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2021-2022 ENSO


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As much as I'd like to believe we'll have an El Nino next winter, the Feb-Mar pattern isn't that different from a year like 1985 which did not become an El Nino.

Will be curious to see if we get the 1-3" snow shown by the Weather.com forecast and some of the raw model runs show on Tuesday-Wednesday in Albuquerque. Been a long time since we've had significant snow in March. I'd also like to see this cold season become the snowiest one locally since 2006-07. Another 1.5" would do that.

The SOI also returned positive in recent days and that looks to continue through a lot of the rest of the month. May not be far off from 0 overall in March.

 

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Over the past month the La Niña has weakened significantly and is barely even a weak La Niña now. The latest model guidance indicates it will go up to around neutral and then go back down again, possibly into another La Niña next fall and winter. A month ago they were saying strong Nina but a lot has changed since then and the updated data is saying cold neutral/borderline weak Nina. With the spring predictability barrier unless it’s an extreme event (record strong nino 2016 and record strong Nina 2011), it seems that the models tend to be all over the place which they are. The range is borderline strong nino to record strong La Niña, with most being roughly -.4 to -.6 degrees Celsius. For the outliers, 4 have moderate+ strength ninas and one has a strong nino. Based on the recent data Despite the shift towards a weaker enso event a big Nina cannot be ruled out yet. Models aside, it’s quite common for the following winter after a strong Nina to be another moderate-strong Nina. This combined with the model data would make me lean towards a second Nina but I can’t really say much about the strength yet. Being a New England snow weenie though, the only enso states with a solidly below avg snowfall signal are moderate and strong ninos, with weak ninos up to record strong ninas signaling at least average near average snowfall.

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15 hours ago, raindancewx said:

As much as I'd like to believe we'll have an El Nino next winter, the Feb-Mar pattern isn't that different from a year like 1985 which did not become an El Nino.

Will be curious to see if we get the 1-3" snow shown by the Weather.com forecast and some of the raw model runs show on Tuesday-Wednesday in Albuquerque. Been a long time since we've had significant snow in March. I'd also like to see this cold season become the snowiest one locally since 2006-07. Another 1.5" would do that.

The SOI also returned positive in recent days and that looks to continue through a lot of the rest of the month. May not be far off from 0 overall in March.

 

 

That's a good point about non-El Nino conditions now. It's hard to have that condition in early April and still be in El Nino-transition, although it can transition +Neutral for the year in May and June alone. 

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Nino 4 convective forcing looks like it is coming back after getting shut down for about 2-3 months. 
Temps there are about to hit 28.0C again.

The anomalies for the past four weeks are just not that impressive even on the warm 1991-2020 baseline:

Nino 1.2: +0.13C
Nino 3  : -0.35C
Nino 3.4: -0.68C
Nino 4  : -0.68C

                 Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 06JAN2021     23.1-0.8     24.7-0.8     25.5-1.1     27.1-1.3
 13JAN2021     24.0-0.3     24.7-0.9     25.4-1.2     27.0-1.3
 20JAN2021     23.9-0.8     25.2-0.6     25.5-1.1     26.9-1.4
 27JAN2021     24.6-0.5     25.7-0.2     25.9-0.7     27.1-1.1
 03FEB2021     25.3-0.2     25.8-0.3     26.0-0.7     27.2-1.1
 10FEB2021     25.4-0.5     25.4-0.9     25.5-1.2     27.0-1.2
 17FEB2021     25.7-0.5     26.2-0.3     26.0-0.7     27.2-1.0
 24FEB2021     25.2-1.1     25.7-0.9     25.7-1.2     27.2-1.0
 03MAR2021     26.6 0.2     26.5-0.4     26.3-0.7     27.4-0.8
 10MAR2021     27.4 0.9     27.1 0.1     26.9-0.3     27.7-0.5
 17MAR2021     27.1 0.5     27.0-0.2     26.8-0.5     27.9-0.4
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What do you make of these ongoing super powered lows off Kamchatka? I don't remember seeing them this strong in the WPO region this late in the year. That's big trouble for somebody in the US if it translates to the US 4/12-4/16. I mean 967 mb on the old saffir simpson scale is like a borderline major hurricane.

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The SOI is negative for the past 30 days but has come up a lot in recent days after a persistent bout of negative days. It may not finish March negative. The 30 day reading is -2, it had been almost +17 as recently as December. The WPO was record positive in January, so maybe that's just a recurring part of the pattern for a while now.

My research in my Spring Outlook implied a series of lows moving across the southern US in March based on the ~record +NAO in November (+2.54). It's been interesting seeing that play out. Southern US is definitely colder than the Northern US by anomalies this month. I had kind of assumed the correlation was due to a lot of +NAO Novembers in El Nino. But it seems to not be only that. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.tableScreenshot-2021-03-24-6-41-55-PM

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Tropical Tidbits has shown cooling recently - the weeklies show it too now.

                 Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 06JAN2021     23.1-0.8     24.7-0.8     25.5-1.1     27.1-1.3
 13JAN2021     24.0-0.3     24.7-0.9     25.4-1.2     27.0-1.3
 20JAN2021     23.9-0.8     25.2-0.6     25.5-1.1     26.9-1.4
 27JAN2021     24.6-0.5     25.7-0.2     25.9-0.7     27.1-1.1
 03FEB2021     25.3-0.2     25.8-0.3     26.0-0.7     27.2-1.1
 10FEB2021     25.4-0.5     25.4-0.9     25.5-1.2     27.0-1.2
 17FEB2021     25.7-0.5     26.2-0.3     26.0-0.7     27.2-1.0
 24FEB2021     25.2-1.1     25.7-0.9     25.7-1.2     27.2-1.0
 03MAR2021     26.6 0.2     26.5-0.4     26.3-0.7     27.4-0.8
 10MAR2021     27.4 0.9     27.1 0.1     26.9-0.3     27.7-0.5
 17MAR2021     27.1 0.5     27.0-0.2     26.8-0.5     27.9-0.4
 24MAR2021     25.4-0.9     26.6-0.7     26.8-0.6     27.8-0.6
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On 3/7/2021 at 7:12 PM, raindancewx said:

Since 1990, cold-ENSO winters with a -SOI in March are 4/4 in going to El Ninos: 1996-97 to 1997-98,

                                                                                                                                                2001-02 to 2002-03,

                                                                                                                                               2008-09 to 2009-10,  

                                                                                                                                               2013-14 to 2014-15.

The overall track-record from 1931 to 2019, if you include borderline El Ninos 1990-91 and 1979-80, is 10 of 18 cold-ENSO years with a -SOI in March go to El Nino or near-El Nino conditions the next winter.

Cold ENSO (La Nina or cold-Neutral) winters with a -4 to -8 SOI in March:

2001-02 (-6, El Nino followed)

1996-97 (-7, El Nino followed)

1989-90 (-8, near-El Nino followed)

1983-84 (-6.5, La Nina followed, but 1984-85 is a very wet/cold winter in the SW)

1950-51 (-5.5, El Nino followed)

1937-38 (-4, La Nina followed, but 1938-39 is a very cold winter in the SW)

Other Recent Cold ENSO, but -SOI Marches:

2013-14 (-12, El Nino followed)

2008-09 (-1, El Nino followed)

1985-86 (-0.3, El Nino followed)

1984-85 (-3, Neutral followed)

SOI finished March at -0.46. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, since 1990, cold ENSO winters are 4/4 in going to El Ninos the next winter with a -SOI in March. The 1985-86 and 2008-09 cold ENSO winters both saw SOI values of 0 to -1 in March.

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My sense is there is blocking next winter too. But if it is an El Nino, it will probably be focused Feb-Mar, not Dec-Jan focused like this winter.

I would like another El Nino. The El Ninos after La Ninas are cool to very cold out here, pretty reliably, and the jump to even a weak El Nino from a ~25.57C La Nina in winter would be one of the larger jumps in the past 70 years, I think top ten for a year to year warm up.

Solar activity is still rising, but it's going up fairly fast now. Next winter is probably the last "low solar" winter for a while. The relevant threshold nationally seems to be an average of 55 sunspots/month for a year from July-June.

The subsurface in March was +0.28 down to 300m, from -0.82 in February. Huge jump. The trajectory Jan-Mar is still like some La Nina years (2011), but also now like some El Nino years (2006).

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

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                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 03MAR2021     26.6 0.2     26.5-0.4     26.3-0.7     27.4-0.8
 10MAR2021     27.4 0.9     27.1 0.1     26.9-0.3     27.7-0.5
 17MAR2021     27.1 0.5     27.0-0.2     26.8-0.5     27.9-0.4
 24MAR2021     25.4-0.9     26.6-0.7     26.8-0.6     27.8-0.6
 31MAR2021     24.9-1.1     26.8-0.6     27.1-0.5     27.9-0.6

CPC reported -0.94C for JFM ONI using 1991-2020 as the baseline. Would be -0.8C against 1951-2010 averages.

On the stable 1951-2010 averages I like to use, I get these figures for March:

Nino 1.2:  25.66C (-0.49C)

Nino 3  :   26.49C   (-0.51C)

Nino 3.4:  26.47C  (-0.66C)

Nino 4  :   27.62C  (-0.45C)

Here are the recent similar transitions in Jan-March in Nino 3.4. The years within 0.2C in all three months are 1996 and 1968. I would blend those two in with 2018, which is remarkably close in January & March.

2021: 25.55 / 25.71 / 26.47

2018: 25.57 / 25.97 / 26.48

2012: 25.67 / 26.08 / 26.67

2009: 25.66 / 25.96 /  26.59

2006: 25.63 / 26.08  / 26.57

1996: 25.69 /  25.89 /  26.67

1985:  25.38 /  26.03 /  26.50

1968:   25.69  / 25.68 /  26.33

1956:   25.34  /  25.76   /  26.46

1955:   25.61  /   25.81 /   26.22

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On 3/24/2021 at 6:17 PM, raindancewx said:

What do you make of these ongoing super powered lows off Kamchatka? I don't remember seeing them this strong in the WPO region this late in the year. That's big trouble for somebody in the US if it translates to the US 4/12-4/16. I mean 967 mb on the old saffir simpson scale is like a borderline major hurricane.

Image

Huge SOI crash in recent days also supports a big low in the time frame of the Kamchatka low now. Around 4/16 in all likelihood.

Date Tahiti (hPa) Darwin (hPa) Daily Contribution 30 day Av. SOI 90 day Av. SOI
7 Apr 2021 1010.87 1009.55 -7.72 0.47 6.90
6 Apr 2021 1011.66 1009.35 -0.58 0.59 7.27
5 Apr 2021 1011.76 1007.60 12.76 0.49 7.57
4 Apr 2021 1009.21 1006.20 4.47 -0.02 7.65
3 Apr 2021 1008.30 1007.75 -13.27 -0.41 7.88
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