El Nino 2023-2024

[George001]

16 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

Paul Roundy mentioned the possibility of a reversal in the replies. Possible Nina next year? 

[GaWx]

 There has been a significant weakening of the SPV on the Euro Weeklies for mid-Feb onward since the run of 3 days ago, especially for mid-Feb:

Here was the Jan 26 run: very strong SPV mid-Feb with 10 mb winds +31 with only one (1%) wind reversal then:

 

Today’s run’s mean has literally almost cut the Feb 19th wind in half to a BN +16 in just 3 runs and has ~12% with a reversal. Watch this period for possible future increases in probabilities. The CDN and FNMOC ensemble mean winds have also dropped somewhat for mid-Feb. Potential implications of a mid Feb reversal would be for early March in the E US:

[raindancewx]

For all the talk of the Nino being weaker, or the forcing being different or whatever, we've basically gone to a 1982-83/1997-98 temp composite so far. February looks similar, which makes me think it's not a fluke. 

I did warm it up a degree - but other than the Central Plains being colder and the coldest air being over the Ozarks, it's pretty decent.

The good news is March continues to look cold and stormy for almost everyone. That's the month I've been most interested in the Fall, none of the other months really looked particularly cold and stormy to me. The fluky Southern snow event around 1/15 should repeat around 3/1 as the most powerful storm of the entire cold season, with ample tornadoes ahead of it as well. All my analogs with the fluky snow in the south had this 45-days later - so I'm fairly confident in that.

Here is February and the CFS on 1/29. I'm sure someone will come in and point out all the ways 1997-98 in particular is different, but ultimately the cold air that winter was in Europe/Asia - and that's what we have this year. Cold in Asia often accompanies warm air flooding North America for weeks at a time, with brief breaks in between. The AO was at least technically negative in almost every month from Oct-Apr in 1997-98, and it just wasn't a cold pattern for North America due to overriding factors.

March

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Good post raindance. I think a lot of the warmth in that position of the country has come from +nao/+epo, where the actual El Nino forces the North Pacific High to be weaker, and that's what a more direct point of effect is. This year we have not seen that weakening of the North Pacific High like Stronger El Nino years.. funny that the energy mets will probably get it right, but it's important to know that in the future something like this sequence is less likely to happen again.  I have been leaning toward a warm March for the US, because I think that's a strong trend developing over the last few years, but you make a good case for it to be an interesting month temp and storm-wise. 

[LibertyBell]

5 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Good post raindance. I think a lot of the warmth in that position of the country has come from +nao/+epo, where the actual El Nino forces the North Pacific High to be weaker, and that's what a more direct point of effect is. This year we have not seen that weakening of the North Pacific High like Stronger El Nino years.. funny that the energy mets will probably get it right, but it's important to know that in the future something like this sequence is less likely to happen again.  I have been leaning toward a warm March for the US, because I think that's a strong trend developing over the last few years, but you make a good case for it to be an interesting month temp and storm-wise. 

If anything February at least the back half of it should be colder, maybe leaking over into the first week of March, but el ninos, particularly strong el ninos, tend to have a mild March.

 

[GaWx]

Look at how much the WCS daily PDO has risen recently. It was up to -0.20 as of Jan 27: Edit up to -0.17 on Jan 28

 

[mitchnick]

On 1/29/2024 at 4:21 PM, GaWx said:

 There has been a significant weakening of the SPV on the Euro Weeklies for mid-Feb onward since the run of 3 days ago, especially for mid-Feb:

Here was the Jan 26 run: very strong SPV mid-Feb with 10 mb winds +31 with only one (1%) wind reversal then:

 

Today’s run’s mean has literally almost cut the Feb 19th wind in half to a BN +16 in just 3 runs and has ~12% with a reversal. Watch this period for possible future increases in probabilities. The CDN and FNMOC ensemble mean winds have also dropped somewhat for mid-Feb. Potential implications of a mid Feb reversal would be for early March in the E US:

There is support!

[Stormchaserchuck1]

I would have been surprised if we went throughout a strong -QBO/strong El Nino with -10mb.

[GaWx]

13 hours ago, mitchnick said:

There is support!

This end of the Jan 31 6Z GFS is close to a major SSW on the anniversary of the one of last winter, Feb 16:

 

[GaWx]

On 1/23/2024 at 11:39 AM, GaWx said:

 I’m roughly estimating that the Jan 2024 SOI will end up in the +3 to +5 range. How would that compare to other strong+ Ninos? I count 18 of them going back to 1877-8. Out of these 18, 17 had a -SOI in Jan. The only one that didn’t was 1931’s +6. So, Jan of 2024 is headed toward easily having the 2nd most +SOI of 19 strong+ Ninos and not far behind 1931. Unlike 2023-4, 1930-1 was unusually dry in the E US for El Niño.

 Regarding just the 6 super Ninos, their Jan SOI range was from the -4 of 1973 to the -31 of 1983.

 https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

 The Jan 2024 SOI ended up at +3.96, easily the 2nd most +SOI Jan of 19 strong+ Ninos and not too far behind Jan of 1931’s +6.4:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

 Keep in mind the La Niña-like extreme cold pattern of midmonth (coldest in Plains/upper MW and then with much less intensity anomalywise SE)

[40/70 Benchmark]

There are some similairties with respect to the cold being in Eurasia, but you can't complely disregard the differences, which is probably why the mid atlantic is near normal snowfall as opposed to that year, which saw just about no snow there.

[rainsucks]

On 1/29/2024 at 10:34 PM, raindancewx said:

For all the talk of the Nino being weaker, or the forcing being different or whatever, we've basically gone to a 1982-83/1997-98 temp composite so far. February looks similar, which makes me think it's not a fluke. 

I did warm it up a degree - but other than the Central Plains being colder and the coldest air being over the Ozarks, it's pretty decent.

The good news is March continues to look cold and stormy for almost everyone. That's the month I've been most interested in the Fall, none of the other months really looked particularly cold and stormy to me. The fluky Southern snow event around 1/15 should repeat around 3/1 as the most powerful storm of the entire cold season, with ample tornadoes ahead of it as well. All my analogs with the fluky snow in the south had this 45-days later - so I'm fairly confident in that.

Here is February and the CFS on 1/29. I'm sure someone will come in and point out all the ways 1997-98 in particular is different, but ultimately the cold air that winter was in Europe/Asia - and that's what we have this year. Cold in Asia often accompanies warm air flooding North America for weeks at a time, with brief breaks in between. The AO was at least technically negative in almost every month from Oct-Apr in 1997-98, and it just wasn't a cold pattern for North America due to overriding factors.

March

interesting as Larry Cosgrove (along with some others) were hinting at the possibility of this March being very mild. Idk, just a bit skeptical of the cold March idea, but I guess we'll see. Probably doesn't mean much, but the super long range GEFS has a warm start to March as well.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I have been on the warm March train all season...but we'll see. Love to be wrong on that.

[LibertyBell]

6 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I have been on the warm March train all season...but we'll see. Love to be wrong on that.

Looks like everything is coming together for a colder and perhaps snowy back half of February at least.

 

[LibertyBell]

26 minutes ago, rainsucks said:

interesting as Larry Cosgrove (along with some others) were hinting at the possibility of this March being very mild. Idk, just a bit skeptical of the cold March idea, but I guess we'll see. Probably doesn't mean much, but the super long range GEFS has a warm start to March as well.

I think it's reasonable to split the difference and if the colder back half of February idea does come to fruition then perhaps the cold will linger into the first week or 10 days of March.  I don't think we can really hope for more than that.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Looks like everything is coming together for a colder and perhaps snowy back half of February at least.

 

Yea, it looked thay was to me since last fall, but at this point....I need to see it actully bare fruit. One thing I give @raindancewxa great deal of credit for was identifying that uncanny ability of -PDO El Nino seasons to avoid big NE snows at least excuse imaginable....even when temps were not prohibitive.

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, it looked thay was to me since last fall, but at this point....I need to see it actully bare fruit. One thing I give @raindancewxa great deal of credit for was identifying that uncanny ability to -PDO El Nino seaons to avoid big snows at least excuse imaginable....even when temps were not prohibitive.

It's basically dejavu from the 80s and early 90s.  Now we know that wasn't bad luck, it's simply something that seems to happen quite often in -PDO patterns because the margin for error is so small; we've been in a thread the needle pattern and it seems like Mother Nature is like a blind person trying to thread it lol.

It really makes 1966-67 stick out for being an amazing winter, in spite of the -PDO pattern, we really racked up the snowfall that winter.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

It's basically dejavu from the 80s and early 90s.  Now we know that wasn't bad luck, it's simply something that seems to happen quite often in -PDO patterns because the margin for error is so small; we've been in a thread the needle pattern and it seems like Mother Nature is like a blind person trying to thread it lol.

It really makes 1966-67 stick out for being an amazing winter, in spite of the -PDO pattern, we really racked up the snowfall that winter.

 

This is has been a blockier and warmer version of 1972-1973.

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This is has been a blockier and warmer version of 1972-1973.

This is an interesting combo, blockier AND warmer.  I guess this is what happens when the source region is warmer too.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

This is an interesting combo, blockier AND warmer.  I guess this is what happens when the source region is warmer too.

 

Right.....EPO/WPO.

[snowman19]

@so_whats_happening @GaWx The massive WWB is having a very rapid effect…Nino 3.4 is back over +1.8C and region 3 is almost +2.0C again

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The Jan 2024 SOI ended up at +3.96, easily the 2nd most +SOI Jan of 19 strong+ Ninos and not too far behind Jan of 1931’s +6.4:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

 Keep in mind the La Niña-like extreme cold pattern of midmonth (coldest in Plains/upper MW and then with much less intensity anomalywise SE)

Not really a La Nina signal yet.. or at least, based on 75 years of satellite data

https://ibb.co/gPrZP2Y

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

@so_whats_happening @GaWx The massive WWB is having a very rapid effect…Nino 3.4 is back over +1.8C and region 3 is almost +2.0C again

 

 That last (“at the buzzer” ) warm burst for all anyone knows MIGHT be enough to barely attain a +2.00 for the unrounded NDJ ONI, but it could still go either way. (Rounded +2.0 NDJ in the table remains a near certainty.) A lot for the unrounded is riding on the relationship this month between OISST and ERSST. The Aug-Dec ERSST anomaly averaged 0.08 warmer than OISST.

 Before anyone asks, whether or not the unrounded turns out to be +2.00+ will have no impact on Feb wx prospects. This is just for fun, documentation, bragging rights, and the contest.

[raindancewx]

Canadian has a major +WPO look for February.

Canadian look does resemble the Feb 83 / 98 blend I showed before. It also has the cold finish to winter in old MX I mentioned in my winter outlook. Someone down there may finish -2 or -3 following a chilly December and mild January with a cold February.

WPO if nothing else tends to flood Western Canada with warmth when positive in February.

As far as March goes - I don't actually think the cold period will align exactly with March 1-31. I'm expecting a flip to pretty intense warmth late month. The recurrence of the pattern that pushed DC as an example to 80F in January should be mid-March. Maybe DC hits 95F on 3/12? I'm half kidding, but I wasn't expecting 80 in January either.

Locally, El Ninos that have high solar activity are notorious for producing heavy snow in March. The stronger, high solar El Nino Marches tend to be pretty expansively...chilly? Like not super cold - I think it is one or two major cold waves in a warm wet pattern, which does seem to fit well with how this winter has gone. The more modern thirty year averages are too cold for what they show March doing. I'd expect a lot of the US to be 1-2 below average after a cold start puts down some snow in a lot of the US, and then it is slow to erode with a rapid warm up late month.

The lower solar El Nino / weaker El Ninos tend to not have the +WPO signal for whatever reason, and it's more or less impossible to get heavy snow here in March without those deep Kamchatka lows.

Weak El Nino / low solar March, El Nino

Stronger, high solar. You can see the flow in the NW Pacific is completely different, almost opposite.

The pattern last March, when we sort of had weak El Nino conditions, resembles the first image a bit for the North Pacific.

[GaWx]

32 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Canadian has a major +WPO look for February.

Canadian look does resemble the Feb 83 / 98 blend I showed before. It also has the cold finish to winter in old MX I mentioned in my winter outlook. Someone down there may finish -2 or -3 following a chilly December and mild January with a cold February.

WPO if nothing else tends to flood Western Canada with warmth when positive in February.

As far as March goes - I don't actually think the cold period will align exactly with March 1-31. I'm expecting a flip to pretty intense warmth late month. The recurrence of the pattern that pushed DC as an example to 80F in January should be mid-March. Maybe DC hits 95F on 3/12? I'm half kidding, but I wasn't expecting 80 in January either.

Locally, El Ninos that have high solar activity are notorious for producing heavy snow in March. The stronger, high solar El Nino Marches tend to be pretty expansively...chilly? Like not super cold - I think it is one or two major cold waves in a warm wet pattern, which does seem to fit well with how this winter has gone. The more modern thirty year averages are too cold for what they show March doing. I'd expect a lot of the US to be 1-2 below average after a cold start puts down some snow in a lot of the US, and then it is slow to erode with a rapid warm up late month.

The lower solar El Nino / weaker El Ninos tend to not have the +WPO signal for whatever reason, and it's more or less impossible to get heavy snow here in March without those deep Kamchatka lows.

Weak El Nino / low solar March, El Nino

Stronger, high solar. You can see the flow in the NW Pacific is completely different, almost opposite.

The pattern last March, when we sort of had weak El Nino conditions, resembles the first image a bit for the North Pacific.

Keep in mind that these CANSIPS maps are based on the somewhat colder 1981-2010 climo vs the 1991-2020 climo that you used in your Feb composite map. So, CANSIPS anomalies would be a bit colder if they had used 1991-2020. OTOH, CANSIPS may tend to be a little colder than other seasonals. Regardless, this new run is colder for Feb and Mar in the SE US than last month’s run and colder in much of the E US in Mar.

[raindancewx]

Here is a look at how things stand for snow in the Northeast. It's really been rather dreadful, even compared to 1997-98. I vaguely remember going to some kid's pool party in March of 1998 in NJ, must have been in the 80s. I think it was near 90 at some point in late March 1998 by Philly.

None of you actually read my outlooks, but I did have a small area from DC to Philly near normal for snow (90-110% of normal), which still seems plausible, with most others meaningfully below average.

[so_whats_happening]

4 hours ago, GaWx said:

 That last (“at the buzzer” ) warm burst for all anyone knows MIGHT be enough to barely attain a +2.00 for the unrounded NDJ ONI, but it could still go either way. (Rounded +2.0 NDJ in the table remains a near certainty.) A lot for the unrounded is riding on the relationship this month between OISST and ERSST. The Aug-Dec ERSST anomaly averaged 0.08 warmer than OISST.

 Before anyone asks, whether or not the unrounded turns out to be +2.00+ will have no impact on Feb wx prospects. This is just for fun, documentation, bragging rights, and the contest.

What I do find interesting here and this was just a quick look but something seems off. The OISST charts from cyclonic wx don't quite match up with the weekly numbers shown from this site. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for

It is very possible I have it labeled wrong but I'm pretty certain that this is the site for OISST weekly values. You can see from the graph which was much higher than weekly readouts would suggest. (3rd column is 3.4) From cyclonicwx it should be around 2.1 as a weekly value for the time period ending on January 3rd. Is it possible the graphs are reading it a bit too high compared to what the data prints out?

Anyway just wanted to throw it out there if we take the 4 weeks thus far (ill even include the end of December (January 3rd number) because well it was warm before and no drastic changes occurred during that time. Also an estimate on the last week ending on the 31st of about 1.7.

1.9+1.9+1.7+1.7+1.7=8.9/5= 1.78 (rough estimate for the monthly value) and assuming the relationship still holds true between the two should get us to 1.983333 (2.02+2.07+~1.86) for NDJ so rounding would take it to officially a 2 per the graph we use. Again all very rough estimates but I am curious what you think the reasoning is for the lower value on the weekly versus the chart. If that is the case the last week comes in colder than I thought even with the quick spike.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

What I do find interesting here and this was just a quick look but something seems off. The OISST charts from cyclonic wx don't quite match up with the weekly numbers shown from this site. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for

It is very possible I have it labeled wrong but I'm pretty certain that this is the site for OISST weekly values. You can see from the graph which was much higher than weekly readouts would suggest. (3rd column is 3.4) From cyclonicwx it should be around 2.1 as a weekly value for the time period ending on January 3rd. Is it possible the graphs are reading it a bit too high compared to what the data prints out?

Anyway just wanted to throw it out there if we take the 4 weeks thus far (ill even include the end of December (January 3rd number) because well it was warm before and no drastic changes occurred during that time. Also an estimate on the last week ending on the 31st of about 1.7.

1.9+1.9+1.7+1.7+1.7=8.9/5= 1.78 (rough estimate for the monthly value) and assuming the relationship still holds true between the two should get us to 1.983333 (2.02+2.07+~1.86) for NDJ so rounding would take it to officially a 2 per the graph we use. Again all very rough estimates but I am curious what you think the reasoning is for the lower value on the weekly versus the chart. If that is the case the last week comes in colder than I thought even with the quick spike.

  I agree that the week centered on Jan 3 would be +2.1, not +1.9, if it were to match up with this cyclonicwx. Also, the week centered on Jan 24 would be +1.6, not +1.7.

 I don’t know why they don’t always match up. Good finding on your part, regardless.

[mitchnick]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

  I agree that the week centered on Jan 3 would be +2.1, not +1.9, if it were to match up with this cyclonicwx. Also, the week centered on Jan 24 would be +1.6, not +1.7.

 I don’t know why they don’t always match up. Good finding on your part, regardless.

The fact that there are 3, if not more, sources for ssta numbers is absurd imho. 

[GaWx]

0Z GFS and 6Z GFS (image below) have what is very likely a split major SSW by Feb 16-7. **Edit: 0Z GFS gets down to +6 at the end...so not quite a reversal.** Unlike the reversal of Jan 17, this warming would be the more typical near simultaneous and would be right on the anniversary of the one from last winter. Unlike the simultaneous one from last winter, this one wouldn’t have a strong -PNA to fight and would already have a -AO and possibly also a -NAO. Perhaps this is related to the 1/17/24 reversal. This wasn’t even hinted at until @mitchnickalerted us on Jan 23 as a stronger than climo SPV had been forecasted for most of Feb. The implications for especially the E US during very late Feb and especially Mar would be interesting: