• Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!

Pattern ENSO Updates

After looking at today's 0Z/6Z model consensus, I'm now confident enough to predict that the July SOI will end up positive due to overall significantly higher than average SLPs at Tahiti for July for the rest of the month while Darwin's are pretty close to average for July for the balance of the month. Currently the MTD average is near 0. So, that's about to rise.

To clarify, that doesn't mean I'm suddenly saying "El Nino cancel". The July SOI is just another piece of info among lots of things to consider. What it does do in my mind is slightly reduce the chance from the very good chance I previously had in my mind to more like plain old good chance.
 
Latest from the CPC states that there is a 50-55% of a warm neutral this winter.
 
Ok. So JB on El Niño (considering the source) is saying that the MEI says "not only does it say we are in one, but it's still moderate." Will someone speak more on the MEI and it's effectiveness on predicting El Niños and La Niñas. Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
whatalife said:
Ok. So JB on El Niño (considering the source) is saying that the MEI says "not only does it say we are in one, but it's still moderate." Will someone speak more on the MEI and it's effectiveness on predicting El Niños and La Niñas. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'm no MEI expert. However, I did read that it recently got to over +1.50, which does indeed suggest moderate El Nino. Although I'm not an MEI fan, Eric Webb stated in this thread that he is a "big fan" of the MEI:

http://southernwx.com/community/threads/enso-updates.146/page-5#post-33329
 
Last edited:
GaWx said:
I'm no MEI expert. However, I did read that it recently got to over +1.50, which does indeed suggest moderate El Nino. Although I'm not an MEI fan, Eric Webb stated in this thread that he is a "big fan" of the MEI:

http://southernwx.com/community/threads/enso-updates.146/page-5#post-33329
Click to expand...
I believe you can find those figures here https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html
The MEI is another means of monitoring such as the SOI correct? But I've read several do indeed like the MEI over the SOI for real time monitoring as Webb points out in his comments you linked. But do those higher values necessarily point to El Nino as we head into Fall, in fact if you look at the values for last year they are almost identical for May/Jun bimonthly time frame and we know how last Winter turned out. I also notice that values were above 2.227 early last yearly and declined drastically through the rest of the year including Winter, now they are on the increase. Although the May/Jun bimonthly values were slightly less than the Apr/May values.... what does it all mean?
 
whatalife said:
Ok. So JB on El Niño (considering the source) is saying that the MEI says "not only does it say we are in one, but it's still moderate." Will someone speak more on the MEI and it's effectiveness on predicting El Niños and La Niñas. Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
This is so freaking complicated.... on the surface you would think send a ship in the pacific drag a thermometer through the water and check the wind direction, do we have Nino or not? Lol I'm kidding of course...
 
GaWx said:
I'm no MEI expert. However, I did read that it recently got to over +1.50, which does indeed suggest moderate El Nino. Although I'm not an MEI fan, Eric Webb stated in this thread that he is a "big fan" of the MEI:

http://southernwx.com/community/threads/enso-updates.146/page-5#post-33329
Click to expand...

metwannabe said:
I believe you can find those figures here https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html
The MEI is another means of monitoring such as the SOI correct? But I've read several do indeed like the MEI over the SOI for real time monitoring as Webb points out in his comments you linked. But do those higher values necessarily point to El Nino as we head into Fall, in fact if you look at the values for last year they are almost identical for May/Jun bimonthly time frame and we know how last Winter turned out. I also notice that values were above 2.227 early last yearly and declined drastically through the rest of the year including Winter, now they are on the increase. Although the May/Jun bimonthly values were slightly less than the Apr/May values.... what does it all mean?
Click to expand...

Thanks guys.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
metwannabe said:
I believe you can find those figures here https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html
The MEI is another means of monitoring such as the SOI correct? But I've read several do indeed like the MEI over the SOI for real time monitoring as Webb points out in his comments you linked. But do those higher values necessarily point to El Nino as we head into Fall, in fact if you look at the values for last year they are almost identical for May/Jun bimonthly time frame and we know how last Winter turned out. I also notice that values were above 2.227 early last yearly and declined drastically through the rest of the year including Winter, now they are on the increase. Although the May/Jun bimonthly values were slightly less than the Apr/May values.... what does it all mean?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the MEI link. Comparing to last year is deceiving because that was coming off of El
Niño, which often means lingering high MEI values as it transitions away. Therefore, the best thing to do is to compare only to years not just coming off of El Niño since we're also not just coming off of El Niño. If you do that, you can see that, indeed, the MEI is strongly suggesting a developing El Niño as only 1993 had strong positive values during spring and didn't end up with a new El Niño. The only other close exception was 2012 though it's MEI values were quite a bit lower in spring vs 2017.
 
GaWx said:
Thanks for the MEI link. Comparing to last year is deceiving because that was coming off of El
Niño, which often means lingering high MEI values as it transitions away. Therefore, the best thing to do is to compare only to years not just coming off of El Niño since we're also not just coming off of El Niño. If you do that, you can see that, indeed, the MEI is strongly suggesting a developing El Niño as only 1993 had strong positive values during spring and didn't end up with a new El Niño. The only other close exception was 2012 though it's MEI values were quite a bit lower in spring vs 2017.
Click to expand...
Fascinating and thanks! I'm not sure what's more impressive the vast amount of research you conduct or the speed at which you do so? I'm curious to read Webb's comments at some point about this also..
 
metwannabe said:
Heck don't thank me, I'm asking a question as much as I'm making a comment..... I'm waiting for Larry to complete his research, I here the wheels spinning, before he gives his full analysis.
Click to expand...

Yeah, butttttt you gave him more meat to chew on


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oh my word! JB is riding the MEI like a rented mule. Show that man a model or index that shows what he wants and he rides it off the cliff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
whatalife said:
... like rented mule. Show that man model or index that shows what he wants and rides it off the cliff
Click to expand...
You are authoring very, very well and nicely ... truly enjoying it!
Great analogy! Kick ass. (You decide if a pun is intended, but likely so ... :cool:)
Phil
 
After adjusting the MEI with a 30-year sliding base period (similar to the ONI) to remove the very significant long-term warming trend in the data (since it uses a cooler, older and defunct 1950-1993 base period), the latest bi-monthly MEI value falls from 1.0 to 0.5, I would hardly say that's in NINO territory much less in moderate territory....
 
GaWx said:
You ought to get him for a 2nd interview to talk about this winter. ;)

The idea about a DECENT shot at a cold SE winter should we actually get a weak to low end moderate El Nino winter is actually valid to me. However, JB always seems to go out of his way to go cold in the E US with high chances. So, when there is a valid reason for him to just consider going cold, you have the crying wolf syndrome. Furthermore, he usually picks some of the coldest analogs amongst the choices he can make without mentioning the not so cold. 1976-7 is THE coldest winter on record for much of the SE US for those who don't know.
Click to expand...
Well JB has to call the shots about the cold, so he can eventually get one right. Lol.
 
GaWx said:
Thanks for the MEI link. Comparing to last year is deceiving because that was coming off of El
Niño, which often means lingering high MEI values as it transitions away. Therefore, the best thing to do is to compare only to years not just coming off of El Niño since we're also not just coming off of El Niño. If you do that, you can see that, indeed, the MEI is strongly suggesting a developing El Niño as only 1993 had strong positive values during spring and didn't end up with a new El Niño. The only other close exception was 2012 though it's MEI values were quite a bit lower in spring vs 2017.
Click to expand...

Not so fast... There's also very strong evidence that another failed event occurred in the spring and summer of 1932 which like 1993-94 faded to a warm neutral event by the boreal winter. In fact, using an experimental extended MEI index (MEI.ext) w/ COBE SST2 and HADSLP2 (which utilizes some of the adjustments I implemented in the NCEP-NCAR MEI, most notably 30-year sliding base periods that remove the long term warming signal in the data), I note that the MEI bi-monthly values virtually exceeded 1.0 for 4 successive bi-monthly periods from Mar-Apr 1932 thru Jun-Jul 1932...

Here's a bi-monthly MEI value table for Mar-Apr thru Jun-Jul with the latter (2017) adjusted w/ a 30-year sliding base period as was done in the COBE SST2+HADSLP2 MEI.ext index to remove the warming signal in the data... Note the sliding base period adjustment results in a very significant decrease in the recent bi monthly MEI.ext values, with 2017 potentially showing even less evidence for an El Nino than both 1993 and 1932...
Bi-Monthly Period Mar-Apr Apr-May May-Jun Jun-Jul MEI Index
Year
1932 1.117 1.079 0.968 1.008 COBE SST2+HADSLP2 MEI.ext
1993 1.218 1.421 1.141 0.786 COBE SST2+HADSLP2 MEI.ext
2017 0.621 1.195 0.453 ??? ICOADS (Original MEI)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top