EC also has an upper high over eastern Australia at the end of it's runs.

It is bizarre, the seven day trend says the SST's along the equator are warmer. Yet there it is supposed to be in the middle of a strong trade burst.

You can see on the sea surface level anomaly the water is pushed up along the Indonesian side, will it rebound?

I don't get it either. You would think a trade wind burst of this magnitude would further enhance La-Nina more than anything else.

I'm wondering if there is a glitch somewhere which is throwing off the readings because a few days ago there was an area of water three degrees below normal in the Pacific and it practically vanished overnight, when there is a major trade burst going on.

I noticed that too Chris, I would agree it's a glitch of some sort. However none of the models really have this Nina deepening any further either, despite the current trade wind burst. I'll have a look around and see what I can find.

CFS is reacting to the trade wind burst and it probably won't be long before others start reacting as well.

This is a good point - ENSO models are still far too reactive than predictive - may as well get the tealeaves out.

Trade winds in central and east and central pacific have been near normal for the last few weeks and with a warm subsurface kelvin wave there is no surprise there is a slight warming. This warming will get a lot stronger once the Kelvin wave reaches the east coast.



Assuming the Kelvin wave is still in play. Subsurface data seems to suggest that it may have stalled, and heat content has actually decreased near 120W, around where I think the leading edge of the Kelvin wave might be.



However there does appear to be an issue with TAO missing data, which shows up looking at a depth section through 120W (running north-south in contrast to the normal east west depth section) Not sure why the data is shown as missing in this view, but not in other views. Maybe TAO display has rules that allow smoothing over missing values if there is only one missing, so an East to West view has only one missing value at 120W so is smoothed over, whereas north to south there is 3 missing values in a row so gap is shown.

CFS had been showing nino 3.4 dropping down to about -1.5 a couple months ago. Overall it has been pushing the forecast warmer over time.

Missing data can throw the whole forecast out and mess with readings etc. Hopefully it can be corrected.

Lucky we had 1 above average month in October, 3 months of well below average rainfall now here.

This La Nina is incredible!!!!!

Just drove Townsville to Emerald and its bone dry the whole way.

Another shower event tomorrow though. Might be lucky enough to snag 10mm.

Then the ridge is here to stay until Feb with no trade showers. #bringbacknino

Yep, this Nina has been set in a pattern for months now...If it had set in a wet pattern we would have all been washed away by now, but stuck in this pattern is bad news for many. Either way patterns that stick for too long are no good to anyone - guarantee too wet or too dry.

The pacific pattern has been similar for several years in some ways - NW/SE La Nina, NE/SW el nino. And we are in the SW.

NE el nino like aspects seem to be continuing, despite the PDO index approaching 0. There has been lower pressure persistently in NE Pacific, but it seems to have not been able to impact on trade winds at all. The NW La Nina like strengthened high pressure ridge seems to have shifted more to the central Pacific which is squeezing the lower pressures in NE.

SE High pressure was the prime driver of cooling IMO, especially at first, and seems to be weakening now with central north Pacific prime driver. Current SSTs show some similarity to the SPMM pattern for a flip towards an el nino like SPMM, but the warm SSTs of South America are further south. Watch to see if this warming extends further north.

SW Pacific had a strong el nino like signal with strong low pressure extending far east from the coral sea pushing a strong westerly influence towards the equator. This was somewhat offset by the enhanced North Pacific High but still generated a substantial WWB.

However now the tropical convection in SW Pacific has gone quiet and I am waiting for the next MJO passage to see if there is a continuation of most activity being much further east, or whether the next round of activity is further west. Subdued activity favours more easterly winds, but being subdued through both Coral Sea and Gulf is bad news for northern Qld wet season.

Townsville is in a bad way if the wet season fails again because there are no emergency plans in place if the dam runs dry. La Nina isn't delivering for some reason.

Well if it's due to Hadley cell expansion you will have to get used to drier conditions.

We can pump from the Burdekin Dam (Currently at 74%) at a cost, so Townsville will be fine if the Ross River Dam runs dry. Would not be an ideal situation however.

Don't farmers irrigate with water out of the Burdekin Dam? Shouldn't the Hadley Cell expansion make it wetter because of increased trade winds?

Yep drove it a couple of weeks ago myself..its like a desert..almost totally devoid of any groundcover at all...I doubt they have had any decent rain in the last 5 yrs..south of Emerald you could see that these recent storms that moved across towards Bundaberg had got some feed growing in central QLD but north of Emerald is absolutely shocking

Looking like a very healthy Siberian High setting up this week, sending very cold air down through parts of Asia during the weekend and through next week. Wonder whether this will play a role in aiding the strengthening monsoon trough that the models are starting to pick up on at the end of their respective runs?