IS El Niño COMING BACK?

[DROliver]

http://wwwa.accuweather.com/news-column ... r=penstone

That depends on which meteorologist you talk to. Roger Stone, associate professor of climatology at the U. of South Queensland in Australia thinks El Niño is set to return. In fact, the professor thinks the risk is more than doubled. He points to an unexpected warm-up in the Pacific that reduced air pressure from Oz to Tahiti to a 22-year low. That's what happened prior to the devastating El Niño 8 years ago. That one spawned tornadoes in the US, droughts in Asia and flooding in South America.

The drought is already having an impact in Asia. Vietnam is the world's second largest coffee grower (didn't know that!), but it's so dry there that the cost of beans reached a five-year high last month. That's prompted Proctor & Gamble and Kraft to raise retail prices for their java products! for us coffee lovers!




My(DrOliver) predictions on El-Nino given without support Just playing the odds.

25% El-Nino
25% La-Nina
50% Neutral

Steve O.

[Anonymous]

Interesting readings. I agree that neutral conditions will occur, as I pointed out in my 2005 Hurricane Season forecast. Good forecast.

[MWatkins]

This could go under Mark's post too...

Here's an update after going around the horn through the indicies this morning.

The subsurface maps have been updated over at the CPC...as of 4/3/2005...it looks like the sub-surface warm blob looks like a submarine about to surface.



Also, race fans, this time-series analysis from NCEP shows that positive equatorial 1c degree anoms have spread eastward from 140W to 100W in the last 30 days or so...which would correspond well to the surfacing of the sub-surface k-wave seen above:



However...time series time/longitude analysis also from the CPC shows that the wave is propagating eastward...and that cooler anoms are showing up in the oceanic heat content (different from SST) and moving eastward in tandem (note significant cooling way back west near 170E to 150E...and that relatively cool anoms have already passed the dateline and are moving east.



The Enso race is still too close to call. But here are the updated vote tallys:

El Nino 47.0%
La Nada 46.5%
La Nina 6.5%

2% of precincts reporting.

MW

[MGC]

Who will get the checkered flag? I'm voting for a dead heat. Or neutral during the season....MGC

[Guest]

Yep, Neutral here also. The cool upwellings can have a greater affect on the kelvin wave. This plus the cool waters off the west coast of South America. The question is, will the upwellings help disapate the kelvin, or will it track completely across the basin?
Time will tell as you say Mike, but neutral is in my thinking.
Now, as we move into the peak of the season, those upwellings copuld create some further problems. Maybe even some weak negative values to ENSO? But not a La Nina!
We'll just have to wait and see!

[StormChasr]

I still say El Nino. Probability factors set up towards it--if one did a regression equation with the variables, I bet it would come out for positive El Nino, given the situation now. Only time will tell.

[cyclonaut]

Yep I gotta go with neutral or @ the very least a very weak,insignificant event.

[Lindaloo]

Some questions... if El Nino is neutral what does that mean for cane season? And if we do see El Nino return, what does that mean for cane season?

[cycloneye]

Some questions... if El Nino is neutral what does that mean for cane season? And if we do see El Nino return, what does that mean for cane season?

Linda if Neutral ENSO is around the equatorial pacific it will not have any effects on the Atlantic Basin and the season will be active.But if El Nino shows up then the Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season is reduced in activity due to increasing upper shear.

[Lindaloo]

Ah okay. Thanks Luis!

[Guest]

But, if there was a weak event, then the shear wouldn't affect the mean core of the season August 15 through October 15 as much as one would think. The shear may, and I say may, limit the number of strong storms, but the number may not be affected. We would still have an above average number of named storms.