so_whats_happening

Fair points all around

The polar domain having higher heights means less cold is able to stay up north and be produced versus 1955/56 so in that sense cold air would have spilled through much of the lower latitudes you can see the difference in the amount of cold air. Think this really could have played a major role as there was no issue with precip across the area and many times down this way we were right on the edge of getting snow just ended up too warm. So it is very possible we could have had similar results had the overall atmosphere and polar domain not been warmer. Again wish I had an SST reanalysis for 55/56. +WPO versus -WPO winter also played a significant role long sustained jet versus a wavier jet. There also seems to be some counter balance situation between northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere that is interesting to note, probably on a decadal scale of sorts.

55/56 gave us in the mid atlantic around 28" of snow that winter 22-23 gave us 0.9" both solidly negative PDO signals and both in a moderate La Nina pattern. I unfortunately don't have SST reanalysis for 55/56. By far the biggest difference was the Pacific 55/56 could have a similar ish look had we not had a +WPO pattern this past year.

Going solely off the idea of 1955/56 being a moderate/strong La Nina and having a -PDO of near -3 to last year having a moderate La Nina and a -PDO of about -2.5

So going off this we had a deeply negative PDO in the 50's 1950/51: around -2 to -3 over the summer (Neutral ENSO) ~7" of snow 1951/52: was a bit more relaxed but still averaged around -1 and dipped to -2 in winter. (El Nino) ~27" of snow 1955/56: deeply negative again (-2 to -3) at the levels experienced in 1950/51 (moderate to strong La Nina) ~28" of snow 1956/57: again around -1 to -2 (Neutral ENSO) ~18" of snow 1958/59: neutral to +PDO (strong El Nino) ~8" of snow 1960's were full of snow except for 1967/68 that had ~18" which was a neutral year (cool PDO didn't average much below -1, with a spike in july august to around -1.5 area) Early 60's had a -PDO regime that relaxed through much of the mid to late 60's and we had some high snowfall years. Early 70s came back with a -PDO period as well then relaxed. So strong Nino and +PDO don't go well around here, neutral ENSO and -PDO do not go well around here, La Nina and -PDO are ehh around here. So with the enhancement of the warmer Atlantic it probably nudged us over to lower snow totals during a -PDO/ La Nina pattern there was already a ridge pattern in the east due to the -PNA but it is now enhanced due to warmer waters off the coast creating a stronger ridge profile not necessarily a deeper -PDO profile. PDO data: https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO I only state this as being a Mid Atlantic resident.

True, I mean the whole W Atlantic has just been insanely warm for years now. The Labrador current is non existent right now too. Wonder what it will take to flip the +AMO pattern?

This is probably one of the larger differences we have seen in a warm phase. Definitely gives an idea of just how impactful this El Nino may end up.

Ocean temps probably helping in conjunction with the more frequent 4-6 MJO, top it off with a -PDO period and boy is it going to look rough. Hope we can get tropics to still actively take out the warmth along the east coast through the end of October maybe it gives us a fighting chance at something different.

0.4 for July/ August

Yea coming from an area that is highly variable in general this is the snow graph from Millersville just SW of me from 1926 to what looks like 2021 (unfortunately 2022 and 2023 not on their but 15.0" and 0.9" respectively). Average is about 27.4" according to the month to month break down, feel this has gone up a bit from about 24-25" but would have to double check. We are not immune to really bad winters around here but the frequency of not having snow or having alot of snow has definitely changed a bit seems to be a one or the other situation around here.

It has been extremely hard to find data of recent for many things not just sea ice. I do not like it. The temps are holding rather steadily above average across the Arctic so it will definitely be a slow start this year. The Russian land temps are finally cooling down enough that it should help with starting the refreeze season soon but we may have seen our lowest for the year and just a very slow start as we head to October.

CPC site finally updated still holding on to quite a bit of subsurface warmth out in the way western Pacific, if that has not gone away it still does mean that another KW is on the table. When is clearly the question at hand but not anytime soon I suppose. Still nothing showing up with even a minor WWB to the of the month. Luckily the trades are not nearly as strong as last year but strong enough to put a lid on things for now. Edit: I do not know why CPC gif always stop but it is what it is at this point. Here is the site if folks don't have it. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml

Lol well be careful with that because once it starts it may not shut off down here.

Lol im good when we have had rains it has been quite prolific and caused flash flooding. Just want a nice synoptic style rainfall to ease some of the worries around here.

There is an expansion of cool anomalies and a weakening of the thermocline. Looks to be moving back to August location for anomalies? One thing that does look locked in is the anomalies in the west 3.4/4 region those are not moving however the eastern areas... to be continued.

It is not a screaming STJ lol it is there but not a crazy STJ let the seasonal pattern sink in. Things are not going to flip on a dime. I however do not like the troughing trying to sneak back into the west coast on models. Let's see how it shakes out.

While it is nice to finally be catching up on some rainfall we still have a ways to go unfortunately. It has been quite the dry water year. I hate to say it but something tropical will have to push us close to average. The period from April- June was insanely dry around here July was at or above average across most of the area and each month since has been close to but just below average.

Updated TAO subsurface, again wish I had decided to save dates before this but was way too busy with work.

Now I know these don't always happen as planned but just by looking at this there is not an expected WWB event in the near future even trying to pop up. Also notice the nice uptick in trades across the maritime and Indian ocean.

I tried other dates as well around multi year La Ninas expecting to go into Warm ENSO regardless of strength. Found 1951, 1957, and 1986 had a similar look. 2001 was similar as well but did not go into Warm ENSO until 2002 and 2009 did not have this look as well. So quite all over the board as far as what the Nino looked like.

I thought this was cool to see, since we don't have September yet did June through August. Here is 2021, 2022, and 2023. Notice the +VP anomaly in the EPAC. I went back to 2010 when we had similar in magnitude to current PDO state in summer to see if it was indeed a -PDO thing. Definitely is not a -PDO thing as the +VP were throughout the entire Central Pacific during that time. Surprisingly the years that had this were 1972, 1976,1977 (this one was odd to see as we had already had a warm ENSO event the year before)... years coming off a multi year La Nina into a warm ENSO state. Ill post them in another post with this quoted then.

Maybe for the PDO comment but Hilary still made a decent run and Jova as well, of course they didn't last too long after hitting the cooler than normal region but that is about as typical as it gets. If we look at just the top Nino years 2015 and 1997 saw a large amount of activity. This was due to the atmospheric state allowing tropical activity to go nuts, 2009 and 1972 two years with neutral to -PDO state still managed decent activity 20/ 14 storms respectively. The atmospheric state (-VP) was a little less conducive in 1972 than the other 3 years mentioned hence the lower tropical storm count the -VP anomaly was around 150W averaged over June through Sept and shut off rather abruptly along Central American pacific coastal waters. The other years had -VP over much of the central and eastern PAC with 2009 having a much stronger west lean out of all the years. The anomaly maps are all over the place honestly, it really depends on which one you use. CRW is probably the warmest overall while CDAS tends to be the coolest overall. I have not checked to see what OISST and this UKMO one are like and what baselines they use (it usually falls to what baseline they use that causes the sometimes large changes in anomaly placement) so I guess in that sense use which one you want? Preferably just like we do with most other things is to average things out which probably gets us much closer to ERSST estimates. As for the quietness in the GOM and Caribbean that is expected in an El Nino not the two storms that formed last month in the northern Caribbean, that is quite unusual. In fact any tropical activity avoided the Caribbean in 1997 and 2015, not so much in 1972 and 2009 even 1982 had 0 activity in the Caribbean. I certainly hope we are done after the N storm forms but if models continue to show us looping back to 3 or through 2-3 before the end of the month expect another round of tropical activity to occur toward the end of the month early October.

What i find rather crazy still is the lack of an EPAC season. Had a similar occurrence to last year where it started decent then just stopped. Typically in el nino EPAC is firing on all cylinders right now. Should be getting to R or S storms by mid to late september. Atlantic should be barely crossing the I storm maybe at most to the L storm in an el nino. The storms should be recurving out to sea like margot yet we have had several sneak through and cause issues close to home. We had two storms form in the north Caribbean which is very unusual in an el nino. Again all this is just a sign that something is not coupling right with the el nino. We have the warm waters just not everything aligning right. If we legit end the EPAC with Jova i would be very surprised but nothing in the pipeline for the next two weeks atleast showing up. I mean even the SOI may make a run at positive levels with the amount of high pressure showing up in the south pacific. In a few days we will have hit mid september leaving us 1.5 months away at most from typical peak time for OHC and Nino peak (which tends to happen just a little earlier). If we are lucky we see one more KW come through but that keeps getting pushed back in time and the effects would be in October at this point if one occurs, meaningfully. This is looking more and more like the june into early july level off/cool down period. Maybe we see a stark change come October but time is definitely running out.

Definitely getting the core much more stable than it has been. See if we can get convection surrounding the eye and we may start the process of strengthening.

Here is the latest 24 hour microwave, looks like it finally dropped the old eyewall and can start on a new one.