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Atlantic Tropical Action 2011


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Everyone sweats the ENSO, but 2004 was a warm ENSO, and it was an epic season for Florida.

A weak ENSO either way seems preferable to a strong warm or cold, as far as Florida and Josh chasing goes.

Any class of Niña trumps any class of Niños on average for numbers and chase opportunities. There are exceptions, on both sides, where weak means that other things might take control, but I'd take my chances on a Niña rather than El Niño.

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Climatologically, the odds of an El Niño forming this year are very low. Since 1950, the only year that began with strong La Niña and ended with any El Niño was 1976. To add, that was the third consecutive winter of that La Niña episode, and the subsurface temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific were already much warmer by this point in 1976.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The ENSO prediction models are pretty spread out right now, which is to be expected in February. However, the average of all the models is for ENSO to return to neutral conditions by summer, with a leveling off at -0.1 through fall. The dynamical model average is slightly cooler than the statistical model average for the fall time range.

SST_table.gif

These facts are interesting for two reasons: Since 2003, the February average of these models has always been too slow in weakening an ENSO event (both warm and cold). Moreover, if there is any divergence between the dynamical and statistical model suites in the 6+ month range, the dynamical suite has always verified better.

If these statistics hold up, this La Niña will be dead by June, but there may be some ENSO re-cooling as the season progresses.

Here is the link for archived ENSO model forecasts:

http://iri.columbia....hive/index.html

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I'm actually concerned we might see a Nino by summer. The MJO keeps heading back towards P8, creating westerlies near the dateline, which is how you start a Nino event. I don't claim any skill in forecasting ENSO, but there are a lot more Nino signs than there were 2-3 mos ago.

That's an interesting observation. Moving from a strong El Niño to a strong La Niña back to an El Niño in just 3 years would be unprecedented since 1950 (I'm not sure if that happened before then or not). In fact, the only single-winter La Niñas that were immediately replaced by an El Niño were 1964-65, 2006-07, and 2008-09, all of which were weak during the winter. And as I posted earlier, the only strong winter La Niña that was immediately replaced by an El Niño was 1975-76, and that event was 3 years old.

Then again, we've seen climatology bust before, so who knows. The MJO behavior will certainly be worth watching over the next few months. But I think the aforementioned data is noteworthy enough to be skeptical of an El Niño this year.

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LC goes from bearish last season to bullish this season:

While the storm off of the coast of Nova Scotia is indeed impressive, what grabs your attention is the proliferation of heavy thunderstorms across most of South America. The ever-active ITCZ is a sign of an impending upturn in the tropical cyclone period in the Atlantic Basin. Unlike the 2010 hurricane season, which has many weak systems and no real threats to the U.S., I suspect that a rather early, intense, and active tropical cyclone period is in store for the major islands and continental coastal points, starting in June. In the meantime, Brazil will be and the Orinoco River watershed the focal point of tremendous rains and severe weather.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: WEATHERAmerica Newsletter, Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 7:00 P.M. CT - Houston Weather | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-houston/weatheramerica-newsletter-saturday-february-19-2011-at-7-00-p-m-ct#ixzz1EVRcQHhd

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I'm actually concerned we might see a Nino by summer. The MJO keeps heading back towards P8, creating westerlies near the dateline, which is how you start a Nino event. I don't claim any skill in forecasting ENSO, but there are a lot more Nino signs than there were 2-3 mos ago.

Always gotta sweat the Nino, but after this westerly event, the GFS and ECMWF show a pretty good easterly surge behind a developing cyclone pair over the south and northwest Pacific. It's going to take quite a few of these westerly events, but it is worth watching. Nino is probably a 10% or less chance, but neutral is picking up for sure...

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I agree. I would still forecast cool neutral with a gun to my head.

Agree. The thing is what will the trend be in summer, cooling for a second winter time Niña, warming to cross the 0 threshold or steady neutral? My take is on the former now, mostly based on stats and the resilience/persistence of the pattern... if by late May you don't see clear signs of an El Niño (WWBs/KWs), I would strike out that option.

OTOH, you can't deny the clear upward trend in all ENSO regions, including subsurface, so it wouldn't take that much of a change to flip the table.

tlon_heat.gif

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The NHC has posted the official 2010 season map. It has a variety of small changes from the preliminary track map posted in November.

Overall, it definitely has a 1995 look to it-- with all those recurves in the C Atlantic-- but what makes 2010 distinct (and different from other fish seasons) is the secondary cluster of heavy activity in the extreme-SW corners of the basin-- so heavy that an inset was needed to reveal all of the intricacies.

Other interesting things:

* Earl regained hurricane intensity way up in the N Atlantic, prior to landfall in Nova Scotia (due most likely to its impending extratropical transition).

* Canada had two hurricane landfalls in one season. (Has that ever happened before? Jorge?)

* Richard kept hurricane intensity well into Guatemala-- despite being quite small and not very fast-moving.

* Except for Karl's brief intensity burst over the Bay of Campeche, no major hurricanes made it W of 75W. (OK, Earl got to 75.1W-- but you know what I mean. :D)

post-19-0-03092300-1298632813.png

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How can anyone claim it weren't a busy season when you have that sort of map is beyond me..it was a quiet US season for sure, but overall there was enough to keep most interested once we got past Mid August and arrived at the peak...

As for the 2011 season I would like to see how the ENSO develops in the next few months obviously but I suspect even if we were to go into a slight El nino the effects won't be too major and the sustained -Ve NAO back in Dec/Jan has helped to keep the waters at a decent level, though obviously now a more +ve NAO is dominant a slow steady cooling of the basin will happen IMO.

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* Canada had two hurricane landfalls in one season. (Has that ever happened before? Jorge?)

post-19-0-03092300-1298632813.png

1893 was close, storm #3 hit as a transitioning storm with hurricane winds, not sure if it was already extratropical by the time it hit (wikipedia says it was a non-tropical cat 1 :arrowhead:)

1940 had a TS and a hurricane hits

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In other news, I'm seeing some early trends that suggest a rather robust Bermuda Ridge and just perhaps a less fishy season if this verifies...

Interesting, but I'd like to see those positive slp anomalies extend further west! As it is in that forecast map, you still have negative anomalies near 50W, so we'd probably still have to deal with the recurvature issue.

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Interesting, but I'd like to see those positive slp anomalies extend further west! As it is in that forecast map, you still have negative anomalies near 50W, so we'd probably still have to deal with the recurvature issue.

yeah, that plot looks recurvish to me

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I am completely glass half full on that. A mean trough axis near or just East of 95ºW would seem to imply boatloads of action possible from Louisiana to around Florida and up the East Coast.

Eternal optimist.

yeah, from a GOM-centric perspective that would be okay...I was talking stuff coming out of the MDR

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