El Nino 2023-2024

[George001]

2 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

yeah, the models looked like dog shit all summer for last winter. what about this Nino is going to be east based going into the winter? 

models have the forcing far west… it already is now. the SSTs are also going to become basin wide. what about that screams east based? 

Nino 1.2 is +3.3, which is well into super territory. Even nino 3 is +1.8, which is high end strong. Nino 3.4 and 4 are moderate and high end weak respectively. You bring up a valid point though, it isn’t as east based as 1997-1998. It’s technically going to be considered basin wide simply because the nino itself is so strong it has no choice but to engulf the whole region, but I do think it will stay east leaning based on what Paul Roundy said.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Here is the Canadian for winter on the Aug 1 2022 run.

There were low heights over the Northern US, and high heights almost all of the US, West included. The actual pattern was east / west for the split, not north / south. The models have some skill on like 11/30 for December - I use them for that. But beyond that, they're worthless for localized / non-global patterns. Even for something like water temperatures, the forecasts early in the thread from Feb-Mar had Nino 1.2 at like +2 right now, and it's more like +3. The only thing SSTs can do is go up or down, but even that's pretty far off at about the same lead time we have currently from winter.

The 2022-23 winter was 25.96C in Nino 3.4 for Dec-Feb. The way I start my forecasts is just to look at years following similar winters that match the weather. Then roll forward. 

The similar winter years that turn to El Ninos are 1957-58, 1963-64, 1968-69, 1972-73, 1986-87, 1997-98, 2006-07, 2009-10. They get to 27.93C in winter on average. It's not exact...but ballpark? The colder it gets, the stronger the correlation I find to year over year trends for US temps. You guys get one cold month in the NE with that. Pretty good winter for the rest of the US though. You do have to warm up / shove the composite NW. The composite below - it's just too old / too far SE with the Atlantic so much colder than now. 

One cold month is fine for NE snowfall, though...that is the point. No one is implying wall-to-wall cold...punt one month, get one near normal and a cold one. All I am saying is that I don't see a wretched snowfall season for the NE like some folks are insinuating. I don't care about extreme cold...I just want ot cold enough to snow.

BTW, I would be perfectly happy with 5/8 years you mention.

You say the composite will be warmer/shifted NW....fine. But I also feel as though the warmer Atlantic may mean more major storms.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

yeah, the models looked like dog shit all summer for last winter. what about this Nino is going to be east based going into the winter? 

models have the forcing far west… it already is now. the SSTs are also going to become basin wide. what about that screams east based? 

I mean, I feel like he thinks we are arguing that every month will be modoki orgies....the western forcing to me means that we will get favorable stretches....sure, one month will probably blow.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, George001 said:

Nino 1.2 is +3.3, which is well into super territory. Even nino 3 is +1.8, which is high end strong. Nino 3.4 and 4 are moderate and high end weak respectively. You bring up a valid point though, it isn’t as east based as 1997-1998. It’s technically going to be considered basin wide simply because the nino itself is so strong it has no choice but to engulf the whole region, but I do think it will stay east leaning based on what Paul Roundy said.

"It’s technically going to be considered basin wide simply because the nino itself is so strong it has no choice but to engulf the whole region"

You realize by basin wide we mean that the greatest anomalies end up relatively evenly distributed or centrally located, right?

[brooklynwx99]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I mean, I feel like he thinks we are arguing that every month will be modoki orgies....the western forcing to me means that we will get favorable stretches....sure, one month will probably blow.

December has a good chance of being legitimately awful IMO

[bluewave]

12 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I have already said that I wouldn't expect a cold winter with a ONI near 2.0....all I am implying is that there are signs that it won't be another all-out disaster for eastern snow enthusiasts. 

Yeah, I am hoping we get some piece of the summer to winter blocking carryover even if we have warmed quite a bit from several of the past years. A warmer version could still produce better snowfall than last winter. Just cold enough has worked for us with a raging STJ and even a small amount of blocking. Many would accept another mild winter if we can get a decent snowstorm or two.
 

 

 

[George001]

7 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

"It’s technically going to be considered basin wide simply because the nino itself is so strong it has no choice but to engulf the whole region"

You realize by basin wide we mean that the greatest anomalies end up relatively evenly distributed or centrally located, right?

Ah, well in that case I don’t know about that. I would think it has somewhat of an east tilt even if it does go basin wide based on what Paul Roundy said about how this El Niño is developing. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

December has a good chance of being legitimately awful IMO

I agree. People need to remember that just because the mean DM charts depict modoki forcing doesn't mean it will be pinned at the dateline from 12/1 through 3/31.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Look at the majority of good winters and it was mainly due to one great month.

[Maestrobjwa]

7 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

December has a good chance of being legitimately awful IMO

Many Niño Decembers not named 2009 usually are, aren't they? Lol

[snowman19]

I have a feeling the people who think the forcing is just going to stay pinned like a statue exactly where it is right now for the next 7 months because some of the climate models say so and show what they want, may be very disappointed come December…..

[brooklynwx99]

27 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I have a feeling the people who think the forcing is just going to stay pinned like a statue exactly where it is right now for the next 7 months because some of the climate models say so and show what they want, may be very disappointed come December…..

this is a silly post. there are reasons for it to lean to the west that have been discussed ad nauseum

your point is just “well the models could all be totally wrong because i said so” which doesn’t hold that much water 

[brooklynwx99]

also, you can give the climate models grief, but they usually get the general flavor of the winter right. it would be a complete modeling failure for them to totally bomb it

[brooklynwx99]

imagine if almost all modeling looked like garbage like last winter and you had people like “well maybe all the models are just wrong and we’ll have really favorable forcing!”

they’d be shit on and rightfully so. not sure why it’s ok the other way around

[snowman19]

this is a silly post. there are reasons for it to lean to the west that have been discussed ad nauseum
your point is just “well the models could all be totally wrong because i said so” which doesn’t hold that much water 

Actually I wasn’t talking about you, not sure why you felt the need to attack but whatever. And I haven’t given an opinion on where I think the forcing will be other than saying “wait until November”. I have however given my opinion on the ultimate strength of this El Nino which I believe will be a solidly super ONI peak for NDJ. As far as these climate models, I would err on the side of caution given their monumental, epic fail for the 19-20 winter. I will never forget the non stop climate model hype that summer and fall of the historic winter and historic blocking, cold, snow, that was coming for the east coast, boy oh boy was that a bust for the ages

[brooklynwx99]

1 minute ago, snowman19 said:

Actually I wasn’t talking about you, not sure why you felt the need to attack but whatever. And I haven’t given an opinion on where I think the forcing will be other than saying “wait until November”. I have however given my opinion on the ultimate strength of this El Nino which I believe will be a solidly super ONI peak for NDJ. As far as these climate models, I would err on the side of caution given their monumental, epic fail for the 19-20 winter. I will never forget the non stop climate model hype that summer and fall of the historic winter and historic blocking, cold, snow, that was coming for the east coast, boy oh boy was that a bust for the ages

that wasn’t an attack whatsoever. i am skeptical about the climate models, but I believe that the evidence is mounting for a good end to the winter after a slow start

I can see everyone getting pretty much blanked through Jan 10-20, then the floodgates may open. we shall see

[snowman19]

that wasn’t an attack whatsoever. i am skeptical about the climate models, but I believe that the evidence is mounting for a good end to the winter after a slow start
I can see everyone getting pretty much blanked through Jan 10-20, then the floodgates may open. we shall see

I have no comment on snow, it’s too hard to predict because one storm like 2/83 or 1/16 in a super El Niño can skew the numbers. That said, if there’s an ONI of over +2C, I don’t see a cold winter (Dec-Mar), especially given AGW. If we do in fact get a trimonthly super peak as the models are showing, I just can’t imagine any month with -2F, -3F, etc. negative departures in the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast. The STJ is going to flood the CONUS and Canada with maritime PAC air, it would be a raging firehose. The south may see -1F departures due to solar irradiance from constant raging STJ cloud cover

[40/70 Benchmark]

34 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Actually I wasn’t talking about you, not sure why you felt the need to attack but whatever. And I haven’t given an opinion on where I think the forcing will be other than saying “wait until November”. I have however given my opinion on the ultimate strength of this El Nino which I believe will be a solidly super ONI peak for NDJ. As far as these climate models, I would err on the side of caution given their monumental, epic fail for the 19-20 winter. I will never forget the non stop climate model hype that summer and fall of the historic winter and historic blocking, cold, snow, that was coming for the east coast, boy oh boy was that a bust for the ages

Good thing there is never any ENSO hype-

[snowman19]

Good thing there is never any ENSO hype-

When there is an overwhelming ENSO signal (strong/super El Niño), it’s not hype, it’s going to alter the global heat budget and have a very profound effect on the global longwave pattern. In the absence of an overwhelming signal (weak/moderate Nino or Niña), then other factors may end up overriding it so to speak

[Terpeast]

2 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Many Niño Decembers not named 2009 usually are, aren't they? Lol

Mostly but not always. Dec 2002 was good.

Good question, though. I’ll check IAD data when I get back home 

[40/70 Benchmark]

35 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

When there is an overwhelming ENSO signal (strong/super El Niño), it’s not hype, it’s going to alter the global heat budget and have a very profound effect on the global longwave pattern. In the absence of an overwhelming signal (weak/moderate Nino or Niña), then other factors may end up overriding it so to speak

Same crap last fall about la nina...peak ONI was 1.0....

[griteater]

After a period of active E Pacific uplift, model forecasts are showing a flip and setup uplift in the W Pacific / Indonesia and subsidence over the E Pacific / Americas.  This is normal ebb and flow with ENSO, but should slow down any robust Nino region warming.

[Terpeast]

14 minutes ago, griteater said:

After a period of active E Pacific uplift, model forecasts are showing a flip and setup uplift in the W Pacific / Indonesia and subsidence over the E Pacific / Americas.  This is normal ebb and flow with ENSO, but should slow down any robust Nino region warming.

Might suppress atlantic basin activity (again) as we go into September 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

I have a signal for +PNA early to mid December.. Dec could be a good month. People overuse ENSO climo, Dec=warm and after Jan 15th, cold. 

[bluewave]

My only hesitancy in buying the models showing a super El Niño is how much cooler the subsurface is than at this point than in August 2015 and 1997. So not sure if several of the ENSO SST forecasts are still showing excessive momentum. The present heat values are less than half what they were in 1997 and 2015. I know we have a small sample size of super El Niño so there could be more variation in subsurface patterns than we have seen in the past. 

 

[Terpeast]

12 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I have a signal for +PNA early to mid December.. Dec could be a good month. People overuse ENSO climo, Dec=warm and after Jan 15th, cold. 

True, but if I had to punt one month to get a good winter, it would be Dec. 

2009-10 was special though

[snowman19]

My only hesitancy in buying the models showing a super El Niño is how much cooler the subsurface is than at this point than in August 2015 and 1997. So not sure if several of the ENSO SST forecasts are still showing excessive momentum. The present heat values are less than half what they were in 1997 and 2015. I know we have a small sample size of super El Niño so there could be more variation in subsurface patterns than we have seen in the past. 




 

This Nino has been defying all the “rules” on how it’s “supposed” to develop for the last 6 months. Since March, we have been hearing about how it’s going to fail, collapse, not get any stronger than weak, nothing like this has ever happened before, it defies logic, we might go into a neutral/La Nada, it makes no sense, there’s no past precedent for it, it’s not developing anything like previous strong and super El Niños, the trade winds are killing it, the subsurface is killing it, the forcing is killing it, the PDO is killing it, the -PMM is killing it, the configuration makes zero sense….yet here we are on 8/19, way, way past the spring barrier with region 3.4 almost at official strong (+1.5C) status, region 3 at +2.0C and region 1+2 at over +3.0C and every new model run getting warmer and showing a super El Niño developing this fall

[bluewave]

1 minute ago, snowman19 said:

This Nino has been defying all the “rules” on how it’s “supposed” to develop for the last 6 months. Since March, we have been hearing about how it’s going to fail, collapse, not get any stronger than weak, nothing like this has ever happened before, it defies logic, we might go into a neutral/La Nada, it makes no sense, there’s no past precedent for it, it’s not developing anything like previous strong and super El Niños, the configuration makes zero sense….yet here we are on 8/19, way, way past the spring barrier with region 3.4 almost at official strong (+1.5C) status, region 3 at +2.0C and region 1+2 at over +3.0C and every new model run getting warmer and showing a super El Niño developing this fall

We have been past the spring forecast barrier several times over the last decade and the actual pattern has gone against what the ENSO models were showing as late as August or the early fall. The ENSO models haven’t been doing too well this summer with 3.4. The SSTs have come in much cooler than the forecasts from June and July were indicating. But Nino 1+2 has stayed warmer longer than the model forecasts. Plus the forcing forecasts verified further west than most of the guidance. So it’s not unreasonable to think that there will be more errors of some type with model forecasts going forward. I am not doubting the super El Niño forecasts because of any attachment to a cold winter. We haven’t had a cold winter since 14-15 in the Northeast. So I have gotten used to milder winters over the years. But we have seen many incorrect model ENSO forecasts since 2012-2013 which needs to be taken into account when viewing these model outputs. 

[GaWx]

25 minutes ago, bluewave said:

My only hesitancy in buying the models showing a super El Niño is how much cooler the subsurface is than at this point than in August 2015 and 1997. So not sure if several of the ENSO SST forecasts are still showing excessive momentum. The present heat values are less than half what they were in 1997 and 2015. I know we have a small sample size of super El Niño so there could be more variation in subsurface patterns than we have seen in the past. 

 

The relatively cool OHC is the main thing keeping me from going higher than 70% chance for a +2.0+ ONI peak. But I don't think ENSO SST forecasts overall are showing "excessive momentum" because the latest major ones outside of the already very warm BoM and Meteo-France substantially warmed from the prior month despite a tepid June-July 3.4 warming/~neutral SOI/big OHC drop. Also, the JMA, CFS, CANSIPS, and UKMET all actually had cooled the prior month.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Actually I wasn’t talking about you, not sure why you felt the need to attack but whatever. And I haven’t given an opinion on where I think the forcing will be other than saying “wait until November”. I have however given my opinion on the ultimate strength of this El Nino which I believe will be a solidly super ONI peak for NDJ. As far as these climate models, I would err on the side of caution given their monumental, epic fail for the 19-20 winter. I will never forget the non stop climate model hype that summer and fall of the historic winter and historic blocking, cold, snow, that was coming for the east coast, boy oh boy was that a bust for the ages

 I became curious about 19-20 after reading this. So, I checked the 19-20 threads and found that nearly every forecast ended up verifying much too cold. I'm placing some of the blame on some seasonal model forecasts that were much too cold. For example:

-JAMSTEC (11/1/19) a pure disaster (I think it is cold biased in the E US because it has had cold forecasts there for a good # of winters that ended up mild)

 -But this C3S was actually not bad though it wasn't warm enough:

-The CFS and CANSIPS maps were ~normal.

 -The forecasters largely went near normal to slightly colder than normal. The consensus among them was a neutral to -NAO, possibly influenced by the strong -NAO (-1.6) (second strongest -NAO on record) for May-Oct 2019. NAO ended up sharply reversing to strong +NAO all 3 of DJF.

-Though even he verified too cold, Don Sutherland did the best of those that I saw with no BN anywhere in US. He had near normal Desert SW/Great Lakes/NE and slightly AN most other areas other than solidly AN SE. The key to him not missing by as much: he predicted a +NAO.

-If Don were to go -NAO this winter, that would be quite encouraging because historical stats show no correlation of a -NAO summer to -NAO following winter.