40/70 Benchmark

I expect the RONI and MEI to peak at around 1.5...so yes, a pretty strong driver....just not of the historic caliber that the ONI may suggest.

That isn't what I said and I am still not sure the ONI peaks over 2.0.

Older is more experienced.

Yea, incapable of engaging in constructive dialogue because he seems to use weather mastery as a means of eliciting a sense of competency that he hasn't achieved in his personal life, presumably at least partially due to addiction. I have been there....feel for him, but at the same time....wow. I try to never comment on his musings for that reason. He just cannot tolerate alternative points of view.

You have no idea how nauseating he can be....he DMs me...nice kid, but his viewpoint is so consumed by a myriad of compensatory defense mechanisms for which he has so little insight as a byproduct of his age. The end result is that I am condemned to pay for his slew of perceived inadequacies in life....f8%$. This as a product of the internet....this deranged co-dependency of sort with a surplus of information for which certain individuals just aren't equipped to cope with. What we end up with is an invaluable outlet for folks with MH and dependency issues, like the weather, actually ends up being intorwoven into and thus symptomatic or the dysfunction. And we all pay for it-

Initials RV

There is this younger, "know it all" type on Facebook that just can't wrap his mind around ONI and why the lagged nature of it is important. Just convinced el nino has been so much stronger than it has been because he obsesses over the daily SST numbers. One day while he was mocking me, he pointed out how "lagged" the ONI is, as if it invalidates it.....I was just shaking my head...like, finally you get it (sarcasm). He's is one of those kids that just scoffs at CPC and feels his own criteria should be used to define ENSO. Classic dearth of perspective that too often an inherent element of youth.

One thing I am very confident of is that this el nino will not be as a prominent a driver in the atmosphere as the robust ONI implies...this is why I have included moderate seasons in my preliminary composites. The ONI doesn't always necessarily tell the whole story, as we saw last year during the la nina.

It was the Old Farmer's Almanac.

Would make sense given the self-destructive nature of ENSO...definite "chicken or egg" deal...

This is exactly why I am befuddled by the "classic east-based el nino" comments. Doesn't mean it will end up favorable for eastern US winter enthusiasts, but it is what it is....aside from the SST configuration, that statement is factually incorrect.

No complaints.

I wouldn't notice since I check out for the summer.

This is what I am unsure of....last year it didn't cause a very strong PV, but you wonder if it took some time to fully infiltrate the atmosphere.

Yes. Totally agree.

How so?

Opposite this year haha.

Not with respect to the forcing, which is all that matters. Perhaps that changes as it couples more, but not as of yet. Most guidance doesn't forecast the forcing to change. We'll see.

Hyperbole, but you know what I mean.

I am pretty confident that the tropics aren't going to torpedo this winter. If we get porked again, then extra tropical influences will be the culprit.

Since gradients exists with every atmospheric phenomenon, including air pressure and SSTs, you can think of the ENSO ONI like the low pressure off of the east coast and the SSTS over the west PAC like the high pressure over the mid west...same type of system. Well, given that this is an el nino, the high ONI is analogous to a deep area of low pressure off of the east coast. But we would want to see lower SSTS over the west PAC to have a really strong SYSTEM, just like we would a strong high pressure over the mid west. But this year, we have a weak high (warm W PAC SSTS), so the gradient isn't there. Its like having the impressive 961mb low (ONI) with a paltry 1000mb high.

Think about it...what happens when you get a 498mb closed ULL pass under LI in the absence of any thermal gradient or baroclinicity? Well, once everyone finishes toweling themselves off, they realize that the forecast is for snow showers, which disappoints everyone, but Steve and Kevin. Right now, this el nino looks like a huge closed low without much baroclinicity to me...snowman23 is the one that will need to come to grip with reality once he towels himself off-

Weather is the product of gradients, not static measurements...remember that. We only care about the anomalous numbers due to their correlation with the stronger gradients and the fact that they look pretty in our dorky record books, but in and of themselves, they are pretty useless.....powerful shortwaves with no baroclinicity, so to speak.

Its true that its all about the forcing, but 2015 showed us that you still don't want it too strong...saving grace is that I don't think that this event will be as a prominent a driver as that event was given the ambient hemispheric environment, regardless of the ONI, which is what the MEI and RONI illustrate. An apt analogy is to think of the ONI in terms of barometric pressure.....people focus too much on the minimum central pressure with respect to both the tropics and mid latitude cyclones, but what really matters is the pressure gradient...ie the interaction with the ambient environment, which is what truly dictates the weather. ONI is analogous to minimum central pressure within this context....but we need to look around the globe and well beyond the tropics in order to truly ascertain how the weather will play out because that hemispheric gradient is what dictates everything. Period.