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Pattern ENSO Updates

Pulling for a Niña, winters really can’t get any worse! I’ve done well in Niñas
 
El Niño is hurting.

I went back to the April and May period and this is the weakest heat signature we have seen and is also the strongest cold signature as Well.

501412F6-37AF-4BD2-B94A-E1CDE40E180F.gif
 
I've significantly updated and revised my Ensemble Oceanic Nino Index (ENS ONI), which now includes the brand new HADSST4 dataset in the analysis. The inclusion of this dataset helped improve the quality control constraints in the early part of the record, resulting in a very slight yet noticeable increase in the amplitude of pre-1950 ENSO events vs the previous version of this index. I suspect there's still some dampening occurring before 1950 due to the large spread between available datasets but I think this new version of the ENS ONI has taken another step in the right direction.
https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

ENS ONI Time Series 1865-May 2019.png
 
2010-11 and 2017-18 were Niña winters though, both produced above normal snowfall across most of the southeast. El Niño winters seem to be great for the NC mountains and mid-Atlantic, but suck for snow if you live south of I-85.

El Nino winters tend to benefit areas along/NW of I-85 the most like the Triad, western piedmont, etc. but I haven't seen much of a signal in either direction southeast of there in the Triangle and coastal plain. What really happens in most NINO winters is the seasonal gradients across the piedmont just get larger. From that standpoint, it can seem crappy if you're not in that favored corridor but holistically the winters aren't bad. There's simply too much internal variability and just a general lack of events SE of GSO to discern underlying ENSO tendencies in seasonal snowfall down here, and that's true even if you look at the entire RDU record and use the ENS ONI index I linked above. What you would see however if you compared GSO & RDU's records is that their seasonal snowfall difference in NINO winters gets larger but RDU is still within striking distance of average in NINO or NINA.
 
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I've significantly updated and revised my Ensemble Oceanic Nino Index (ENS ONI), which now includes the brand new HADSST4 dataset in the analysis. The inclusion of this dataset helped improve the quality control constraints in the early part of the record, resulting in a very slight yet noticeable increase in the amplitude of pre-1950 ENSO events vs the previous version of this index. I suspect there's still some dampening occurring before 1950 due to the large spread between available datasets but I think this new version of the ENS ONI has taken another step in the right direction.
https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

View attachment 20650
Webb,
To the untrained eye, it looks rather symmetrical ... ?
Thanks, Man!
Phil
 
Webb,
To the untrained eye, it looks rather symmetrical ... ?
Thanks, Man!
Phil

Yeah there's definitely a centennial-scale cycle evident in the ENS ONI data, with ENSO being relatively active near the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, and more quiescent conditions in the middle of the 20th century. Whether or not this extremely low-frequency 100 ish year cycle in ENSO amplitude is actually a real, recurrent theme or just happened by chance remains to be seen but it's very interesting nonetheless.
 
Yeah there's definitely a centennial-scale cycle evident in the ENS ONI data, with ENSO being relatively active near the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, and more quiescent conditions in the middle of the 20th century. Whether or not this extremely low-frequency 100 ish year cycle in ENSO amplitude is actually a real, recurrent theme or just happened by chance remains to be seen but it's very interesting nonetheless.
Precisely.
:)
 
2010-11 and 2017-18 were Niña winters though, both produced above normal snowfall across most of the southeast. El Niño winters seem to be great for the NC mountains and mid-Atlantic, but suck for snow if you live south of I-85.
It doesn't really matter the ENSO state. We already know it'll be warm for the majority of winter. Just have to hope the two week winter we get meets up with moisture.
 
El Nino is waning with all 4 sectors currently in a neutral state at the same time. Technically that would put us in a neutral to warm neutral state and if it holds the next few months could be a significant influence for hurricane season. With an active WAM and the possibility of reduced shear due to a neutral state... it could be an ugly hurricane season. Still a lot of variables and unknowns but not liking what I'm seeing right now.
 
El Nino is waning with all 4 sectors currently in a neutral state at the same time. Technically that would put us in a neutral to warm neutral state and if it holds the next few months could be a significant influence for hurricane season. With an active WAM and the possibility of reduced shear due to a neutral state... it could be an ugly hurricane season. Still a lot of variables and unknowns but not liking what I'm seeing right now.
I'm not liking it either in the reason of Hurricanes, but could be good for our upcoming winter. Even if it's a neutral/warm neutral I'll take my chances. Thanks for the update.
 
Subsurface heat is declining.
View attachment 19109

Not much in the way of WWB's to work with in the near future either.

View attachment 19110

The subsurface cooling is shown in this graphic pretty well, this region was much warmer a few weeks ago.

View attachment 19111

The Triton graphic is likely skewed too cold but it largely agrees with the one posted above with the general theme of colder subsurface SST's spreading and taking over in contrast with the warmer subsurface we saw last year at this time.
View attachment 19114

The CFSv2 is showing a decline into neutral territory.
View attachment 19112
As is this dataset
View attachment 19113

Overall I still remain quite skeptical of a full blown mod to strong Nino developing this year. In fact I myself am leaning towards the idea of a transition into a warmish neutral state by June or July, something in the .2 to .4C range. Obviously we are still in the spring barrier where things can change quickly but what I'm seeing so far leads me to believe we might have a neutral or weak Nina this upcoming winter. Many hurricane season outlooks are basing their predictions off an El Nino lasting through the peak of the season. If it actually weakens to neutral before then that could change things somewhat.. Still a long ways to go.


Just wanted to recap this post I made in April to summarize how things have evolved.

1. The subsurface cold pool has been largely maintaining and recently expanding/cooling further based on the Triton data set while surface anomalies have cooled and are less impressive than they were in April. April vs current (compare the bottom panel of each).
1561650914959.png
1561650881408.png

2. The seasonal models did a fairly good job of predicting a steady state to gradual weakening of the ENSO, at least the ones I looked at in April seemed to. While they are prone to errors they did prove to be useful as a guide in contrast to the mets on Twitter that at the same time were hyping up a moderate to strong Nino possibility that looks highly unlikely to verify.

3. My thoughts posted in April were as follows, "Overall I still remain quite skeptical of a full blown mod to strong Nino developing this year. In fact I myself am leaning towards the idea of a transition into a warmish neutral state by June or July, something in the .2 to .4C range. Obviously we are still in the spring barrier where things can change quickly but what I'm seeing so far leads me to believe we might have a neutral or weak Nina this upcoming winter. Many hurricane season outlooks are basing their predictions off an El Nino lasting through the peak of the season. If it actually weakens to neutral before then that could change things somewhat."

It appears my conclusion and prediction has verified quite well. As things stand now it appears we may be in for a bit more of an active hurricane season since it is becoming increasingly likely we will be in a neutral state or at best very weak Nino state that is centered more in the central Pacific.
 
Today’s 2 Euro runs suggest that after the next two days that there will be a dominating -SOI for most of the subsequent 8+ days (I think tomorrow and Saturday will actually be positive as Darwin comes down). Much of this is due to relatively high Darwin SLPs most days. As a matter of fact, 7/8 and 7/12 could be close to 1016 there. Also, Tahiti gets low late in the run. So, the most -SOIs of the next 10 days may actually end up toward the end.
Considering what lies ahead SOI-wise, El Niño could return within a few weeks though there often is a couple of week lag.
 
Today’s 2 Euro runs suggest that after the next two days that there will be a dominating -SOI for most of the subsequent 8+ days (I think tomorrow and Saturday will actually be positive as Darwin comes down). Much of this is due to relatively high Darwin SLPs most days. As a matter of fact, 7/8 and 7/12 could be close to 1016 there. Also, Tahiti gets low late in the run. So, the most -SOIs of the next 10 days may actually end up toward the end.
Considering what lies ahead SOI-wise, El Niño could return within a few weeks though there often is a couple of week lag.
Simply put, El Niño favors stronger hurricane activity in the central and eastern Pacific basins, and suppresses it in the Atlantic basin ... Let's hope and hope it stays through October, at least ...
 
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