40/70 Benchmark

If you look at the schematic, regular el nino and modoki la nina have warmer SST anomalies near S America, which causes convection and lifting at the surface (descent a loft) and sets the whole Hadley/Rosby wave train in motion. This is why tropical convection and the placement there of is so important. Modoki el nino and regular la nina have cooler water near S America and focus convection fruther to the west, which is more favorable. Sometimes la nina has it too far west, so modoki la nina is expecially favorable because its usually near the dateline, which is prime time for us in terms of favorable Hadley/Rosby wave train.

Phil, think of the forcing and resultant patterns as a garden hose....shake it, and there is a ripple effect of opposing patterns. In the atmosphere, this is the case vertically up through the atmosphere (vertical velocity), east to west in longitude (Rosby waves), and north to south in latitude (Hadley cell). Basically, you don't want canonical el nino or modoki la nina because as you can see in the schematic that I posted, these place convection near South America, which usually results in more troughing due north (Hadley cell) over the west coast. This favors (rosby wave) ridging over us and is more hostile for blocking.

I do that monthly, but the original product is graded as is....I lay it out, and grade as is. However, I was in a bad habit of ignoring ENSO once winter began...focusing on medium range threats and missing the forest through the trees, so to speak. I am pissed because had I glanced at the ENSO region by the new year, I would have said that we were in trouble. It was clear by the end of January that this was a modoki event. Last time I do that.

The index states give us general correlations and are very useful, but this is why long term forecasting is so difficult....we can't see the "noise" at extended leads, so we need to guess based upon the larger scale features. The noise can make a pretty damn good seasonal effort look pretty bad. This is what happened to me this year, IMO.....I was right about the periods of blocking, but how was I supposed to know that the block would lock the December SW in a room with the PV in W Canada and throw away the key....how was I to know that an imperfect phase would result in a March nipple low, robbing dynamics and aiding WAA. I was right about the PNA going more + in January, but how was I to know that it would be so west-based to act as an RNA and the PV would be trapped in Eurasia? The answer is you can't, however, had I correctly diagnosed the character of la nina as a modoki, I def would have hedged towards more unfavorable outcomes. This is why its so important to nail the large scale features because those are the "empty netters" that mother natures affords you, which help top inform the noise... miss those and you are toast-

Great point.

Definitely not trying to debate your overall point, though...the warm extremes are becoming more common, overall.

Yea, while I heavily favor el nino, I could see ENSO neutral....but confident that we are done with la nina.

Man, I remember that....I was a junior at Wilmington High and I majored in swamp ass that week-

...and this season taught us how to avoid KUs with -8SD NAO blocks.

I think some of those proclivities are unique to specific seasons, too.....its a little bit of both.

You can't be too rigid and restricted when you endeavor to try a seasonal forecast....its really like an art to me. You have to use the work of others as a general template, but you develop your own style and methodology. Its probably the one oasis where creativity is rewarded within a sea of number crunching science.

Inadequate sample sizes are our largest adversary with respect to seasonal forecasting, so it seems counterintuitive to formulate criteria so restrictive as to exacerbate the issue..its like biting your nose off to spite your face. Seasonal forecasting needs to improve and emphasizing the sample size issue only acts to stagnate it IMO.

Yes. The Japanese are very specific and technically, the la nina/el nino anomalies need to be confined to the western zone, but I am not that restrictive with it. Modoki actually means "same, but different" in Japanese...the word is intended to distinguish between two very disparate evolutions between modoki events and their canonical counterpart.

Modoki el nino is good, modoki la nina is bad. They are reversed since anomalies are opposite.

They are correlated....if you go back and look at a lot of my work, I break them down and pretty distinctive.

Paul, check out this season...I consider it a modoki la nina, which is part of the reason why I was too wintry with my outlook. I whiffed on that and thought it would be hybrid with a slight east tilt.

That criteria is far too restrictive....I will show you my bins after I do it in either April or May....usually having the greatest anomalies predominately west of 150W and some poking west of 180W is good enough for me.

Corrected that second image to include 2009...obviously augments west coast ridging and NAO blocking a bit.

It will be modoki IMO.

58.3 here.

Do peak strength. Modoki is just west based...I think the technical definition is that the el nino anomalies have to be confirmed to the west, but I don't define it that stringently.

No.

Raindance is mentioning 2012 in the event el nino is a dud...no qualms, there.

Opps...yep. Goes along with the theme...