2024-2025 La Nina

[so_whats_happening]

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yep....1994 and 2006 weren't too dissimilar, either.

I really wish I could post pictures right now to show these years comparatively to 2023-24. Also I believe you meant 2006-07 season.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

I really wish I could post pictures right now to show these years comparatively to 2023-24. Also I believe you meant 2006-07 season.

Yes....1994-1995 and 2006-2007. Two other negative(ish) PDO seasons, but the warmer west PAC last year made the MC influence even more dramatic, not to mention a warm global base state.

[so_whats_happening]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Look at all of the other super El Niños......you had the strong west-east dipole across the Pacific in terms of SSTs and pressure, which produced much stronger WWBs. That whole system was much less pronounced last year, which is reflective of a more moderate event.

1972-73 had very strong WWBs per 850mb wind zonal anomaly. I think location of these WWBs is the most important factor in cooling the west pacific. The intensity certainly plays a role but placement is probably the bigger factor. 2024 had WWB anomalies much further east than 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1997-98, 2015-16. Allowing these years to cool down in the WPAC comparatively where 2015-16 was the odd ball because of just how warm the ONI got in comparison.

For SLP comparison yea 2024 was a bit lackluster in that department compared to these years that was probably a solid result of the lack of cooling in the WPAC.

As for the 1994-95 and 06-07 comparison, yea I guess you could make the claim they were in a similar-ish PDO state RONI would have had 1994 right at ONI values of 1.1 and 06-07 actually sitting at around .5-.6 (barely ENSO weak status) so im not sure these years can be compared in that sense.

Look I get where you are coming from in stating that this was not your traditional Super El Nino but this was not your typical moderate El Nino either. Strong is probably the most befitting and atmospherically it was pretty darn close to strong status.

Again wish I could post pics of all this, I did contact stormtracker to see what is up with that.

[40/70 Benchmark]

20 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

1972-73 had very strong WWBs per 850mb wind zonal anomaly. I think location of these WWBs is the most important factor in cooling the west pacific. The intensity certainly plays a role but placement is probably the bigger factor. 2024 had WWB anomalies much further east than 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1997-98, 2015-16. Allowing these years to cool down in the WPAC comparatively where 2015-16 was the odd ball because of just how warm the ONI got in comparison.

For SLP comparison yea 2024 was a bit lackluster in that department compared to these years that was probably a solid result of the lack of cooling in the WPAC.

As for the 1994-95 and 06-07 comparison, yea I guess you could make the claim they were in a similar-ish PDO state RONI would have had 1994 right at ONI values of 1.1 and 06-07 actually sitting at around .5-.6 (barely ENSO weak status) so im not sure these years can be compared in that sense.

Look I get where you are coming from in stating that this was not your traditional Super El Nino but this was not your typical moderate El Nino either. Strong is probably the most befitting and atmospherically it was pretty darn close to strong status.

Again wish I could post pics of all this, I did contact stormtracker to see what is up with that.

No, I agree with this....I think the MEI was a bit wonky and not reflective at 1.1 or 1.2....I think the RONI peaked at around 1.5 and the was a good proxy for ENSO intensity IMO.

[so_whats_happening]

15 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No, I agree with this....I think the MEI was a bit wonky and not reflective at 1.1 or 1.2....I think the RONI peaked at around 1.5 and the was a good proxy for ENSO intensity IMO.

If you look at just surface temp anomalies you would undoubtedly presume this was a super event it matched almost perfect. So it had flairs of super within a strong Nino state atmospherically. Again I need to say this I don't dismiss RONI for what it is but I do not find it reflective what the atmospheric state shows via RONI. Until we start to see that I still have to go with ONI as the base stat in these situations.

This is why I believe it may end up being more useful in these weak and neutral events to help determine that atmospheric mode, but we will get to that in time and see how it handles in the upcoming years.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

If you look at just surface temp anomalies you would undoubtedly presume this was a super event it matched almost perfect. So it had flairs of super within a strong Nino state atmospherically. Again I need to say this I don't dismiss RONI for what it is but I do not find it reflective what the atmospheric state shows via RONI. Until we start to see that I still have to go with ONI as the base stat in these situations.

This is why I believe it may end up being more useful in these weak and neutral events to help determine that atmospheric mode, but we will get to that in time and see how it handles in the upcoming years.

We can agree that it has some utility, but exactly what that is and how great it is remains to be determined. I am sure not all of us will see eye to eye with respect to a frontier concept within a frontier science.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

-4c pocket in the central-ENSO subsurface holding.. don't underestimate the global warming skew around now. It's been a more stable global pattern for 10+ years now, and I think in future years/decades we will rarely seeing a Strong La Nina event, per classic standards. I would have been surprised if we had a major cold water event happen with all the record +AMO and record N. Pacific warm pool, and it doesn't seem to fit the puzzle of Solar too.  I contest that the effects could still be of a Moderate La Nina if the subsurface sustains -4c to -5c anomalies in the coming time.. that correlation to the global pattern happens at 0-time. 

If I had to guess I would say La Nina doesn't sustain after this year. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

5 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

-4c pocket in the central-ENSO subsurface holding.. don't underestimate the global warming skew around now. It's been a more stable global pattern for 10+ years now, and I think in future years/decades we will rarely seeing a Strong La Nina event, per classic standards. I would have been surprised if we had a major cold water event happen with all the record +AMO and record N. Pacific warm pool, and it doesn't seem to fit the puzzle of Solar too.  I contest that the effects could still be of a Moderate La Nina if the subsurface sustains -4c to -5c anomalies in the coming time.. that correlation to the global pattern happens at 0-time. 

If I had to guess I would say La Nina doesn't sustain after this year. 

If the la nina doesn't sustain after this year, I'm pretty sure a pattern change is under way and we flip to +PDO by the next el nino. That said, do you think we go straight to el nino, or do we get a year or two of ENSO neutral first?

[bluewave]

9 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

It is a damn shame we can't see back to 1972-73 and 1965-66 for RMM plots. These years had similar patterns of SST anomaly and PDO state (although these years managed to get the PDO to near neutral in winter but were surrounded by a largely negative state). This was the last time we experienced such events coinciding.

I would post these 500mb patterns but I cant seem to do more than 98kb, gotta figure this one out.

 

We can use the ESRL data as a proxy for the RMM plots. This year had the most convection for such a strong El Niño in the WPAC with the warmest SSTs in that region. It resulted in much stronger forcing in the WPAC than usual for such a strong El Niño. Also notice how much stronger the Aleutian ridge was than in the other El Niños. The heights were also higher than average over Mexico. So this was more of a hybrid ENSO event made up of a borderline super El Niño and Niña-Like -PDO and MJO forcing. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

35 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We can use the ESRL data as a proxy for the RMM plots. This year had the most convection for such a strong El Niño in the WPAC with the warmest SSTs in that region. It resulted in much stronger forcing in the WPAC than usual for such a strong El Niño. Also notice how much stronger the Aleutian ridge was than in the other El Niños. The heights were also higher than average over Mexico. So this was more of a hybrid ENSO event made up of a borderline super El Niño and Niña-Like -PDO and MJO forcing. 

Exactly. Thank you. I was busy with Beryl last night, but this perfectly illustrates the point. 

Total agreement with you here.

[GaWx]

June QBO +1.95 (30 mb)

[Stormchaserchuck1]

6 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

If the la nina doesn't sustain after this year, I'm pretty sure a pattern change is under way and we flip to +PDO by the next el nino. That said, do you think we go straight to el nino, or do we get a year or two of ENSO neutral first?

The highest correlation to El Nino happens +3-5 year after a Strong El Nino. 4/23 of those years were La Nina, 10/23 of those years were El Nino. Next year will be Year 2. I don't know that we go right back to El Nino, but it could stay Neutral. Believe it or not, we have only had 7 Neutral ENSO years since 1994. 23/30 (77%) have been either El Nino or La Nina. If this year is La Nina, that will make 9/11 El Nino or La Nina ENSO events since 2014 (82%), and only 2/11 Neutral.  

I think what we are seeing with this La Nina is the anomaly since the 1940s of the snap-back after a Strong El Nino. That coupled with near record -PDO levels, which enhances La Nina tendency. And maybe some final lag from the Solar Min. It was interesting to see the La Nina forecast/projection go from Moderate-Strong to Weak just about when those Solar flares hit in May. 

The -PDO is so entrenched now, it may take 10 years to switch the long term phase back to positive, since you have to change it all the way to the subsurface. But I do agree, that we should start heading in that direction. Previous PDO cycles didn't last much longer than this, we are on Year 26. I think we should also be due for some tendency back to El Nino, since 14-8 ENSO events since 1999 have been La Nina's. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

While the highest correlation to el nino may happen 3-5 years after a strong el nino, it is interesting to note that the 1997-98 and 2015-16 super el ninos happened in Year 6 following a strong el nino. I'm looking at you 2029-30 (just kidding).

I count at most 6 years that could be ENSO neutral since 1994. For sure, 1996-97, 2001-02, 2003-04, 2012-13, and 2013-14 are ENSO neutral. 2019-20 would be the sixth (though you could make a case for a weak el nino). I don't see a 7th, although 2014-15 would be the closest (depends what you consider the cutoff for the season, and whether the ramp up to the strong event counts). I think all seasons since 2015-16 are a clear el nino or la nina, with the exception of the aforementioned 2019-20.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

9 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

While the highest correlation to el nino may happen 3-5 years after a strong el nino, it is interesting to note that the 1997-98 and 2015-16 super el ninos happened in Year 6 following a strong el nino. I'm looking at you 2029-30 (just kidding).

I count at most 6 years that could be ENSO neutral since 1994. For sure, 1996-97, 2001-02, 2003-04, 2012-13, and 2013-14 are ENSO neutral. 2019-20 would be the sixth (though you could make a case for a weak el nino). I don't see a 7th, although 2014-15 would be the closest (depends what you consider the cutoff for the season, and whether the ramp up to the strong event counts). I think all seasons since 2015-16 are a clear el nino or la nina, with the exception of the aforementioned 2019-20.

You're right.. I missed 2016 because it didn't carry over into January. And 19-20 hit 0.5 for 4 months, the qualification should be 3. So you can really make a case for 11/11 of the most recent years being El Nino or La Nina.. makes me really doubt a call of ENSO Neutral next year, although I think you are right about the longer term trend starting to gravitate more toward El Nino/+PDO.. that makes me think not La Nina. If we stay La Nina next year, -PDO I think would remain for several more years. If we go El Nino next year, it's a head start back toward the + phase, which I think we should be due for soon. Big year with regards to global tendency direction. 

[raindancewx]

CPC still has ONI / RONI in non-La Nina status for Apr-June by the way. Not sure even on the RONI scale we'll be there in May-July. For June CPC still has +0.16C for Nino 3.4 on the ONI basis.

One thing I dislike about RONI is if we have a particularly active hurricane season, the tropical oceans would likely cool right? That would screw up the sliding scale nature of the baseline, which makes it unreliable.

Beryl is forecast to be around in some capacity through Sunday. Every day with at least 100 kt sustained winds adds at least 4 ACE. We have a shot at nearing 40 ACE by Monday morning in the Atlantic - definitely a bit nuts.

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

CPC still has ONI / RONI in non-La Nina status for Apr-June by the way. Not sure even on the RONI scale we'll be there in May-July. For June CPC still has +0.16C for Nino 3.4 on the ONI basis.

One thing I dislike about RONI is if we have a particularly active hurricane season, the tropical oceans would likely cool right? That would screw up the sliding scale nature of the baseline, which makes it unreliable.

Beryl is forecast to be around in some capacity through Sunday. Every day with at least 100 kt sustained winds adds at least 4 ACE. We have a shot at nearing 40 ACE by Monday morning in the Atlantic - definitely a bit nuts.

Further to the above for AMJ:

-ONI +0.39

-RONI -0.22

-So, AMJ’s ONI-RONI=+0.61

-MAM’s ONI-RONI was +0.64

-FMA’s ONI-RONI was +0.66 (record high)

-JFM’s ONI-RONI was +0.63

[so_whats_happening]

16 hours ago, bluewave said:

We can use the ESRL data as a proxy for the RMM plots. This year had the most convection for such a strong El Niño in the WPAC with the warmest SSTs in that region. It resulted in much stronger forcing in the WPAC than usual for such a strong El Niño. Also notice how much stronger the Aleutian ridge was than in the other El Niños. The heights were also higher than average over Mexico. So this was more of a hybrid ENSO event made up of a borderline super El Niño and Niña-Like -PDO and MJO forcing. 

Thanks finally figured out I had to go through some massive amounts of attachments over the years should be good for a little now.

Honestly the biggest misalignment Im seeing is the lack of properly placed 850mb. This would have allowed convection further east, VP also to be further east, cooling into the west pac, actual typhoon action in the WPAC, and overall a much more proper 500mb pattern closer to those years. But yes hybrid is probably the best way to describe it.

Looking at strictly years with similar SST and -PDO patterns you can even see we were way off. Also looking at past years with strong western leaning forcing still showed we were way off. Im actually kind of amazed we were even able to get a proper +IOD with such misplaced VP. Guess the only way to see if this continues or was a just a fluke incident is to look toward next +ENSO event.

 

[so_whats_happening]

Latest update Ill stop adding in May after this one. You can see the surface region cool again properly with the latest easterly trades. We should start to have the early June look again around mid month from there it just depends on how things keep going.

[snowman19]

5 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Latest update Ill stop adding in May after this one. You can see the surface region cool again properly with the latest easterly trades. We should start to have the early June look again around mid month from there it just depends on how things keep going.

This is going to be quite the EWB 

[snowman19]

21 hours ago, GaWx said:

June QBO +1.95 (30 mb)

Looking like it may be a rather healthy +QBO event coming up

[bluewave]

First time that both May and June had monthly -PDO readings under -3.00. So it appears that the -PDO is delivering a very strong Niña-like atmospheric response. Notice how the VP anomalies are similar to what we would see during a very robust La Niña in July. This means the actual La Niña SST values east of the Dateline may not matter as much as long as this -PDO continues at record low values. The record SST warmth east of Japan and in the MJO 4-7 regions are carrying the La Niña signal even though the official La Niña regions east of the Dateline are slower to cool after such a strong El Niño. 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

 

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

First time that both May and June had monthly -PDO readings under -3.00. So it appears that the -PDO is delivering a very strong Niña-like atmospheric response. Notice how the VP anomalies are similar to what we would see during a very robust La Niña in July. This means the actual La Niña SST values east of the Dateline may not matter as much as long as this -PDO continues at record low values. The record SST warmth east of Japan and in the MJO 4-7 regions are carrying the La Niña signal even though the official La Niña regions east of the Dateline are slower to cool after such a strong El Niño. 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

 

The question becomes if the ONI stays weakish and the warmth in Enso 4 persists thru fall into winter while holding on to a Niña atmosphere, what will that mean for winter in the east? I don't know, but if the juice out west in the equatorial Pac holds, it has got to be better news than a traditional Modoki mod-strong Nina imh wag.

[snowman19]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

The question becomes if the ONI stays weakish and the warmth in Enso 4 persists thru fall into winter while holding on to a Niña atmosphere, what will that mean for winter in the east? I don't know, but if the juice out west in the equatorial Pac holds, it has got to be better news than a traditional Modoki mod-strong Nina imh wag.

ENSO 4 was very warm last winter and the Niña like forcing stayed the same in MJO 4-5-6. Nothing has changed in that respect, the main tropical convective forcing has been the same for years now regardless of La Niña or El Niño 

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

ENSO 4 was very warm last winter and the Niña like forcing stayed the same in MJO 4-5-6. Nothing has changed in that respect, the main tropical convective forcing has been the same for years now regardless of La Niña or El Niño 

Well, I'm not so sure about your MJO 4-6 prediction. It's been stuck in the COD for a long stretch and the more reliable modeling has it visiting 4-6 briefly before hibernating back into the COD. It's early, I know, but this has been an uncharacteristically long stretch in the COD with more time in it to come, so nothing's locked in yet imho.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

First time that both May and June had monthly -PDO readings under -3.00. So it appears that the -PDO is delivering a very strong Niña-like atmospheric response. Notice how the VP anomalies are similar to what we would see during a very robust La Niña in July. This means the actual La Niña SST values east of the Dateline may not matter as much as long as this -PDO continues at record low values. The record SST warmth east of Japan and in the MJO 4-7 regions are carrying the La Niña signal even though the official La Niña regions east of the Dateline are slower to cool after such a strong El Niño. 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

 

Yea, no question...this has been my baseline assumption heading into the season.

[snowman19]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, no question...this has been my baseline assumption heading into the season.

Until we have a legit wholesale, major shift in the Pacific, I don’t see anything drastically changing, it’s been semipermanent, stagnant status quo for awhile now, regardless of the ENSO events, they have made no difference. The background state has not changed at all. We saw a very good illustration of that last winter. The background state has to change big time and until that happens, it’s just more of the same. Same story with the Atlantic (++AMO)

[snowman19]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Well, I'm not so sure about your MJO 4-6 prediction. It's been stuck in the COD for a long stretch and the more reliable modeling has it visiting 4-6 briefly before hibernating back into the COD. It's early, I know, but this has been an uncharacteristically long stretch in the COD with more time in it to come, so nothing's locked in yet imho.

Look at the actual VP anomalies in the map @bluewave just posted, the forcing is in the exact same area it’s been in for years and if anything, it’s gotten even stronger over the last month. Classic La Niña VP/forcing. Nothing has changed. The MJO Wheeler plots are very noisy and very often inaccurate and do not represent what is actually going on with the forcing

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

Until we have a legit wholesale, major shift in the Pacific, I don’t see anything drastically changing, it’s been semipermanent, stagnant status quo for awhile now, regardless of the ENSO events, they have made no difference. The background state has not changed at all. We saw a very good illustration of that last winter. The background state has to change big time and until that happens, it’s just more of the same. Same story with the Atlantic (++AMO)

Yea, we don't necessarily need wholesale changes to get a better sensible weather result in terms of winter in the east. However, especially from around mid SNE and up....just a break here and there and snowfall would have been much better recently.

[George001]

If the recent guidance is correct, this will be the 2nd most favorable ENSO configuration we’ve had since 2017-2018 (best was 2018-2019, that winter failed for non ENSO related reasons). There are reasons to believe things will be much more favorable than the last 2 years where we had a modoki moderate Nina and then basinwide borderline super nino. The IRI blend had a peak of roughly -0.65 in NDJ, and guidance has trended towards a basin wide event that is leaning east if anything. 

 

 

 

 

[mitchnick]

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Look at the actual VP anomalies in the map @bluewave just posted, the forcing is in the exact same area it’s been in for years and if anything, it’s gotten even stronger over the last month. Classic La Niña VP/forcing. Nothing has changed. The MJO Wheeler plots are very noisy and very often inaccurate and do not represent what is actually going on with the forcing

Saying the Wheeler plots are noisy (which means something different to everyone) doesn't mean the MJO hasn't been stuck in the COD, because it has. Nothing to dispute there. Bluewave's map is a day 7 forecast that may or may not be right, and NOT actual VP anomalies. That said, to me, there's a bit of a disconnect between VP anomalies and the lack of an active MJO/-PDO as I would have thought we would be seeing action in 4-6 on RMM plots. Maybe that'll change, but it makes me wonder if something else is going on.