BoM missed for five years in a row significantly too warm. Since then, it has averaged no bias. 
 So for now, I'm keeping weak's chances as very low.

Agreed. The upgrades since 2011 have been great. I very, very seriously doubt the POAMA is that far off right now, run after run and even getting stronger with the peak. Could it be off slightly? Sure, anything is possible. But that far off? As in it’s not even going to at least get strong? Not in my opinion. Different story if it were the Euro or CFS

[George001]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Agreed. The upgrades since 2011 have been great. I very, very seriously doubt the POAMA is that far off right now, run after run and even getting stronger with the peak. Could it be off slightly? Sure, anything is possible. But that far off? As in it’s not even going to at least get strong? Not in my opinion. Different story if it were the Euro or CFS

Paul Roundy thinks a super nino is coming. He’s not always right but the Nino is indeed building from east to west like he said, it’s already +.4 and not even June yet so there is plenty of time for the nino to drastically increase in strength. What is your current thoughts on the expected peak? I’m thinking a range of around +1.4 to +1.8. 

[etudiant]

48 minutes ago, George001 said:

Paul Roundy thinks a super nino is coming. He’s not always right but the Nino is indeed building from east to west like he said, it’s already +.4 and not even June yet so there is plenty of time for the nino to drastically increase in strength. What is your current thoughts on the expected peak? I’m thinking a range of around +1.4 to +1.8. 

Is +1.4-1.8 really a Super El Nino?

Or is there an accepted measure for the overall excess heat content of the tropical Pacific ocean? We do seem to be migrating towards a warm belt across the tropical Pacific, so less pressure differentials. Are there any accessible models for this?

[griteater]

1 hour ago, George001 said:

Paul Roundy thinks a super nino is coming. He’s not always right but the Nino is indeed building from east to west like he said, it’s already +.4 and not even June yet so there is plenty of time for the nino to drastically increase in strength. What is your current thoughts on the expected peak? I’m thinking a range of around +1.4 to +1.8. 

When / Where did Paul state that?

[snowman19]

When / Where did Paul state that?

He stated that a few times on twitter

[griteater]

25 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

He stated that a few times on twitter

I was just wondering if he stated that in recent weeks cause it’s going to be a steep climb to get to something like that now 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, etudiant said:

Is +1.4-1.8 really a Super El Nino?

Or is there an accepted measure for the overall excess heat content of the tropical Pacific ocean? We do seem to be migrating towards a warm belt across the tropical Pacific, so less pressure differentials. Are there any accessible models for this?

1. Per ONI (traditional measure), +1.4 to +1.8 is not super. It is upper end moderate through most of strong.

2. RONI (relative ONI) adjusts for the excess heat through all of the tropical oceans, including the very warm MDR. Currently, RONI is ~0.4 less than ONI. Thus, ONI of +1.4 to +1.8 is equivalent to RONI of +1.0 to +1.4, which is moderate El Niño. On a RONI basis, I'm currently favoring moderate with my "sweet spot" near +1.1.

[George001]

1 hour ago, etudiant said:

Is +1.4-1.8 really a Super El Nino?

Or is there an accepted measure for the overall excess heat content of the tropical Pacific ocean? We do seem to be migrating towards a warm belt across the tropical Pacific, so less pressure differentials. Are there any accessible models for this?

No, high end moderate to strong. I don’t think it will quite get up to super, but a 1.4-1.8 ONI El Niño is no joke.

[GaWx]

13 hours ago, George001 said:

Paul Roundy thinks a super nino is coming. He’s not always right but the Nino is indeed building from east to west like he said, it’s already +.4 and not even June yet so there is plenty of time for the nino to drastically increase in strength. What is your current thoughts on the expected peak? I’m thinking a range of around +1.4 to +1.8. 

When did Roundy last actually state that he thinks a super Nino is coming? I'd like to see a link. I don't see it on Twitter going back through all of May, but maybe I missed it. TIA

[GaWx]

 I'm reposting this that I did in here on March 31st:

 These El Niño winters that quickly followed La Nina were significantly colder in the SE US than the prior winter: 

1876-7 (cold), 1880-1 (cold), 1904-5 (very cold), 1911-2 (cold), 1925-6 (normal), 1939-40 (very cold), 1957-8 (cold), 1965-6 (cold), 1972-3 (normal), 1976-7 (very cold), 2009-10 (very cold)

These weren't:

 - 1887-8 was slightly warmer than 1886-7 and near normal

 - 1918-9 was much warmer than 1917-8 and was near normal. It followed the very cold 1917-8, which was one of the coldest La Niña winters on record

- 2006-7 was warmer than 2005-6 and warmer than normal

- 2018-9 was warmer than 2017-8 and warmer than normal

---------

Tally:

- 11 of 15 were significantly colder than the prior winter

- 9 of 15 were cold to very cold 

- 4 of 15 were near normal 

- 2 of 15 were warmer than normal, two of the three most recent cases

 

 Conclusion: As one living in the SE who prefers a cold winter, I'd take my chances with El Niño this winter on a normal or colder winter based on the above history despite two of the three most recent cases being warmer than normal, which would keep from betting heavily on it. I certainly would prefer it over other ENSO! Keep in mind that four of these 15 were historically cold.

 Although this analysis is centered on the SE US, much of this can be used for other areas as well. That includes seeing which were the 15 El Niño winters since the late 1800s that quickly followed La Niña and analyzing those 15 winters for one's own region.

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

When did Roundy last actually state that he thinks a super Nino is coming? I'd like to see a link. I don't see it on Twitter going back through all of May, but maybe I missed it. TIA

 Looking back in this ENSO thread allowed me to finally find the Roundy Tweet that started generating the posts here referring to him predicting a super Nino:

 This, indeed, is quite a bullish Tweet, but it was done nearly two months ago (on April 8th) and he hasn't Tweeted anything explicitly bullish about the potential Nino strength since then. All I've seen since are some bullish WWB related Tweets.

 The strongest JAS Nino 3.4 SSTa on record back to 1950 is +1.9 C. So, this post is implying that "perhaps" we'll have a +2.0+ in JAS, meaning "perhaps" a super Nino already by JAS. Just saying this is admittedly quite bullish. However, he only said "perhaps" rather than outright predicting that and he also said: 

"But it still has a month or two for the forcing to break down before it gets there."

 And again, that was way back on April 8th.

 So considering all of this, is it accurate to say that he currently thinks that a super Nino is coming? Opinions?

 I posted this on April 17th in response to it being posted:

 "Doesn't he mean strongest 3.4 on record for the late summer, itself? I see almost no chance for strongest on record 3.4 by late summer. That would be well into the +2 range: +2.6 per 2015-6 and +2.9 per 1877-8. The strongest on record in JAS, alone, is +1.9. The model consensus is no warmer than the high +1 area by JAS and that's ignoring what I think is a warm bias."

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

[Terpeast]

16 minutes ago, bluewave said:

No comparison to 2015 or 1997 at this point with much cooler surface and subsurface SSTs this year.

 

 

Yeah, I still don’t understand the talk about heading into a super event this year. This one’s likely going high-end moderate, tops. 

[GaWx]

 As snowman19 just posted via a Tweet, this new sudden warming in 3.4 per Levi Cowan's chart is notable:

 This shows the fastest 48 hour warming (0.2 C) since way back during March 5-7! But is it merely a short term rise that will soon level off making it insignificant in the big scheme of things as sometimes happens? After all, this warming has only warmed it back up to near its May 16th high. Or is there more to it? Also, keep in mind that this chart is only one source and not necessarily the "gospel".
 
 One thing I said here last week based on the past is that there often is a delayed several tenths rise in 3.4 ~3-4 weeks after a sustained solid -SOI. The recent 19 day long solid -SOI started on May 9th. We're nearly 3 weeks after that. Could this be related? Who knows but it will be interesting to follow. Regardless, there's no followup string of solid -SOI days in sight (on the 2 week models) as of yet.

 *Edited for correction as that's a 48 hour rise

[GaWx]

 The 0.2 C warming of 3.4 on the Cowan CDAS chart the last couple of days was fueled largely by warming in the western portion of 3.4 based on a 0.25 C warming the last 72 hours in Nino 4 (fastest there since April 11-14) to its warmest yet of +0.52 C per this:

 It appears that this burst of warming might be slowing. So, we'll soon see if it is about to level off for the time being.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

This isn't even an event where you would say the potential wasn't realized, to be reached at another time. A lot of people are wrong about Nino 1.2. It, this event, seems to be part of a global progression, it seems to me. So we break +0.5c in Nino 3.4 and Nino 4 the last few days of May going into June.. maybe we'll do a Moderate event max. (It still seems that there is potential energy for a 2-year El Nino signal.)

Another thing I wanted to make note of, is how the SOI seems to correlate to the N. Pacific pattern minus all the noise, or clutter in other indicators. A pretty good #1 indicator, imo, at least right now, unless you can find a better one. 

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

From Paul Roundy:

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Western subsurface is heating up again, in a lot of the stronger Nino years, the western subsurface had already started to cool. Central subsurface will continue to cool probably, next 5 days as -pna persists, then may trend warmer June 5-11. CPC and Australia subsurface data under Nino 3.4 correlates strongly with N. Pacific pattern at D+0. 

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

 

We don’t usually see all those blues near the Dateline with a developing El Niño this time of year. So hard to say how much more 3.4 will warm beyond +0.5C. Maybe the light oranges near 120W will maintain Nino 1+2 around +2. But no WWBs as strong as we saw back in March. So +2.7 still looks like it will remain the peak in +1.2. The GFS is similar. 

[etudiant]

This is quite wonderful, a discussion of the various factors that indicate an El Nino developing, done in real time, by experts who are trying to forecast the future based on all available public sources.

It's especially relevant because there is as yet no consensus as to the details, which is what most of us pay attention to.

The possible impact on the Atlantic hurricane season is a separate topic, which however will surely gather increasing attention.

[GaWx]

8 hours ago, snowman19 said:

From Paul Roundy:

 Interesting Tweets from Paul. I'm guessing that when he talks about there being no reason there couldn't be a "major" event that he's more or less saying there's no reason there couldn't be a +1.5+ 3.4 SSTa or strong+. Technically, he's not actually explicitly predicting a strong+, but he's just saying that one may very well occur/don't bet against it.

[so_whats_happening]

I feel like there is an important thing that needs to get mentioned. So say we do happen to have a strong/super Nino coming up do we actually couple the atmosphere/ocean and will it respond properly to this change or do we have exceedingly warm ocean temps and an atmospheric response that resembles that of a weak or even moderate El Nino? I also feel like the twitter stuff posted is very ambiguous I mean yes it is possible to go from a 3 year La Nina event to a moderate to super Nino just like it is to go from a super to a 3 year la Nina. I mean what happens if we sit here and do go full bore super Nino status does that mean we go right back into a triple dip La Nina afterward, it would truly be unprecedented but not improbable.

The issue of it is we don't have a solid long foundation that can account for such instances occurring so to say it whole heartedly can attain super levels or whether it can revert right back to Nina (not likely at all just as an example) is the biggest issue in this debate and unfortunately records don't give us much clue, especially with how things have developed thus far. This event, while having aspects of a what could be a strong Nino it has many factors still hedging against it for now. Another question would be do we see with warmer ocean temps overall longer Nino events ones that last longer than about a year timeframe, do we see multi year El Nino and La Nina becoming more of a thing? The frequency of ENSO state may sway slightly toward Nina being more often but that has yet to be realized overall we don't see the frequency of Nino events picking up but the top temperature anomaly within those events is certainly much higher but is the overall affect becoming greater? Just a lot of questions out there and this season is stumping the community. The lack of tropical activity is another concerning aspect regardless of what basin we talk about.

The only way I see the hint of us getting to that strong to super category in trimonthlies is if we full on collapse the PDO pattern (essentially go neutral/positive by end of summer), it is possible but can't really see how that would happen in the next 2-3 months. This will be the month to see if these changes take hold or whether we just have slow growth, let us see if we get a solid spike this month.

Attached is a 90 day SST anom animation from end of February.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 5/28/2023 at 2:15 PM, GaWx said:

 I also still do. But based on a combo of my own observations/statistical analyses and what @bluewaveand others have said about the current state of the W/C Pacific, I've reduced the chance for strong+ somewhat in favor of a higher chance for moderate vs how I earlier thought.
 
 Earlier, I had strong as the best chance, followed by high end moderate (say, +1.3 to +1.4) followed by low end super. My sweet spot was ~+1.7. Now, I feel that moderate's chances are getting closer to strong's chances with a lower end moderate (+1.0 to +1.2) chance increasing vs how I earlier thought. Also, whereas I earlier had a small chance for low end super, I now feel its chances are barely hanging by a thread. Thus my continually adjusted sweet spot has dropped from ~+1.7 to ~+1.5.  

 By the way, I'm licking my chops more and more as far as next winter's potential is concerned, especially here in the SE for the less unreliable temperatures vs the always hard to predict wintry precip since that is often mainly just a one major shot deal even in "good winters", but that's way on down the line and an issue for another time.

 If the W/C Pacific doesn't start to change soon, a high end weak is going to start to come into the picture as a nontrivial possibility in my mind.

If we THEORETICALLY (not a prediction) end up a with a low-end moderate ONI/weak RONI season, then the orientation isn't nearly as important because extra tropical drivers will play a larger role in dictating the pattern around the hemisphere next winter. For instance, 1976-1977 was very east based, but it was very weak. Before the climate change gestapo pillars me, my only point is that it was cold despite being an east based el nino...not that anything remotely resembling that level of cold is possible today.

[jconsor]

IMHO, We need to look beyond the Central Pacific for indicators on the trajectory of this El Nino event:
 

 

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

If weTHEORETICALLY (not a prediction) end up a with a low-end moderate ONI/weak RONI season, then the orientation isn't nearly as important because extra tropical drivers will play a larger role in dictating the pattern around the hemisphere next winter. For instance, 1976-1977 was very east based, but it was very weak. Before the climate change gestapo pillars me, my only point is that it was cold despite being an east based el nino...not that anything remotely resembling that level of cold is possible today.

Wasn't 1969-70, another cold E US winter, also an east based weak El Niño? There have also been a good number of other weak to low end moderate El Niño winters (I don't know about east vs west) that were cold in much of the E US such as 1939-40* (frigid in SE), 1919-20 (frigid in NE), 1904-05* (frigid in most of E US), 1887-8* (frigid in NE), 1884-5, 1880-1 *(frigid in NE), and 1876-7. But recent weak ones have not been (as) cold overall in the E US. I suspect some of that is related to their respective RONI being only warm neutral.

*immediately followed La Niña 

[GaWx]

 Based on the last 24 hours, it appears that per Levi's CDAS chart that Nino 3.4 is probably going to top out for the time being near +0.575. Of course, even if that occurs it could still resume warming within a few days for another step up. By the way, there still is no new long string of solid -SOIs yet being strongly suggested on the two week runs meaning that probably will need to wait til mid June at the earliest. Today is and tomorrow will be pretty solid negatives (perhaps also June 1st), but I think that's about it for the near future.

[snowman19]

You bring up an important point. How much do the anomalies have to warm in 1.2 to allow it to become a forcing center? 76-77 didn’t see enough warming there to surpass the warm pool further west in the Pacific. So it was the actual SSTs more than the anomalies which drove the pattern. So far this spring, Nino 1+2 rising above +2 wasn’t able to compete with the SST warmth further west in the Pacific. The actual SSTs were warmer further west so that’s where the forcing set up. It’s tough for Nino 1+2 and 3 to become the dominant player with such a strong WPAC warm pool. We saw the actual 1+2 and 3 SSTs match the WPAC in the 97-98 super El Niño. But it took much cooler WPAC SSTs and consistent +3s to +4 in 1.2 to shift the forcing east. 
 




 


 

Paul Roundy is still gung ho about a strong east-based event, he says this Nino is developing like the pre-1982 El Niños: