so_whats_happening

Of the years posted this is what the Dec- Mar 500mb pattern resulted in.

Going off the idea that 3 or more fit the idea of what maybe coming the best years shown are 1949-1950, 1970-1971, 1998-1999, 2010-2011, and 2020-2021. These five had more things combined that would lead me to believe if we do indeed go into moderate to strong Nina status these may be the years to use. Here are the subsurface looks for each year. Some are just flat out not in-line with where we are but Ill leave that for folks to decide. I do have the other years if folks are interested in specific years.

Sorry for the delay, yesterday ended up being a lot busier than I expected. So here is the chart I created for all years going from El Nino to La Nina. I highlighted the years that best fit the request of Westerly QBO, -PDO, High Solar (just noticed 83-84 and 92-93 should be highlighted yellow as they are still rather active years) , +AMO, and Volcanic activity ( a lot of years had a VEI 5 a year or two before the listed ranges). 49-50 QBO was a bit of a guess following the typical ~18 month span of QBO transition, data only went to 1953 for what I have. Here are the sites used to help create this table. Volcano Data - https://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?question=eruptionsbyyear ENSO Data - https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html AMO Data - https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data PDO Data - https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/pdo/ Solar Cycle Data - https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression QBO Data - https://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/met/ag/strat/produkte/qbo/qbo.dat

Ill take a look into it tonight/tomorrow what subsurface looked like coming off these years 72-73,87-88,94-95, 97-98. 09-10, heck ill even throw in 91-92 and make a gif just to see where we are potentially aligning with going forward. If any others years are wanted just let me know.

This makes sense looking back at data in the early 90s (91/92) we peaked hard on yearly temps around the PA/Philly region and dropped dramatically afterward. We also were coming off an El Nino (strong) to neutral stance and we were also in a solar max situation. huh

We still have some pretty intense westerly winds in the Indian ocean.

Finally starting to take a nice Nina look especially with decent upwelling along the Peruvian coastline. Limited to only 30 day animation due to max file size. Here has been the global 500mb look for the last 3 months. Really decent -NAO pattern to end the season and you can see why waters south of the Aleutians have warmed quite a bit. One interesting note is the cooling along the equator in the Atlantic right now. We largely did not see this during the strong/super Nino and typically you get something that counter balances between the two basins.

I wish we could continue to monitor MEI data but in February they discontinued updating the data. Hopefully we can see that change coming up here with the push for a new data set instead of using JMA data? https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/ If we didn't have the robust 2 year nino of 14-16 we would largely be in an extended -PDO pattern from about 99 onward. Ill look to start adding some updates with real time stuff as we get into June, have had a really busy schedule the last 2 months that has not been conducive for much of anything. Luckily not a whole lot has changed overall.

DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA +1.2 +1 +.9 +.8 +1.2 +1.4 +1.5 +.3 -.2

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.