Apolgies Johnno ,

The SST charts i was referencing must have been older . And from memory i was refering to one map that was posted in the ENSO thread recently ( my bad i should have checked the latest myself ) . Obviously as BD's post shows that the Ekman Spiral has been busy along the Javan , and yet to consolidate along the Sumatran coast . The latest two weeks map shows a considerable change in Vast amounts of waters in the entire Eastern Indian ( above 15S ) and extending West - NorthWest ward . This peak will be a little slower than traditionally strong events when friends in Indonesia usaually start complaining about the Upwelling events form Early - Mid June . I still haven't heard any local observations up that way .
I was also pondering why Jamstec would be slow to see the local effects off Aust , would not yet reached the Official measured wateers area i discussed in my post . Unfortunately at the Moment i can't find the Map that shows these . Will try to look back through the thread to find . But if anyone has it please put me out of my misery and post it .

Funnily , ( although i've been sidetracked by some DIY work at home ) that I'm trying to put together a part official / part Proxy PDO - ENSO - IOD chart showing multiple phases of each and an irregular Rhythm that seems to show through . Bare with me and hopefully i'll finish it some time soon . I've worked out some rough findings on Paper , its just that I'll need to lay it out to make it easily read as its quite complex .
Thanks Pete .

One of the few things that seems to be going against there being a strong El Nino event in coming months is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shows some signs of being in the negative phase at the moment. Unfortunately, it seems the Indian Ocean Dipole phase might be characterised more in the positive…(SSTs anomaly map, Weatherzone)

It also looks like somewhat of a contradiction given which phases of the PDO correspond more to ENSO modes, but then again the cyclic nature of these phenomena is not definite, as can be seen in their respective historical records.

So whether it’s possible to have a mild El Nino, strong PDO (negative), mild-to-weak (positive) IOD might be a consideration.

[I’m not going to set a prediction in stone here nor claim something is definite; I’m no expert on the dynamics of all this.]

Looks to me IOD is now positive. Not good

Just assume that for the period Sept to March we get smashed in Se Oz...and the IOD stays as it is at weak positive....what would the implications be?

AV I think I have said this a few times mate.. The IOD becomes irrelevant between December and April cos of the Monsoon trough, tropical depressions, cyclones etc etc, I have read it many times and people like BD @ ROM will be further able to explain why

Basically the IOD season is from May/June to November

Its abit like ENSO where it has its biggest implications & domination between June & November

Ssts anomalies around Indonesia/Sumatra (from where the IOD is measured from) become irrleavnt and non effective for us from that period I mentioned (Dec-April) and its the ssts anomalies over Northern Australia waters & Coral sea that influence our weather with cyclones, Tropical depressions and how Weak or strong the Monsoon trough is.

Sorry for my ignorance , What do you clarify as getting Smashed .... Drought ? Floods ?
Don't understand content / intent of Post ?

Dec to April well IOD almost always tends back to neutral over summer...and early Autumn as Johnno has suggested the remnant tropical moisture, from tcs, tropical depressions, tropical lows, monsoon, t/storms, etc, all the left over tropical moisture from summer, tend to do the job no matter what IOD is for that early Autumn period, is my take on it all.
cheers

Ok up to December then? I mean l above average rainfall.

Thanks BD. Yeah that sounds about right AV.

it seems the positive IOD SSTs are being caused by the strong highs moving into the Bight, is JAMSTEC still predicting a negative IOD?

The discussion on the IOD has been about the phase of any expected IOD.
And at this stage if an observable phase of the IOD is not already obvious and observable then in all likelihood any tendency for a reasonably strong phase of either colour is probably disappearing into the blue yonder where all still born IOD's go.

Nor was there a decent cyclone in the Bay of Bengal in that critical time slot of the April May, June period which appears to be one of the major triggers for the larger percentage, but certainly not all of the recent positive IOD's.
In fact the data says there has been NO cyclones in the Northern Indian Ocean, ie; the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2012.
Still possible but far less likely now as one of the probable triggers for a positive IOD, a severe Bay of Bengal cyclone,
This then goes a long way towards ruling out a strong positive IOD.

2012 North Indian Ocean cyclone season

For some background on those very warm Indian Ocean SST's we can look at the ocean guru, Bob Tisdale's site "Climate Observations" to gain an insight to the changes and influences on the Indian ocean temperatures, both at depth and it's SST's.

This quote [ amongst many along the same lines from Bob ] from a reply to a comment on his post Guilyardi et al (2009) “Understanding El Niño in Ocean-Atmosphere General Circulation Models: progress and challenges”

[ The ENSO guys should take a look at this as well as those who have founded their beliefs and ideology in global warming on the basis of the predictive capacity of climate models.]

From Tisdale's reply to a commenter;




And for the future, all that ENSO water ain't doing what the models say it should be doing so the long term ramifications for the Indian Ocean will likely be a cooling in the years ahead as a fair proportion of the westward flow of the ENSO / central equatorial Pacific surface waters [ some goes north out of the Pacific Warm Pool up past Japan in the huge Kuroshio Current ] head out of the major Western Pacific Warm Pool through the Indonesian Through Flow into the Indian Ocean.

IO sub surface flows are probably not well enough known at this stage to indicate how fast and where these cooler eastern and central Pacific origin waters will finish up in the Indian Ocean so don't take it as a given that we are facing a series of pos IOD's ie; warm waters in the western IO and cool waters in the Eastern IO.
Secondly the IOD appears to be fairly location specific with it's warm and cold surface pools to create a definite IOD phase and this also plays a role in the formation of a IOD phase if there is going to be such an IOD Phase.

For the ENSO guys and the longer term Indian Ocean SST's this graph also from Tisdale's comment reply has some significance;

The models and the reality

AV , ( and anyone else for that matter ) ,

Apart from ROM 's hugely informative post .

I have an analogy for Aust's predicament in relation to its position in Influence from Both ENSO and IOD .

Geographically we are the meat in the Oceanic Sandwich . And atmospherically centred and surrounded by a Four way Valve of the "Majority" of Oceanic Transfers to which ENSO and IOD influence each other . No other Land Mass has such influence Atmospherically to each of these two major Oceanic occurences.

A Simple way to see our Precipitous outcomes ( Seasonally and perhaps decadel / Bi Decadel ) , is that IOD should be Observed Similar to ENSO .

BUT REMEMBERING , that a POSITIVE IOD is the La Nina ( think Pacific Basin Wide not local Effects of ENSO ) or Normality to the System .

Repeat . Think of Australia ( especially in an Area West of a line from Broome to Melbourne ) as IOD's Eastern Hem.
This is where it Confuses some , As POSITIVE spells lack of Precipital input to above mentioned Western Half of Aust .

The Negative of IOD Is the El Nino of the Indian .
Confused .?
Remember El Nino was first Observed and noted as the " Wet Boy " who brought Flooding Rain to Sth America's Western Deserts . And such the Negative ( IOD ) is which Produces "Western" continental Australia's High precipital input .

And as per BOM's Seasonal Write up , for 2010/2011 . Both the La Nina of the Pacific and Negative IOD of the Indian combine to Heighten each other , and also Exponentially increase The Entire [ partially excluding Small parts of West Vic , SSE SA , SW tip WA , West Coast of Tassie ] of Australia's precipital outlook .
Obviously aspects such as the AAO , and LWT Frequency & Cycling will contribute to Partially Excluded areas above [ ] .

As for this Season , the Horse has already Bolted , and Slight Positive - Neutral is the More inclined . As the Cooler waters didn't spread or show in the Measured area waters ( West & Sth of Sumatra ) till well into July . And as rule of thumb , to produce a Strong position these anomaly waters need to show themselves Early - Mid June or even late May .

This is where I'm Tipping that the ITF will lessen Cool anomalies later in Spring , and in Unison with lowering 3.4 reading to return to - figures before Years End . And another Quinella of Negative IOD leading into La Nina 2013/2014 , which could rival 2010/2011 . ! ?

I agree, Southern Oracle, the current subsurface pattern, oceanic dynamic height across the equatorial Pacific, 20 degree isotherm layer, etc. are indicative of a possible weak El Nino at the most, somewhat similar to early 2010, before La Nina conditions developed rather rapidly. My thoughts are that we will see a decline of El Nino indicators over the next few months with neutral conditions in place by January/February (if not earlier), and La Nina redeveloping by autumn 2013 (again, if not earlier), persisting through to the summer of 2013/2014.

Well, that would be the favoured outcome from solar patterns, as well as a reasonable chance from the oceanic patterns.
The total outcome and the strength are the main questions that are not likely to become clearer till later in the year...
for the beter diagnosis of it all.

Still looking positive IOD to me going by the SST anomaly map of late. It may be warm under the surface but the water at the surface is what IMO is driving the lack of moisture to interact with these front coming through. Unless thing change quickly up there off the NW coast we are going to get some hot damaging weather within weeks. Get ready for a bad fire season

Well I reckon the current sat loop is the telling tale of what's going to happen with rainfall for SE Australia for the next couple of months. No moisture being lifted by that monster cold front in SA as it comes across the bight. Only moisture coming in looks to be a piddly little bit near the gulf. Keep this set up going on and you will be able to hear the crops around here fry.

I was talking about 2013 not 2012 incidently in that last post!