Also the fact we have switched to the Cool PDO also goes against the odds of El Nino happening this Year again this frequent

IMO, the last thing this country needs is another La Nina on the back of all the rain and flooding we've already had to put up with, a return to neutral would be the best possible outcome.

Agreed, whilst there's a chance an El Nino could form in the next 12 months it seems very unlikely. At the worst we'll be neutral by the years end, but until then its La Nina full steam ahead which will play a part in 2 possible east coast cyclones bringing a bugger load of rain across the inland in the next few weeks. Can't imagine what late feb/march will be like..

Still a big mass of cold water waiting to be pumped into the equatorial Pacific over coming months.. my money is on a back to back La Nina albeit a weaker one.

The Murray-Darling basin will be a mess by Mid February it already is but be 3-4 times worse

Comparing current ocean heat and surface temperatures as at the same day, we seem to be noticeably warmer than 99 and 08, which were followed by cool neutral years, and noticeably cooler than same day 06 and 09 which were cool neutral years followed by El Ninos.

At this stage I'm guessing on neutral, but would only be mildly suprised if we get either an El Nino or La Nina next summer.

Significant ENSO teleconnections are potentially lagged by over a decade with Southern Ocean Oceanic phenomena, but at this stage it is difficult to tell .

BOM for the 1st time have recognised that perhaps theres a chance we may have a double dip La Nina


Strong La Niña event persists in the Pacific
Issued on Wednesday 2 February 2011 | Product Code IDCKGEWWOO

Australia continues to feel the effects of one of the strongest La Niña's on record. During La Niña events, tropical cyclone numbers are typically higher than normal during the November to April period, while summer daytime temperatures are often below average, particuarly in areas experiencing excess rainfall.

Climate indicators of ENSO continue to indicate a strong, mature La Niña, although there are clear signs the event has passed its peak. Pacific Ocean temperatures have increased, especially below the surface, while atmospheric indicators such as the Southern Oscillation Index (soi), trade winds and cloud patterns have eased from their peaks reached about a month ago.

These observations are consistent with long-range forecast models surveyed by the Bureau which show the Pacific gradually warming during the southern autumn. Given that March to June is the ENSO transition period, there is a spread among the model predictions for the middle of 2011. The most likely outcome is for a return to neutral conditions, but there is a chance of La Niña persisting for the rest of the year.

well the monthly soi for January 2011 was +19.9, which is the highest January figure since January 1974 where +20.8 was recorded.

still 19.9 is nothing to be sneezed at, in the middle of the month it was around the +25 mark.

Also noting that this is the 2nd (or 3rd) highest value, with Jan 74' and Jan 1890 both having +20.8

i still think we will go down into neutral but more on the La Nina side though then we will get another burst of La Nina late in the year, so im going for back-to-back la ninas

Back to back Ninas is I think the high probability outcome.

With the sub surface still so cool as well as the soi where it is, the current state will take some serious forcing to flip .

Just saw Klaus Wolter's MEI update - he's also sugesting there's a more than 50% chance of back-to-back Ninas.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/

Latest subsurface data shows quite a bit of warming in the past few weeks now, so if were going for a back to back La Nina then when should we see the subsurface start to cool off again?

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml

if get an El Nino this year, it could be very bad because we have had so much rain, it's going to create a very big fuel loading for bushfires.

The big red and brown spot will be at the surface in the east Pacific in about 6 to 8 months. A very strong El Nino is coming.

My personal take is that some of the recent warming is due to the strong MJO that went through. MJO now forecast to be weak for the forseable future - and already the wind anoms are creeping back in...so I'd expect to see a slight strengthening of the cold anoms in the next few weeks...if that does not happen then El Nino is a real chance. Interesting to see in the animation how the subsurface temps in the central Pacific have warmed substatially in recent weeks - most of the real cold is focussed in the far east with not much left to replace it...at least along the equator...

A pivotal time coming up. I'll stick with cool neutral for now.

Um didn't the subsurface have a big red in the Western Pacific in Early 2008 as well? Did we go into El Nino Spring and Summer of 2008-2009? No, Its not as simple as that Bill.. Sub surface temps in the Western Pacific in the first few months of 2008 got to more than 4c but we managed to avoid El Nino infact we went back to back La Nina's so just cos we have a pool of warm water in the Western sub surface doesn't guarntee we are going into an El Nino let alone a strong one. I'm with Arnost I think we may see a back to back La Nina or worst/best case scenario depends how you look at it go Neutral.

Sub Surface temps Jan to April 2008....


http://cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/ocean/results/ocean_anals/SEQ_Equator/2008/Apr.gif

The real story by Spring Summer 2008-2009.. Sub surface temps October 2008 to January 2009


http://cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/ocean/results/ocean_anals/SEQ_Equator/2009/Jan.gif

Great set of charts there Johno - thanks!

Big call Bill!


I know that you’ve been saying this for a while, but here’s my reasoning why I would not be so confident…

If you look at the Delayed Oscillator theory [which I favour] it fits in with what you’re seeing… but there is one element missing: and that is an impetus.

At the moment the predominantly easterly winds are piling up the water in the West Pacific, and this (as the corresponding sub-surface part of the Walker Circulation – see above) is simply forcing the warmer surface water deeper and so showing up as the re/brown anomaly.

But it is not forcing it east! We need that impetus – which is usually a Westerly Wind Burst (WWB) and associated / generated Kelvin Wave.

And there’s no sign of those yet. And unless the soi drops, even if they generate, the state of the atmosphere will not be conducive to strong WWBs and will kill any Kelvin Waves generated before they propagate across the Pacific – which they must if the state of the atmosphere is to change…

And as the WWB in autumn and early winter are the ones that usually set the pattern [and it wasn’t until a big WWB in October 2009 which set the pattern for the last Nino] – I don’t think we can make any definitive calls yet.

For interest sake, here’s a pic I posted about this time last year showing the effect of the big WWB in Oct and the sub surface response [See esp how fast the associated downwelling Kelvin Wave moved across the Pacific]. The current state is far more static.

If we are going for a back to back La Nina it will be at least a few months before cooling resumes. Perhaps late Autumn or winter is what I'd be expecting.

Just came across something puzzling... I tried to recreate the Feb 2010 graph and I think that the GODAS widget doing such is broken. I got the below:



Which is obviously wrong as the TAO (which I check at least once a week) has not shown any warming spreading East, and in fact when the comparison of GODAS and TAO is done there's bugger all diff:


Which begs the question - if the GODAS platform is down, are any of the dynamic ENSO models using it to predict where we're going - for by that we are heading into El Nino big time...