so_whats_happening

Saw it in Waco Tx and had clear skies during the totality. Got to even see the solar flares. Was amazing to see what everything looked like during that window of time. Can't wait for the next one in 20 years.

Have fun in Lancaster! Yea Im actually getting a little nervous about TX right now. ULL ejecting out of the SW with return flow setting up a day or two before. It would be cool to experience the cumulus towers beforehand and they all but disappear with the eclipse to come back as the sun starts to shine again. Ill be in Austin area during the time and can move around as we get closer to get a better idea of how things will fall out.

I was just about to post this quite the increase in negative anomalies (or decrease, however you choose to look at it) in just 5 days. This also seems farther west then past events have shown which end up around 120-140 W currently this is sitting just east of the dateline.

DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA +1.3 +1.6 +2 +2.6 +1 +.8 +.8 0 +.4 Happy Easter Everyone. Wanted to get this done before Vacation starts.

It will be interesting to see how things go to mid April. Western ridging around the GOA with a -NAO blocking flow sounds like more troughing into the west through early April and severe weather into the plains.

Here is a 90 day coralreef animation to start things off. There does actually seem to be some cooling of the WPAC warmth just under Japan in the recent month. This should as Raindance mentioned help with a weakening of values for the -PDO coming up. Let us see what happens.

Some pretty solid subsurface negative anomalies showing up. Ill look to keep track of this probably starting next month. Warmth at the surface still holding on decently near the dateline, we will see for how long though. Models are still having trouble with the MJO forecast I could see a weaker bout for 3/4 coming up here after 1/2 before it picks up again for 6/7/8. It will be interesting to see what this does as we get closer to summer time with the hurricane season. Slowly looking more and more Nina like aloft, VP starting to head back toward the Maritime Continent.

Just as a last look with monthly TAO data for the El Nino, may update for March in the near future.

Just to give some visuals for down the road. I do find it interesting the central Pac seems to be still holding on to the warmth. It never really cooled down during the El Nino stretching back to just NE of Australia. Lets say it got to about average in some of the areas west of the dateline while directly NE of Australia dipped briefly to some negative values. Edit: may have to refresh page to get to go in motion.

Probably a bit too early to know for sure but there does seem to be some see-sawing situation between the poles. Will be interesting to watch it over the next 5 years. Thickness levels I don't think can recover meaningfully going forward but we shall what happens with extent (not that this is all too important in the long run).

well then that is one pitiful snow season. Had a feeling it would be bad but not this bad.

Shame the MEI is going away as even though ONI showed about -1 to -1.2, MEI saw this as a near strong/ borderline super Nina. In fact the second strongest in the last 40 or so years, 2010-11 being the strongest -MEI and 1989 coming in at a close third. While La Ninas aren't great for the east we can still manage something at least interior tends to get the brunt, last year was just a whole different situation. If we do indeed go full bore La Nina the winters following tend to not be terrible after following a strong Nino. So we shall see that is also based on the idea the PDO doesn't stay extremely negative but we are still not seeing much change in that department. Also welcome to the boards.

Gotta say it was pretty cool to see this happen. Im not sure if it is connected somehow but watch off Panama and then a few days later west of the Galapagos.

Well MEI data will no longer be updated... https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/

Very cool. You can see from your first picture we took a step up in the early 2000s and something just went nuts around the 15/16 Nino. Is it possible that in order to keep as close to balance as it can be that we see a multi decadal -PDO state and potentially more La Ninas to try and 'revert' things? Edit: Also wanted to add it is interesting to note that the La Nina SST anomaly seems to be not nearly as intense over time even with impacts still being almost as potent as they were 30-40 years ago. I wonder if this is due to the warming of the surrounding oceans having an impact on the overall SST anomaly yet when the background is still La Nina we still feel the episodes regardless of ONI values. Example being we hit barely moderate level on the third year La Nina yet the MEI would suggest we were near super Nina levels of impact. 2010-11 gave us near strong Nina levels via ONI and MEI but this was also before things changed with the 15/16 Nino.

This year while in many areas wasn't great at all, there was one spot that managed to do well. PA was the hot spot for average to above average snowfall this year and at that a rather localized area from about Scranton to Allentown and back to about Harrisburg/ State College area. We managed about 18-19" on the winter which is below average on our 26" yearly snowfall. This was not a bad winter for our neck of the woods but last winter was horrific (0.9" for the entire winter). 2020/21 was our last above average winter (~34") and that came with a nice storm in February and a nice event from the huge storm that pummeled BGM back in December 2020. At this point im rooting for a neutral event, while one year I would love to have a revisit of 09-10 pop up im on the lets get to average train at this point. I have been noticing though when we do get these marginal events things are just a bit too warm for us anymore when we used to be able to manage to stay slightly on the cooler side of things. I do wonder if the warm Atlantic is causing this issue. That hurts us immensely on those quick pickups of 2-4" that would help get to near average.

DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA 2.1 2.8 3 4.4 .8 1 -.8 -2.3 -.6

Probably nothing to actually stop it as it is a wind driven current but what could potentially slow it down would be lessening that temperature within the origination spot, GOM. It would need to be mass amounts of heat removal or tons of fresh water input both of which are rather hard to achieve in a timespan to consistently happen. So you get ebbs and flows where some seasons are warmer and some seasons cooler so there is some regulation of overall gulf stream motion but not full stoppage. If we have giant asteroid/ meteor or the earth stops spinning we would much bigger issues to worry about. I do find it interesting though that the gulf stream would take a more southerly route if AMOC shuts off I guess this does make sense though as there would be nothing really to help 'finish' the current around Iceland if there is little to no sinking occurring in this region. Would mean the Atlantic waters south of 50N would warm rather drastically over years. Interestingly enough there doesn't seem to be much of a Labrador current or a Canary current over the last few years. Maybe we start to see a more pronounced current in these regions again instead of this highly weakened state?

This has been a topic of discussion between me and another colleague. Tropical activity is the balancer to bring heat and moisture to high latitudes but with that temp increase in the northern oceans it is not nearly as imbalanced. He mentioned one thing that has increased dramatically over the last decade or so are heavy rain events. So in other words the Earth seems to be trying to rebalance itself in a different way than what it used to through tropical activity due to this gradient not being nearly as prolific. How it plays out going forward is really anyone's guess. It probably still does lead to stronger storms when they do form cause of the amount of fuel but overall less tropical activity may be the way to go or we see one basin just go bonkers while the others stay silent instead of spreading out the activity over the basins. There is no reason the WPAC should have had nearly half the typical amount of tropical activity in an El Nino year. The southern hemisphere has been on a decline for quite some time with overall tropical activity as well. There should not have been as active of a year in the EPAC at the tail end of a triple dip La Nina. Something just seems off right now with how it 'should be'. That is not to say this year won't have an above average hurricane season in the Atlantic though. While it is not all too uncommon we did have quite a few storms more than we typically would see in an El Nino year in the Atlantic, even with them following a similar path to a typical El Nino year (north and OTS). The Atlantic is right back up to levels we saw last year when it was extremely warm and for it to be at this time of year is a little worrisome to see as temps should only go up from here on. It looks like a decent tri-pole setup as well, so it should be rather interesting to see what comes of this.

We are nearing the typical final warming and destruction of the SPV so that makes sense. If I remember correctly it takes place around mid march to mid April some years earlier some later. Although im not sure this bout toward mid march will do all too much later on we should see a brief cooling take place the first week of March from the current weakening. Maybe we can pull out a last minute surprise?? but im banking on most for about 40N southward being virtually done with winter besides a cold shot.

Increase in WPAC tropical activity would definitely help in taking out that persistent warmth around Japan, unfortunately it probably means a record year or strong typhoon after strong typhoon to really churn up those waters.

I would love to see shipping lanes overlayed on SST anomaly maps in both the Atlantic and Pacific to see if that reduction in sulfur really is playing a large role in these regions. Also bathymetry is tough subject but I am curious if there is indeed something in the subsurface in these regions helping to enhance the oceanic heatwaves more than just stuck patterns.

It is no wonder with a look like this

I haven't looked much into this yet but will be interesting to see what happens. I do find it weird we haven't had much in the way of neutral years, 2019-20 being a failed Nino allowed us to have a warm neutral year. Im one for rooting for a neutral year in between these Nina/Nino episodes especially going from a triple year La Nina to strong/super Nino the last time this sort of remotely happened was in the 70s so it is not unheard of just rare to see. A tell tale sign for sure will be how this spring into summer transition will we get more plains severe weather outbreaks? will we get a warm SE coming up in early spring? will the hurricane season be above normal with activity actually reaching the US? I would assume the gulf and Caribbean will be much more active/conducive this year for landfall potential.

Harrisburg is all snow. York should be close to if not all snow. Lancaster needs just a bit until the heavier precip gets in but should go all snow.