El Nino 2023-2024

[so_whats_happening]

8 minutes ago, griteater said:

Aug 22 to 27 TAO subsurface images.  Warm 'anomalies' (not means) are building west a bit at the surface, but also, the east-based warming is being reinforced at the surface and at depth...and the thermocline is flattening some with this wave moving east at depth.

This is such an interesting evolution i do wonder if we even get surface cooling or if we just get a subsurface component enough to end the nino.

[brooklynwx99]

33 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

You can make an argument for 57-58 and 65-66. 02-03 and 09-10? I have serious issues with those given how this El Nino developed and is continuing to evolve, it’s night and day different, like not even remotely close. I know no one here has done it, but I’ve even seen 76-77 alluded to by JB and some other weenies on twitter, which is completely and utterly ridiculous, no comparison whatsoever

yeah, but when looking at variables like the ONI and forcing, they’re actually not as far off as you’d think. that’s the point some of us have been making 

honestly, 2009 is also a great QBO and summer pattern match. not expecting a winter like that, but it’s a solid analog 

[George001]

24 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

You can make an argument for 57-58 and 65-66. 02-03 and 09-10? I have serious issues with those given how this El Nino developed and is continuing to evolve, it’s night and day different, like not even remotely close. I know no one here has done it, but I’ve even seen 76-77 alluded to by JB and some other weenies on twitter, which is completely and utterly ridiculous, no comparison whatsoever

09-10 could be a decent analog with continued strengthening in nino 4, but 72-73 and 91-92 are better matches for the polar domain. I like 91-92 in particular for the polar region, which was impacted by the Pinatubo eruption. The issue is people see the 2009-2010 analog and assume it means 50 inches of snow for DC is coming, when that isn’t what it means. The pacific pattern could be similar, but variation in the polar domain would lead to different results. The high solar activity also is a +NAO signal. For 02-03, I don’t see that as an analog because of El Niño strength (moderate). Even if the nino 4 region continues to take off, 2015-2016 is a better analog for nino strength (super) and it is not a modoki like 02-03 was. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Sometimes I wonder if George001 is really a salient topic-relevant adult that upon occasion ... allows his kid to post while incognito using his dad's account. A 13-year old occasionally posting with all the unrestrained enthusiasm typically found in the imagination of a small boy ...

The dad probably figures ...meh, no one's reputation in this social media'sphere is ultimately significant enough. It doesn't extend anywhere or ultimately matter.   ...I dunno.  He's probably right -

I'm utterly flummoxed how a post like this above ^ can be follow-up but these ... truly  hyperbolic cryo-dystopian blizzard sci-fi novellas. Seemingly grown from a virga shrouded cumulus cloud in an otherwise cloudless Alberta Clipper dent; how exactly they are originated from the exact same source is beyond me.

[Typhoon Tip]

Oh, wait a second ... is there a "George01" perhaps? hm

[snowman19]

The pre-1980 Nino evolution continues: 

 

[mitchnick]

Don't know if anyone noticed, but the TAO map is now showing a growing area of anomalies in 3.4.  Also, IF the CFS trade forecast is close to being correct, I could see 3.4 warming after a relaxation of the trades while 1+2 continues to cool. This would be consistent with most modeling having this event progressing from the current east based to basinwide. Encouraging to see possible confirmation now showing up in short and medium range forecasts. 

 

[griteater]

4 hours ago, George001 said:

The high solar activity also is a +NAO signal.

Where have you read this?  Is there a source, website / paper?

[George001]

1 hour ago, griteater said:

Where have you read this?  Is there a source, website / paper?

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2021JD035519

https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2021-241/acp-2021-241.pdf

These are a couple good sources for the link between the NAO index and solar activity. What I got from it was that the correlation was strongest in Feb, but where exactly we are in the solar cycle has a big impact on how strong the correlation is as well as what month. It’s not a super strong indicator, but based on how close we are to the peak of the solar cycle, I would favor a positive NAO during Feb. It isn’t perfect, but  correlation between sunspot activity during the peak of the solar cycle correctly predicted the NAO index during the last peak. The last peak was I believe around 2015, and Feb 2015 the NAO was strongly positive. It’s more complicated than that, but when combining the severe volcanic activity with the sunspot activity, I like that analog for this Feb (polar region, not pacific). 

[bluewave]

5 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The pre-1980 Nino evolution continues: 

 

Except that no pre 1980 El Niño had such high Nino 4 readings while 1+2 and 3 were this warm. Also subsurface pre 1980 on JMA was much warmer in CPAC and cooler in WPAC. Plus the stronger trades near the Dateline in early September were unheard of before now during the stronger El Niño years. 
 

[GaWx]

10 hours ago, George001 said:

09-10 could be a decent analog with continued strengthening in nino 4, but 72-73 and 91-92 are better matches for the polar domain. I like 91-92 in particular for the polar region, which was impacted by the Pinatubo eruption. The issue is people see the 2009-2010 analog and assume it means 50 inches of snow for DC is coming, when that isn’t what it means. The pacific pattern could be similar, but variation in the polar domain would lead to different results. The high solar activity also is a +NAO signal. For 02-03, I don’t see that as an analog because of El Niño strength (moderate). Even if the nino 4 region continues to take off, 2015-2016 is a better analog for nino strength (super) and it is not a modoki like 02-03 was. 

 -Only 6 (14%) of the last 44 winters had a -NAO vs 12 (27%) neutral and 26 (59%) +NAO. Also, only one of the last 12 winters was -NAO. However, a good portion of neutral and even some of the +NAO winters had a solid -NAO month. That's the better hope if you want -NAO.

-So, for whatever reason, we're in a +NAO winter era of sorts. Until we get passed it, it won't be easy to have -NAO dominate in any one winter.

- Average monthly sunspots for these six -NAO winters were all low to very low: 20, 6, 12, 22, 33, and 14 for an average of only 18. This 18 compares to the longtime average monthly sunspots of 85 (based on 1900-2022 data). So, none of these six low sunspot #s are anywhere near the quite high 150+ that we're likely headed toward this winter and they're not even close to the 85 average.

-All six -NAO winters were within two years of a solar min whereas we're going to be much closer to a solar max than min this winter.

-So, I'm betting pretty heavily on either a +NAO or neutral NAO averaged over this winter with the hope for one solid -NAO month. I'd take that one month and run.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, snowman19 said:

You can make an argument for 57-58 and 65-66. 02-03 and 09-10? I have serious issues with those given how this El Nino developed and is continuing to evolve, it’s night and day different, like not even remotely close. I know no one here has done it, but I’ve even seen 76-77 alluded to by JB and some other weenies on twitter, which is completely and utterly ridiculous, no comparison whatsoever

I don't think anyone is forecasting a replica of 2009 or 2002...all that has been said is that the forcing and MEI are currently similar, which is a sign that this isn't behaving as a traditional canonical el nino...not that will act as a modoki per se. Maybe periods, though. 

[raindancewx]

Michael (2018) & Gladys (1968) in developing El Nino both hit the NW coast of Florida running SW->NE in October. It's interesting seeing the hurricane now.

Suspect we'll see another burst of Gulf activity in mid-October before the season dies off. 

Several of the older El Ninos, like 1951 and 1972 did see Nino 4 get to 29.0C+ readings for a few months mid-year. CPC generally has the Nino zones warming about 0.1F per decade. That's part of why I've been looking at those years. If you remove 0.5C everywhere in the tropics in 2023 those years are similar to now spatially. Both -PDO setups too.

By the way - all the years with developing Ninos that had -PDO readings through Summer? Those that flipped positive for the upcoming Oct-May, flipped by the end of August.

[brooklynwx99]

50 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I don't think anyone is forecasting a replica of 2009 or 2002...all that has been said is that the forcing and MEI are currently similar, which is a sign that this isn't behaving as a traditional canonical el nino...not that will act as a modoki per se. Maybe periods, though. 

I mean, hell, 2015-16 had a month where it acted like a Modoki event and there was a HECS out of it. I can bet money the MEI was way higher there than it'll be this year

[40/70 Benchmark]

20 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Michael (2018) & Gladys (1968) in developing El Nino both hit the NW coast of Florida running SW->NE in October. It's interesting seeing the hurricane now.

Suspect we'll see another burst of Gulf activity in mid-October before the season dies off. 

Several of the older El Ninos, like 1951 and 1972 did see Nino 4 get to 29.0C+ readings for a few months mid-year. CPC generally has the Nino zones warming about 0.1F per decade. That's part of why I've been looking at those years. If you remove 0.5C everywhere in the tropics in 2023 those years are similar to now spatially. Both -PDO setups too.

By the way - all the years with developing Ninos that had -PDO readings through Summer? Those that flipped positive for the upcoming Oct-May, flipped by the end of August.

Yea, -PDO is a forgone conclusion. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Maybe Opal, too

actually Opal was 95

[Terpeast]

23 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, -PDO is a forgone conclusion. 

When I look at the sst map, the entire pac is warm. Even off the west coast. While the -pdo was real this past winter and spring, I’m wondering if neg values in the index today are just an artifact since the west coast waters have warmed up. The map looks more neutral to me, but warm everywhere. 

[raindancewx]

By the way, since we're in high solar conditions now, it's worth noting that there is some evidence in the research of the sun modifying the severity of MJO pulses via...something. Solar wind? UV radiation? A guy on here in the SE forums used to talk about coronal mass ejections as the likely mechanism.

This is from an interesting paper I read awhile ago - 

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2018JD028939

One stupid sanity check I like to do is just look at past years in multiples in 11. You almost always find one near perfect match when ENSO aligns. Same thing tends to happen at intervals of 30, on the closest timed ENSO match.

2023, 2012, 2001, 1990, 1979, 1968, 1957, 1946, 1935. Just from that list, 2012 is still one of the top SST matches globally (many severe heat waves, derechos, Gulf hurricanes, etc and the oceans were warm in Summer, Nino zones included). 1979 had notorious, record heat in the SW following a severely cold winter for most of the US, so fairly similar. 1968 has the El Nino hurricane hitting FL running SW to NE. A lot of you guys like 1957 too. On the 30-year scale, you have 1993, 1963, 1933. Just from those, 1963 is a decent match. That's a very severe winter in a lot of ways though. Several of those periods at the 11-year intervals followed recent winters of notorious cold waves in Texas BTW (Feb 2011, Dec 1989, and so on).

 

[griteater]

4 hours ago, George001 said:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2021JD035519

https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2021-241/acp-2021-241.pdf

These are a couple good sources for the link between the NAO index and solar activity. What I got from it was that the correlation was strongest in Feb, but where exactly we are in the solar cycle has a big impact on how strong the correlation is as well as what month. It’s not a super strong indicator, but based on how close we are to the peak of the solar cycle, I would favor a positive NAO during Feb. It isn’t perfect, but  correlation between sunspot activity during the peak of the solar cycle correctly predicted the NAO index during the last peak. The last peak was I believe around 2015, and Feb 2015 the NAO was strongly positive. It’s more complicated than that, but when combining the severe volcanic activity with the sunspot activity, I like that analog for this Feb (polar region, not pacific). 

OK, I hadn't seen those papers.  In fairness, you previously mentioned "The high solar activity also is a +NAO signal", which implied it was for the full winter, whereas these papers focus on a +NAO signal in February during solar cycle max (1st paper) or during strong solar cycle max (2nd paper).

It's a bit difficult to say whether the upcoming winter would be designated as solar cycle ascending or solar cycle max, as seen here from a chart that GaWx previously posted...

 

 

The 2014-2015 winter that you mentioned was on the other side of solar max, and it's designation is also unclear - could be solar max or solar descending...

[griteater]

10 minutes ago, griteater said:

It's a bit difficult to say whether the upcoming winter would be designated as solar cycle ascending or solar cycle max, as seen here from a chart that GaWx previously posted...

I take this part back...I see now that the chart hasn't been updated in a while, so we are likely in solar max conditions now (at the top portion of the curve), also seen on the 2nd chart I posted

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

When I look at the sst map, the entire pac is warm. Even off the west coast. While the -pdo was real this past winter and spring, I’m wondering if neg values in the index today are just an artifact since the west coast waters have warmed up. The map looks more neutral to me, but warm everywhere. 

It def won't be as severe as last year.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

By the way, since we're in high solar conditions now, it's worth noting that there is some evidence in the research of the sun modifying the severity of MJO pulses via...something. Solar wind? UV radiation? A guy on here in the SE forums used to talk about coronal mass ejections as the likely mechanism.

This is from an interesting paper I read awhile ago - 

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2018JD028939

One stupid sanity check I like to do is just look at past years in multiples in 11. You almost always find one near perfect match when ENSO aligns. Same thing tends to happen at intervals of 30, on the closest timed ENSO match.

2023, 2012, 2001, 1990, 1979, 1968, 1957, 1946, 1935. Just from that list, 2012 is still one of the top SST matches globally (many severe heat waves, derechos, Gulf hurricanes, etc and the oceans were warm in Summer, Nino zones included). 1979 had notorious, record heat in the SW following a severely cold winter for most of the US, so fairly similar. 1968 has the El Nino hurricane hitting FL running SW to NE. A lot of you guys like 1957 too. On the 30-year scale, you have 1993, 1963, 1933. Just from those, 1963 is a decent match. That's a very severe winter in a lot of ways though. Several of those periods at the 11-year intervals followed recent winters of notorious cold waves in Texas BTW (Feb 2011, Dec 1989, and so on).

 

Probably Jim Hughes.

[40/70 Benchmark]

48 minutes ago, griteater said:

I take this part back...I see now that the chart hasn't been updated in a while, so we are likely in solar max conditions now (at the top portion of the curve), also seen on the 2nd chart I posted

I don't think you can definitively say its solar max yet.

[brooklynwx99]

the jury is out on solar. some papers attribute ascending solar to a -NAO and some don’t. i think the -QBO and strong Nino state are going to have a bigger impact comparatively

[so_whats_happening]

3 hours ago, Terpeast said:

When I look at the sst map, the entire pac is warm. Even off the west coast. While the -pdo was real this past winter and spring, I’m wondering if neg values in the index today are just an artifact since the west coast waters have warmed up. The map looks more neutral to me, but warm everywhere. 

This is due to the excessively warm waters around the area of Japan and extending east. These have yet to cool otherwise we would be in a much closer neutral PDO look. As long as we don't keep re enforcing the ridge pattern out there it should slowly decline in time.

[GaWx]

 Right on cue the OHC is now rapidly bouncing back with it already approaching +1.20! This map is as of ~August 25th. It wouldn't take a heck of a lot to reach a new high in Sept. On average in a one year Nino, the OHC doesn't peak til November. So, there's plenty of time for OHC warming to continue. This rise would help to support the super Nino peak I've been expecting since the JMA went that warm on its most recent run earlier this month:

[bluewave]

22 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Right on cue the OHC is now rapidly bouncing back with it already approaching +1.20! This map is as of ~August 25th. It wouldn't take a heck of a lot to reach a new high in Sept. On average in a one year Nino, the OHC doesn't peak til November. So, there's plenty of time for OHC warming to continue. This rise would help to support the super Nino peak I've been expecting since the JMA went that warm on its most recent run earlier this month:

While the relationship isn’t exact, the last 3 super El Niño’s had OHC near or over +2. I know it’s s a small sample size of only 3 so there can be more variation. 
 

Peak OHC

15-16….1.97

97-98…2.56

82-83...2.07

[snowman19]

 Right on cue the OHC is now rapidly bouncing back with it already approaching +1.20! This map is as of ~August 25th. It wouldn't take a heck of a lot to reach a new high in Sept. On average in a one year Nino, the OHC doesn't peak til November. So, there's plenty of time for OHC warming to continue. This rise would help to support the super Nino peak I've been expecting since the JMA went that warm on its most recent run earlier this month:

IMO, very good chance we are at +2.0 or above come November, we are ahead of 1982 at this point in time

[GaWx]

53 minutes ago, bluewave said:

While the relationship isn’t exact, the last 3 super El Niño’s had OHC near or over +2. I know it’s s a small sample size of only 3 so there can be more variation. 
 

Peak OHC

15-16….1.97

97-98…2.56

82-83...2.07

 Yes, this is a good point that I'm aware of. So, I realize that getting close to +2 for OHC would be best to get really good OHC support for a super Nino. So, do I think we have a decent chance to get close to +2 by, say, November? Yes, I do. Look how fast it has rewarmed over the last month! And there appears to be much more warming to come over the next ~3 months.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

There is a pretty good warm up happening in the daily subsurface

https://ibb.co/cXKwxqq

As long as we don't get strong cold water anomalies beneath the western and central subsurface regions, this Winter should not evolve like years of 72-73 and 97-98.