Phil

Update!

Yeah, the niño transition failed that summer. Tried hard but didn’t quite get over the hump.

Well, a “21st century version” of the 1957 pattern is theoretically possible if the stout -NPMM and warm EPAC/+SPMM continues unabated. But it’s been decades since we’ve seen anything like that during a developing niño, so yeah, I’m always skeptical we will return to that until I see it happen. The closest we came was 2012, actually. Lots of false alarms since the mid 1970s climate shift.

Those marine layer days you say have disappeared, may yet reappear this warm season.So, only half over? If you’re looking for a 19th century summer you’re probably screwed, though.

Correct. It could even end up solidly above average, but if so it’ll probably resemble the 2019 or 1997 pattern. Relatively moist and a “dim” but persistent warm lean. Rather than massive heatwaves and fires everywhere. Or it could end up resembling 1957 if this cold phase/PMM dipole type circulation continues, or if the niño transition fails then a cooler outcome is suddenly very possible.

Haha, I actually didn’t. Just that the lack of a mega-4CH should sever the conduit responsible for the insane western heat over the last 2 summers. Easy to get a warm PNW summer with a weak 4CH. Biggest difference from previous summers will be over the SW/Intermountain West, where it’ll be like night and day (if I’m right). But I don’t anticipate those monster heatwaves will happen this year, unless it happens in May or maybe at the tail end of summer. And if so, up north in BC/Alaska and the Yukon would be where the warmest anomalies would center.

Probably followed by heat miser disappointment during the meat of summer. I suspect everyone is gonna squirm at some point.

I anticipate a transition to a more Tim-friendly pattern for the second half of April, which should last well into May. In fact I bet there’ll be some icepuśśy panic come mid-May when it’s still a dry/somewhat warm pattern after 4+ weeks. Reasons for this come down to seasonal/intraseasonal overlap, not really ENSO related at all. But the weak/suppressed 4CH should become increasingly apparent as we move deeper into the warm season. Much different pattern during the warm season across the entire western US.

But the amplitude of warm 850mb anomalies is reduced and latitudinally constrained, which was my point at the time.

Nothing like last week, though. This is a flicker by comparison.

Sorry bruh.

Congrats!

Fleeing the rain?

Meh, I’m skeptical of it, though it did follow a 4 year -ENSO regime, similar to the one we’re emerging from now.

2002

How many times have you posted that same grill picture?

Here we go baby.

It’s similar, but not the same. NPAC/GOA, specifically.

Andrew is gonna love the 12z EPS.

And FWIW, the reason the globe cools during La Niña years is because of increased heat/radiation uptake by the oceans. IE: The system is absorbing more energy. The opposite is true during El Niño. This is confirmed via satellite derived estimates of the radiation budget at the TOA. If we were to hypothetically remain in an unbroken La Niña for the next 50+ years, the globe would actually warm with time (after any short term cooling at onset), all else being equal. Vice versa for El Niño. The transition into a more +ENSO dominant state during the late 1200s/early 1300s preceded the LIA cooling trend by at least a century. Meanwhile, as Andrew mentioned, the post-WWII era has been La Niña dominant, and we have observed warming.

Multiyear niñas are more common than multiyear niños in the post-WWII era. I wouldn’t take it beyond that. In the 1990s, niños were more common than niñas. And the vast majority of proxy evidence suggests a niño-like base state dominated during the LIA. And ironically, the MWP (which featured the last multicentury western megadrought) was almost certainly dominated by a niña-like base state. In fact the SSTA/500mb structure over the last several years is likely the same pattern that took place in the MWP (EPAC Niña/large WPAC warm pool, +NPMM, +NAO, broad/poleward z-cells, large 4CH, warm globe). It’s an eerie match.

Well that is a state-dependent outcome. The large scale boundary conditions through which any ENSO event emerges are what truly matter, not the ENSO sign/amplitude alone. For example (and skipping over some details) the lines are actually quite blurred with respect to outcomes in east-based +ENSO and west-based -ENSO, sometimes in their respective emergent phases, sometimes in their decay, both of which can be quasi-static or dynamic. If linear/1-to-1 predictions were possible, a majority of the weather/climate industry would be out of business.

Glad someone recognizes this. Don’t want to sound boastful but I’m proud of that prediction. Without question I struggle when it comes to spotting smaller scale/emergent components within larger scale patterns. That stuff arises out of the system’s “red noise”, which is already mischaracterized by our teleconnective indices. The one exception is my own region, which I can predict down to the smallest detail in my sleep. Haha.

1997 was more in relation to the intraseasinal component(s) of the transition period. I’m torn between the canonical/east-based +ENSO mode (like 1997/98) and the “cold phase” +ENSO mode (pre-1976). As of now the system state appears to be trending towards the latter (top-left).

Correct, and the opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere. Previously, and for many years, it was the North Pacific Meridional Mode that was persistently positive, while the South Pacific Meridional Mode was been persistently negative.