El Nino 2023-2024

[roardog]

I’m not as knowledgeable as a lot of you guys are but it looks like the MJO could be heading back toward the Maritime Continent toward mid June. Doesn’t that usually impact the Nino development in a negative way?  That probably means the global pattern would be getting a shake up as well. 

[snowman19]

[SnoSki14]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

Why are you pulling up random twitter threads and who are these people? 

I'll trust Bluewave's analysis 10x more than whatever these people have to say. 

[snowman19]

Why are you pulling up random twitter threads and who are these people? 
I'll trust Bluewave's analysis 10x more than whatever these people have to say. 

Who is Paul Roundy??? Fool. You are as vapid and clueless as the day is long. Total joke of a poster. Useless

[Terpeast]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

Who is Paul Roundy??? Fool. You are as vapid and clueless as the day is long. Total joke of a poster. Useless

Well, he’s not all that wrong. 

If I’m seeing non-English tweets being posted here (a primarily English speaking forum) in support of a super nino, I gotta say you’re digging pretty deep.

At least bluewave backs up his own analysis with data, even if I don’t like where the data is pointing towards. 

[so_whats_happening]

7 hours ago, snowman19 said:

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

I personally wish these individuals would post the reasoning graphically they tend to explain evolutions a bit better than the 200 or so word limit in several chains of messages. While he isn't wrong on this idea that the Ninos of 1957, 1963, 1965, and 1972 (all moderate to strong) developed like we see now (warm waters emerging in 1+2 early on) we also had different wind conditions leading up to the El Nino emergence. They had persistent easterlies that were around for the early part of the development across 1+2, 3, and eastern portion of 3.4 fairly similar to what we are seeing except that random batch we had in March around 1+2. This kept things at bay for a while but eventually that pattern broke and emerged as an El Nino pattern. 

Just take a look at placement of where Westerlies (anoms) took place during those years still close to if not right on the dateline. Once the May content comes out we can also see how that compares to pre 1982 El Ninos. Unfortunately I can not find much past 1979 for subsurface which is unfortunate, that would be nice to see if we did in fact have a subsurface look similar to this year where almost the entire equatorial pacific basin is above normal.

By far the most interesting ones of the 4 years were 1963 and 1972 and how they emerged (63 moderate, 72 strong borderline super).

Included the 4 years listed above for April U-Anom winds as well as 2023. Also included the May to August for 63 and 72. Maybe something to keep in mind. The other 2 seasons had consistent/persistent westerlies around the dateline.

[raindancewx]

CFS has an unusual look for June for the US temperature profile. Not common in El Nino from some quick looks.

I was able to get a decent match by warming up a blend of 1963, 1992, with -2018 added in. Ignore the color template scale - just pretend its -7 to +7 - I  made the blend much warmer. The actual pattern is essentially a -3 to +3 look.

I do intend to list the analog model I use for global conditions for purchase or at least download somewhere. Since I have annualized solar conditions there for July-June, I'm going to wait until June is over before I release it.

[raindancewx]

Also, subsurface heat content is not really rapidly increasing. Nino 3.4 is going to finish May in the low 28C range. Average years see a sea surface temperature drop from May to Dec-Feb. But El Ninos (usually) still see actual SSTs fall from May to the following DJF. No year has even seen more than a 0.4C rise from May to DJF.

Mexican precipitation and temperature patterns are more strongly correlated to ENSO this time of year than the US. May had canonical El Nino temperatures in place there spatially. The map has negative correlations for Northern Mexico. So +Nino 3.4 = cold.

Precipitation is still kind of doing its own thing - not really a dry south / wet north look.

[so_whats_happening]

26 minutes ago, bluewave said:

My guess is that he WPAC  being much colder than this year at the surface also had a cooler subsurface. It allowed for stronger trades this spring near the Dateline. So I doubt the entitre equatorial subsurface was above normal like this year. 

 
 

 

Fair point and interestingly enough those years also had a -PDO pattern that was around during an emerging El Nino. 1957 completely collapsed the PDO by May and going positive by summer. '63 had a brief period of +PDO play out toward fall and end of the year. '65 had a fairly similar approach to how '63 evolved in the PDO department late fall early winter. '72 went neutral by fall after having some low values leading up to the El Nino emerging similar to the low values this year.

So the one major factor is SST configuration with lower SST's during that time globally the difference was enough to allow forcing to emerge east compared to now.

Here is april forcing of those years compared to this year clearly west of those years meaning different setup. What this means going forward I guess we will find out.

Just wanted to also add checking out the oddity that 1963 was showed competing lift regions globally one over Africa and another setup fairly similarly to the first VP composite. Added picture for 1963 globally for April. This probably helped with the slow start to the emerging Nino and lack of WWB consistency. Still managed moderate though when all was said and done.

[SnoSki14]

3 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Well, he’s not all that wrong. 

If I’m seeing non-English tweets being posted here (a primarily English speaking forum) in support of a super nino, I gotta say you’re digging pretty deep.

At least bluewave backs up his own analysis with data, even if I don’t like where the data is pointing towards. 

The agenda is pretty clear. He's all in on a super east-based Nino and is finding random Twitter threads to back that up. 

Notice how he doesn't actually counter the posts arguing against it.

He even posted JBs pro Super Nino tweets on here when he despises JB & his forecasts. 

I'm not saying a strong to super east based Nino can't happen but the data Bluewave and other mets on here have posted do not point in that Super Nino direction. 

In fact right now it's more likely the Nino never fully couples than us getting a full blown Super Nino. 

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Also, subsurface heat content is not really rapidly increasing. Nino 3.4 is going to finish May in the low 28C range. Average years see a sea surface temperature drop from May to Dec-Feb. But El Ninos (usually) still see actual SSTs fall from May to the following DJF. No year has even seen more than a 0.4C rise from May to DJF.

 Though far from perfect, I've found based on past cases that the 180-100W max OHC anomaly was often a decent leading indicator of about where an incoming El Niño ONI peak might end up a couple of months later. The tendency was for ONI peak to be a bit lower than the OHC peak. Thus, if this +1.2 maximum OHC were to not be exceeded later this year, then I might be looking for a low end moderate ONI peak a couple of months later as the most likely. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this +1.2 OHC holds up as the max. I expect it won't and that it will likely be exceeded this summer as May is almost always too early for it to peak. Most OHC peaks were in Oct or Nov.

OHC by month:

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

 

 I'll now compare the OHC peak including timing, with ONI peak/timing for El Niño events since 1978-80:

 

1. 1979-80: OHC peak +1.1 Nov

ONI peak +0.6 DJF

Lag: 2 months

2. 1982-3: OHC peak +2.1 Oct

ONI peak +2.2 DJF

Lag: 3 months

 

3. 1986-8: OHC peak +1.2 Jan '87

ONI peak +1.7 JAS '87

Lag: 7 months

 

4. 1991-2: OHC peak +1.7 Dec 

ONI peak +1.7 DJF

Lag: 1 month

 

5. 1994-5: OHC peak +1.2 Nov

ONI peak NDJ +1.1

Lag: 1 month

 

6. 1997-8: OHC peak +2.6 Oct

ONI peak +2.4 NDJ

Lag: 2 months

 

7. 2002-3: OHC peak +1.7 Oct

ONI peak +1.3 OND

Lag: 1 month

8. 2004-5: OHC peak +0.9 Sep

ONI peak +0.7 NDJ

Lag: 3 months

 

9. 2006-7: OHC peak +1.4 Nov

ONI peak +0.9 NDJ

Lag: 1 month

 

10. 2009-10: OHC peak +1.8 Nov

ONI peak +1.6 NDJ

Lag: 1 month

 

11. 2014-6: OHC peak +1.9 Oct '15

ONI peak +2.6 NDJ

Lag: 2 months

 

12. 2018-9: OHC peak +1.5 Oct

ONI peak +0.9 OND

Lag: 1 month

---------------------

Summary:

1. Avg lag OHC to ONI peak:

2 months

 

2. ONI peak averaged 0.1 cooler than OHC peak though range was 0.6 cooler to 0.7 warmer; ONI cooler 8 of 12 times and warmer 3 of 12 times

[snowman19]

The agenda is pretty clear. He's all in on a super east-based Nino and is finding random Twitter threads to back that up. 
Notice how he doesn't actually counter the posts arguing against it.
He even posted JBs pro Super Nino tweets on here when he despises JB & his forecasts. 
I'm not saying a strong to super east based Nino can't happen but the data Bluewave and other mets on here have posted do not point in that Super Nino direction. 
In fact right now it's more likely the Nino never fully couples than us getting a full blown Super Nino. 

You are the worst on here. Have been for years. You contribute nothing at all. Totally clueless, a troll, vapid, argumentative, flip flop like a fish out of water and contradict yourself. You have no room to talk about anyone, none

[snowman19]

Well, he’s not all that wrong. 
If I’m seeing non-English tweets being posted here (a primarily English speaking forum) in support of a super nino, I gotta say you’re digging pretty deep.
At least bluewave backs up his own analysis with data, even if I don’t like where the data is pointing towards. 

Mario is a good meteorologist and there’s a “translate” feature you can click on, on those tweets and it goes right to English in seconds

[40/70 Benchmark]

19 hours ago, snowman19 said:

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

I would take my chances with a weaker version of 2015-2016...that was basin wide. 

Most healthy el nino events move from west to east...I don't think particular evolution in and of itself is very unusual.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Also, subsurface heat content is not really rapidly increasing. Nino 3.4 is going to finish May in the low 28C range. Average years see a sea surface temperature drop from May to Dec-Feb. But El Ninos (usually) still see actual SSTs fall from May to the following DJF. No year has even seen more than a 0.4C rise from May to DJF.

Mexican precipitation and temperature patterns are more strongly correlated to ENSO this time of year than the US. May had canonical El Nino temperatures in place there spatially. The map has negative correlations for Northern Mexico. So +Nino 3.4 = cold.

Precipitation is still kind of doing its own thing - not really a dry south / wet north look.

I have never really felt like a super el nino was particularly likely. That doesn't mean that there aren't a million other ways to pull off another crappy NE winter, but I just don't see the super el nino idea panning out. 

[GaWx]

 How does the current OHC compare to past oncoming El Niño events? I used the 3rd column from here and compared Aprils to give an apples to apples comparison to 2023:

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

 

From warmest to coolest April OHC:

1997 (super peak): +2.17 

2014 (weak peak): +1.41

2023 (????????): +1.19

1982 (super peak): +0.93

2018 (weak peak): +0.81

1991 (strong peak): +0.80

2009 (strong peak): +0.65

2006 (weak peak): +0.42

2002 (moderate peak): +0.32

2004 (weak peak): +0.21

1986 (moderate peak): -0.02

1994 (moderate peak): -0.14

1979 (weak peak): -0.21

 

 Based on 13 rankings back to 1979:

- 2023 is respectable 3rd warmest

- Although much cooler than 1997, it is a little warmer than 1982.

- A bit warmer than the 2 strongs

- Much warmer than the 3 moderates

- Much warmer than 3 of the weaks and a bit warmer than 1 of the weaks, but oddly enough a little cooler than 1 of the weaks (2014)

- So, overall there's a pretty good correlation of April OHC to later peak ONI peak as all 4 strong to super are in top half and bottom half are all weak to moderate.

- But the weak 2014 is way out of synch with its 2nd warmest OHC and 2018 is somewhat out of synch with its 4th warmest OHC

- These April OHC rankings suggest that strong is very much a possibility for 2023 and even super can't at all be ruled out. But 2014 suggests that although highly unlikely that even a weak for 2023 is not out of the realm of reasonable possibilities.

 

[Terpeast]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The last week is a great example of how important the winds near the Dateline are for Nino 3.4 SSTs. The trades relaxed just enough for Nino 3.4 to approach +0.6 on the dailies. The weekly will probably average out near +0.5. The rise appears to leveling off as the trades pick up again. The MJO going into 4-6 may continue the keep the strongest WWBs well west of the Dateline in June like the long range GFS is hinting at. This could make some of more aggressive Nino 3.4 forecasts like the Australian going to +1.3 for an average in June very hard to reach.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/model-summary/#tabs=Bureau-model

The recent relaxation of the trades seems related to the SOI drop that GaWx has been discussing. But the WWBs were weaker than past instances when the SOI dropped to such low levels. Probably due to this one being more south based.

The one thing  we can say is that a super El Niño since at least 1950  hasn’t evolved with such strong spring trades near the Dateline like this year. While there have been events that started east based before 1982 like 1957-1958, we have a stronger WPAC warm pool this year competing against the actual 1+2 SSTs. That year probably didn’t feature the subsurface warm pool extending across the whole Pacific due to stronger CP WWBs. 
 

But there has been a range of El Niño events with stronger spring trades near near the Dateline with a peak ONI in the +0.7 to +1.6 range since 2000. Those events evolved differently without so much 1+2 warming like we have this year. The big question is how much warmer can 1+2 get without another big EPAC WWB like in March? Plus if the 1+2 area continues to level off around the +2s, then the WPAC SSTs will remain warmer around +30C and pull the forcing westward. So the SSTs in the east may not get warm enough to influence the forcing.

So the lack of any good analogs for this event makes the forecast going forward more uncertain than we usually see during the spring forecast barrier. Long range ENSO forecasts can be off as is usually the case. It could be that the models initializing Nino 1+2 holding around +2 for several months could be causing excessive momentum. 
 

We have moderate subsurface warming with the WWBs still on the weaker side. Forcing remains tilted west in the Pacific. 
 

Paul Roundys points are good that we may never have a big enough sample size of events to adequately rule in or out specific outcomes based on what we have seen so far. But forecasts usually improved once past the spring forecast barrier. 
 

 

 

Since about March, those anoms have been propagating W -> E, so while we may see a trade wind burst starting on the 10th, there’s a WWB at the same time around 90E. That may propagate to near the dateline through July like the early May WWB (which barely made it over the dateline by late May). 

So not all hope is lost yet. 

[GaWx]

 The full May of 2023 SOI comes in at -15. How does this rank compared to other Mays since 1876? It comes in 8th lowest, which is a strong indicator for an upcoming moderate+ and a decent indicator for the chance for a strong+ El Niño in the absence of an ongoing/outgoing one as per this list:

Lowest 20 May SOIs since 1876/Nino peak

1896 -39 (oncoming strong)

1905 -34 (ongoing/oncoming mod)

1953: -26 (ongoing/oncoming weak)

1972: -24 (oncoming super)

1987: -20 (ongoing mod/oncoming strong)

1997: -19 (oncoming super)

1991: -18 (oncoming strong)

2023: -15 (???)

1897: -15 (outgoing strong)

2002: -14 (oncoming mod)

2015: -13 (ongoing weak/oncoming super)

1940: -13 (ongoing mod/oncoming strong)

1947: -12 (outgoing warm neutral)

2005: -12 (outgoing weak)

1994: -12 (oncoming mod)

1957: -12 (oncoming strong)

1951: -12 (oncoming mod)

1912: -12 (outgoing mod)

1929: -11 (oncoming weak)

1946: -10 (oncoming warm neutral)

----------------------------

Edit: I'll now take out ongoing/outgoing El Niño years:

1896 -39 (oncoming strong)  

1972: -24 (oncoming super)

1997: -19 (oncoming super)

1991: -18 (oncoming strong)

2023: -15 (???)

2002: -14 (oncoming mod)

1947: -12 (outgoing warm neutral)

1994: -12 (oncoming mod)

1957: -12 (oncoming strong)

1951: -12 (oncoming mod)

1929: -11 (oncoming weak)

1946: -10 (oncoming warm neutral)

------------------

Data source:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

[snowman19]

The last week is a great example of how important the winds near the Dateline are for Nino 3.4 SSTs. The trades relaxed just enough for Nino 3.4 to approach +0.6 on the dailies. The weekly will probably average out near +0.5. The rise appears to leveling off as the trades pick up again. The MJO going into 4-6 may continue the keep the strongest WWBs well west of the Dateline in June like the long range GFS is hinting at. This could make some of more aggressive Nino 3.4 forecasts like the Australian going to +1.3 for an average in June very hard to reach.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/model-summary/#tabs=Bureau-model
The recent relaxation of the trades seems related to the SOI drop that GaWx has been discussing. But the WWBs were weaker than past instances when the SOI dropped to such low levels. Probably due to this one being more south based.
The one thing  we can say is that a super El Niño since at least 1950  hasn’t evolved with such strong spring trades near the Dateline like this year. While there have been events that started east based before 1982 like 1957-1958, we have a stronger WPAC warm pool this year competing against the actual 1+2 SSTs. That year probably didn’t feature the subsurface warm pool extending across the whole Pacific due to stronger CP WWBs. 
 
But there has been a range of El Niño events with stronger spring trades near near the Dateline with a peak ONI in the +0.7 to +1.6 range since 2000. Those events evolved differently without so much 1+2 warming like we have this year. The big question is how much warmer can 1+2 get without another big EPAC WWB like in March? Plus if the 1+2 area continues to level off around the +2s, then the WPAC SSTs will remain warmer around +30C and pull the forcing westward. So the SSTs in the east may not get warm enough to influence the forcing.
So the lack of any good analogs for this event makes the forecast going forward more uncertain than we usually see during the spring forecast barrier. Long range ENSO forecasts can be off as is usually the case. It could be that the models initializing Nino 1+2 holding around +2 for several months could be causing excessive momentum. 
 
We have moderate subsurface warming with the WWBs still on the weaker side. Forcing remains tilted west in the Pacific. 
 
Paul Roundys points are good that we may never have a big enough sample size of events to adequately rule in or out specific outcomes based on what we have seen so far. But forecasts usually improved once past the spring forecast barrier. 
 




 
 

.

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

[thunderbolt]

[raindancewx]

The Canadian has a cold winter for the Southern US. Still no +PDO depicted. Warm tongue east of Japan, some cold off the Western part of North America. I actually think the look below is pretty defensible as a realistic outcome. I'd expect a stormy, but not real cold winter for the NE/NW US in the look below. 

[Terpeast]

29 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The Canadian has a cold winter for the Southern US. Still no +PDO depicted. Warm tongue east of Japan, some cold off the Western part of North America. I actually think the look below is pretty defensible as a realistic outcome. I'd expect a stormy, but not real cold winter for the NE/NW US in the look below. 

I’ll take it! 

[brooklynwx99]

35 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

I’ll take it! 

take it? i would pay for this three month 500mb mean. absolutely lights out 

[Terpeast]

11 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

take it? i would pay for this three month 500mb mean. absolutely lights out 

That’s a bazooka right there. Can only hope it can get close to verifying. 

[GaWx]

On 5/30/2023 at 10:44 AM, GaWx said:

 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.

 I was wrong. I thought Niño 3.4 was leveling out near +0.575 C. However, it is now up to +0.62 per Cowan's CDAS chart after some re-acceleration in the warming. It rose 0.015 just during the last 6 hours. It has risen nearly 0.3 over just the last 5 days.

 The recent BoM model had a warming to +1.25 in June. I've been thinking it was significantly too warm because I had been figuring that June would start near +0.5 C and that it would have to get to a seemingly unreasonable ~+1.5 by June 15th to have a chance for +1.25 in June overall. I still think that's going to be very tough as +1.5 is still a long way up from +0.62. That would require the next 15 days warm as fast as the last 5 days, which I could find only one instance of since 1981 during an incoming El Niño (March of 2014). Regardless, with the significant warming still not having stopped, it will be interesting to see where this will actually level off.

[snowman19]

 I was wrong. I thought Niño 3.4 was leveling out near +0.575 C. However, it is now up to +0.62 per Cowan's CDAS chart after some re-acceleration in the warming. It rose 0.015 just during the last 6 hours. It has risen nearly 0.3 over just the last 5 days.
 The recent BoM model had a warming to +1.25 in June. I've been thinking it was significantly too warm because I had been figuring that June would start near +0.5 C and that it would have to get to a seemingly unreasonable ~+1.5 by June 15th to have a chance for +1.25 in June overall. I still think that's going to be very tough as +1.5 is still a long way up from +0.62. That would require the next 15 days warm as fast as the last 5 days, which I could find only one instance of since 1981 during an incoming El Niño (March of 2014). Regardless, with the significant warming still not having stopped, it will be interesting to see where this will actually level off.

Maybe the POAMA wasn’t so far fetched after all. More from Paul Roundy:

[GaWx]

55 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Maybe the POAMA wasn’t so far fetched after all. More from Paul Roundy:

 That's the first time I can recall Paul Tweeting explicitly about the chance for a super El Niño. So, he's going ~50-50 on a 2015-16 strength, which was a peak at +2.6 (stronger than any other since 1900). This implies Paul is at higher than a 50% chance for a super since super starts at +2.0.