GaWx

In Atlanta, Dec was pretty cold with slightly colder than an average Jan and a frigid blast plunging the coldest to 5F on the 28th, one of the coldest on record in Dec. Jan and Feb averaged pretty close to normal. The month that stood out anomalywise was March as it was the 4th coldest March on record. Although there were no big wintry precip events (not unusual in any winter) and BN wintry precip overall, each of Dec-Mar had at least a trace, fairly unusual for Atlanta as only ~1/6 of winters on record have experienced that. The heaviest was 0.4" (1/8/1926). At NYC, Feb of 1926 had 26.3" of snow, the 6th heaviest for Feb on record. That month had two big snowstorms.

The typically tropical genesis happy GFS says what MDR wave of concern on the 12Z run? It does nothing with it and says probably no new NS the rest of the month. OTOH, this unreliable model at 12Z does about the most with Don yet for this Friday, when it deepens it to a strong TS (994 mb).

The Secretariat of trolls strikes again.

Yep, rainstorm (under various names and at several boards) has had it down to a science for over two decades and is someone trolls look up to and try to emulate. If I were one, I'd probably do the same. Meanwhile, Don quietly became a TS for the first time early this morning. There's a small chance it could eventually become the first H of the season, perhaps Thu or Fri. It is forecasted in the latest by NHC to peak at 45 knots/50 mph, but that's lower than the model consensus.

"According to provisional analysis based on reanalysis data from Japan named JRA-3Q, the average global temperature on 7 July was 17.24 degrees Celsius. This is 0.3°C above the previous record of 16.94 °C on 16 August 2016 – a strong El Niño year. " "The Japanese reanalysis data was made available to WMO and is not yet confirmed. But it is consistent with preliminary data from the Copernicus ECMWF ERA5 dataset." https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/preliminary-data-shows-hottest-week-record-unprecedented-sea-surface-temperatures-and So, in summary, we have for the peaks on July 6-7 of 2023 as follows: -ERA5: ~17.08-17.09 (considered most reliable) or ~0.28-0.29 warmer than 8/13/2016 peak of 16.80 -JRA-3Q: 17.24 or 0.30 warmer than 8/16/2016 peak of 16.94 -CFSR: 17.23 or 0.31 warmer than 8/13-14/2016 peak of 16.92 *8/6/23 edit for ERA5: The following link states that ERA5 peaked at 17.08C on 7/6/23: https://www.weatherandradar.com/weather-news/latest

Good catch! I have no idea why it says UT.

Yeah, it actually restrengthened 0.2C for its peak prediction vs the prior run. However, that higher predicted peak is still 0.3C lower than two runs ago. Also, July is going to end up another bust due to being way too warm. Two runs ago it had July at +1.8 and last run had it at +1.5. In addition, June ended up significantly cooler than its predictions. So, as @griteatersaid, "fool me twice..."

Whereas cycle 24 met expectations of being a weak cycle and was easily the weakest since the late 1800s/early 1900s weak period, cycle 25 (especially during 2022-2023) has been significantly exceeding predictions to be similar or even a bit weaker than 24: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_25#/media/File%3ASolar_Cycle_25_prediction_and_progression.png "The current solar cycle, known as Solar Cycle 25, has been full of activity, more so than expected. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, have already tracked more sunspots than those counted at the peak of the previous cycle." https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/14/world/solar-maximum-activity-2024-scn/index.html

Over just the last three days of 40 run means, the CFS forecasted OND 3.4 peak has risen from ~+1.97 to ~+2.07! Over just the last 11 days of 40 run means, that peak has risen from ~+1.75 to ~+2.07! What is going on here?

Today's OISST anomaly increase in Nino 3.4 of 0.76 (to +1.160) is the largest daily increase since way back on June 6th. Also, today's anomaly is the highest so far this year in regions 3.4, 3, and 1+2.

There's some increased noise on the 0Z GEFS/EPS vs earlier runs regarding an AEW/vorticity coming off Africa ~Tue 7/18. Just something to watch. IF it were to develop, the runs suggest it would probably go pretty far west.

The 7/14 Arctic sea ice area has fallen 2.05 msk since 6/29 or 137k/day. That far exceeds (by 500-600k) the avg fall for that period in the 2010s and 2000s. The years that ended up with the lowest min area are 2012, 2020, 2016, and 2019 per this: The drop for 6/29-7/14 in 2023 exceeds that for 2012 by ~500k, for 2020 by ~200k, for 2016 by ~350k, and for 2019 by ~300k.

The above quoted tweet thread really doesn't tell me anything as it is too abstract to allow me to get a handle on anything relevant to trying to forecast the 2023 ENSO.

Well, you like to follow the MJO and have brought it up many times in tweets. We have easily accessible daily model forecasts of MJO RMM. Plus we have access to decades of historical MJO RMM hard, objective data to compare to. The main reason I started posting about the MJO in this ENSO thread was the tweets you've posted addressing the same topic.

Just like that, the wildly varying bc GEFS is today back to being totally within the circle. The less accurate bc CFS further out in forecast time though had a slight increase in the amplitude in phases 5-6 with max in phase 6 back up to ~1.8 amp (on Aug 9) vs ~1.6 yesterday.

BULLETIN Subtropical Storm Don Advisory Number 1 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL052023 500 AM AST Fri Jul 14 2023 ...SUBTROPICAL STORM DON FORMS OVER THE CENTRAL ATLANTIC... SUMMARY OF 500 AM AST...0900 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...32.9N 46.8W ABOUT 1165 MI...1875 KM WSW OF THE AZORES MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...50 MPH...85 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...N OR 360 DEGREES AT 6 MPH...9 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1002 MB...29.59 INCHES FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS INIT 14/0900Z 32.9N 46.8W 45 KT 50 MPH 12H 14/1800Z 33.5N 47.0W 45 KT 50 MPH 24H 15/0600Z 34.9N 47.3W 45 KT 50 MPH 36H 15/1800Z 36.4N 47.8W 45 KT 50 MPH 48H 16/0600Z 37.6N 47.8W 40 KT 45 MPH 60H 16/1800Z 38.4N 47.1W 40 KT 45 MPH 72H 17/0600Z 38.5N 44.9W 35 KT 40 MPH 96H 18/0600Z 35.9N 40.7W 35 KT 40 MPH 120H 19/0600Z 33.4N 38.5W 40 KT 45 MPH $$ Forecaster Cangialosi

Here comes STS Don very soon! Tropical Weather Outlook NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL 200 AM EDT Fri Jul 14 2023 For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico: 1. Central Atlantic (AL94): Satellite data indicate that the area of low pressure located about 1000 miles west-southwest of the Azores is producing a large area of gale-force winds on its east side. In addition, the thunderstorm activity has remained organized near the center during the past several hours. If current trends continue, advisories could be initiated on a subtropical storm later this morning while it meanders over the central Atlantic. By the weekend, the low should turn northward, bringing the system over cooler waters and into a drier airmass potentially limiting further development. Additional information on this system, including storm warnings, can be found in High Seas Forecasts, issued by the National Weather Service. * Formation chance through 48 hours...high...90 percent. * Formation chance through 7 days...high...90 percent.

94L is more organized now. Chances up to 70%/70%. Should be a NS pretty soon.

It is now more than in the recent past. But still not all that much and not as much as is the case for crude oil. US NG prices were pretty rarely affected much by wars and other geopolitical events/issues back when we were hardly exporting NG. The medium range US wx forecast, especially in the E US in winter and secondarily in summer, was as big a factor as any. However, once exports increased significantly, geopolitical factors (especially in Europe due to the demand for NG exports to there being heavily influenced by those factors) started to have a more significant influence on prices on certain days. This was especially the case early in the Russia/Ukraine war. But US wx is still a huge factor and a bigger factor than geopolitical on most days. Compared to early in the war, geopolitical has actually lessened its influence on prices overall at least for now.

Today CPC said these were the approximate chances for the upcoming El Niño peak late this year: -super 20% -strong 32% -moderate 30% -weak 18% I see hardly any chance for a weak peak. That would require it to be peaking about now. Only 1953 peaked this early of the ~50 El Niño events since the mid 1800s. I'll call it a 1% chance. I have strong at ~50%, moderate at ~25%, and super at ~25% as of now although it is ever changing. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/strengths/index.php

Thank you. Based on this graph, I'm estimating that ERA5 peaked at 17.08-17.09C, which is close to what I expected based on the CFSR peak of 17.23C (July 6th) since ERA5 is often 0.1 to 0.15 cooler than CFSR.

@bdgwx @chubbs and others, Did any of you see what the ERA5/Copernicus peaked at in early July? I'd like to compare it to the CFSR peak. I'd be shocked if it weren't slightly cooler as ERA5 generally runs slightly cooler than CFSR (~~0.1 C cooler recently).

And the CFS progged MJO amplitude continues to slowly weaken with it now only ~1.6 vs low 2 range just 3 days ago. I would like to note that the bc GEFS mean has been swinging pretty wildly from day to day. Just two days ago, it headed to right on the circle in phase 3. Today it has it back to a little outside the circle in phase 5, similar to 3 days ago! Also, folks should note the very large variance between members. That along with the big swings on the mean from day to day tell me that late July is not an easy forecast for GEFS and that more wild daily swings of the mean are quite possible:

I just looked at the latest CFS averaged out over the last 10 days (40 members). It surprisingly shows a significant warmer shift for the peak of the mean ONI from ~+1.75 on what your quoted post shows for the 6/25-7/4 run average to what it shows now, ~+1.97. Looking at the 8 blue lines (runs from the last 48 hours), 6 of them reach or exceed +2.0 for the peak. In contrast, only two blue reached +2.0 on both the 7/4 and 6/24 runs and none on the 6/14 run. Nearly half of the 40 members on this newest run reach or exceed +2.0 vs only a handful as you said as of eight days ago. It is possible that this is just a temporary blip and that the mean could easily trend back cooler over the next 10 days or so. Also, how accurate the CFS is in general is in question. But regardless, I'm looking at the latest CFS trend (vs 8 days ago) and it is warmer. Any thoughts from you or others on this warmer shift? Note that this isn't bc and thus should be adjusted for a bc, but I'm looking at the trend vs the non-bc graph as of 8 days ago (apples to apples):

So, 2023 is essentially flat vs the 2007-2022 average as of July 12th.