E.N.S.O. Discussion

[damianslaw]

7 hours ago, Don said:

Mild winter next year then?!

A moderate modiki El Nino a la 2009-2010 would mean the opposite.

Its a long way off but I expect next winter will be much wetter and stormier - mild or cold variety, due one after 3 relatively dry quiet winters - probably aided by La Nina.

[Don]

35 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

A moderate modiki El Nino a la 2009-2010 would mean the opposite.

Yes indeed!

[danm]

Rare 'triple-dip' La Niña is over

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

Forecasters say the natural climatic pattern of La Niña is over after three consecutive years.

 

[summer blizzard]

08MAR2022: Nino3: 0.4 , Nino3.4: -0.1 , Nino4: -0.2

[summer blizzard]

7 hours ago, Quicksilver1989 said:

I'd agree with this, though how far will the cold air push south. Will it be an unsettled messy picture? Close to the 1961-1990 CET average for the end of the month I reckon but below average in Scotland to finish the month, especially the north.

December ironically was colder from 1981-2010 compared to 1961-1990 and it was much colder then the 1971-2000 average. December 2010 skewed that average but there was a lot of average or below average Decembers from 1987-2010. It's only in the 2010s we started recording mild Decembers on a regular basis.

I think it is definitely a thing. The El Nino of 1997/98 had a very strong warming in the eastern Pacific (SSTs 3-5C above average) as did 2015/16. In contrast for 2009/10 and 2004/05 the warming was more focused in the tropical west Pacific. For the 2004/05 El Nino, the warming was so focused in the west Pacific we got a very active Atlantic hurricane season the previous summer, same with 2003.

An El Nino modoki is what I'm looking for if we are to try and get a blocked winter throughout in 2023/24. If it's an east focused El Nino that wouldn't bode well for the first half judging by historical analogues.

Brought here as more appropriate. 

 

97/98 - Agree with this, east based almost throughout the event albeit essentially basin wide given strength. 

03 - This had a slight bias towards the west but was actually a modest basin wide event. There was rarely a significant departure for long. 

04/05 - Agree with this albeit its worth saying it was always fairly weak. Nino 4 peaked at +1 in October but for the most part it was an unremarkable event. 

09/10 - More of a classic 'Modiki' event that lost its eastern support quite quickly. 

15/16 - Started west based until the spring of April 15, became basin wide/a little west based but then cooled from the west as the event ended up maintained eastern warth. Wierd one really alebit mostly it was basin wide that started out west based and if anything progressed east based.

..

As for this event i would agree that Modiki is preferably however i remain unsold that we are getting more than a weak event as things stand. We still have cooler sub-surface water in the east (as we largely have the past 2-3 years) and more importantly although the strong Kelvin wave has broken the Nina standing wave, it won't be until around May that there is another attempt to impose a Nino standing wave over the central Pacific which means i'm not overly excited about the currently (probably temporary) Nino 1+2 anomolies.  

Analogues for following multi-year Nina's basically split into a cold-neutral camp and a moderate Nino camp. I currently sit just a little left of the moderate Nino camp (i favour an unremarkable weak event) however for meaningless Nino 1.2 displays i thought i would entertain you all with 2017. Q1 sees the weak Nina quickly end and the 1.2 average in March 2017 being as high as 1.9, we even had a robust MJO event as per the chart below similar to our recent experience.. by July this had translated to fair warming in the Central Pacific, average in June 17 being +0.4 in 3.4.. by September we were sliding back into La Nina (if memory serves the trades began to surge in the central Pacific around June). 

Moral of the story is that Nino forecast models are typically quite poor and simply amplify the existing sub-surface picture (a simple look at the Euro performance vs last year is indicative) and that as much as people talk of potential strength, it's not likely to be the type of event that develops all that quickly given the sub-surface and PDO picture as we enter March. Any event will require more than temporary coupling and for this to extend outside the tropics. 

On the plus side, if we do get a strong passage again around May that should deliver an early stint of high pressure. 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by summer blizzard

[Cheshire Freeze]

On 18/03/2023 at 18:24, summer blizzard said:

Brought here as more appropriate. 

 

97/98 - Agree with this, east based almost throughout the event albeit essentially basin wide given strength. 

03 - This had a slight bias towards the west but was actually a modest basin wide event. There was rarely a significant departure for long. 

04/05 - Agree with this albeit its worth saying it was always fairly weak. Nino 4 peaked at +1 in October but for the most part it was an unremarkable event. 

09/10 - More of a classic 'Modiki' event that lost its eastern support quite quickly. 

15/16 - Started west based until the spring of April 15, became basin wide/a little west based but then cooled from the west as the event ended up maintained eastern warth. Wierd one really alebit mostly it was basin wide that started out west based and if anything progressed east based.

..

As for this event i would agree that Modiki is preferably however i remain unsold that we are getting more than a weak event as things stand. We still have cooler sub-surface water in the east (as we largely have the past 2-3 years) and more importantly although the strong Kelvin wave has broken the Nina standing wave, it won't be until around May that there is another attempt to impose a Nino standing wave over the central Pacific which means i'm not overly excited about the currently (probably temporary) Nino 1+2 anomolies.  

Analogues for following multi-year Nina's basically split into a cold-neutral camp and a moderate Nino camp. I currently sit just a little left of the moderate Nino camp (i favour an unremarkable weak event) however for meaningless Nino 1.2 displays i thought i would entertain you all with 2017. Q1 sees the weak Nina quickly end and the 1.2 average in March 2017 being as high as 1.9, we even had a robust MJO event as per the chart below similar to our recent experience.. by July this had translated to fair warming in the Central Pacific, average in June 17 being +0.4 in 3.4.. by September we were sliding back into La Nina (if memory serves the trades began to surge in the central Pacific around June). 

Moral of the story is that Nino forecast models are typically quite poor and simply amplify the existing sub-surface picture (a simple look at the Euro performance vs last year is indicative) and that as much as people talk of potential strength, it's not likely to be the type of event that develops all that quickly given the sub-surface and PDO picture as we enter March. Any event will require more than temporary coupling and for this to extend outside the tropics. 

On the plus side, if we do get a strong passage again around May that should deliver an early stint of high pressure. 

 

If we do hover around neutral then this is going to be one long, hot. dry summer IMO.

Worst case scenario as a cooler weather fan is a 1976/2018 hybrid.

Edited March 20, 2023 by CreweCold

[Weather-history]

On 31/08/2022 at 00:00, CreweCold said:

CFS has gone very stormy looking for Jan and Feb...2014 again? How does that year fit with the analogues?

Glad these charts were posted as we can look back at them and as we know, January and February 2023 weren't stormy

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Weather-history
,

[summer blizzard]

12 hours ago, CreweCold said:

If we do hover around neutral then this is going to be one long, hot. dry summer IMO.

Worst case scenario as a cooler weather fan is a 1976/2018 hybrid.

Other way around. 

The analogue set for summers with rising ONI are the ones that produce the hot summers.

The ones that get close to zero then just stall are fairly horrific.

Probably because relative AAM would be high in the first set while there may atmospheric lag in the second.

7 hours ago, Weather-history said:

Glad these charts were posted as we can look back at them and as we know, January and February 2023 weren't stormy

 

The Jan mean was actually not a mile off albeit yes, the Feb one was wrong. 

Though I have little faith in long range models. Just look at the Nov GLOSEA update vs what we actually saw.

[Chris W]

With the ending of La Nina here in NZ we will have relief particularly in the North Island from what has been a very wet couple of summers due to increased north-easterly rain and exposure to the tropics, including Cyclone Gabrielle which became a major disaster for Hawke's Bay around the East Cape to Auckland.  In Canterbury it has reduced our sun hours while raising average temperatures but we've generally not been affected in an extreme manner.  Marine heatwaves became frequent (explaining the temperature increases to a large degree), however it could be said that the number of ex-tropical cyclones impacting the country was lower than it could have been.

El Nino should it develop will result in stronger and more frequent westerly winds, greater rainfall for the south and west and also increase the likelihood of extreme high temperatures and drought in eastern areas of both islands but particularly North Canterbury, the latter due to the significant foehn winds generated across the Southern Alps and Te Urewera/Ruahine/Tararua mountain ranges by westerly flows often in combination with southern ocean cyclones.  However in the meantime neutral conditions are not without their hazards; some of the strongest winds I have experienced in my time here were in 2013 under a neutral regime, with 2013-14 also featuring elevated and powerful ex-tropical cyclone arrivals to NZ - most notably Lusi and Ita - plus a devastating cyclonic/southerly event for Christchurch in March 2014.

Over in Australia, coastal New South Wales will likely welcome the departure of La Nina with the soaking they have received in its tenure.

[daz_4]

It's coming this time, isn't it?

 

[Don]

52 minutes ago, daz_4 said:

It's coming this time, isn't it?

 

Looks like it!

[summer blizzard]

15MAR2022: Nino3: 0.6 , Nino3.4: 0.1 , Nino4: -0.1

22MAR2022: Nino3: 0.4 , Nino3.4: 0.0 , Nino4: -0.1

[SqueakheartLW]

4 hours ago, daz_4 said:

It's coming this time, isn't it?

 

 

3 hours ago, Don said:

Looks like it!

Also unfortunately looks like quite a strong event and EP based as well which bodes badly for a colder winter for 2023/24

[Don]

31 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

 

Also unfortunately looks like quite a strong event and EP based as well which bodes badly for a colder winter for 2023/24

I know but thought I would let someone else say it!  Will have to get that overseas winter holiday booked that I keep talking about every year! 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Don

[damianslaw]

50 minutes ago, Don said:

I know but thought I would let someone else say it!  Will have to get that overseas winter holiday booked that I keep talking about every year! 

Just a sense that next winter will be far wetter than the last 3 which have been notably dry,  question is whether it will be cold and wet with southerly jetstream or milder and wet - long time to speculate. I think Autumn could well be notably wet this year.

[Don]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

Just a sense that next winter will be far wetter than the last 3 which have been notably dry,  question is whether it will be cold and wet with southerly jetstream or milder and wet - long time to speculate. I think Autumn could well be notably wet this year.

Going by current ENSO forecasts for a strong eastern based El Nino come winter, one would have to favour mild and wet at this very early stage?!

[Greyhound81]

4 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Just a sense that next winter will be far wetter than the last 3 which have been notably dry,  question is whether it will be cold and wet with southerly jetstream or milder and wet - long time to speculate. I think Autumn could well be notably wet this year.

Would this mean a wetter than average summer as well?

[daz_4]

It's pretty crazy how high SST are at the moment. And El Niňo has not even started yet.

Edited April 1, 2023 by daz_4

[Don]

2 hours ago, daz_4 said:

It's pretty crazy how high SST are at the moment. And El Niňo has not even started yet.

Yes, they are at record levels which is perhaps alarming on the back of a three year La Nina?!!

[Cheshire Freeze]

On 28/03/2023 at 20:29, damianslaw said:

Just a sense that next winter will be far wetter than the last 3 which have been notably dry,  question is whether it will be cold and wet with southerly jetstream or milder and wet - long time to speculate. I think Autumn could well be notably wet this year.

Yep, autumn looks to me like it could be a real soaker going on ENSO trends.

[John S2]

26 minutes ago, CreweCold said:

Yep, autumn looks to me like it could be a real soaker going on ENSO trends.

Looking at Septembers from 1969 to present, most of the El Nino Septembers were quite dry. More variability for Oct & Nov with some years wet.

[Derecho]

I think the analogues for ENSO are pretty sketchy in this distant part of the world outside winter. El Nino winters tend to be backloaded with a mild and wet late Autumn / December with blocking more frequent in late January through to March.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Quicksilver1989

[MP-R]

Let’s not forget that 6 out of the last 7 months have been wet, November and March notably so… it’d be quite impressive for such a string of wet months to repeat a year later.

Unless we get a particularly strong El Niño, I’d guess a changeable but mostly dry Sept/Oct, a mild stormy Nov/Dec, a progressively cold and less stormy Jan, and a potentially blocked Feb with the greatest chance of cold in the second half of the season.

[summer blizzard]

29MAR2022: Nino3: 0.1 , Nino3.4: 0.0 , Nino4: 0.1

March ONI rose to around 0.

JFM rose to around -0.4

[summer blizzard]

Looking at Y1 Nino events following at least a second year event we have. 

For interest i added their JFM ONI to see where we rank. 

1957: +0.1

1972: -0.4

1976: -1.2

1986: -0.5

2002: 0

2009: -0.8

2014: -0.5

2018: -0.9

So our -0.4 is narrowly joint 3rd.

However the years which follow at least a double Nina and flop are..

1956: -0.8

1985: -0.8

2001: -0.5

2012: -0.7

*You can see that the events of 1957, 1986 and 2002 took a long protracted course of neutral before producing the Nino event. The same can also be said for 2012 to 2014. 

..

So we can see here that Nino is favoured with about a 2 to 1 margin over cold-neutral but that at this time of year there's not much difference between those that flop and those that develop although we currently sit in the camp favouring Nino development. In terms of strength about 50% of our 12 analogues currently go at least moderate with 33% in the cold-neutral camp and 76/18 being the anomolies.  

Also of interest is the fact that 1972 and 2009 despite producting Nino events of reasonable strength, barely lasted a year and went straight back to robust multi-year Nina events so the jury on late 2024 if one does develop this year is still out. 

The Q2 (AMJ) ONI tri-monthly value appears to be where the two packs split with a majority of our Nino pack at 0 or above by this point so i would wait until then before getting overly excited.