A little "less" El Nino in today's graphic

[hurricanetrack]

Just a note that the usual Tuesday graphic showing the 10 month ENSO prediction now shows a little less vigorous EL Nino.

See it here:

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/c ... cordxy.gif

Nothing to hang your hat on just yet, but if this trend continues then perhaps the '04 season will shape up with more of the same: lots of activity.

[cycloneye]

Yes I agree that the ENSO thing wont be so important than past years like in 1982-83 and 1997 strong el nino years that made the atlantic tropics be relativily quiet in those seasons.Now let's wait and see how the ENSO factor will evolve in the comming months to see then if it will be a factor or not during the 2004 season considering that kelvin waves haved formed recently and may warm some the equatorial pacific.

[hurricanetrack]

It's not much of an update- afterall, they do it every month, which I like, but Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) out of the UK is still calling for an above average Atlantic hurricane season.

We might have to wait until April to see anyone change their tunes- whether it be Dr. Gray or TSR. Of course, NOAA will issue their 2004 forecast in May, I believe.

Here is the TSR link:

http://forecast.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/shadow/d ... an2004.pdf

[FLguy]

Yes I agree that the ENSO thing wont be so important than past years like in 1982-83 and 1997 strong el nino years that made the atlantic tropics be relativily quiet in those seasons.Now let's wait and see how the ENSO factor will evolve in the comming months to see then if it will be a factor or not during the 2004 season considering that kelvin waves haved formed recently and may warm some the equatorial pacific.

those were both outlier events of the past 50 yrs...which (and here is IMO the key) occured within the long term PDO warm cycle which is correlated strongly to those type of strong warm episodes. it normally takes a moderate to strong El nino to make a significant difference in the atlantic and east PAC tropical seasons. If the EMC model is correct that will be a weak to borderline moderate El Nino (and i think if anything it will be centered further west --- as compared to in the NINO 1+2 region)

currently we are within the long-term PDO cold phase in the PAC and ATC strong cycle in the Atlantic which both favor increased TC formation in the atlantic and decreased TC formation in the PAC relative to normal on a decadal to multi-decadal scale (depending on how long those two respective phases last).

yes that was a very strong kelvin wave...and you will probably notice some warming of the equatorial PAC SSTA in response. the MJO related subsidence over the tropical atlantic isnt favorable for TC development while the rising motons prepetuated by the MJO across the north atlantic are favorable for development.

that said...im still not very comfortable with using the MJO to predict TC development pulses in the atlantic as i am with using it to predict heavy precipitation events along the west coast or the behavior of the pacific jet...so for the time being i would stick to using the NAO for making an assessment of when development pulses might occur in the atlantic.