September 19, 2016 Weather and Climate Report - Paine in the Neck?

Written by Sig Silber

Hard to know what the main theme tonight is: Hurricane Paine (which you can track here), first Fall Storm, or the Cool Anomaly shifting west out of the ONI Measurement Area? So I guess we will cover all of that and more.

NOAA updated their Seasonal Outlook on September 15. We reported on that on Sunday Sept 18. You can read that report here. If you opt to go read my Report on NOAA’s Seasonal Outlook Update, please return from there to read this report which you can do by following the instructions at the end of that report or simply hitting your return button.

Perhaps when I did the NOAA Update, I should not have used the title “La Nina is La Nada”. The cool event is not non-existent but it it is mostly de minimus. This means that it is playing only a minor role in the determination of our weather at this point. But it is playing some role.

A. Focus on Alaska and CONUS (all U.S. except Hawaii) – Let’s Focus on the Current (Right Now to 5 Days Out) Weather Situation.

First, here is a national animation of weather fronts and precipitation forecasts with four 6-hour projections of the conditions that will apply covering the next 24 hours and a second day of two 12-hour projections the second of which is the forecast for 48 hours out and to the extent it applies for 12 hours, this animation is intended to provide coverage out to 60 hours. Beyond 60 hours, additional maps are available at the link provided above.

The explanation for the coding used in these maps, i.e. the full legend, can be found here although it includes some symbols that are no longer shown in the graphic because they are implemented by color coding.

U.S. 3 Day to 7 Day Forecasts

You can enlarge the below daily (days 3 – 7) weather maps by clicking on Three Day or Four Day or Five Day or Six Day or Seven Day

This graphic provides a good indication of where the moisture is. It is a bit different than just moisture imagery as it is quantitative.

Image credit:Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, Scripps/UCSD. More explanation can be found at Atmospheric Rivers (Click to read full Weather Underground Dr. Bob Henson article)

Notice that there is not a lot of moisture around CONUS. Air pressure is shown on this graphic so you can see how Hurricane Paine has gotten trapped and will impact Southern California and Western Arizona. You also can see the moisture impacting the Northeast. The Tropical Depression Julia is no longer tracked but you can see what remains of Julia off of Cape Hatteras. .

Here is the seven day precipitation forecast. More information is available here.

What you are seeing here is projected subtropical moisture impacting the Southwest and Gulf Coast. There is some uncertainty with respect to whether or not this pattern will materialize.

The map below is the mid-atmosphere 7-Day chart rather than the surface highs and lows and weather features. In some cases it provides a clearer less confusing picture as it shows only the major pressure gradients.This graphic auto-updates so when you look at it you will see NOAA’s latest thinking. The speed at which these troughs and ridges travel across the nation will determine the timing of weather impacts. This graphic auto-updates I think every six hours and it changes a lot. Because “Thickness Lines” are shown by those green lines on this graphic, it is a good place to define “Thickness” and its uses. The 540 Level general signifies equal chances for snow at sea level locations. I am leaving this explanation in the report but it may not be very significant until next October or so which now is well now!!!.

Not sure one can rely on this graphic to locate the Four Corners High as it seems to be on vacation this Summer. If it showed up on this graphic, one could draw or imagine a one-inch or so in radius circle overlain on the Four Corners High with an arrow showing the wind pattern is clockwise (anticyclone). One can then imagine where moisture might be being drawn into the edge of the High Pressure System.

Thinking about clockwise movements around High Pressure Systems and counter- clockwise movements around Low Pressure Systems provides a lot of information.

What you can see very clearly in the above is the Great Lakes Trough and ridges on the West and East Coasts. We also now see a Western Trough that is projected to dig down fairly far south and perhaps be a killing frost. Today you also see the Four Corner’s High seeking warmer temperatures in the Southeast. These Highs and Lows are not very polite and push each other around.

The graphic below is similar to the above but with more detail which has pros and cons. It highlights the forecasted surface Highs and the Lows re air pressure on Day 6 (the Day 3 forecast is available on Page II of this Report. It you go there, hit your return button to get back to this report). This graphic also auto-updates.

Right now the forecasted Aleutian Low has an hPa of 996 (the average in the winter is 1001 hPa and 994 hPa for a non-split Low). It is a unified single low. Upon further review it is a split low. Did not notice the other part over by Kamchatka. The graphic changes every six hours so I can’t keep up with it re my discussion.

The High Pressure off of California, the familiar RRR, is here and quite large and reasonably strong at 1024 hPa. The RRR continues to do a good job of protecting the West Coast from Pacific storms and also providing northerly winds for California. It looks like it will extend far enough south to block Hurricane Paine from heading west and force it to turn north into CONUS as Newton did. At this point it does not appear to be moving into the Gulf of California so it will have less impact than Newton and as we discuss later, the waters off of Baja California are no longer exceptionally warm and conducive for the survival of a Tropical Cyclone. But remember this is the Day 6 Forecast and what counts right now with respect to Paine is the current situation. That can be seen best in the Atmospheric Rivers graphic shown earlier. But the overall pattern has been so stable that one can pretty much look at a forecast and think of it as the current. Recently, I provided this K – 12 write up that provides a simple explanation on the importance of semipermanent Highs and Lows and another link that discussed possible changes in the patterns of these highs and lows which could be related to a Climate Shift (cycle) in the Pacific or Global Warming. Remember this is a forecast for Day 6. It is not the current situation.

The graphic below is the Eastern Pacific a 24 hr loop of recent readings. It does a good job of showing what is going on right now. The southwest winds approaching Baja California are of some interest. You can clearly see Hurricane Paine

The graphic below (which is a bit redundant with the above) updates automatically so it most likely will look different by the time you look at it as the weather patterns, except for the Southwest Monsoon, are moving from west to east. It highlights the tropical activity. Unlike the above which shows recent history, the below graphic is a satellite image with the forecast of tropical events superimposed on the satellite image.

Below is the current water vapor Imagery for North America.

Tonight, Monday evening September 19 (and this is the current situation not an animation of recent history), as I am looking at the above graphic, there is not much activity in the center of CONUS. On the East Coast, you can see what remains of Tropical Depression Julia off of South Carolina and other activity further north. Hurricane Paine as it declines will be impacting Southern California and Southwest Arizona to a limited extent. Water vapor imagery is a bit different than the above two graphics as it focuses on the water vapor in clouds rather than the clouds themselves.

Looking at the current activity of the Jet Stream.

The sub-Jetstream level intensity winds shown by the vectors in this graphic are very important. You can see how Subtropical Moisture can be brought up into CONUS from Mexico. But this is the graphic from one of the forecasting models and they do not all agree. So a slight shift of the pattern to the north or to the south makes a big difference with respect to the potential for moist air from Mexico to enter CONUS.

Re the above, H8 is the height of the 850 millibar level, H7 is the 700 mb level, H5 is the 500 mb level, H3 is the 300 mb level. So if you see those abbreviations in a weather forecast you will know what they are talking about.

Also the ideal situation is for the mid-level to be cooler than the Boundary Level. You need to have a steep decline in temperature at higher altitudes for the atmosphere to be unstable and create a significant number of healthy clouds and storms. The Devil is in the details. So there can be very higher PWATs i.e. the amount of moisture in the water column at a particular location but still no precipitation if there is no convection. A PWAT of 1.2 inches of water is sort of a summer trigger point, Levels much higher than 1.2 inches of water could lead to hail. But in the absence of instability, nothing happens. Those westerlies are one reason why there has been less instability than optimal for the Southwest Monsoon to be productive. And now with September almost over, the PWAT’s are down under 1.2 inches so we not only have a “low Grade Monsoon” we also have a “Dry Monsoon”. But there will still be short periods of tropical moisture entering CONUS from Mexico.

Below is the forecast out five days.

You can see the Western Trough dropping down. As drawn, you can see that tropical moisture from Mexico will have an easy time entering CONUS in Eastern New Mexico and Texas. But this is the results from one forecasting model the GFS and the various models are disagreeing right now. The GFS even shows some Jet Stream activity to reinforce the pattern. Again this is only the interpretation of one model and there is not as much disagreement among the forecasting models as last week, but there is enough difference in the model forecasts re the exact location and timing of the multiple meteorological systems in play that one can not predict with great precision exactly how this will play out.

Not all weather is controlled by the Jet Stream (which is a high altitude phenomenon) but it does play a major role in steering storm systems. In some cases however a Low-Pressure System becomes separated or “cut off” from the Jet Stream. In that case it’s movements may be more difficult to predict until that disturbance is again recaptured by the Jet Stream.That is exactly what is forecast for the remnants of Hurricane Paine.

To see how the pattern is projected to evolve, please click here. In addition to the shaded areas which show an interpretation of the Jet Stream, one can also see the wind vectors (arrows) at the 300 Mb level.

This longer animation shows how the jet stream is crossing the Pacific and when it reaches the U.S. West Coast is going every which way.

Click here to gain access to a very flexible computer graphic. You can adjust what is being displayed by clicking on “earth” adjusting the parameters and then clicking again on “earth” to remove the menu. Right now it is set up to show the 500 hPa wind patterns which is the main way of looking at synoptic weather patterns. This amazing graphic covers North and South America.

Four- Week Outlook

I am going to show the three-month OND Outlook (for reference purposes), the Updated Outlook for the single month of October, the 6 – 10 Day and 8 – 14 Day Maps and the Week 3 – 4 Experimental Outlook.

First – Temperature

Here is the Three-Month OND Temperature Outlook issued on September 15, 2015, 2016:

Here is the Early Temperature Outlook for October which was updated on September 15, 2016

6 – 10 Day Temperature Outlook

8 – 14 Day Temperature Outlook

Looking further out.

As I view these maps on September 19 (two of the five update each day and one (the Week 3 – 4 Outlook) updates every Friday), it appears that through October 14, the pattern during the end of September will be warm on the West Coast and East Coast and cool in the center of CONUS and the Northwest. That pattern, minus the cool Northwest, is expected to continue through the first half of October.

Now – Precipitation

Here is the three-month OND Precipitation Outlook issued on September 15, 2016 :

And here is the Early Outlook for October Precipitation Issued on September 15, 2016

6 – 10 Day Precipitation Outlook

8 – 14 Day Precipitation Outlook

As I view these maps on September 19 (two of the five update each day and one (the Week 3 – 4 Outlook) updates every Friday), it looks like precipitation leading up to October 14 is tending for the end of September to be dry in the Northwest and wet east of the Rocky Mountains but with a dry East Coast. Going into the first half of October, the pattern will evolve with the wet anomaly contracting and extending from North of Texas northeast all the way to Maine and pushing the dry East Coast anomaly into the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is the NOAA discussion released today September 19, 2016.

6-10 DAY OUTLOOK FOR SEP 25 – 29 2016
TODAY’S NUMERICAL MODEL SOLUTIONS ARE IN FAIR AGREEMENT ON THE 500-HPA FLOW PATTERN PREDICTED OVER THE FORECAST DOMAIN. THE OFFICIAL BLENDED HEIGHT PATTERN FEATURES A TROUGH OVER THE NORTH PACIFIC. DOWNSTREAM, A RIDGE IS FORECAST NEAR CALIFORNIA WITH A TROUGH PREDICTED NEAR THE NORTHERN PLAINS. TODAY’S 500-HPA BLEND CHART DEPICTS BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS FOR NEW ENGLAND AND PARTS OF THE SOUTHWESTERN CONUS, WHILE NEAR TO ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS ARE FORECAST FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE CONUS AND ALASKA. THE ENSEMBLE SPAGHETTI DIAGRAMS INDICATE LARGE SPREAD ACROSS THE MAJORITY OF THE FORECAST DOMAIN. TODAY’S MANUAL 500-HPA HEIGHT BLEND IS COMPOSED PRIMARILY OF THE ENSEMBLE MEAN SOLUTIONS. THE GREATEST WEIGHTS WERE GIVEN TO TODAY’S 0Z CANADIAN ENSEMBLE MEAN DUE TO RELATIVELY HIGH ANALOG CORRELATIONS COMPARED TO THE GFS AND ECMWF-BASED SOLUTIONS.
ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE FAVORED OVER MUCH OF THE EAST-CENTRAL CONUS, AND WEST COAST UNDERNEATH PREDICTED ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS. NEAR TO BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE FAVORED FOR THE WEST-CENTRAL CONUS AND NEW ENGLAND IN ASSOCIATION WITH A PREDICTED MEAN TROUGH AND BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS. ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE FAVORED FOR MUCH OF ALASKA IN ASSOCIATION WITH ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS AND ABOVE NORMAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES IN ADJACENT WATERS.
ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION IS FAVORED FOR THE CENTRAL CONUS NEAR THE TROUGH PREDICTED OVER THE NORTHERN PLAINS. POTENTIAL INFLUXES OF TROPICAL MOISTURE MAY AID IN ENHANCING PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS. THERE ARE INCREASED ODDS FOR NEAR TO BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION ACROSS PARTS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, AND NEVADA UNDERNEATH PREDICTED ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS. BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION IS FAVORED FOR THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC IN ASSOCIATION WITH FORECAST SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE. ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS LEAD TO ENHANCED PROBABILITIES FOR BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION FOR THE SOUTH COAST OF ALASKA. MOST DYNAMICAL MODELS FAVOR ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION FOR WESTERN AND NORTHERN ALASKA.
FORECAST CONFIDENCE FOR THE 6-10 DAY PERIOD: AVERAGE, 3 OUT OF 5, DUE TO FAIR MODEL AGREEMENT.
8-14 DAY OUTLOOK FOR SEP 27 – OCT 03, 2016
TODAY’S ENSEMBLE MEAN DYNAMICAL MODEL FORECASTS ARE IN FAIR AGREEMENT ON THE PREDICTED 500-HPA CIRCULATION PATTERN OVER NORTH AMERICA FOR THE WEEK-2 PERIOD THE OFFICIAL BLENDED HEIGHT PATTERN FEATURES A LOW AMPLITUDE FLOW PATTERN OVER THE CONUS WITH BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS OVER A SMALL PORTION OF THE NORTHWEST, AND NEAR TO ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS ARE FORECAST FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE CONUS AND ALASKA. THE ENSEMBLE SPAGHETTI DIAGRAMS INDICATE MODERATE TO LARGE SPREAD ACROSS THE MAJORITY OF THE FORECAST DOMAIN. THE GREATEST WEIGHTS IN TODAY’S WEEK-2 500-HPA MANUAL HEIGHT BLEND WAS GIVEN TO TODAY’S 0Z CANADIAN ENSEMBLE MEAN MEAN DUE IN PART TO RELATIVELY HIGH ANALOG CORRELATIONS, WHICH MEASURE HOW CLOSELY THE FORECAST PATTERN MATCHES CASES THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN THE PAST.
THERE ARE ENHANCED PROBABILITIES FOR ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND THE EAST-CENTRAL CONUS AS WELL AS ALASKA UNDERNEATH PREDICTED ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS. BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE FAVORED FOR PARTS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, THE NORTHERN GREAT BASIN, THE NORTHERN ROCKIES AND NORTHERN PLAINS IN ASSOCIATION WITH NEAR TO BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS.
THE FORECAST PRECIPITATION PROBABILITIES FOR THE WEEK-2 PERIOD ARE VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE IN THE 6-10 DAY PERIOD. ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION IS FAVORED FOR THE CENTRAL CONUS, AND WESTERN AND NORTHERN ALASKA. THERE ARE INCREASED ODDS FOR NEAR TO BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION ACROSS THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, NEVADA, THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC, AND THE ALASKA PANHANDLE.
FORECAST CONFIDENCE FOR THE 8-14 DAY PERIOD IS: AVERAGE, 3 OUT OF 5, DUE TO FAIR MODEL AGREEMENT.
THE NEXT SET OF LONG-LEAD MONTHLY AND SEASONAL OUTLOOKS WILL BE RELEASED ON OCTOBER 20

Some might find this analysis interesting as the organization which prepares it looks at things from a very detailed perspective and their analysis provides a lot of information on the history and evolution of ENSO events.

Analogs to the Outlook.

Now let us take a detailed look at the “Analogs” which NOAA provides related to the 5 day period centered on 3 days ago and the 7 day period centered on 4 days ago. “Analog” means that the weather pattern then resembles the recent weather pattern and was used in some way to predict the 6 – 14 day Outlook.

Here are today’s analogs in chronological order although this information is also available with the analog dates listed by the level of correlation. I find the chronological order easier for me to work with. There is a second set of analogs associated with the Outlook but I have not been regularly analyzing this second set of information. The first set which is what I am using today applies to the 5 and 7 day observed pattern prior to today. The second set, which I am not using, relates to the correlation of the forecasted outlook 6 – 10 days out with similar patterns that have occurred in the past during the dates covered by the 6 – 10 Day Outlook. The second set of analogs may also be useful information but they put the first set of analogs in the discussion with the second set available by a link so I am assuming that the first set of analogs is the most meaningful and I find it so.

Day	ENSO Phase	PDO	AMO	Other Comments
Sept 18, 1958	El Nino	+	+
Sept 6, 1959	Neutral	– (t)	+
Sept 19, 1960	Neutral	– (t)	+
Sept 21, 1960	Neutral	– (t)	+
Sept 9, 1982	El Nino	+	–	Strong El Nino
Sept 23, 1992	Neutral	–	–	After an El Nino
Sept 24, 1992	Neutral	–	–	After an El Nino
Sept 12,2004	El Nino	+ (t)	+	Modoki Type II

(t) = a month where the Ocean Cycle Index has just changed or does change the following month.

One thing that jumped out at me right away was the spread among the analogs from September 6 to September 24 which is just four days over two weeks which is a very small spread. I have not calculated the centroid of this distribution which would be the better way to look at things but the midpoint, which is a lot easier to calculate, is about September 15. These analogs are centered on 3 days and 4 days ago (September 15 or 16). So the analogs could be considered exactly in sync with the calendar meaning that we will be getting weather that normally would occur this time of the year including that forecast trough which is typical this time of the year.

I think NOAA would appreciate it if I said that these analogs are not a substitute for their very sophisticated forecasting software and I am not suggesting that they are. I present them partially for curiosity purposes but also to see how current conditions correlate with medium and low frequency cycles. The medium frequency cycle I track is ENSO and the two low- frequency cycles I track are the PDO and AMO. When I see that forecasts are consistent with the current phases of these cycles (as represented by the analogs), that seems very suggestive to me that our weather is probably fairly easy to forecast. If the analogs are all over the place then I have to wonder if the forecasts are good or if our weather is just not related to these cycles. That certainly can be the case. So I am doing some research here and you are seeing how I look at things. I hope you find it interesting.

There are this time three El Nino Analogs (why are there any?), zero La Nina Analogs (why are there none?), and three ENSO Neutral Analogs. The phases of the ocean cycles in the analogs are inconclusive with only McCabe “Condition A” not well represented and it is the most wet McCabe Condition and fits best with the NOAA 6 – 14 Day Outlook. It is confusing.

The seminal work on the impact of the PDO and AMO on U.S. climate can be found here. Water Planners might usefully pay attention to the low-frequency cycles such as the AMO and the PDO as the media tends to focus on the current and short-term forecasts to the exclusion of what we can reasonably anticipate over multi-decadal periods of time. One of the major reasons that I write this weather and climate column is to encourage a more long-term and World view of weather.

You may have to squint but the drought probabilities are shown on the map and also indicated by the color coding with shades of red indicating higher than 25% of the years are drought years (25% or less of average precipitation for that area) and shades of blue indicating less than 25% of the years are drought years. Thus drought is defined as the condition that occurs 25% of the time and this ties in nicely with each of the four pairs of two phases of the AMO and PDO.

Historical Anomaly Analysis

When I see the same dates showing up often I find it interesting to consult this list.

Recent CONUS Weather

This is provided mainly to see the pattern in the weather that has occurred in recent months. Because it is now September, I have now removed the June and June – April – May – June 90 Day Graphics. They are available in Part II of this Report – If you click to go there and take a look, hit your “Return Key” to return to this article.

Let’s look at the temperature and precipitation anomalies for the 30 days ending July 30, 2016

And now we looking at August. Here are the 30 Days ending September 3.

In August we saw the dry West anomaly expand to the north and Texas become wet with that wet anomaly extending northeast to the Great Lakes. The warm southwest was no long anomalously warm and the eastern third of the U.S. became very warm.

What we see is not much change. I am a bit surprised as I thought the recent storm, Hermine, would have added to the average precipitation totals for Northern Florida and parts north but not so much. Not much talk of a MegaDrought in Texas these days. And that pattern of a wet Texas off and on extending up to the Great Lakes looks to continue.

And the 30 Days ending September 17, 2016

The pattern is a bit muted from last week. Remember that new 30 day period only differs from the prior 30 day graphic by the addition of seven days and removing the first seven days of the prior 30 day average.

B. Beyond Alaska and CONUS Let’s Look at the World which of Course also includes Alaska and CONUS

Click Here for a World Weather Forecast produced by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Unfortunately I do not know how to extract the map only so to see it you have to click where I said “click here”. You can adjust the settings to show Temperature or many other things for THE WORLD. It can forecast out for a week. Pretty cool.

But I know how to display the precipitation only forecast from Queensland Australia and here it is.

It is kind of amazing that you can make a worldwide forecast based on just one parameter the SOI and changes in the SOI.

And lo and behold JAMSTEC has issued their Precipitation Forecast

Recognizing that we are now at September 19 and this forecast is based on September 1 Model Runs, it is still pretty interesting especially for Northern South America, Eastern Asia and Africa, the Maritime Continent and the Mediterranean.

Just to be complete I will show their temperature forecast

The UK will be cool, and maybe Venezuela, and Eastern Siberia will be good for snowshoeing. Then there is northern Argentina. and Uruguay. Other than that, Global Warming Deniers might have to seek higher elevations.

Cure for Global Warming? Or an illustration of how trends are difficult to deal with by adjusting the norm?

The easiest way to eliminate Global Warming showing up in data and especially graphics (I am not talking about changing reality but changing how graphics look) is to update the Climatology Norms. That is routinely done at the end of every decade. But a three-decade average is used for the baseline so it is not possible with a warming trend to have the norms catch up with the actuals. Thus we always see more warm anomalies than cool anomalies. With a shorter averaging period, Global Warming disappears from the anomaly data. It does not disappear from our biosphere.

Of course I am joking but trying to make a point that essentially all anomaly information is based on a departure from what is considered “climatology” and that is adjusted every 10 years and for ENSO every five years. How that adjustment is made has an impact on what the graphics look like. If the norm was adjusted every day. the anomalies would always be half one way and half the other way. Thus it is important to always understand how data is interpreted. If the base was not adjusted, all we would have are warm anomalies and it would be very difficult to interpret them. The goal is to understand where it is more or less warm or less “normal” than usual for this time of the year. This can become very challenging. Same goes for precipitation anomalies, wind anomalies etc. There is not an easy solution but I wanted to show you how it is easy to distort data and especially visual information.

I have not looked at the recent world temperature record in detail but as a general rule oceans release heat during an El Nino and absorb it during a La Nina. This suggests that the El Nino of 2015/2016 has complicated the calculation of anomalies as there will tend to be a jump in warm anomalies now. This is what I see in the JAMSTEC Graphic. So one is forced to look for redder reds and less red reds. With a shorter averaging time this problem is less obvious but the shorter the averaging time ,the less able to handle long cycles. The methodology used for defining Climate as a three-decade average was developed before the discovery of the 60 Year low-frequency cycles such as the PDO/IPO, AMO and probably also the NAO and IOBD and EATS among others. So our averaging time of three decades is too short for dealing with the low-frequency cycles and too long to deal with the Global Warming trend? What to do? It may be that a single value is not sufficient.

Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Departures from Normal for this Time of the Year i.e. Anomalies

My focus here is sea surface temperature anomalies as they are one of the two largest factors determining weather around the World.

And when we look at the current Sea Surface anomalies below, we see a lot of them not just along the Equator related to ENSO.

Remember this discussion is all about anomalies not absolute temperatures…so it is deviation from seasonal norms.

The waters off of Japan remain warm. South of Kamchatka Siberia the color on the graphic is intense but we see below in the four week analysis less intense. The Indian Ocean is now basically all cool but there is a central warm anomaly. The southern coast of Australia is cool but the Southeast Coast is warm. Water northwest of Australia is warm but not very much although the four week change graphic below will suggest it is getting a bit warmer. The waters south of Africa are warm to the west but a bit cool to the east.

The overall Northern Pacific looks to be PDO Positive (the horseshoe pattern with the cool anomaly inside the horseshoe shape), The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index rose to 2.4 in March which with El Nino fading may be significant. It was up to 2.62 in April but eased to 2.35 in May and then to +0.78 in June and then down to +0.18 for July and then recorded a negative value of -.66 for August and the July value was adjusted to +0.11. That would make the PDO now NEGATIVE. But it may record positive for September. The question remains about the PDO. Is it acting independently of the El Nino or is this the change from PDO- to PDO+ (until August) which would signal a multi-decadal change in the Pacific. I anticipated that the PDO would turn negative as the La Nina gained control and it has. But is that just temporary. Here is the list of PDO values.

The Black and Caspian seas are warm but I think less so than last week. So is the Mediterranean but not by very much.

The water directly west of South America is not showing much of a strong La Nina pattern even though El Nino is history. There is a narrow cool anomaly in the Pacific right along the Equator in the La Nina Measurement Area but it does not extend very far north or south of the Equator. It has been gradually stretching west. The connection to Ecuador is weak. It is a La Nina pattern but too weak yet to qualify as an official La Nina and probably will remain borderline La Nina through the winter. It may ultimately turn out to be a La Nina Modoki i.e. shifted to the west more than the typical La Nina but simply Neutral seems more likely. The water off the West Coast of Central America is warm. Further north, the Gulf of Alaska is quite warm. The Pacific being warm north of 40N remains the most impressive feature of the overall pattern. Notice the water off of Baja California is no longer warm and that was not good news for Hurricane Paine.

The water off the East Coast of CONUS is warm covering a large area and extending quite far to the east and we see the impact in terms of actual formation of tropical storms. The list of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) values can be found here. Further north in the Atlantic east of Newfoundland the North Atlantic is becoming warmer than normal. The cool anomaly further south again shows. The cool anomaly off shore of Northwest Africa is now gone so Hurricane formation may not be substantial as September ends. The waters north of Antarctica East of South America are uniformly colder than climatology and we again see the warm anomalies north of that pattern but less so than last week. I have some additional commentary on this static analysis of the anomalies below where I examine the four-week change in these anomalies.

Since these are “departures” or “anomalies”, it is not a seasonal pattern that is being shown it is the changes from what we would expect on a seasonal basis. It is important to understand that and interpret my comments above in the context of anomalies not absolute temperatures.

Below I show the changes over the last month in the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies.

Comparing a four-week graphic to a prior four-week graphic is always tricky since only 25% of the data has changed and I am not showing the former graphic (it is in last week’s report). I add the new one to my draft report, compare and comment on the change and then delete the old one to keep this report to a manageable size. Also it is important to recognize that what you see in this graphic is the change in the anomaly. So blue means either cooler or less warm. Red means warmer or less cool. So you have to refer to the graphic above this one to really interpret this graphic as what we are seeing here is the change in the anomalies. What we see in this graphic is four weeks of change not the current absolute anomalies which are shown in the above graphic. It is not derivatives in the mathematical sense but deltas. They are somewhat similar. The graphic above this one has no time component. It is simply the deviation from climatology and this graphic below shows the four week change in the deviation from climatology. So it is a bit like the first (graphic above) and second (graphic below) derivatives but not exactly. I take it a step further by comparing this week’s version of the graphic to the prior week and report on the differences below.

What I see as I look at both last week’s version of this graphic and the current one (before deleting the prior version) is a discontinuation of the warming in the Southern Hemisphere especially south of Australia. The cooling southeast of Saudi Arabia has moderated. But the cooling off the African Coast may be more intense a bit. In the Northern Hemisphere the waters off of Europe are no longer warming. Of course, the Equator in the Pacific is controlling to a large extent. The changes there are minor but one can see some warming in the Eastern Pacific. The changes in the Western Pacific above 30N are somewhat dramatic. Remember we are talking about changes in the anomalies something like a second derivative so you have to refer to the graphic above this one to know if blue is cool or less warm and if red is warm or less cool.

Look at the Western Pacific in Motion.`

The above graphic which I believe covers the area from the Dateline west to 100E and from the Equator north to 45N `normally shows the movement of tropical storms towards Asia in the lower latitudes (Trade Winds) and the return of storms towards CONUS in the mid-latitudes (Prevailing Westerlies). This is recent data in motion (last 24 hours) not a forecast. But it provides a pretty good idea of what is heading towards Southeast Asia and the Maritime Continent. It also shows what is headed back towards CONUS.

The MJO has had significant impacts this prior winter during the development of the El Nino but the impact on October is not likely to be very noticeable other than alternatively accelerating and decelerating the development of the La Nina. The forecasts of the MJO are all over the place and not suggesting a strong Active or Inactive Phase of the MJO any time soon.

Below is an analysis of projected tropical hazards and benefits over an approximately two-week period. This graphic is scheduled to update on Tuesday and I am reading the September 13. 2016 Version and looking at Week 2 of that forecast.

Mostly for the period September 21, 2016 to Sept 28, 2016, I see in week two it will be dry off the southern coast of Asia but wet further south in Singapore with a risk of cyclone development near the Philippines. There will be even more of a risk of tropical activity west of Central America. .

Usually I do not report on the first week of the analysis as it has pretty much occurred by the time I go to press. But I do note the continued existence of a threat of a high level of cyclone activity impacting the Phillipines.and the risk of Tropical Storm development off the west coast of Central America.

I publish late Monday and this graphic updates late Tuesday. I could go back into my article and update the above discussion but I think that readers can interpret this graphic on their own after it updates as the Legend is very easy to understand.

C. Progress of the Cool ENSO Event

A major driver of weather is Surface Ocean Temperatures. Evaporation only occurs from the Surface of Water. So we are very interested in the temperatures of water especially when these temperatures deviate from seasonal norms thus creating an anomaly. The geographical distribution of the anomalies is very important.

To a substantial extent, the temperature anomalies along the Equator have disproportionate impact on weather so we study them intensely and that is what the ENSO (El Nino – Southern Oscillation) cycle is all about

Subsurface water can be thought of as the future surface temperatures. They may have only indirect impacts on current weather but they have major impacts on future weather by changing the temperature of the water surface.

Winds and Convection (evaporation forming clouds) is weather and is a result of the Phases of ENSO and also a feedback loop that perpetuates the current Phase of ENSO or changes it. That is why we monitor winds and convection along or near the Equator especially the Equator in the Eastern Pacific.

Starting with Surface Conditions.

TAO/TRITON GRAPHIC (a good way of viewing data related to the part of the Equator and the waters close to the Equator in the Eastern Pacific where we monitor to determining the current phase of ENSO. It is probably not necessary to follow the discussion below, but here is a link to TAO/TRITON terminology.

I have deleted many of the TAO/TRITON graphics we looked at when we were watching El Nino develop and decline. But I saved this one which was close to the maximum. It was not the maximum but it was the one that I froze which was the closest to the maximum that I saved. It is useful for comparing the current situation with the pattern that prevailed near the peak of the El Nino this past winter. Since most of my graphics auto-update, in order to be able to view a prior version of a particular graphic, I “freeze it” by basically cut and paste to a graphics file and then embed that “frozen graphic” in my article.

And here is the current version of the TAO/TRITON Graphic.

The above should be compared to the bottom part of the following graphic. Notice the pattern is remarkably similar. The difference is that in January, the anomaly was a warm anomaly stretching from 130W to 160W and now it is a cool anomaly. When it was a warm anomaly, it was a 3C anomaly in the center ring. Now the center ring is a -1C anomaly. So this is opposite to last winter but the intensity is a third or less of the situation last winter.

*Location Bar for Nino 3.4 Area Above and Below*
————————————————	A	B	C	D	E	—————–

The below table which only looks at the Equator shows the extent of anomalies along the Equator. I had split the table to show warm, neutral, and cool anomalies. The top rows showed El Nino anomalies. When there were no more El Nino anomalies along the Equator, I eliminated those rows. The two rows just below that break point contribute to ENSO Neutral and after another break, the rows are associated with La Nina conditions. I have changed the reference date to May 23, 1016.

Comparing Now to May 23, 2016
Subareas of the Anomaly	Westward Extension		Eastward Extension		Degrees of Coverage
Subareas of the Anomaly	As of Today	May 23, 2016	As of Today	May 23 2016	As of Today	In Nino 3.4	May 23, 2016
These Rows Show the Extent of ENSO Neutral Impacts on the Equator
0.5C or cooler Anomaly*	165E	155E	Land	155W	100	50	50
0C or cooler Anomaly	175E	155W	120W	Land	55	50	60
These Rows Show the Extent of the La Nina Impacts on the Equator
-0.5C or cooler Anomaly	175W	145W	125W	Land	50	45	55
-1C or cooler Anomaly	145W	140W	135W	105W	15	15	35
-1.5C or cooler Anomaly	LAND	135W	LAND	120W	0	0	0

If you just look on the Equator, there are 50 degrees of Longitude of Neutral to La Nina anomalies which is the maximum possible as the ONI Measurement Area is 50 degrees of Longitude wide and that also is the maximum possible since the ENSO Measurement Area only stretches for 50 degrees. There are 45 degrees of water anomalies cool enough to be a La Nina. Subtracting 45 degrees from the 50 degrees you end up with 5 degrees of ENSO Neutral and 45 degrees of water cool enough to qualify as La Nina i.e. temperature anomalies more negative than -0.5C. This at first glance looks to be less La Nina-ish than last week. And there is zero water along the Equator in the ONI Measurement that is -1.5C or less which would be cool enough to be a strong La Nina when just looking at the Equator. And this week there is only 15 degrees of water cooler than -1C which is down from last week. But the ONI Measurement Area extends 5 degrees of Latitude North and South of the Equator so the above table is just a guide and a way of tracking the changes. Away from the Equator it is generally warmer when a La Nina is trying to get started. The water from 3N to 5N and from 3S to 5S had until recently remained relatively warm especially west of 150W. But now the warm area has shifted to being east of 130W.

If you look at the TAO/TRITON graphic and the table above, it appears that this cool event is fading from east to west. Right now it does not impact the Nino 3.4 calculation very much but if it shifts at all further to the west, the Nino 3.4 calculation will quckly rise substantially since part of the ONI measurement area will have less cool water intruding. That is why I describe this as a “Luke Cool” Event.

I calculate the current value of the ONI index (really the value of NINO 3.4 as the ONI is not reported as a daily value) each week using a method that I have devised. To refine my calculation, I have divided the 170W to 120W Nino 3.4 measuring area into five subregions (which I have designated from west to east as A through E) with a location bar shown under the TAO/TRITON Graphic). I use a rough estimation approach to integrate what I see below and record that in the table I have constructed. Then I take the average of the anomalies I estimated for each of the five subregions. So as of Monday September 19, in the afternoon working from the September 18 TAO/TRITON report, this is what I calculated.

*Calculation of ONI from TAO/TRITON Graphic*
Anomaly Segment	Estimated Anomaly
	Last Week	This Week
A. 170W to 160W	-0.2	-0.3
B. 160W to 150W	-0.6	-0.5
C. 150W to 140W	-1.0	-0.6
D. 140W to 130W	-0.8	-0.5
E. 130W to 120W	-0.5	-0.0
Total	-3.1	-1.9
Total divided by five subregions i.e. the ONI	(-3.1)/5 = -06	(-1.9)/5 = -0.4

My estimate of the daily Nino 3.4 SST anomaly has risen to -0.4 which is no longer a La Nina value. NOAA has reported the weekly ONI to be a bit warmer at -0.6 which still is a La Nina value.
But I question the accuracy of their calculation. It is entirely possible that the TAO/TRITON system is not reporting accurately (and I may thus be underestimating the SST anomalies in the Eastern end of the Nino 3.4 Measurement Area) or I may simply have made an error in my estimation of the value for Nino 3.4 from the TAO/TRITON graphic. The difference between -0.4 and -0.6 is not enormous but it is substantial. There are some differences among what I see in the different graphics which are available so it is hard to say what the correct estimate is. Also there appears to be a short-term cyclical component to the SST anomaly pattern. I have estimated a daily value for Nino 3.4 and NOAA has reported a weekly value so that cyclical aspect can cause a difference on its own.
Nino 4.0 is reported as being a bit cooler at -0.2. Nino 3 is being reported a bit warmer at -0.2 Nino 1 + 2 which extends from the Equator south rather than being centered on the Equator is being reported cooler at +0.2. According to NOAA we remain in ENSO Neutral but we have had our tenth straight LA NINA value of Nino 3.4 reported in the NOAA Weekly Report. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology recently reported that their estimate of the value for NINO 3.4 for August was -0.4. IT IS THE SAME OCEAN. They are forecasting that the value for NINO 3.4 will decline to about-0.6 for September. So it looks like people are getting on the same page but the NOAA estimates appear to be a tad lower i.e. more La Nina-ish than the others.
Ten weeks are not definitive (the NOAA criteria for declaring an El Nino or La Nina includes five overlapping three-month periods with the appropriate conditions) especially without confirmation from the SOI which we may have now finally. These index measurements are not definitive but they suggest the direction things are headed but other information strongly suggests the ONI readings will soon (NOAA) or after September (Australia BOM) be less negative than they are this week. I am only showing the currently issued version of the NINO SST Index Table as the prior values are shown in the small graphics on the right with this graphic. The same data in table form but going back a couple of more years can be found here. NINO 1+ 2 stubbornly remains positive and determines the weather of Ecuador and Peru.

Sea Surface Temperature and Anomalies

It is the ocean surface that interacts with the atmosphere and causes convection and also the warming and cooling of the atmosphere. So we are interested in the actual ocean surface temperatures and the departure from seasonal normal temperatures which is called “departures” or “anomalies”. Since warm water facilitates evaporation which results in cloud convection, the pattern of SST anomalies suggests how the weather pattern east of the anomalies will be different than normal.

A major advantage of the Hovmoeller method of displaying information is that it shows the history so I do not need to show a sequence of snap shots of the conditions at different points in time. This Hovmoeller provides a good way to visually see the evolution of this ENSO event. I have decided to use the prettied-up version that comes out on Mondays rather that the version that autoupdates daily because the SST Departures on the Equator do not change rapidly and the prettied-up version is so much easier to read.

And here is another but related view of the data that is focused right on the Equator but considers the water down to 300 meters. This graphic provides a lot of useful information but I usually present it to show the evolution of Kelvin Waves which we have not seen since last year. Usually we pay the most attention to the downwelling phase of the Kelvin Wave where warm water moves East as part of the generation of an El Nino. But when one is looking at a cool event, the subsequent upwelling phase of Kelvin Waves is of interest and this graphic shows that phase well.

You read this Hovmoeller from bottom to top and you can clearly see how the El Nino ended and we are flirting with La Nina. The top graphic shows the surface water is drifting to the west. The bottom graphic highlights the gap that has formed as the heat content down to 300 meters has expanded to the east but is overall less intense and non-existent between 150W and 140W. This of course drives the computer models crazy and leads to the gyrations of the forecast. A weak El Nino (the area shown in yellow) lurks to the west.

Let us look at the Subsurface Water Temperatures.

Equatorial Subsurface Analysis

We are now going to change the way we look at a three-dimensional view of the Equator and move from the surface view and an average of the subsurface heat content to a more detailed view from the surface down.

Current Sub-Surface Conditions. Notice by the date of the graphic that the lag in getting this information posted so the current situation may be a bit different than shown. The date shown is the midpoint of a five-day period with that date as the center of the five-day period.

And now the pair of graphics that I regularly provide.

The above pair of graphics showing the current situation has an upper and lower graphic. The bottom graphic shows the absolute values, the upper graphic shows anomalies compared to what one might expect at this time of the year in the various areas both 130E to 90W Longitude and from the surface down to 450 meters. At different times and today in particular, I have discussed the difference between the actual values and the deviation of the actual values from what is defined as current climatology (which adjusts every ten years) and how both measures are useful but for different purposes.

The top graphic shows surface temperature anomalies. The coolest water at the surface shows up only in small non-connected areas. Water of La Nina coolness but not very intense shows up along the Equator from 170W to the Coast of Ecuador. But there are pockets of water slightly warmer than -0.5C mixed in including some warm water near 110W. The -1C water shows most strongly between 170W and 150W and that is about the same as last week. But there is a gap between 150W and 120W although that gap does not show up fully on the TAO/TRITON Graphic. Within that gap, there is a smaller cool area at around 130W. The gap, if valid, suggests the possibility that this will evolve into a cool Modoki pattern. The eastern part of the cool water pool is increasingly unimpressive. Notice that there is very little water with a cool anomaly in excess of -2C. How is this cool event to be sustained?

The bottom half of the graphic (Absolute Values which highlights the Thermocline) is now more useful as we track the progress of this new Cool Event.

It shows the thermocline between warm and cool water. The 28C Isotherm is now located at 175W which is about the same as last week.This graphic does not show a 27.5C anomaly which might more precisely indicate where convection is likely to occur. The 27C isotherm is now at 170W so we do not have ideal conditions for significant convection along the Equator east of the Dateline. The 25C isotherm is again at about 140W. The 20C Isotherm has moved close to the surface but is not reaching the surface. But the amount of warm water just west of the Dateline is also not real impressive either but growing but staying fairly far east. It is clearly a transition state and all of this is important not just for tracking this cool event but thinking about when the next El Nino might be triggered. This graphic helps understand the logic behind some of the forecasts of the ONI. For the past two+ months, we pretty much have had weak La Nina conditions both in terms of water temperatures and the SOI but it appears to be transitory in the sense of the SST’s moving more towards La Nina this week with the SOI also flashing La Nina. So it is still a battle going on with La Nina nudging ahead but not looking like it can sustain itself. .

Here are the above graphics as a time sequence animation. You may have to click on them to get the animation going.

Although I did not fully discuss the Kelvin Waves earlier, now seems to be the best place to show the evolution of the subsurface temperatures which remains relevant. What we have is only the upwelling phase of the series of Kelvin waves last winter.

There is cool water from 170W to the coast of Ecuador. But the coolest water, however, is only reaching the surface from 168W to 150W which is the same as last week and there is another area of 135W to 125W. There is e gap in the coolest water between 150W and 135W and east of 125W essentially to LAND with a tiny warm anomaly at about 110W. The central part of the anomaly now looks like it has the most staying power. The western part is large but less intense. The eastern part of the anomaly is not factored into the measurement of the ONI but it impacts weather in Ecuador and Peru. This cool event would appear to be self-limiting. It actually looks like we have three distinct areas of cool water. All three I thought were drifting west but now it looks like the central part might be drifting east at depth. The way anomalies are calculated enter in as they adjust by the time of year. In the winter it takes cooler water to register as a cool anomaly.

And now Let us look at the Atmosphere.

Low-Level Wind Anomalies near the Equator

Here are the low-level wind anomalies.

There are now mostly easterly anomalies (shown in blue) west of 135W probably related to the MJO and these are shifting the cool anomaly to the west and further east the westerly anomalies are spreading out the cool water. This combines to speed up the surfacing of the cool water which can lead to short term increases in the Nino 3.4 but are speeding up the demise of this cool event.

And now the Outgoing Longwave Radiation Anomalies which tells us where convection has been taking place.

In the above graphic, we see basically no convection along the Equator other than west of the Dateline. It s a cool event pattern but not very impressive.There is now convection just east of 120E. And that appears to be the MJO.

And Now the Air Pressure which Shows up Mostly in an Index called the SOI.

This index provides an easy way to assess the location of and the relative strength of the Convection (Low Pressure) and the Subsidence (High Pressure) near the Equator. Experience shows that a comparison between Air Pressure at Tahiti and Darwin Australia is substantially correlated with the Precipitation Pattern of the entire World..

Below is the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) reported by Queensland, Australia. The first column is the tentative daily reading, the second is the 30 day moving/running average and the third is the 90 day moving/running average.

Date	Current Reading	30-Day Average	90 Day Average
Sept 13	+30.78	+9.31	+5.74
Sept 14	+27.46	+10.37	+6.08
Sept 15	+20.68	+11.16	+6.14
Sept 16	+15.51	+11.77	+6.06
Sept 17	+18.25	+12.49	+6.10
Sept 18	+14.14	+12.75	+6.14
Sept 19	+12.54	+13.05	+6.29

The 30-day average, which is the most widely used measure, as of September 19 is reported at +13.05 which is up markedly from last week and is definitely a La Nina level. The 90-day average at +6.29 is up from last week and is now at a La Nina level. These may be the high water marks for the SOI re this cycle but I said that last week. Usually but not always the 90 day average changes more slowly than the 30 day average but it depends on what values drop out. The disparity between the two is one reason why we look at both. Different agencies use a different range to classify the SOI as being El Nino or La Nina. The tightest range (I have referred to that as “strictest” but that may not be a clear way of putting it) is -5 for El Nino and +5 for La Nina. Some meteorological agencies sometimes use -8 or +8. So the range +5 to -5 is clearly neutral and above +8 is clearly La Nina and below -8 is clearly El Nino and between -8 and -5 and +5 to + 8 is somewhat marginal but suggestive of El Nino if negative and La Nina if positive. For many purposes the trend is more important than the absolute level. So clearly the Upper Atmosphere has a trend right now towards La Nina.

The MJO or Madden Julian Oscillation is an important factor in regulating the SOI and Kelvin Waves and other tropical weather characteristics. More information on the MJO can be found here. Here is another good resource. September so far has not been particularly favorable for La Nina development and neither will be October in terms of the MJO. The MJO being Inactive is more favorable for La Nina than the MJO being Active. But the MJO goes back and forth from being Active, Inactive, strong and weak so in has mostly a short-term impact. Right now the impact is fairly muted. It tends to be more important when the situation is ENSO Neutral and the MJO can start the process of an El Nino getting started. It is less significant re the initiation of a La Nina but is a factor. It is surprising how weak the MJO has been for months.

Forecasting the Evolution of ENSO

The below is first the CPC/IRI (Early Month) forecast issued on September 8, 2016 followed by the (Late Month) forecast issued on September 15, 2016. It is important to remember that the first report in each month is based on a survey of meteorologists and the second report later in the month is based on the analysis of the forecast models. It is a minor difference but a difference.

First the Early September “Probabilistic Forecast which includes a large component of input from meteorologists as compared to the second forecast in the month which is more tied to model results without interpretation. It is not a big difference but it is a difference. I assume they do it this way as to avoid forcing meteorologists to have to run their computers twice a month (some sarcasm expressed there).

Notice that with this release, the probabilities for La Nina have changed dramatically since the August 18 analysis with Neutral being the most likely Phase of ENSO and the next El Nino beginning to show up on the meteorologist’s radar.

And now we have the newly released mid-month model based report

This is a lot more bullish on La Nina happening. Kind of a big change in a week. It is still pretty much a coin flip with the projected strength of this cool event being marginal for ruling in or out as being a La Nina Event.

We have suggested that it is possible that some of the models and in particular NOAA’s model will be wrong about how fast the Eastern Pacific Warm Pool moves back towards its La Nina location and it may well be that next winter will be more of a Neutral year or even have some characteristics of an El Nino Modoki and thus be wetter than a typical year as the Warm Pool may still be more in the Central Pacific than shifted all the way west to its La Nina position.

The mean of the NOAA model was until recently forecasting a fairly strong La Nina for next winter. The model gradually shifted to a weak La Nina Forecast and now to a marginal La Nina Forecast. Is the Mean of the forecast ensemble for the key periods NDJ and DJF below -0.5? For two weeks it looked like it no longer seemed to be but now suddenly it does albeit barely. You can see the same thing in the Australian POAMA model and the August 1 JAMSTEC model run. The mean of the model ensemble for the ONI in the NOAA model has turned higher (less La Nina-ish actually on the El Nino side of Neutral) for the Spring of the coming winter as you can see. I doubt that this cool event will be recorded as a La Nina since it most likely will not meet the criteria for being classified as a La Nina. But it is forecasted to be close enough that whether it officially is logged in as a La Nina or Neutral, probably has very little impact on the weather we will have.

The full list of weekly values can be found here.

Forecasts from Other Meteorological Agencies.

Here is the report issued September 11 from the Australian BOM

They see the cool anomaly remaining fairly steady at the current level until February 2017. The forecast that it would strengthen a bit in September but not reach what they consider to be La Nina levels.

We now have the new JAMSTEC September 1 ENSO forecast.

The model shows ENSO Neutral for the next two years. The swings are a bit more intensified than in the prior model run. We do not have the updated discussion. The below is the discussion that was released in conjunction with the August 1 ENSO Forecast. There is always a delay between JAMSTEC releasing their model result and their release of their interpretation of the result. It most likely will be available in next weeks Weather and Climate Report.

Aug. 17, 2016 Prediction from 1st Aug., 2016
ENSO forecast:
The SINTEX-F model initialized with the SST condition observed on July 31st predicts a weak La Niña/La Niña Modoki state in coming months. [Editor’s Note: This article is already running too long so we will not discuss La Nina Modoki tonight but here is a good article to read for those with an interest in the topic]. Although the NCEP GODAS shows an anomalously cold subsurface condition almost all the way from central Pacific to eastern Pacific along the equator in July, the prediction has not picked the strong La Niña/La Niña Modoki signal yet. This might be a model bias due to the simple SST data assimilation scheme used in the initialization. However, we have noted similar prediction results in several other climate models.
Indian Ocean forecast:
As predicted earlier, the negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) has actually emerged in the June-July SST anomalies of the NCEP GODAS data. The model continues predicting the negative IOD for the boreal fall; this will bring a wetter-than-normal (drier-than-normal) condition over the eastern (western) side of the Indian Ocean. There is high possibility of floods in the region near Sumatra and Java, and drought in East Africa. The negative IOD seems to have brought temporary relief to a hot summer over East Japan normally expected in an evolving La Niña year.
Regional forecast:
In boreal fall, as a seasonally averaged view, most part of the globe will experience a warmer-than-normal condition, while northern Brazil will experience a colder-than-normal condition.
According to the seasonally averaged rainfall prediction, U.S., Korea, eastern China, Indo-China and East Africa will experience a drier condition during boreal fall, while most parts of Indonesia and northwestern South America (including Colombia, Ecuador, and western Brazil) will experience a wetter-than-normal condition; this may be mostly due to the negative IOD and the evolving weak La Niña. Also, because of those climate conditions in Indian and Pacific Oceans, Australia is expected to receive above normal rainfall during austral spring and summer. The active South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) may play a role in this, too However, we expect a weak dry condition in the southwestern coastal region of Western Australia because of the evolution of weak Ningaloo Niña. [ Editor’s Note: Click for Explanation and even more detail on the Ningaloo Niña]
Most part of Japan will experience above normal temperature from summer through winter. We expect above normal precipitation in most part of Japan in September-October. However, it may be noted that the forecast skills in those mid- and high-latitudes on regional scales are still limited.

D. Putting it all Together.

Last winter’s El Nino has officially ended in terms of currently satisfying the criteria. We are now speculating on the winter of 2016/2017 which now according to some of the models seems likely to be a La Nina or Neutral with a La Nina bias. But Australia and Japan do not see it that way and are not calling for a La Nina at this point in time. So NOAA is a bit the Odd Man Out but it is mostly a question of degree. NOAA is calling for a borderline La Nina and the others are forecasting a La Nina-ish event that does not quite meet the criteria for being labeled a La Nina and does not last long enough to meet the criteria.

Forecasting Beyond Five Years.

So in terms of long-term forecasting, none of this is very difficult to figure out actually if you are looking at say a five-year or longer forecast. The research on Ocean Cycles is fairly conclusive and widely available to those who seek it out. I have provided a lot of information on this in prior weeks and all of that information is preserved in Part II of my report in the Section on Low Frequency Cycles 3. Low Frequency Cycles such as PDO, AMO, IOBD, EATS. It includes decade by decade predictions through 2050. Predicting a particular year is far harder.

The odds of a climate shift for CONUS taking place has significantly increased. It may be in progress. It looks like it will require one more La Nina or ENSO Neutral event and this appears to be the way this might unfold. The AMO is pretty much neutral at this point so it may need to become a bit more negative for the McCabe A pattern to become established. That seems to be slow to happen so I am thinking we need at least a couple more years for that to happen..maybe as many as five.

E. Relevant Recent Articles and Reports

Weather in the News

We have discussed Hurricane Paine within the report.

Weather Research in the News

“What caused the extreme rainfall in Louisiana” I think this is more of a risk analysis than an attribution analysis but either way it indicates that “Houston we have a Problem?”

California Megadroughts. If you are not able to access the Washington Post Article you can read the full paper here.

Global Warming in the News

The articles in the Weather Research category would fit here as well.

F. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PAGE II OF THIS REPORT WHICH PROVIDES A LOT OF BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON WEATHER AND CLIMATE SCIENCE

The links below may take you directly to the set of information that you have selected but in some Internet Browsers it may first take you to the top of Page II where there is a TABLE OF CONTENTS and take a few extra seconds to get you to the specific section selected. If you do not feel like waiting, you can click a second time within the TABLE OF CONTENTS to get to the specific part of the webpage that interests you.

1. Very High Frequency (short-term) Cycles PNA, AO,NAO (but the AO and NAO may also have a low frequency component.)

2. Medium Frequency Cycles such as ENSO and IOD

3. Low Frequency Cycles such as PDO, AMO, IOBD, EATS.

4. Computer Models and Methodologies

5. Reserved for a Future Topic (Possibly Predictable Economic Impacts)

G. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PAGE III OF THIS REPORT – GLOBAL WARMING WHICH SOME CALL CLIMATE CHANGE.

The links below may take you directly to the set of information that you have selected but in some Internet Browsers it may first take you to the top of Page III where there is a TABLE OF CONTENTS and take a few extra seconds to get you to the specific section selected. If you do not feel like waiting, you can click a second time within the TABLE OF CONTENTS to get to the specific part of the webpage that interests you.

1. Introduction

2. Climate Impacts of Global Warming

3. Economic Impacts of Global Warming

4. Reports from Around the World on Impacts of Global Warming

Useful Background Information

With respect to relating analog dates to ENSO Events, the following table might be useful. In most cases this table will allow the reader to draw appropriate conclusions from NOAA supplied analogs. If the analogs are not associated with an El Nino or La Nina they probably are not as easily interpreted. Remember, an analog is indicating a similarity to a weather pattern in the past. So if the analogs are not associated with a prior El Nino or prior La Nina the computer models are not likely to generate a forecast that is consistent with an El Nino or a La Nina.

	El Ninos					La Ninas
	Start	Finish	Max ONI	PDO	AMO	Start	Finish	Max ONI	PDO	AMO
						DJF 1950	J FM 1951	-1.4	–	N
T	JJA 1951	DJF 1952	0.9	–	+
	DJF 1953	DJF 1954	0.8	–	+	AMJ 1954	AMJ 1956	-1.6	–	+
M	MAM 1957	JJA 1958	1.7	+	–
M	SON 1958	JFM 1959	0.6	+	–
M	JJA 1963	JFM 1964	1.2	–	–	AMJ 1964	DJF 1965	-0.8	–	–
M	MJJ 1965	MAM 1966	1.8	–	–	NDJ 1967	MAM 1968	-0.8	–	–
M	OND 1968	MJJ 1969	1.0	–	–
T	JAS 1969	DJF 1970	0.8	N	–	JJA 1970	DJF 1972	-1.3	–	–
T	AMJ 1972	FMA 1973	2.0	–	–	MJJ 1973	JJA 1974	-1.9	–	–
						SON 1974	FMA 1976	-1.6	–	–
T	ASO 1976	JFM 1977	0.8	+	–
M	ASO 1977	DJF 1978	0.8	N	–
M	SON 1979	JFM 1980	0.6	+	–
T	MAM 1982	MJJ 1983	2.1	+	–	SON 1984	MJJ 1985	-1.1	+	–
M	ASO 1986	JFM 1988	1.6	+	–	AMJ 1988	AMJ 1989	-1.8	–	–
M	MJJ 1991	JJA 1992	1.6	+	–
M	SON 1994	FMA 1995	1.0	–	–	JAS 1995	FMA 1996	-1.0	+	+
T	AMJ 1997	AMJ 1998	2.3	+	+	JJA 1998	FMA 2001	-1.6	–	+
M	MJJ 2002	JFM 2003	1.3	+	N
M	JJA 2004	MAM 2005	0.7	+	+
T	ASO 2006	DJF 2007	1.0	–	+	JAS 2007	MJJ 2008	-1.4	–	+
M	JJA 2009	MAM 2010	1.3	N	+	JJA 2010	MAM 2011	-1.4	+	+
						JAS 2011	FMA 2012	-0.9	–	+
T	MAM 2015	NA	1.0	+	N

ONI Recent History

The official reading for Jun/Jul/Aug is now reported as -0.3. As you can see this recent El Nino peaked in NDJ and has now ended and depending on what system you use it is either the 2nd or 3rd strongest El Nino since modern records were kept which is considered to be 1950. You could argue for it being #1 based on a week of readings but few are buying that argument. Still #2 or #3 means it is one of the strongest ever based on the way these events are measured. I will be writing more about that soon in a separate article. I believe the measurement system is inadequate re being useful in forecasting Worldwide weather impacts. The JJA is not a La Nina Value. So there would need for there to be five periods of -0.5 or colder starting with JAS. It is not even clear that JAS will record as -0.5 or less. So the chances of this event being an official La Nina are very low.

The full history of the ONI readings can be found here. The MEI index readings can be found here.

September 19, 2016 Weather and Climate Report – Paine in the Neck?

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September 19, 2016 Weather and Climate Report – Paine in the Neck?

B. Beyond Alaska and CONUS Let’s Look at the World which of Course also includes Alaska and CONUS

As of Today

May 23, 2016

As of Today

May 23 2016

As of Today

In Nino 3.4

May 23, 2016

165E

Land

100

50

175E

120W

55

50

175W

125W

50

45

145W

135W

15

15

LAND

LAND

0

0

D. Putting it all Together.

E. Relevant Recent Articles and Reports

F. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PAGE II OF THIS REPORT WHICH PROVIDES A LOT OF BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON WEATHER AND CLIMATE SCIENCE

G. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PAGE III OF THIS REPORT – GLOBAL WARMING WHICH SOME CALL CLIMATE CHANGE.

Useful Background Information

Most Read Articles Last Week Ending 17 September

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