Winter 2023-2024

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Natural Gas correlation

Natural Gas rises/drops the year before vs Winter temps

Highest correlation is Russia

We currently have the #2 biggest drop NG (for the year), #1 is 2001 (01-02). Only 1 rise was greater than this years difference, 2000-2001. So we are #3 overall difference since 1995, year to date. 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

When matched up with similar years of the greatest N. Hemisphere anomaly in Russia over a 12-month period, the signal usually flips (cold becomes warm, warm becomes cold) the following year-winter. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just saying, Natural Gas has moved from 2.1 to 2.6, now back to 2.1. 

 

I'm getting preliminary -NAO signals, using my N. Atlantic SST method, and ENSO/QBO, so we might be looking at +EPO/-PNA part of the time. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Natural Gas now down to 2.5 after rising from 2.1 to 2.7. It's price action similar to what it was '96-00. Russia remains colder than average.. through July on LR models. So Apr 2022- July 2023 (15 months): Research shows that the next 12+ months features to even out (warmer than average Russia). So DJF would be a composite of warmer than average Russia at like 0.25-30 correlation (I'll run the map when I have time). 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Here is what I came up with..

https://ibb.co/qpJFFdh

[Quixotic1]

NG isn’t affected by things like war?

[GaWx]

50 minutes ago, Quixotic1 said:

NG isn’t affected by things like war?

 
 It is now more than in the recent past.  But still not all that much and not as much as is the case for crude oil.

 US NG prices were pretty rarely affected much by wars and other geopolitical events/issues back when we were hardly exporting NG. The medium range US wx forecast, especially in the E US in winter and secondarily in summer, was as big a factor as any.

 However, once exports increased significantly, geopolitical factors (especially in Europe due to the demand for NG exports to there being heavily influenced by those factors) started to have a more significant influence on prices on certain days. This was especially the case early in the Russia/Ukraine war.

 But US wx is still a huge factor and a bigger factor than geopolitical on most days. Compared to early in the war, geopolitical has actually lessened its influence on prices overall at least for now.

[raindancewx]

Some of my conceptual stuff is starting to firm up for winter. May as well share.

- December in the Southwest tends to be cold following cold/wet July. We don't have that this year. 

- The ( +ENSO / -PDO ) subtracting out (-ENSO / +PDO) years have a strong signature for a pretty severe cold period in the Fall, likely after mid-October.

- Record upper level moisture (Tonga), with a strong subtropical jet should lead to a very wet winter almost everywhere in the US. But for most places, I don't see many    particularly cold storms if the PDO remains negative, especially with the AMO/Atlantic so warm. 

- There should eventually be decent snow pack though in cold areas, and when storms can pull in those air-masses while vacuuming up all the extra moisture around,      it's not hard to imagine 5-6 explosively powerful storms in Fall and March.

- I'm not expecting major temperature deviations this year for the US in winter. November and March are different. I expect large portions of the US to see top 10 type     wet winters though.

-  I think the QBO is kind of dumb as a factor, but the -QBO El Ninos are interesting (these are yours +5 to +20 starts in January, that were negative by winter)

   1958-59, 1972-73, 1976-77, 1986-87, 1991-92, 2009-10, 2014-15, 2019-20

Super cold Fall does show up with the QBO though. The US is actually pretty cold for once in Nov-Jan, but the cold is more of a Mexico thing for Jan-Mar.

- El Ninos following major (VEI4+ tropical) volcanic eruptions (0-3 years after): 1963, 1965, 1982, 1991, 1994

- Warm AMO / Summer Heat Wave El Ninos / El Nino-ish years: 1951, 1953, 1957, 1994, 2003, 2006, 2015, 2018, 2019

    (Generally, 1930, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1945, 1958, 1963, 1997, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2014 were not bad for heat waves)

- Currently evaluating these years for winter:

1951-52, -1957-58, 1963-64, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1979-80, -1980-81, 1982-83, 1986-87, 1991-92, 1992-93, -1993-94, 1994-95, -1995-96, 1997-98, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2006-07, 2012-13, -2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, -2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20.

[ldub23]

No heat this  winter

 

 

[raindancewx]

Summer highs locally filtered by ENSO third (La/N/El) tend to predict snow totals pretty well locally. I got 15 inches for Albuquerque with a slightly cool June, blazing July, and average August. If that's about right, it'd be a decent season for snow in the NE US. Snow totals are pretty strongly negatively correlated between ABQ and Philly in El Nino.

I saw a video on Youtube where Bastardi said his tentative winter analogs are 1957-58, 1965-66, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2009-10.

I generally think the pool of ~28C ish El Ninos are right. He's at the right strength level with that group. It's just not the PDO/Modoki setup I expect.

 

 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

I'm getting a lot of intuition for an active jet, giving us snowstorm chances in the East, The global jet seems to be right now strong and active. Wild card is if the +PNA or GOA low forms like it's suppose to in El Nino's.. I think -NAO-type pattern can be expected with El Nino/-QBO (could be a EC trough extending south from Greenland when the Pacific becomes favorable., there is a -NAO=ec ridge, +NAO=ec trough pattern in play for the last 10 years, reversing the Pac pattern). 

All these global warming landmarks being hit.. I've been watching the pattern in the Southern Hemisphere and it seems cold periods don't want to last beyond 15-25 days at a time.. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 7/18/2023 at 9:11 PM, raindancewx said:

Summer highs locally filtered by ENSO third (La/N/El) tend to predict snow totals pretty well locally. I got 15 inches for Albuquerque with a slightly cool June, blazing July, and average August. If that's about right, it'd be a decent season for snow in the NE US. Snow totals are pretty strongly negatively correlated between ABQ and Philly in El Nino.

I saw a video on Youtube where Bastardi said his tentative winter analogs are 1957-58, 1965-66, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2009-10.

I generally think the pool of ~28C ish El Ninos are right. He's at the right strength level with that group. It's just not the PDO/Modoki setup I expect.

 

 

 

Totally agree....2002-2003 isn't that far off in terms of modoki from what the Jamstec predicts, but I certainly don't expect that type of PDO.

I like 1994-1995 best from that group, but solar and QBO are off with that year. 2009-2010 is def. modoki and not a good analog, but I consider 1957 and 1965 more basin wide......1965 is pretty good in terms of solar, PDO and QBO, but probably not as good as 1991, which seems best all around. 1957 is off with the QBO and has the same PDO issue, but is decent for solar.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/2/2023 at 11:10 PM, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Just saying, Natural Gas has moved from 2.1 to 2.6, now back to 2.1. 

 

I'm getting preliminary -NAO signals, using my N. Atlantic SST method, and ENSO/QBO, so we might be looking at +EPO/-PNA part of the time. 

How did your NAO formula do last year?

[Stormchaserchuck1]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

How did your NAO formula do last year?

Since inception, it's 13-4 at getting the overall NAO state, and 9-8 within the predicted 0.54 SD accuracy. It's a May-Sept measurement, that I was going to make a post about soon, Last August it really warmed, so I was waiting to post. 

[raindancewx]

My guess is there will be some kind of rebound wave of warmth in the subsurface starting sometime in September / October. There should be a transitional flattening first. The warming wave should last 4-8 weeks, and coincide relatively immediately with a pretty cold period.

Mid-Feb to Apr first saw the incredible period of snow for the West, with the big wave of warmth in the Fall coinciding with a severely cold West November 2022.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

22 hours ago, raindancewx said:

That's a good perspective. If the subsurface defaults back to zero, I would worry about a -PNA this Winter. Everyone will go, "it's strong El Nino 72-73-like", but really the subsurface was just negative that Winter, as with other El Nino events that didn't really work out in the east. 

Or, ill put it this way, if the subsurface goes back to neutral, I would worry about NAO the anti-correlation that has been happening, or a +NAO is correlating with -epo/+pna, and a -NAO is correlating with +EPO/-PNA. The pattern is more W->E, taking the "North anomaly pattern" out recently, if there is no strong ENSO variable. No strong ENSO forcing would keep this stream going. People don't realize that it's not so much about where the ENSO event is based, as the broad central-subsurface indicator, at least in this satellite era.

[Terpeast]

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

That's a good perspective. If the subsurface defaults back to zero, I would worry about a -PNA this Winter. Everyone will go, "it's strong El Nino 72-73-like", but really the subsurface was just negative that Winter, as with other El Nino events that didn't really work out in the east. 

Or, ill put it this way, if the subsurface goes back to neutral, I would worry about NAO the anti-correlation that has been happening, or a +NAO is correlating with -epo/+pna, and a -NAO is correlating with +EPO/-PNA. The pattern is more W->E, taking the "North anomaly pattern" out recently, if there is no strong ENSO variable. No strong ENSO forcing would keep this stream going. People don't realize that it's not so much about where the ENSO event is based, as the broad central-subsurface indicator, at least in this satellite era.

Why do you think the cold subsurface correlates so well with a -PNA?

There’s no forcing mechanism originating from 100-200m under water. 

Maybe it is because of stronger trades (in spite of +enso) creating upwelling in the central pacific, raising the thermocline locally, and this wind field is what actually correlates (or maybe contributes) to -pna?

Curious to hear your thoughts. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Why do you think the cold subsurface correlates so well with a -PNA?

There’s no forcing mechanism originating from 100-200m under water. 

Maybe it is because of stronger trades (in spite of +enso) creating upwelling in the central pacific, raising the thermocline locally, and this wind field is what actually correlates (or maybe contributes) to -pna?

Curious to hear your thoughts. 

It's the gravity wave, Kelvin and Rossby that do all the shaping. They used to have ftp free sites on the CDC where you could make a dataset of anything. I tested all 8+ ENSO variables (OLR, 850mb winds, 200mb winds, SLP, SSTs in different areas, etc, etc. I published the work on easternuswx, that there was a significant correlation difference to the central-subsurface region vs various ENSO measurements in now-time. Now after, I've seen it play out again, in real time. This is a 500mb correlation in the North Pacific. If you want to validate it, just keep it in mind. It's a lot of work to make a custom index, and the best of my knowledge the ftp's on the CDC aren't available anymore. 

[Terpeast]

23 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

It's the gravity wave, Kelvin and Rossby that do all the shaping. They used to have ftp free sites on the CDC where you could make a dataset of anything. I tested all 8+ ENSO variables (OLR, 850mb winds, 200mb winds, SLP, SSTs in different areas, etc, etc. I published the work on easternuswx, that there was a significant correlation difference to the central-subsurface region vs various ENSO measurements in now-time. Now after, I've seen it play out again, in real time. This is a 500mb correlation in the North Pacific. If you want to validate it, just keep it in mind. It's a lot of work to make a custom index, and the best of my knowledge the ftp's on the CDC aren't available anymore. 

Gotcha, thanks. I’m exploring various enso-related indices and like you said, it is a lot of work. With my day job not related to met and raising a kid, I might just go with the MEI for my research/2024 winter outlook and call it a day. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Gotcha, thanks. I’m exploring various enso-related indices and like you said, it is a lot of work. With my day job not related to met and raising a kid, I might just go with the MEI for my research/2024 winter outlook and call it a day. 

I'm just going to hit on the MEI and RONI.....I factor them into my intensity classifications, instead of going strictly on ONI.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

On 7/26/2023 at 9:17 AM, Terpeast said:

Gotcha, thanks. I’m exploring various enso-related indices and like you said, it is a lot of work. With my day job not related to met and raising a kid, I might just go with the MEI for my research/2024 winter outlook and call it a day. 

Yeah it can become pretty time consuming. A lot of Strong El Nino's though were bad because of the negative subsurface waters below Nino 3.4, causing a -PNA in the N. Pacific, vs just being plain out warm as an El Nino. El Nino should realistically not correlate with a NP High, but a NP Low. If you re-analyze the data, giving weight, the subsurface ENSO = N. Pacific looks much better year to year. 

The MEI correlated at 0.80 and Nino 3.4 SST correlated at 0.70 to the Winter N. Pacific pattern. 

[raindancewx]

If the CFS is even halfway right about a wet August here...March should be pretty interesting again. Wet August / Wet October in the Southwest is a very strong storm signal for the following March. Often tied to an MJO impulse in the right spot. Last year had the wettest Aug/Oct combo here in like 20 years, preceding the madness of March. The only comparable period was 2018 in recent years, with March 2019 somewhat similar to last March.

8/1-->9/15-->10/31-->12/15-->2/1-->3/15 is your typical MJO timing cycle 

8/15-->9/30-->11/15-->12/31-->2/15->3/31 is often a bit off

8/31-->10/15-->11/30-->1/15-->3/1 also usually a bit off

Here is what I found a long time ago in El Nino looking at solar activity and March snowfall. This is observable in many high elevation Western cities. The correlation isn't super strong, but we have an outside shot at finishing around 175-225 sunspots per month for July 2023-June 2024.

Recent El Ninos like 2018-19, 2019-20 were both near 0 sunspots, when you'd expect only an inch or so of snow. ABQ is something like 1/36 for low-solar heavy snow in March v. 18/56 in high-solar years. "Heavy" here means 3"+ in March. Guess what year the 13.9" March is in?

[griteater]

  

On 8/4/2023 at 10:40 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The largest wildcard for me this season is the impact of the volcano on the PV....I suspect that we will be fine unless we get #pinatuboed.

Some thoughts on this...

 

Pinatubo (Jun 1991) injected a heavy dose of aerosols into the stratosphere..."Strong explosive volcanic eruptions, like ones of the Mt. Pinatubo in Philippines in June 1991, inject millions of tons of sulfur dioxide gas at the altitudes of about 15 miles where it interacts with water vapor producing a volcanic aerosol layer that consists of tiny droplets of highly concentrated sulfuric acid."

"...when aerosols get into the stratosphere, very rapid reactions that destroy ozone (especially in high latitudes) take place on the surfaces of aerosol particles. When ozone gets depleted, less UV radiation is absorbed in the stratosphere. This cools the polar stratosphere and increases the stratospheric equator-to-pole temperature difference, creating a positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation."  Source: NASA - Top Story - THE 1991 MT. PINATUBO ERUPTION PROVIDES A NATURAL TEST FOR THE INFLUENCE OF ARCTIC CIRCULATION ON CLIMATE - Mar. 12, 2003

 

Hunga Tonga (Jan 2022) on the other hand ended up injecting a heavy dose of water vapor into the stratosphere..."With this data, Vömel and his colleagues gave a ‘conservative estimate’ that Hunga Tonga injected at least 50 million tonnes of water into the stratosphere. This represents an increase of 5% in the stratosphere’s total water content. The unprecedented water content of the Hunga Tonga plume has a number of implications. The first is that it could explain another observation made by scientists tracking the event: the seemingly low sulfur dioxide content. 'In the eruption column directly over the volcano, the entire stratosphere was probably saturated,’ says Vömel. ‘So you have a lot of ice particles in there and they can certainly wash out a lot of SO2. So there’s another very, very interesting research topic: what happened – was there not a lot of SO2 coming out of the volcano, or was there a lot and it was all washed out?’  Source: One year on from massive eruption in South Pacific, the atmosphere is still feeling the effects | News | Chemistry World

 

Here is a loop I put together showing the increasing water vapor anomalies in the stratosphere from Dec 2021 to Jun 2023 following the Hunga Tonga eruption.  Source: NOAA CSL: Chemistry & Climate Processes: SWOOSH.  1mb to 100mb on the left covers the upper to lower stratosphere, with latitude at the bottom (southern hemisphere to the left / northern hemisphere to the right)

 

Looking at the individual image for June 2023, I've added a black box for the Northern Hemisphere polar cap (60 deg North to the North Pole).  Here we can see enhanced water vapor anomalies extending thru much of the stratosphere, though weaker anomalies in the lower stratosphere.  From what I've read, it's probably going to take a few <or> some years for this anomalous water vapor to subside.  And from Dr. Jennifer Francis (Twitter): "Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and like CO2, when it’s in the troposphere it warms the surface, but in the stratosphere, it radiates infrared energy to space."...i.e., this would favor cooling in the stratosphere in the coming winter.  Does this mean a cold and strong stratospheric polar vortex and coupled +AO pattern?  Possibly.

 

However, here are a couple of things that may counter-balance...

As mentioned before, -NAO is more common during Strong El Ninos than any other ENSO phase...

 

Also, it's highly likely that we will be entrenched in a -QBO this winter...

Here in this set of images we can see that the negative phase of the QBO is descending (i.e., moving from the upper and mid-stratosphere to the lower stratosphere), and has reached close to 40mb; and should continue its decent down thru the stratosphere over the next few months.

 

 

And during El Ninos, Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSW) have occurred in 8/10 cases (80%) when the QBO was negative in winter (40mb on Jan 1).  And in the 8 cases where an SSW occurred during Nino and -QBO, the combined AO/NAO index was negative 6/8 cases (75%).

 

 

In contrast, when the QBO was positive in winter during El Ninos, SSWs have occurred in only 6/13 cases (46%).  And in the 6 cases where an SSW occurred during El Nino and +QBO, the combined AO/NAO index was negative in only 2/6 cases (33%).

[Itryatgolf70]

5 hours ago, griteater said:

  

Some thoughts on this...

 

Pinatubo (Jun 1991) injected a heavy dose of aerosols into the stratosphere..."Strong explosive volcanic eruptions, like ones of the Mt. Pinatubo in Philippines in June 1991, inject millions of tons of sulfur dioxide gas at the altitudes of about 15 miles where it interacts with water vapor producing a volcanic aerosol layer that consists of tiny droplets of highly concentrated sulfuric acid."

"...when aerosols get into the stratosphere, very rapid reactions that destroy ozone (especially in high latitudes) take place on the surfaces of aerosol particles. When ozone gets depleted, less UV radiation is absorbed in the stratosphere. This cools the polar stratosphere and increases the stratospheric equator-to-pole temperature difference, creating a positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation."  Source: NASA - Top Story - THE 1991 MT. PINATUBO ERUPTION PROVIDES A NATURAL TEST FOR THE INFLUENCE OF ARCTIC CIRCULATION ON CLIMATE - Mar. 12, 2003

 

Hunga Tonga (Jan 2022) on the other hand ended up injecting a heavy dose of water vapor into the stratosphere..."With this data, Vömel and his colleagues gave a ‘conservative estimate’ that Hunga Tonga injected at least 50 million tonnes of water into the stratosphere. This represents an increase of 5% in the stratosphere’s total water content. The unprecedented water content of the Hunga Tonga plume has a number of implications. The first is that it could explain another observation made by scientists tracking the event: the seemingly low sulfur dioxide content. 'In the eruption column directly over the volcano, the entire stratosphere was probably saturated,’ says Vömel. ‘So you have a lot of ice particles in there and they can certainly wash out a lot of SO2. So there’s another very, very interesting research topic: what happened – was there not a lot of SO2 coming out of the volcano, or was there a lot and it was all washed out?’  Source: One year on from massive eruption in South Pacific, the atmosphere is still feeling the effects | News | Chemistry World

 

Here is a loop I put together showing the increasing water vapor anomalies in the stratosphere from Dec 2021 to Jun 2023 following the Hunga Tonga eruption.  Source: NOAA CSL: Chemistry & Climate Processes: SWOOSH.  1mb to 100mb on the left covers the upper to lower stratosphere, with latitude at the bottom (southern hemisphere to the left / northern hemisphere to the right)

 

Looking at the individual image for June 2023, I've added a black box for the Northern Hemisphere polar cap (60 deg North to the North Pole).  Here we can see enhanced water vapor anomalies extending thru much of the stratosphere, though weaker anomalies in the lower stratosphere.  From what I've read, it's probably going to take a few <or> some years for this anomalous water vapor to subside.  And from Dr. Jennifer Francis (Twitter): "Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and like CO2, when it’s in the troposphere it warms the surface, but in the stratosphere, it radiates infrared energy to space."...i.e., this would favor cooling in the stratosphere in the coming winter.  Does this mean a cold and strong stratospheric polar vortex and coupled +AO pattern?  Possibly.

 

However, here are a couple of things that may counter-balance...

As mentioned before, -NAO is more common during Strong El Ninos than any other ENSO phase...

 

Also, it's highly likely that we will be entrenched in a -QBO this winter...

Here in this set of images we can see that the negative phase of the QBO is descending (i.e., moving from the upper and mid-stratosphere to the lower stratosphere), and has reached close to 40mb; and should continue its decent down thru the stratosphere over the next few months.

 

 

And during El Ninos, Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSW) have occurred in 8/10 cases (80%) when the QBO was negative in winter (40mb on Jan 1).  And in the 8 cases where an SSW occurred during Nino and -QBO, the combined AO/NAO index was negative 6/8 cases (75%).

 

 

In contrast, when the QBO was positive in winter during El Ninos, SSWs have occurred in only 6/13 cases (46%).  And in the 6 cases where an SSW occurred during El Nino and +QBO, the combined AO/NAO index was negative in only 2/6 cases (33%).

Hello Griteater. If the tropical forcing is further west this winter, would that increase the chances of a colder winter, despite the strength of the niño?

[griteater]

1 hour ago, Itryatgolf70 said:

Hello Griteater. If the tropical forcing is further west this winter, would that increase the chances of a colder winter, despite the strength of the niño?

I'm thinking this ends up as a Strong Nino instead of Super.  Not buying the stronger models, but we'll see, I could be wrong.  But yeah, if the low frequency Nino Walker Cell uplift is further west towards the Dateline, that would increase chances for a better Pac pattern and -AO/-NAO. 

By default though we are fighting multiple things that want to lean warm:

1) Affects from Hunga Tonga volcano

2) Affects from reduction of sulphur in shipping fuels - see thread (1) Leon Simons on Twitter: "For decades this area has been kept relatively cool by sulfur emissions from ships. But this changed in 2020. https://t.co/DFD39uyVJ3" / X / 

3) Just general ongoing, background climate warming

 

[Itryatgolf70]

50 minutes ago, griteater said:

I'm thinking this ends up as a Strong Nino instead of Super.  Not buying the stronger models, but we'll see, I could be wrong.  But yeah, if the low frequency Nino Walker Cell uplift is further west towards the Dateline, that would increase chances for a better Pac pattern and -AO/-NAO. 

By default though we are fighting multiple things that want to lean warm:

1) Affects from Hunga Tonga volcano

2) Affects from reduction of sulphur in shipping fuels - see thread (1) Leon Simons on Twitter: "For decades this area has been kept relatively cool by sulfur emissions from ships. But this changed in 2020. https://t.co/DFD39uyVJ3" / X / 

3) Just general ongoing, background climate warming

 

One more thing, I'm assuming it's too early to tell where the tropical forcing may set up and it's not determined by the base, which I mean the most warming is east based currently? Thanks in advance 

[Maestrobjwa]

Layman interjection: Goodness gracious this is a messy and complicated equation...do any of you remember a time when you had so much unknown? So the water vapor favors cooling in the stratosphere, yet the QBO, -NAO could counteract that...yeah my brain is fried, lol But thanks for the write-up @griteater! Now back to lurking (perhaps)...

[griteater]

2 hours ago, Itryatgolf70 said:

One more thing, I'm assuming it's too early to tell where the tropical forcing may set up and it's not determined by the base, which I mean the most warming is east based currently? Thanks in advance 

Here is a comparison for Jun 3 to Aug 3 in 2015 (Basin Wide Super Nino) vs. this year where you can see that the low frequency Walker Cell uplift region (-VP in blue and purple) has been slow to move east so far this year and is still reaching back into the Maritime Continent in spite of the El Nino SSTs being east-based.  So, we'll have to see how that trends going thru the fall

[snowman19]

1 hour ago, griteater said:

Here is a comparison for Jun 3 to Aug 3 in 2015 (Basin Wide Super Nino) vs. this year where you can see that the low frequency Walker Cell uplift region (-VP in blue and purple) has been slow to move east so far this year and is still reaching back into the Maritime Continent in spite of the El Nino SSTs being east-based.  So, we'll have to see how that trends going thru the fall

IMO once the +IOD really gets going, the WPAC forcing and SST configuration is going to look way different than it does right now 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 hour ago, griteater said:

Here is a comparison for Jun 3 to Aug 3 in 2015 (Basin Wide Super Nino) vs. this year where you can see that the low frequency Walker Cell uplift region (-VP in blue and purple) has been slow to move east so far this year and is still reaching back into the Maritime Continent in spite of the El Nino SSTs being east-based.  So, we'll have to see how that trends going thru the fall

Try correlating that atmospheric layer to something like the PNA or North American pattern.. you'll find it's pretty useless as an indicator. Nino 3.4 SSTs have a higher correlation to the pattern.  I made a time series a while ago of ENSO variables, and those 3 sigma levels ranked pretty low. Nino 3.4 and 3 SSTs are better.