raindancewx

The PDO tends to decay toward whatever 1.2 is in October, so I do expect it reverse toward neutral fairly rapidly in the coming weeks. But I never really expected it to sustain positive, and that still looks correct. PDO is a pretty weak signal in December nationally. The lightest blue/green is 0.1 r, not r-squared. But PDO is a bigger deal in Oct-Nov and Jan-Feb. The only important tendency with a -PDO December is Western Canada will be cold (probably not flooded with Pacific air).

We're up to 3.8 inches of rain as of a minute ago for the month. Should pass September 2013 (3.97") to become the wettest month for Albuquerque since July 1930 in the next two hours. Above 4.45" (July 1930), its easily the wettest month in over 100 years. Real shot at passing July 1930 too with ~36 hours of rain/month left as Polo makes landfall two. Sept rain/temp patterns nationally don't really reflect correlations to El Nino or the PDO, although PDO is irrelevant for US temps in Sept.

Maybe I'm wrong - we could end with the wettest month since 1892 here. The land has already rapidly greened up from all the rain. Very pretty. I have mosquito bites all over my back just above my butt from walking, as well as on my arms. Not great. Conceptually, the winter now has the following setup: Very hot Jun-July (poor for snow), hot for Aug (neutral), wet (good for snow), El Nino (good for snow), duration (>3 yrs since last big season), El Nino + good monsoon (good for snow). September will finish near average for highs with all the rain induced cold days. Polo is supposed to die right over El Paso, which is amazing spot for a low for most of New Mexico.

Polo in the East Pacific is what I've been waiting for all year. Monstrous (cat 5) hurricane that will hit Western MX and run NE and bring a lot more rain into the Southwest.April 1905, Nov 1905, July 1919 and July 1930 are the only months since 1892 with >=4 inches of rain in a month in Albuquerque. We're at 3.24" month to date, with plenty of rain coming from Polo remains next week. November 1905 is 4.70 inches - I don't think we beat that. Likely a top five to top ten month for moisture though, pretty likely (~65%?) to be our wettest month in almost a full century. Over 4.45" and it is the wettest month since 1905 (120+ years). Apr 1905 - 4.20" Nov 1905 - 4.70" July 1919 - 4.12" July 1930 - 4.45" Sept 2013 - 3.97" Those are the five wettest months in the city, although the reporting site changed a lot prior to the 1930s. Worth noting that 1905, 1919, and 1930 were all El Nino years, so its interesting that these huge rain-dump months used to be somewhat common in El Ninos. Recent El Ninos have mostly been bad for the monsoon, although July 2014/2015, were in the 3-4 inches range. A month with even 3 inches of rain is already a +2SD event in Albuquerque based on 1892-2026 through Sept - less than 30 months have that much precipitation out of approximately 1600 opportunities. Typically we see more Fall-Spring wetness when the monsoon is active in an El Nino, and when we get more storms, the rest of the country tends to see powerful systems, as It is hard to get consistent rain and snow and storminess in the desert in any situation.

Wettest month in ABQ since July 2015. Outside chance we set the record for rain for at least the modern measurement site by month end, something like 4.06". We're at 2.75"+ and plenty more rain is forecast by the end of the month. 1940 and 1997 were the two prior wettest September El Nino months locally, but we've surpassed both. New Mexico is the land of ENSO, so good to see at least the wet signal now showing up robustly. That said, the wettest Septembers here are often East El Nino setups or Modoki La Nina setups, where E Pac is > W Pac for water temp anomalies at the equator. Sept itself is not correlated strongly for precip to 3.4, so several of the top wet months here are La Ninas.

Wettest month in two years here, so far. Another ~2 inches of rain, by month end, as currently forecast would make this the wettest month since at least July 2015 or Sept 2013, depending on exact amounts. Any month with even three inches of rain is vanishingly rare here. We had two inches of rain in the city this week, and it abruptly killed the heat (90s/100s) we've had almost every day since May. El Ninos with >average rain in Jun-Sept locally tend to behave better as "cold" and or/severely "snowy" winters locally. Looks like we may pull that out yet, even with Jun-Aug well below average. 17E in the E Pacifc may help a bit in the short/medium term as well, by keeping MX flush with moisture.

Still following the progression of the four most recent El Ninos, but at much more extreme severity. The +15F stuff centered over Kansas should wash out a bit by the end of the month, same for the -5 to -10 centered on Oregon. We're seeing widespread heavy rains this month in New Mexico after very little rain in June-Aug. Will be curious to see how the month finishes locally. But 2015/2018/2023 had fairly wet Septembers as well locally.

Again, we are tracking the last four El Ninos rather well as a blend.

Roughly 20F off so far for parts of Iowa. No big deal. Only 10-15F or so by CA/OR so far. La Nina Modoki / El Nino traditional tend to favor the West Cold Fall-Spring (E Pac relatively warm v. W Pac at the equator in each case).

Summer heat over the West looks like it has been destroyed, as Sept has been cold so far over some of the warmest areas, with more cooler than average temps coming for a while. Especially with significant rains likely from the dying East Pacific hurricane running north. Our local pattern of "every day is 90-105" has finally broken in Sept, which is nice. More rain forecast will help if it verifies.

August and Summer (Jun-Aug) were warm for basically the entire lower 48 this year. I fudged the scale on this to make it closer, but the pattern resembled a 1994, 2003, 2012, 2018 blend. In the Summer, 2003/2012 were both El Ninos in terms of SSTs (close to 28C). June-August was my hottest Summer on record: average temp of 81F here v. 80.4F (2011) previously. El Ninos that show up as both near record hot and near record dry are 1953, 1958, 2003, 2023. These are highs for the following Oct-May. Bold is colder v. 1991-2020. 1953-1954 72.6 58.4 42.9 50.3 61.4 58.9 76.8 81.0 62.8 1958-1959 68.6 58.6 54.6 45.4 51.2 59.6 70.4 78.8 60.9 2003-2004 74.3 56.3 47.8 48.4 48.2 65.3 65.7 81.8 61.0 2023-2024 74.8 57.9 49.7 48.5 56.1 60.4 70.8 81.2 62.4 No strong signal for any time-frame being cold, but March is closest followed by February. You've got no real cold signal at all in these years in the Fall, Oct 1958 is -2F, Nov 2003 is -1F, but those are washed out by the others. Dec 1953 is about -5F, but Dec 1958 is +7F. Jan 1959 is -3F, others warm. Its really Feb/Mar with the best shot. Feb averages out to about 1991-2020 mean high, and March averages out 2F below it. Even for March, you have a warm counter-example. Oct-May Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Oct-May 1953-1954 0.46 0.91 0.29 0.20 0.07 0.24 0.00 0.51 2.68 1958-1959 1.72 0.37 1.35 0.17 0.04 0.42 0.43 0.80 5.30 2003-2004 1.58 0.49 0.11 0.10 1.17 0.67 3.00 0.00 7.12 2023-2024 0.00 1.00 1.01 0.33 0.41 0.27 0.33 0.06 3.41 0.94 0.69 0.69 0.20 0.42 0.40 0.94 0.34 Precip has mixed signals too, but each month from Oct-Dec has 2/4 years with 2x average precipitation or more, so that'd be my guess for the wetter period. January looks much drier than average with no above average months, and Mar-May is very erratic but finishes near average as a blend, largely on 2003-04. Best guess is 2-3 wet months from Oct-May. Snow is much more interesting - about 12.3" total, which is what I keep getting when looking at similar patterns. Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb are all 3/4 cases of measurable snow, March is 2/4. My research has previously shown that hot/dry Summers locally favor "out of season" heavy snow. You can see Oct-Nov/Mar-May snow averages 4.0 inches in these years, which is high for those months locally. November has the strongest signal relative to average for a snow event (more likely than average (75% v. 50%) and higher totals than average (2.7" v. 1.0"). December has one of the top ten snow months locally as well, Dec 1958. 1953-1954 0.0 7.5 3.7 2.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14.1 1958-1959 0.0 2.2 14.2 1.7 0.6 4.8 0.0 0.0 23.5 2003-2004 0.0 0.0 2.0 0.0 2.7 0.7 0.0 0.0 5.4 2023-2024 0.0 1.0 0.0 2.4 2.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.1 Blended: 0.0 2.7 5.0 1.8 1.5 1.4 0.0 0.0

Canadian update shows PDO trending positive through Feb-Mar before reversing again. It shifted the center of the El Nino east. Still has a central event, which is why it is cold for the East. But it is shifting the warm plume/enhanced equator moisture east with each run now.

August SOI is approximately in the top ten most negative for the last 100 years. Finished at -14. These are the -10 SOI or lower Augusts, rolled forward to December. The -12 to -16 SOI Augusts, 1953, 1987, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2006 produce the same result. Aug SOI is pretty strong as an indicator for February too. Very strong correlations for a cold SE/warm NW as you'd expect with any ENSO correlation.

August SOI is traditionally a much stronger signal for a warm Northern US December than Nino 3/3.4/4. Month looks like it will finish among the lowest ever SOI readings for August. Vast area of Southern Canada/Northern US favored warm at a strong correlation already. For whatever reason, the August SOI is more predictive for Dec temps than the Sept SOI as well.

Southern South America has been seeing a cold winter (their winter is our Summer). That's fairly normal for an El Nino "expected effect". The Southern Hemisphere +PDO is sort of there, warm ring around a cold tongue. Areas expected to be warm in El Nino have been running +10F or more in winter - good preview for our winter in the northern US I'd expect.