so_whats_happening

Latest TAO from Oct 15 to current. I will shortly be taking away October as the gifs are becoming long.

2 hours ago, griteater said:

It was a good thread from Paul.  I asked him a few questions.  I mean, I get that the downwelling wave post-WWB will warm both the subsurface and surface as it treks east (and we actually already have one of those ongoing), but IMO, there is a limit to how much this can warm if the westerly anomalies don't sustain themselves or come back in earnest again (not currently shown, but sure, that is out in the future).  And with respect to the rainfall / convection moving east, same thoughts, unless this WWB is massive or has follow-up support, I don't see how this event is going to re-configure the base WCell uplift regions which have already established themselves and are well-entrenched.  Not to mention, basically every forecast model has them staying put through winter. 

 

 

 

See i dont understand that comment of his with WWBs not needing to sustain themselves. That is exactly what 1997 did so while one WWB event didnt last the whole season it died and another one came right in on its toes to allow this continual warm push eastward.

Here is an above look at the averaged 300m anomalies across the globe. You can see the westward shift in OHC and differences in coverage versus max/min points.

8 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 I’m not trying to rip TAO at all. I love the TAO site and the ability to graph it with so many options. It is fantastic and I love your animations. Please keep them coming! And I like both the CPC OHC chart and the CPC monthly table. I like it all. When I say they’re not in sync, I’m not saying that to rip any of the datasets. Im just noting it for discussion purposes as we try to figure out whether or not the OHC top is in using the various datasets.
 
 I did email someone with NOAA asking if the monthly table is based on 5N to 5S. I’ll post about it if I get an answer.

This was located under the ENSO page in the red writing under subsurface tropical Pacific analysis. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/

Has a good bit of past data to about 1979-Present, it has a Pentad data and this is what I found for a cross examination between August 26 and Nov 4th of directly at the equator. I can only go back three months as of checking it out now, can dive in more to finding further back dates. If we had more solid anomalies in the eastern Pac with the current DWKW temps I would say we probably would have been near the June highs but the eastern regions continue to cool. This probably gives a better look to OHC from the perspective of CPC because it is from their site. Definitely a book mark worthy site.

This is specifically at the Equator and can not change the domain to be 2 N/S or 5 N/S cross section.

5 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Aug 25th looks a little warmer than June 21st. However, I still have Nov 3rd a decent amount warmer than Aug 25th with most of the W half warmer (some much warmer) and a smaller area colder (mainly eastern 25% within the upper 100 m). 
 
 Yeah, I realize that the CPC OHC chart is a bit warmer in late Aug vs 11/3 (+1.25 vs just under +1.20). The comparisons for those two dates for NOAA (warmer) vs TAO (cooler imho) aren’t in sync.

Again covering a 5N to 5S will be different than covering a 2N to 2S in a region. I can easily stop posting TAO data if that is what you are hinting at and simply go off an OHC chart.

There are bound to be differences between the two different sources I don't understand the discrepancy here other than the two not in sync which again makes sense since they are not covering the same areas equally. If CPC did in fact cover 2N to 2S then by all means rip apart TAO data but they are not the same in coverage area.

Keep expanding those waters and dip the thermocline more and we will match June soon enough. It looks like maybe getting close to +2C anomaly in 3.4 toward the middle to end of month is getting more likely. Again sustainability is in question but if we do get a little burst of a +AAM atmosphere mode like we saw back in March and May it could lead to the positive push that has been talked about. The hope is the Westerlies do not die before then, otherwise it will just be another quick spike.

Here is just a four day difference in GFS modeled Hovmollers you can see the area across Nino regions is opening up a bit which should allow the warming to start up again. The overall WWB is weaker than what was originally forecasted just four days earlier not a thing you wanna see a weakening WWB as we get closer. The IOD region is the one that is far more noticeable in change as we head to the end of the month. Maybe a fluke run but that would be an ending of trades across that region.

13 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Thanks. Nice! I was trying to do that but couldn’t figure out how.
 

 Looking closely at the comparison again, practically the entire volume from 180 to 125W is warmer on Nov 3rd vs June 21st. In much of this volume, it is 1C warmer with a large portion of the volume between 135W and 160W and 100-175m deep 2+ C warmer. That adds up to a lot of water that’s much warmer. OTOH, most of 100-125W between 50m and 125m is colder vs June 21st with it as much as 3.5 colder near 100W within 60-90 m of depth.
 

 So, indeed that E water in a portion of the upper depths is colder with some much colder. But that colder volume is <10% of all of the water vs ~65% (~7 times as much water) that is warmer. So, despite some of the colder anomalies being up to 3.5 colder vs the warmer being no warmer than 2.5 warmer, it isn’t nearly enough to overcome the warmer water. That’s why I feel Nov 3rd is overall significantly warmer than June 21st on TAO.

Again I get where you are coming from but it is not there yet as for overall OHC value when comparing the two June is still higher even with it placed differently. Here is August 25 in comparison to Nov 3 which if using CPC OHC chart end of August peaked at just about 1.25 area which right now we are just under 1.2.

On 11/8/2023 at 9:37 AM, griteater said:

Griteater’s Winter Outlook (23-24)

Link to PDF: Griteater's Winter Outlook (23-24).pdf - Google Drive

 

BTW just got the chance to read your forecast. Good insight and thanks for the MJO plot link. Best of luck on your forecast!

@GaWx

Im not sure if you knew but you can use two dates to compare here is a comparison of the two dates June 21st is the top and Nov 3rd is the bottom. I narrowed it down to only showing 100-180W and only the upper 300m.

7 hours ago, GaWx said:

 So, we seem to agree that TAO and CPC aren’t in sync. Looking at the 5 day periods you just posted in the portion down to 300m (which is the portion that both the monthly NOAA table and the time series graph both pertain to), Oct 30-Nov 3 is overall warmer than June 17-21. The only portion that is cooler is 100-120W. 
 
 Here’s the latest, Nov 4-8. Based on eyeballing estimates, I don’t see how the weighted average of 100-180W, 0-300 m (all of this graph except the leftmost 20 degrees) isn’t at least close to +1.50 per TAO and likely about the warmest yet this El Niño per TAO:

 

 So, if TAO is now at about its warmest for this Nino, is the true OHC now at its warmest this Nino? Shouldn’t that be considered as a realistic possibility? I assume TAO data is credible.

Sure I guess we agree to disagree. I would contact CPC to know more about the formats they use but you have to also remember intensity does help compensate for areal coverage and both together add even more to the values. I wouldn't call this the warmest the event has been but again we can agree to disagree.

In June we were cracking +6 anomalies where we barely have a +5 showing up now but overall more +3 than back then.

To add onto this here was CPC Subsurface from end of June to end of August you can see the areal coverage has overall been about the same but the intensity of these pockets has waxed and waned literally the same thing that was shown on TAO. By the same argument of using the look at it approach shouldn't August have been warmer OHC wise versus June? 

Again the best thing to do would be contacting CPC to get a better idea of the domain used for their OHC graph, Im sure they would gladly help you out with that. I could maybe ask the guy I work with but he is in a different department (OPC) so he might not have a solid answer.

6 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Why would the TAO be in sync with CPC they are two different sources of data, even though they are observing the same thing. It is just like looking at the differences in OISST to CRW SST's they are different while doing the same thing. If you wanna compare apples to apples use something on CPC, unless CPC has an archive somewhere that I am not aware of  this is the closest you will get to what is being portrayed back in time.

As for the differences from a monthly stand point of June to a 5 day average in November maybe it is best left to compare to another 5 day period not a month. If the month for November comes in at 1.4 similar to June then we can compare the monthly average. This is what 1.35 value on CPC page looks like in June for a 5 day average for TAO. This is what around 1.2 looks like to CPC site which updated to Nov 4th. Also a not quite as high peak in late August about 1.25 lets say

This was the CPC update for Nov 4th which is the latest the OHC is likely updated until.

1 minute ago, GaWx said:

 I’ll come back to comparisons to past El Niños later. But I’m first asking you to compare Nov 3-7 of 2023 to June of 2023, which is what I showed in my post done ~45 minutes ago. The Nov 3-7 depth chart showing 100W to 180 from 0 to 300m is significantly warmer overall than that for June. The only portion that was cooler on the Nov 3-7 is 100-120W in the uppermost 125m, which is only ~10% of the volume. ~70% of the volume is warmer on Nov 3-7. The other ~20% is about the same. 

 How could the Nov 3-7th depth be so much warmer than June when June is by a good margin the warmest month of 2023 to date per the OHC time series graph? They don’t appear to be in synch, which is the point I’m making.

Why would the TAO be in sync with CPC they are two different sources of data, even though they are observing the same thing. It is just like looking at the differences in OISST to CRW SST's they are different while doing the same thing. If you wanna compare apples to apples use something on CPC, unless CPC has an archive somewhere that I am not aware of  this is the closest you will get to what is being portrayed back in time.

As for the differences from a monthly stand point of June to a 5 day average in November maybe it is best left to compare to another 5 day period not a month. If the month for November comes in at 1.4 similar to June then we can compare the monthly average. This is what 1.35 value on CPC page looks like in June for a 5 day average for TAO. This is what around 1.2 looks like to CPC site which updated to Nov 4th. Also a not quite as high peak in late August about 1.25 lets say

12 minutes ago, GaWx said:

I don’t think you’re seeing what I’m seeing. I would post a gif animation of the two, but it is way too fast when I do it. Do you know how to slow down a gif animation from IPhone gallery still images?

These were a 1.4C anomaly from the same website on October 1991, September 2002. This was the time period at the end of April that had a peak almost exactly where the graph shows for OHC currently.

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

I’ll come back to that. But please address what I just posted, which clearly shows that Nov 3-7th of 2023 is warmer than June 1-30 of 2023 on the depth charts.

just look on that site and see what it was from cpc for June. 1.4 intensity was more in June than November subsurface coverage about the same.

7 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 There appears to be a disconnect between these TAO/Triton depth graphs and the time series OHC graph. Otherwise, the Nov 3-7 averaged OHC would now be significantly warmer than the June OHC, which per the time series OHC is the warmest full month so far.

 Compare the two depth charts below. Compared to June, the only portion of 100W-180 on the June graph that is cooler is 100-120W from 0 to 125m depth. Otherwise, 120W-180 from 0 to 300m of is significantly warmer on Nov 3-7 vs June.

Nov 3-7th:

 

June 1-30:

Using this webpage from CPC website for the OHC upper 300m.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

You can take a look at 1991 where it had an OHC around 1.22 for 100-180W and this was the look.

A look at the last week only there is something funky holding on around 120W and about 100-150m below the surface just not allowing a dip in the thermocline. From the last push of cooler waters in this region we have had this keeping things different in the subsurface compared to what we would see in a DWKW situation. I'm not entirely sure what the reason for this feature, it has been a thing since back in March. Is this due to the further west than typical WWB placement and strength this year?

12 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, the record -PDO warm pool near Japan continues to make headlines there.

 

 

That is something else. 80 degree temps and being 15-20 above average in locations is impressive for November. Looks like the pattern we had in October set up over there in the early portion of November.

15 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Belie is the latest, the 5 day average centered on 11/7/23 with it cropped to only go down to 300m. Looking at 100-180W (most of this) and assuming this is based on the same data that the daily graph of 100-180W OHC uses, it appears to me that there’s a good shot at a new high on the graph of this Nino within the next few weeks. I wouldn’t all be shocked if +1.50 is reached. The current high is near +1.35 set in mid June.

Maybe you see what a +2C looked like back in 1991 we have some work to get it higher. If we do indeed see the strength of the WWB shown I would expect some more warming to occur. The trick of it all is to see continual WWB and have them propagate eastward. The WWB action need to not necessarily be the strength they were when initiated but to have constant weakening of trades further east, as of now that is not showing up. Ill do a comparison of charts then when we start to get closer to the peak WWB.

I do believe these are fairly close to what the OHC numbers look like from NOAA. Also it is not 5 day average to the date shown, the date shown is the last of the 5 day period. I do every 2 days to account for some changes to not be missed and show a better progression, except on archive data where it puts me at 5 day intervals already.

2 hours ago, griteater said:

I'm going to go ahead and launch a pre-emptive strike here as P Roundy is using the word "extraordinary" to describe the next westerly wind burst in the forecast charts.  Seems like we've been using those types of terms most of this year, but the big push into Super just hasn't been realized to date.

 

I was scanning the historical Nino 3.4 charts since the early 80's on StormVista, and one year that rose sharply late was 1991.  It rose a full degree from early November to early January.

 

Here is a westerly wind burst in the timeframe of Nov 15 - Dec 31, 1991

 

 

So looking back at 1991 we had some weakening of trade winds that started back in September, probably even before that, across much of the Pacific basin so we started the DWKW process around mid September we had a two week period around the beginning to middle of October that featured less WWB action but it picked right back up in earnest going into Halloween and as you posted November. That is nearly 3 months worth of continual east propagating WWB action from September to November/December. We currently have our event around 150E and it has lasted about a month thus far it is possible to see a spike and not sure if that would happen or not yet but here was the subsurface from about mid September onward to the new year. There is a fairly similar look in the subsurface just different placement and overall intensity differs between this year and 1991 so far.

Key notes we saw a whole ENSO region moderate WWB event at the beginning of September that started the process we saw a weakening of this as we went into October before picking back up in early November and lasting into the new year. OHC continued to rise another .7C, after the slow down in October area was around 1.2C for 180-100W, topping out at around 2C in January with a peak in January at a trimonthly of 1.7 with a peak 3.4 at 1.89C.

12 hours ago, bluewave said:

Hopefully we can get enough of an El Niño atmospheric response this winter for a decent STJ. Right now we are seeing a very La Niña-like flash drought over portions of the Southeast. Record driest fall so far in locations that usually see this during years heading into La Niña winters. 
 

 

 

Time Series Summary for Chattanooga Area, TN (ThreadEx)
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Rank	Ending Date	Total Precipitation Sep 1 to Nov 7	Missing Count
1	2023-11-07	0.42	0
2	1938-11-07	1.68	0
3	2016-11-07	1.71	0
4	1939-11-07	2.10	0
5	1931-11-07	2.24	0
6	1998-11-07	2.32	0
7	1978-11-07	2.39	0
-	1891-11-07	2.39	0
8	1886-11-07	2.53	0
9	1904-11-07	2.64	0
10	2005-11-07	2.68	0
-	1922-11-07	2.68	0

Yea it has been quite dry still,  thought we turned the corner back in July where we nearly doubled monthly totals and even through September we were solidly getting rain but October just hit a wall after the first week. This may still be the influence of a strong -PDO in place the battle between the two has been showing up since March. 

9 hours ago, GaWx said:

Today’s update of this OHC graph has been revised significantly warmer for late Oct/early Nov with it suggesting it has risen back to ~+1.2 and rising further. Let’s see if it later exceeds the earlier two peaks as the most recent animation provided by @so_whats_happeningsuggested to me could possibly occur soon:

Yes it has been increasing slowly even with how solid the WWB's have been. Here is the latest look the area around 120W and about 150m down is still causing some issues with the thermocline changing up and taking on a more typical El Nino look of exceedingly warm anomalies in that region. This is the graph setup I have thrown together of this El Nino thus far, didn't really move much of a needle in October even with the second half featuring the the downwelling Kelvin wave. I do expect it to continue to warm but not drastically as of right now.

1 minute ago, so_whats_happening said:

Since we are talking IOD now here were the last 5 decent to very strong +IOD events:

1994-95: Peaked at around 2 in early November

1997-98: Peaked around 4 in mid December

2006-07: Peaked around 2.3 mid December

2015-16: Peaked at 1.3 in early November

2019-20: Peaked at 3.3 in early December

So average timeframe to look for peak is from early November to mid December. Virtually all of them went negative by May with 2006-07 being the one that held on into summer.

Used this since it was a nice visual approach but only goes to 1993 which is fine enough for seeing the evolution of these events. I wouldn't expect this to act differently compared to ENSO.

https://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/overlay-iod/

Anyway here were the 850mb zonal wind anomalies starting from Sept 1. Most went positive around the beginning of summer and this year was no different. Just keep in mind peak timeframe when looking at these gifs and the lead up look to peak. 

This is the last 2 week image so far for this event I will wait another 2 weeks but pretty sure we already peaked. You can still sustain easterlies in a +IOD event, such as this, and still have a weakening +IOD. The fact that this is already into the western IO means we are limiting just how much those values peak. I included a still image of 1997 when it had the strongest winds across the entire IO, it stretched from Sumatra to Somalia where we seem to currently have them more concentrated further west. 1997 was just better coupled to say the least.

Since we are talking IOD now here were the last 5 decent to very strong +IOD events:

1994-95: Peaked at around 2 in early November

1997-98: Peaked around 4 in mid December

2006-07: Peaked around 2.3 mid December

2015-16: Peaked at 1.3 in early November

2019-20: Peaked at 3.3 in early December

So average timeframe to look for peak is from early November to mid December. Virtually all of them went negative by May with 2006-07 being the one that held on into summer.

Used this since it was a nice visual approach but only goes to 1993 which is fine enough for seeing the evolution of these events. I wouldn't expect this to act differently compared to ENSO.

https://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/overlay-iod/

Anyway here were the 850mb zonal wind anomalies starting from Sept 1. Most went positive around the beginning of summer and this year was no different. Just keep in mind peak timeframe when looking at these gifs and the lead up look to peak. 

2 minutes ago, griteater said:

Yeah, I liked your link.  The GWO chart from MVentrice is a good one....but yeah, I was just pointing out that the data up to the current date is fine, but the forecast graphs/charts based off the CFS aren't regarded as very accurate, I don't think.

For sure forecasts are rough at best Ill have to check out the pattern globally with what looks like strong +AAM mode versus a strong -AAM mode. If I remember correctly a lot of wave break activity is -AAM regime and more blocking type pattern tends to be +AAM regime. Since -AAM tends to send energy poleward and helps with the SPV and TPV versus +AAM tends to focus things more equatorward weakening the SPV and TPV. This was one of those things not taught too often during schooling besides it being there, feel this is some grad level information.

38 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah, I think this nino has already peaked, or is close to peaking. And right now it's a back and forth battle between +/- PNA. We've had an aleutian low and a +PNA-like pattern recently. Soon it'll be the other side's turn, and that mid month -PNA will last about a week, then after that who knows. Weeklies say it flips back to +PNA. 

I think this back and forth is going to last through the end of the year, and when January comes around, we'll see some El Nino influence kicking in then.

Im still not entirely sure yet this is peak but we seemingly may be close, the SSTA has not reacted to the WWB like I thought it would thus far except in subsurface look. As for the PNA I have thought for awhile now this would be back and forth through the season especially with the ever present -PDO regime we have. I do agree though on the El Nino at some point in the near future should try to take hold January does seem reasonable and a slow decline in SSTA through the winter. We may see this being a similar look to last March but just anomalies in the opposite spots (last March was a warm east and cool up to about the dateline).

4 minutes ago, griteater said:

I think those AAM forecasts tend to be sketchy.

I'd refer to the past charts to kind of see how things have progressed

https://atlas.niu.edu/gwo/

MR-latest-30days.png (1555×983) (niu.edu)

MR-latest-365days.png (1566×983) (niu.edu)

It is the same map from the atlas webpage just on a different site. Thanks for the 365 one.