We know that we are currently in a La Niña pattern by the various maps and graphs we have on the WUWT ENSO page, for example this one:
But have a look at the ensemble forecast, updated yesterday. The average line which has now dipped “off the scale” of the graphic from February-March of 2012:
h/t to reader Erik Anderson
Which means ….? Help me out here.
Which means its going to be interesting…
It means we’re doomed!! Doomed, I tell you!!
As Chinese proverb interesting.. With luck we don’t go deep until spring-or what passes for it..
How does the ensemble mean compare to last years La Nina?
-Jay
Jack– that deep a La Nina? Northern and Central US and NW Europe will be very cold
Jack
It means nothing – as we have all been taught, el Nino is climate, but La Nina is just weather.
From today’s China Daily under my hotel room door this morning:
OFF TO A SNOWY START
Visitors pose for photos on Sunday at the Hongxing Volcano Geology Park in Yichun city, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. Snow fell in most parts of the province over the weekend.
It means hell will be freezing over soon.
Which means it going to get cold but ,NOAA and Accuweather, are forcasting above normal in southeast.They seem to forecast the same every year.Then in January they have to adjust .
This is not one of the two CFS graphs (V.1 or V.2) that is reported in the latest (10/17) weekly ENSO discussion update. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Anyone know what this version represents, and why it’s not used in the report ? Perhaps this is considered an outlier at this time ?
If recollection serves me right this means that I better be ready for yet another wet and cold winter. The wet part is ok (up to about 200% of the normal rainfall that is, with a one day rain event no greater then 4″) as I obtain my water from a well. My house was built out of the flood plane and my culverts do fine most of the time.
The cold part on the other hand is getting old and expensive- as far as fuel costs to transform my living spaces into something habitable.
It means Global Freezening!
At long last, the top scientists’ predictions of 1975 are coming true.
Cooling will cost lives and much treasure. It ALWAYS does! GK
Habitualmente esto provoca intensas sequías en Sud América. Especialmente en Argentina y Brasil. Compren soja… Va a aumentar de precio.!!
It’s going to send global average temperatures, and particularly tropical temperatures, through the floor. We’ll be needing an explanation of how climate models don’t necessarily predict that climate change causes warming.
It would be a good opportunity for Dessler, Spencer, and other interested parties to make some predictions about top of atmosphere radiation.
We live in interesting climate times. Bundle up, it’s going to be colder than a witch’s kiss.
Wonderful…another harsh cold winter only to be followed by yet another lousy cool summer…sigh.
Robertol, what’s that in English, svp?
Very, very cold subsurface anomalies appearing in eastern ENSO regions. An east-central based Nina looking likely again. In terms of Winter, if the greenland block returns and gets established…look out!
I hope their wrong….. last winter was bad enough!
Mark what is a ‘flood plane’? Is a type of hovercraft you have there?
It means that the pro-global warming extremists will be provided with another reason why global temperatures are still not rising.
Hi Jack,
If you click here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/enso
That will take you to Anthony’s ENSO/SST Page. You can also just click on it near the bottom of the right column.
Near the end of the page there are two graphics that generally explain the effects of ENSO…
I wonder when they’ll be updating these month-old outlooks:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions//multi_season/13_seasonal_outlooks/color/churchill.php
It means that driving over three Continental Divide crossings on Interstate 15 somewhere around November 9 may be a dicey prospect. It was sub-dicey last yer, southbound, and downright bizarre a week later, northbound. Hauling a trailer….meh.
Cold PDO with associated more frequent and stronger la ninas… high latitude volcanos going off left and right (katia looks ready to blow and that’s a very big deal climatically speaking)… continued low solar recent uptick notwithstanding….looks like the brutal winters continue into foreseeable future…
They’d better find that missing heat in a hurry :>0
“Very, very cold subsurface anomalies appearing in eastern ENSO regions. An east-central based Nina looking likely again. In terms of Winter, if the greenland block returns and gets established…look out!”
Agreed. And yet if I’m understanding Joe B. correctly, a strong la nina will paradoxically also help a warmup in the northeast come feb/march…But I’m hazy on that. I could have it wrong.
@ldd: Translation courtesy of google translation
This usually causes severe droughts in South America. Especially in Argentina and Brazil. Buy Soybean … It will increase the price.!
Cudos to Joe Bastardi who predicted this earlier this year.
I really hope Katla quiets down.
Bill says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:33 am
It means we’re doomed!! Doomed, I tell you!!
For those that don’t know
Well, if that means a replay of last winter then I’m all for it. We only had average snowfall here in Buffalo built up 2-4″ at a time … easy to shovel. All the nasty stuff headed to such out of the way places as Washington, D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, etc. A foot or two of the stuff will make all the little children happy … got to remember the children.
“They’d better find that missing heat in a hurry.”
They stopped looking for the missing heat a while ago, shortly after the ‘travesty’ comment was made.
What they are looking for now are excuses. A couple of those balloons have been floated already. Rest assured that ‘global warming’ will be found hiding behind every snowdrift, and it will be “worse than we thought”.
Great stuff! We just need one or two of those recently-threatening larger volcanoes to play ball at the appointed time, and we’re stuffed. Never mind, governments are busily preparing for a warmer world. It’ll be all right. Won’t it? They know what they’re doing, don’t they? They do, don’t they? Don’t they???
I’m guessing this means another year or two of extreme drought in Texas?
It means the climatology maps for South Central USA will need to be redrawn to reflect a near desert environment. Old trees are starting to die around here in NW and West Central Louisiana and East and Southeast texas. I’m talking about oak, pine, and hickory. This is due to two years of extreme drought with not enough rain to do more than moisten a few inches of topsoil at a time. Post holes dug down 4 to 5 feet deep for cornerposts show hard and dry clay. Hay for livestock is selling for over $100/bale for round bales shipped into the affected areas. The last significant precipitation events we received were a winter snow of 5 to 8 inches, then a storm event at the end of April accompanied by a flurry of tornadoes and hail. The avg precip from that was less than 1″. When checking the NWS office, I have no idea where they get their precip totals, they must be adding in an occasional morning dew.
This is what the little girl gives us…
Given that La Nina’s typically recharge the Ocean Heat Content in the Pacific, would we expect an exceptionally strong La Nina to add more heat than normal? Would we then expect a strong than normal El Nino within a few years as a result?
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/la-nina-the-underappreciated-portion-of-enso/
After listening to Joe Bastardi, It’ll be the next elnino that will be difficult for North America. If an elnino comes on just before winter warm moist air from the pacific will be drawn toward the cold continental air mass.
Warm moist air rising over cold winter air. Should be interesting.
Time to fix the snow blower ….
Not to worry.
Send me a trillion dollars and I will fix it.
March 27, 2011, James Hansen & Makiko Sato
The NOAA web pages giving weekly ENSO updates predict a return to ENSO–neutral conditions by mid–summer with some models suggesting a modest El Nino to follow. We have been checking these forecasts weekly for the past several years, and have noted that the models almost invariably are biased toward weak changes. Based on subsurface ocean temperatures, the way these have progressed the past several months, and comparisons with development of prior El Niños, we believe that the system is moving toward a strong El Niño starting this summer. It’s not a sure bet, but it is probable.
Thanks guys, please can we have our money back
Re-post from JC:
There’s an interesting ENSO development for this NH winter/spring…
Double La Nina is coming and some predictions are lower than -2.0 or even -2.5 in spring 2012.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/nino3_4.png
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/eln-5-pg.gif
So, temperature anomaly will fall.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2006
to lower than -0.1 in 2012? Likely.
It means in Texas there will be no drought relief. Quite depressing… To say the least…
Thanks for the graph, I think.
To all “non AGW” (i.e. deniers) people here: never forget that if the global average temperature rises because of El Nino then it’s global warming, if instead the global average temperature falls because of La Nina then it’s climate disruption. Either it’s hot or cold, it doesn’t matter, you’re screwed!
And in the Southeastern US so buy up a supply of peanut butter because it is going to get scarce. Probably a warmup in New England but maybe a huge blizzard or two in Western NY. Lots of snow and cold in the Northern plains. The Pacific Northwest will depend on exactly where the jet stream settles. I have been watching an interesting “cut-off low” off the West coast for several days now. You can see it clearly on the GOES water vapor map: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/nepac/flash-wv.html
At the moment, it is unusually colder here (in South Africa) at nights, for this time of the year.
I think I got the same impression from a friend in Australia about the colder weather there.
It means the BIG, BROWN area(s)
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats/threats_ie.php
are going to stay BIG and BROWN
Suffering in Texas. I just hope we get enough precip to keep the LCRA lakes from going bone dry. This is bad bad.
If that’s not bad enough, click on the NOAA satellite SST imagery above the la Nina curves. The PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) flipped from warm to cool in 1999 and has stayed there ever since (hence a decade of gradual cooling). The cool water off the coast of N. America is now larger and cooler so look for another bitter winter, maybe worse than last year and continuing cooling after that. This is just weather, but over the past decade, the temps have followed the long-term cooling pattern very well (as predicted in 1998). Guess we should be careful what we wish for!
Brrrrr
geoprof says:
October 17, 2011 at 10:30 am
“It means in Texas there will be no drought relief. Quite depressing… To say the least…
Thanks for the graph, I think.”
Are agricultural workers leaving the drought stricken part of Texas?
well fudge……..
There goes my winter tomatoes…..
I can never grow tomatoes in a La Nina year….only in El Nino years
The Farmer’s Almanac says cold and snowy for the southeast US. Joe Bastardi said, when he was working at Accuweather, that in a multi-year La Nina event, the second winter is always colder than the first winter. But in an earlier video, he said the cold the southeast US experienced was the first time such a pattern ever occurred on record. Living in the southeast US I have noticed that there are more acorns this year than last year. Winter isn’t long now, we shall see what happens.
Is there any ol’ way to compare this to the early to middle 1930s? I mean everything seems a lot the same from what I’ve read. No Ben Bernanke though.
The consensus computer forecast for the intensity of this La Niña is impressive.
Meanwhile, back in the OK (uk.gov) Corral, our illustrious coalition Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, calms the nation by simply telling us all to shop around and switch suppliers, on national TV. Simultaneously his ‘pardners’, PM Cameron, and Chancellor Osborne, tell us to calm down —- “The Eurozone is safe in Angela Merkel’s and Nicholas Sarkozi’s hands”. God help us all.
TERRY46 says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:39 am
Which means it going to get cold but ,NOAA and Accuweather, are forcasting above normal in southeast.They seem to forecast the same every year.Then in January they have to adjust .
A stopped clock is right twice a day!
It’s worse than we thought!!!
Ecotretas
JDN says:
October 17, 2011 at 10:11 am
Ah, thanks. Forgot about using the online translater.
To distracted by the bad news.
Wow, last year here in NE Alabama we had the most snow since 93. I’m thinking better get the extra cord or two of wood handy for the cold days. Not looking good for the spring planting season either maybe a repeat of this year only cooler. Looks like with eyeball that it could be 1.5 below last year. not a good sign.
How accurate have past NCEP model forcasts proven to be?
It’s clear evidence that we need to spend a lot more dollars mitigating climate change.
In Europe it’s going to be cold this winter. That means folks will be burning a lot more energy to stay warm and thereby produce lots more CO2 which, as we all know, is the most harmful man-made chemical yet discovered. Unless we get that CO2 under control this winter, you are going to die.
/sarcasm
It is uncommon for La Nina to deepen into the spring. It usually bottoms out in Dec-Feb. As for NCEP forecasts, they showed -2.5 values the last time, too. Didn’t quite work out that way….
It means a very dry winter and spring, plus 6-9 months more after it rises above -.5 on the graph above. This is for that part of the US below the jet stream in the central states.
Buy wheat futures.
More definetely relevant info on the subject, see
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/yes-it-appears-that-a-historic-super-la-nina-is-just-few-months-ahead-243.php
(- posted earlier today.)
K.R. Frank
As someone, along with my partner Joe D Aleo, who said back in May this La Nina was not over as the cold PDO Ninas last 21 months, and it would be back, let me also say the NCEP enso forecast is a joke. It had a warm episode developing back in May and though not as bad as Nasa and Hansen, it is a lousy model and only reacts to current trends, much like the longer term climate models. You will find that the frontier research and euro models destroy it routinely.
That being said, the across the board forecast of a cooling amo is huge! I am on record as saying the objective global temp will drop to at least -.15C by march, though its highly doubtful the Enso 3.4 goes below -1.2… The bigger news is in the atlantic!!!! See global temp forecasts there against last year… its night and day.
The big fall is coming in the amo and also the global temps.. The modeling is certainly showing the tropical atlantic cooling in a much more rational fashion than its way overdone ( IMO) enso 3.4.
One should go back to the archives of the CFS and remember who said what and when. Followers of Joe D and I on Weatherbell know from the get go that the basis of our fall and winter forecast was for the nina to still be around, but that the CFS is now way overdone and reactionary.
The cooling atlantic is not the end of the overall warm amo, but is in line with what started happening in the 1950s, as is the PDO. In 10-15 years, this whole silly climate debate should be over as once both of them are cool in tandem, they will not have a leg to stand on. But be patient and dont overdo, and continue to fight on facts with comparison to what is the smoking gun of the climate fight… the pattern of the 1950s and the similarities from sea ice to overall weather patterns to what we are seeing today. When studying that, you will really see something remarkable.. more so than a computer model that is out of control
Last winter we had 16 metres of snow compared with our average 11 metres (daily fresh accumulation). I’m expecting a snowy winter, and have been preparing for the past two months. We are going to be ready.
To Tom_r, see the link in my previous comment, here you have a statistic over “succeses” for the previous model forecasts: NCEP did a MUCH BETTER jon at predicting the 2010 La Nina.
In fact almost all other models failed to tell in advance that a La Nina was coming in 2010, and they are not saying much about a la nina now either.
K.R. Frank
If that prediction turns out right, it would give a 3 month running mean well below 2.0. That didn’t even happen in 1973 (see http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml)
Oops, right there on the graph…last January, -1.5. Next January 0.5 to 1 cooler.
-Jay
Well, if it’s the same as last winter, Denver will be very dry and the mountains will be slammed with snow. Great, if you’re a skier!
We already planned on watering frequently this winter but I sure hope we have a cool wet May like last year to make up for it. I don’t usually have higher water bills in the winter.
We’ve already had a very dry autumn. We finally had a little rain today. That makes 2 days with rain in the past 3 months. The good news is that we may skip the heavy wet October snow that usually breaks all the tree branches.
Drill, drill, drill. More CO2 is needed to warm us up.
How does “Occupy Snow Drift” grab you?
Was going to flag this in T&N myself yesterday, but it was a lazy Sunday…
The NCEP model forecasts tend to have a fairly wide margin of error from memory over the past 18 months – like almost all models, they struggle to predict turning points with any degree of accuracy. In the early months of the year, once the low point of the first dip had been passed, most models were moving into neutral/mild Nino territory with a levelling, but I don’t think any were showing La Nina to be back by now.
What you can say with reasonable confidence is that, once a trend is established by September we get a continuation of the existing trend until at least the January after, when the trend usually reverses. Question is, will 2012 see a full year of upswing into Nino conditions like 2009, or are we set for a reversal of the 2002-07 period with the occasional Nada punctuating an almost-continuous Nina?
I don’t know if anybody out there is already doing this, but I’ve started to keep a document screencapping the ensemble forecast charts every fortnight. Be interesting to report back in six months to see how they’ve been getting on (be even more interesting if someone’s actually been doing this for a year or more…)
This means Cognitive Disequilibrium. In other words the emperor (Al Gore) has no clothes. A condition sure to cause blindness for relief.
Great. So next year’s crappy summer is going to be even worse than this year’s crappy summer was.
Heathrow airport has just bought another 12 snow clearing devices the size of ocean liners.
They were caught out last year, and the year before, having believed the Warmists claims of an end to snow in the UK. This time, they have ignored the ‘scientific consensus on climate’ and invested £15 million on the skeptics being right.
You can make fools out of business once, perhaps twice, but they will not be fooled any more. The science is no longer ‘settled’, in the eyes of the movers and shapers of business.
.
GW, here is the link
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/nino12SSTMon.gif
Last one still left us with decent moisture in California. This time we may not be so fortunate.
And perhaps even more interestingly, it doesn’t appear to be due to displacement west of warmer water, as the anomalies there are dropping too. Might it have been instead giving up heat across the width of the ocean to the atmosphere? Might this explain the slightly-unexpected spike in the UAH temps since June? If so, we really are headed for a spell of cooler temps…
Last year, here in Northern Nevada, winter started in late September and it stayed cold and snowy into June of this year. By comparison this Fall is staying mostly warm, although we had an early October snow storm push through recently. Not sure how long this nice Fall weather will hold.
In the UK, during the last couple of months, there has been concern at the rising costs of energy and the stretch that this will place on households. The BBC has interviewed several people regarding this (politicians on both sides of the political spectrum) and they have offered stated that this winter will be a very cold winter. If the BBC will allow interviews where the interviewee discusses very cold winters, one knows that the forthcoming winter is truly expected to be bad. The BBC normally oinly runs with stories that fit the warmist mantra.
It does appear that the UK is preparing for a cold winter this year. If that hapopens, it will be 3 very cold winters in a row. So much for snow being a thing of the past, and that the UK would be experiencing milder winters.
“, our illustrious coalition Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, calms the nation by simply telling us all to shop around and switch suppliers, on national TV.”
For crass stupidity and ignorance of even basic economics this man takes the biscuit on an almost daily basis. After a weekend of lambasting the Energy Suppliers for making £125 profit per customer on an average spend of £1325 he appears in our papers and on our screens to tell us to change supplier and by selecting a different tariff cut our bills by more than £200.
Conveniently he omits to tell us that through VAT and ROC the government is taking at least £200 from every household and that even this imposition will go very little way towards providing the £200Bn needed to pay for the outrageously subsidised and inefficient renewable energy sources that he favours.
Hi Joe Bastardi!
Due to the lack of succes from other models and better succes for CFS/NCEP predicting the 2010 La Nina, then i would note at all rule out that CFS/NCEP is indeed going to be closest, we will see much lower than -1,2K in the spring 🙂
That my guess, see fig 2 how hopelessly most other models has “predicted” the 2010 La Nina:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/yes-it-appears-that-a-historic-super-la-nina-is-just-few-months-ahead-243.php
Cold wind, sleet in Montreal today. Heading for tropical Ottawa Ontario where its a degree or two warmer. If a couple of years ago Phil Jones admitted there was no statistical warming since 1995, can we say we will have had statistical cooling soon? I’m waiting for UHA’s stuborn avg monthly lower Trop temp to move down in earnest. I’m awfully conflicted about this development. Ha ha you new world order guys, we’re going to freeze to death. See what I mean!
Low solar activity = more meridional/equatorwatd jets = more global cloudiness = less energy into the oceans = La Nina gains strength in relation to El Nino for net system cooling.
We had snow lying throughout December last year – in south London. I cant’ remember anything like that since 1963-64, when the Boxing Day [and onwards] snow didn’t finally vanish until April [west London].
Gues I shall start checking all our guttering is clear.
Gary, to be honest the Malthusians amongst the New World Order guys don’t particularly care if we freeze or boil to death, just so long as billions of us die.
Alarmism hasn’t changed!
SAID HANRAHAN by John O’Brien
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”
“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.
“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.
“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”
“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If rain don’t come this week.”
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain don’t stop.”
And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
I would not trust the CFS beyond the next month or so. I’ve done so before, and it has made an a– of me.
There was a long La Nina from March 1954 to January 1957 which can be called a “triple dipper.” El Ninos were few and far between back in those days. If we are returning to that part of a “cycle,” it will be hard to keep world temperatures from dropping.
Did you save the forecasts for Sept and Oct, so we’d have an idea of what accuracy we might expect from these forecasts?
You know what I hate about La Niña? It’s that creepy thing above the last N.
AMSR-E, not yet gone a month but already I have a untoward feeling.
Well now these ensemble forecasts have been off the chart for a few weeks now, nothing new. And they’re all wrong. They all show a swing back up towards positive territory in March. The Nino 3.4 just doesn’t do that.
I said on a couple of accasions earlier this year that a La Nina will develop if the 3.4 doesn’t swing back up by the 2nd week of July. It didn’t and a weak La Nina started to develop.
The 3.4 chart will stay on this path until early January, that’s when we’ll know if it will swing back up towards neutral. (And it should)
The difference between this La Nina and the one of last year is that this one is NOT accompanied by strong easterly trade winds.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/jsdisplay/plots/gif/sst_wind_anom_5day_jsd.gif
(Notice how the cool Pacific waters are broken up somewhat. That’s because the winds are in all sorts of weird directions.)
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.small.gif
The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) has only recently barely hit La Nina territory due to the cooler than normal SSTs near Darwin. These SSTs have recently been warming. If they continue to warm, the SOI will climb dramatically, the trade winds will pick up, then we might see this La Nina develop into a strong one. (I’m betting the 3.4 will barely hit -1.5 i.e. not as strong as the 2008 event)
The upshot of it all is that this La Nina (whether moderate or strong) will be with us until the years end, meaning we will have cooler than normal temperatures right the way through until at least next July/August.
In the meantime, check out the amount of radiation that’s been leaving the system for the last 4 years or so
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/graphics/region.ts.dateline.gif.small.gif
Wade says:
October 17, 2011 at 11:02 am
Living in the southeast US I have noticed that there are more acorns this year than last year. Winter isn’t long now, we shall see what happens.
—
Living in the northeast US, I’ve noticed the maple trees behaving very oddly this year. Normally the maple seeds ripen and drop before the trees leaf out. This year however, the seeds stayed on the trees all summer and only in the past week or so have they started falling.
Robertol says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:47 am
Habitualmente esto provoca intensas sequías en Sud América. Especialmente en Argentina y Brasil. Compren soja… Va a aumentar de precio.!!
ldd says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:56 am
OK, here’s my attempt:
Usually this causes intense droughts in South America. Especially in Argentina and Brazil. Buy soy… It’s going to increase in price!!
It means life is gonna suck in Ohio & I had better keep adding to the wood pile before it starts 😉
The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Old Sol. Sea water. These are the things that drive the process called ‘climate’ on this planet.
Joe Bastardi, sorry, maybe I missed it but what exactly was your prediction: “I am on record as saying the objective global temp will drop to at least -.15C by march”
Also what exactly did you mean about returning to the 1950s climate? Do you mean that global temperature and sea ice will return to 1950s levels?
*EVERYBODY PLEASE CALM DOWN BEFORE WE ALL MAKE FOOLS OF OURSELVES IN PUBLIC*. There are *TWO* sets of forecasts accessable from http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/ There is a “raw” forecast, and there is a “PDF-corrected” forecaste (PDF = Probability Density Function). See http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/PDFcorrection.html for an explanation…
> The probability density function (PDF) correction is done by mapping CFS
> forecast PDF to observed PDF. The observed PDF is defined using OIv2
> analysis for 1981-2006. The CFS PDF is defined using individual members
> (15 for each initial month) from the hindcast for 1981-2006. The PDF mapping
> is a function of initial time and target time, and is done for monthly mean and
> for individual members
In plain English… the raw forecasts tend to overdo the extremes, which has everybody here fooled. The PDF-corrected forecasts tend be more accurate. The raw forecast for Nino 3.4 is at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/nino34SSTMon.gif while the PDF-corrected forecast is at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/PDFcr_nino34SSTMon.gif which shows -1.5 for January.
I hate to rain on the parade, but everyone please calm down.
Wow. Just imagine how bad the La Nina would have beeen if we hadn’t been killing theplanet by burning all these fossil fuels for all these years… /sarc.
There’s nothing wrong with cold weather.
I hope we don’t remain in what appears to be this La Nina driven drought. We have been very dry, and windy, for about 16 months now. We could use a break. In the past I tried to correlate Wyoming droughtiness with El Nino, but really there is no definitive correlation. La Nina seems to make us droughty. Does anyone have any information on what to expect?
Also means, with the Pacific cooling for now, we could see a further [slight] drop in sea level. I’d like to see how that squares with Mann, et al, and their sea level hockey stick graph.
That’d be fun.
I live in the desert southwest where we are dependent on the watersheds of the Colorado and other rivers for our water. The very wet years of the last two winters have lead to enormous snowpacks and raised the numerous reservoirs to about normal levels after a long period of drought. All the Upper Colorado dams are full and the swing Upper Colorado reservoir Lake Powell is comfortably full and at 75%.
I remember the local CAGW nutcase saying that reservoir would become nothing but a river a few years ago, with no water in it, a victim of Global Warming. Of course a warmer World would have more evaporation, and then consequent precipitation, but the eco-nitwits are incapable of rational thought.
We still have space for water in Lake Powell and Lake Mead the swing reservoir of the Lower Colorado is now over 50% full too, but it could still use another year of great melts to fill, and it appears we will get it. Meanwhile all the other Lower Colorado reservoirs are full and the snowfields in the Rockies are already at 200% of normal depth.
Walter Dnes says:
October 17, 2011 at 2:53 pm
*EVERYBODY PLEASE CALM DOWN BEFORE WE ALL MAKE FOOLS OF OURSELVES IN PUBLIC*…
Hi Walter, Sorry, no one panicking here. We know that the “forecasts” are mostly bunk, and only tend to follow the current trend before rolling the dice and predicting the bottom. (Or the top.) I think the only real new thing that we are seeing is agreement between the models. Usually they spread out and all options are open after about six months or so… I always thought this was so that the “experts” could claim that their forecasts were robust, as it was predicted. (Not mentioning that EVERYTHING was predicted.) I have been watching the model runs for years and I cannot recall them ever “agreeing” to this degree. Interesting…
keith, I agree re reason for UAH spike. Rosco, thank you! For non-Aussies, we learnt Said Hanrahan by heart in school once- should be compulsory again!!
Ken
The graph signifies a colder than normal winter ahead which gets colder as the winter progresses with the temperatures being the coldest in February and March of 2012. Europe may again be cold as well but with a December not as cold as 2010. UK/ CET mean winter temperaure is likely to be around 3.2 C which is similar to 2011.
Thanks Anthony for running this story and for the h/t 😀 I’ve read through all the comments as of 4:49pm. In view of Walter Dnes’ remarks (2:53 pm), it would be wise to replace…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/nino34SSTMon.gif
…with…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/PDFcr_nino34SSTMon.gif
…on the WUWT ENSO reference page. I’m certainly going to update my own bookmark!
Also, Joe Bastardi wrote @ 11:48 am: “You will find that the frontier research and euro models destroy it routinely.” Does ANYONE know if these forecasts are posted online? I’d be pleased to check them out and follow them.
Cheers,
– Erik
But–but–but— what about CO2? Where’s R Gates in this thread when you need him???
.Anthony Scalzi says:
October 17, 2011 at 2:24 pm….
“….Living in the northeast US, I’ve noticed the maple trees behaving very oddly this year. Normally the maple seeds ripen and drop before the trees leaf out. This year however, the seeds stayed on the trees all summer and only in the past week or so have they started falling.”
I’ve noticed the same thing in southern New Hampshire. Usually this is the peak of Sugar Maple glory, but the leaves are mostly gone, with the seeds remaining. My guess is that, although Irene did not take many big trees down, two periods of thirty-mile-an-hour winds on either side of the weakened center, (which was a let-down,) did tatter the leaves, and left them bruised and wide open for various fungus infections. They seemed to just brown and dry out and fall off the more exposed trees. Down in the low-lands the swamp maples were more protected, and glorious as usual, around a two weeks ago. Despite the mild fall they seemed to change at the usual date, which tends to suggest to me that those trees shut down due to reduced daylight, rather than temperature.
By the way, swamp maples shed their winged seeds in mid summer. Sugar maples shed theirs around now, but usually you don’t notice because the leaves are still on. I agree it does look bizarre to see a maple with no leaves, and all those seeds.
We can call it, “The Autumn of the Seedy Maples.” It has a certain ring to it.
Ask old-timers in your area if they’ve ever seen it before. Even if it isn’t a sign of what sort of winter will follow, you may get a good story.
One old-timer told me of a circa-1940 late summer hurricane which blew all the leaves off a lilac hedge. Because the weather was still warm, the lilacs grew new leaves, complete
with the next spring’s flowers! He said it was strange to see lilacs blooming in September.
We’re back to the climate patterns of the 70s and we know winter in America was cold in the 70s because Doug Ashtown told us in one of the best songs of all time.
The models shown on this NOAA page all predict neutral to mild La Nina – nothing at all like the extreme forecast shown above.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/figure6.gif
RE: “Ex-Wx Forecaster says:
October 17, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Also means, with the Pacific cooling for now, we could see a further [slight] drop in sea level. I’d like to see how that squares with Mann, et al, and their sea level hockey stick graph.
That’d be fun.”
I’ve been thinking the same thing. However I’m also curious about how much water in in the icecap atop Katla, in Iceland. If that volcano blows all that ice will melt very quickly. I wonder if it is enough to make a blip in sea-levels.
If Katla swiftly dumps a vast amount of fresh water into the Atlantic, I expect the gulf stream will be split. One half will head back to New Hampshire, and I’ll be able to plant peaches and palms. The other half will head to Morroco and the Sahara will become a verdent pasture. Meanwhile European scientists will give up on windmills, and will focus on genetic reserch and on bringing back herds of Wooly Mammoths…. /sarc
Joe Bastardi says:
October 17, 2011 at 11:48 am
The cooling atlantic is not the end of the overall warm amo, but is in line with what started happening in the 1950s, as is the PDO.
60 years has been the length of the first cycles measured by thermometers. No reason to think this one will be any different. Unless of course you are Hansen/Gore/Mann, seeking millions in return for predictions of linear/exponential climate doom. Everything else in nature moves in cycles, so why expect climate to be any different? We’ve just had 30 years of hot, now we are going to get 30 of cold.
Fascinating. A double dip, but not sure what it means in terms of weather. Last year at this time the La Nina was being blamed for effectively zero rain in Western Australia, but this year we have had pretty much average rain so things are not exactly the same. I wouldn’t bet that anything will be the same as last year so really just wait, see and be prepared.
@Stephen Wilde
A nice concise formulation of your NCM, thanks!
If we are lucky, the warm pool just off the coast of Washington and Oregon will add moisture to cold air and bring mountain snow. If that same warm pool (left over El Nino’s) eventually cools and we get hit with another moderate La Nina next winter, we will have bitter cold and dry winters here. Rivers will freeze from the bottom up. Wheat will suffer. And a dust bowl will come round again as this cold dry air makes its way over the Rockies and across the corn belt.
Stephen Wilde
Is there an effect on equatorial trade winds of the change you describe to the jets, toward meridional and equatorward direction in response to weakened solar output?
An effect on trade winds might help explain an effect of solar phase on which way the ENSO leans.
The AAO is also predicted to go further positive which will force on the deepening of La Nina. Current solar EUV values are still low, so the predicted massive winter for the northern hemisphere is taking shape.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/224
double posting;Watch what happens when we have a Synod conjunction with Jupiter on 10-29-2011 when the moon is maximum south declination. There should be a larger than usual meridional surge of warm moisture coming off of the equator into the mid-latitudes having some intense interaction with the Mobil Polar Highs that will be forming the other half of the lunar tidal bulges in both hemispheres.
These patterns are what got me interested in wanting to understand WTF was going on, back in 1983.
My parents’ oak trees (Missouri) produced a bumper crop of acorns this year, which we interpreted as a sign that this winter’s going to be a doozy. Brace for it, Midwest USA!
Wow, Baa Humbug and Pamela are impressive big girls I’ll say that! Just what I was thinkolatoring lately. Bravo!
I may have to give up being a mountain man & swimming season looks done early for even a tough ol’ mm.
Jack says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:24 am
“Which means ….? Help me out here.”
Easy, it means my son, in San Fran, has just bought snow chains, this will help him get up to Tahoe for the snow boarding without needing a tow out like last year!
Pokerguy says: October 17, 2011
“… high latitude volcanos going, Katia looks ready to blow and that’s a very big deal…”
Maybe. Grimsvotn went larger than Eyja. and had a huge SO2 pulse a week after the eruption, Katla is currently “full” as is Hekla… which only gives 60 minutes of warning on the seismos. Then you have Hengill, atop a triple junction, that some company thinks its a good idea to hyrdrofrack with a mix of CO2 and H2S. This thing has been sporadically swarming even after the pumps are shut down in the wee hours on the weekend… all by itself.
Add to that the ever popping volcanoes on the Kamchatka peninsula, Japan’s active eruptions, and the El Hierro in the Canaries… the eruption that can’t make up its mind. (Its started enough to cause them to evacuate La Restinga)
So, yeah… lots of stuff going on.
It’s the Gore Effect.
Last week, the Nino 3.4 index was -0.77C.
Usually, a large La Nina or El Nino would be more extreme at this point of the year, mid-October. There is a definitive seasonal cycle to the ENSO where it builds in the summer/fall and peaks from November to February with December being the most common peak for events.
The 2010 La Nina had already gotten to -1.8C at times last October.
Global SSTs, however, have fallen quite a bit over the last year – down to 0.07C last week. Going back 30 years, Global Ocean SSTs have not really changed very much. The AMO looks like it is falling now as well after rising throughout 2011 to date – it seems to lag behind the ENSO by about 8 months.
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9332/weeklyensoamoglsstsoct1.png
And when all this results in bigger storms or longer droughts, you can guarantee the usual suspects will be there to blame it on global warming.
At least we have a weather prediction tool that doesn’t depend upon a computer model [the actual ocean temperature] !! I wonder if they will “make confidential” the ocean temperature data based on the concept of national security. Oh, we could get the data by a FOIA request…………….
As per the latest: Does the Sun affect the Climate or Weather or neither or both???
Clearly, all this means is that more of the missing heat will slip secretly into the deep ocean basins where no one can register it…laying in wait for a sudden and cataclysmic return to the surface where it will prove all of the models correct and then everyone dies from heat stroke.
Ed, too funny. I am 4’11” and weight 120 lbs only when my long thick red and gray hair is soaking wet. If there ever was an image of an Irish female leprechaun, I’d be it. Put a pint of warm beer in my hand and I’ll grant wishes.
I believe the model hiccuped. Looking at the sub surface equatorial pacific temperatures I can’t can’t see a La Nina coming that is so extreme. The second, updated, link that Erik Anderson provided above is more likely. But it’s nice of NOAA to provide us with some light entertainment from time to time.
This is not a good forecast for Texas.
phlogiston says:
October 17, 2011 at 8:58 pm
“Is there an effect on equatorial trade winds of the change you describe to the jets, toward meridional and equatorward direction in response to weakened solar output?”
I would expect that there should be but have never found data that covers the issue. Has anyone got some relevant data ?
My expectation would be that as the surface air pressure distribution changes then so does the location and strength of the Trades.
If that isn’t interesting enough, check out this pic from a post on Twitter from Joe Bastardi regarding the drop off of the AMO next summer:
http://i56.tinypic.com/nlx8ch.jpg
Thanks Joe and Richard.
I have it on the best authority 🙁
Next year? Nothing to write home about with regard to 2005 through 2011 and 2014 onwards.
2013? Scorchio, run for the hills we’re all gonna fryeeeeeee.
2014+ “Your children will grow up in a cold world”.
Ed Mertin says:
October 17, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Hey Ed, I ain’t no big girl and I ain’t no little girl. In fact, I’m no girl at all.
You know what happens when you ASSUME Ed?
Dunno about Pamela, she might be a she 🙂
Jack said:
Which means ….? Help me out here.
=======================================
… for the western Pacific rim of the Southern Hemisphere, a wet summer, perhaps. Last summer, eastern Australia had floods. Perhaps NZ will this year …
The “rain bombs” (small low pressure systems) are already forming regularly off the southern Queensland coast and tripping east across the Tasman Sea to NZ …
But that’s weather, not climate so we’ll have to wait and see …
SteveSadlov says:
October 17, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I would suggest you make yourself some of these anayses:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/WvPrecipSC.GIF
Following David Archibald’s idea of sorting precipitation records by solar cycle length in years.
Having had 2 semi-dry precip. years (2008-9, 2009-10) follwed by one semi-wet precip year (2010-11) in California, the average of above normal precip for NW Calif. during a long solar cycle (SC24) means another wet year…. if the average is to be satisfied this year.
suddenly, the graph is no longer going off scale, even thou the last update date remains the same.
WUWT ?
I have also noted Eriks request for a link change above, yet the current 7:44 PM tuesday, pacific time link shows a mean much deeper, yet not off scale and NO ‘updated’ title at the page top.
somebody should challenge NOAA on this hanky panky
Happy to say, I am a “she”. Wouldn’t be a male for all the tea in China. That said, the male species just endlessly fascinates me. To back that up, my boyfriend most encouragingly says I am a “she”. Love that man. He also says I am exceedingly short. Typical. He’s 6 ft tall and has memorized every short joke ever penned.
And now back to your regularly programmed program. Enough about being short and female.
Funny, I always assumed that Bah Humbug was male.
see this link:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/nino34SSTSea.gif
and :
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/ensoforecast.shtml
why do they leave the uncorrected plots up for linking, and then put a 2nd link up ?
very confusing – i won’t use the other word.
Steptoe Fan says:
October 18, 2011 at 7:38 pm
suddenly, the graph is no longer going off scale, even thou the last update date remains the same.
WUWT ?
“Oops.”
As Joe Bastardi already said earlier, the NCEP forecast is a joke. Even the new CFS v2 forecast is forecasting a super La Niña that isn’t going to happen. Instead, as Joe said, we’ll likely see a strong cooling of the oceans globally while the La Niña remains in moderate territory. Also, remember that a La Niña does not mean a cold winter across the eastern U.S. or even across western Europe. Most La Niñas help develop a positive AO and NAO and a negative Pacific-North American Pattern. This puts the trough in the western U.S. with a ridge over the Southeast. Warm air is pumped northeastward from Mexico and the Gulf into the eastern U.S. This brings heavy rains/storms into the Ohio Valley while leaving the SE Atlantic coast and Gulf Coast dry as a bone. Look at La Niña winters like the ’73-’76 super Niña years or ’88-89 or ’98/99 and 99/00′ which were two of the warmest winters on record in the U.S. In fact, a repeat of 1999/2000, which has shown up in the analogs, would mean a blowtorch winter for the entire U.S. outside of the extreme west coast. It would also be dry with little snow for anybody as well. I don’t think that will happen though. 1999/2000 saw very anomalous stratospheric wind patterns that kept any cold air from reaching the mid-latitudes. Expect this La Niña to bring a month or so of nice, cold, wintry weather for the east and south… but then expect the majority of winter to be mild on the east coast. Spring is another story though…
I don’t think we can rely on past weather patterns to predict the upcoming weather events. Even Joe has been caught out on this one along with many others of high standing. The low solar EUV and changing jet streams are throwing another important factor into the mix that we have not seen before.
Geoff Sharp says:
October 19, 2011 at 8:49 pm
I don’t think we can rely on past weather patterns to predict the upcoming weather events. Even Joe has been caught out on this one along with many others of high standing. The low solar EUV and changing jet streams are throwing another important factor into the mix that we have not seen before.
_________________________________________
I agree.
I have notice the wind and weather no longer come out of the west south west as was typical in the last fifteen years. Now I see weather move in from the west, north and south as like as not thanks to the “Loopy” jet stream.
Makes figuring out what the local weather is going to do a real royal pain in the neck.
I maybe the only person posting from the southwest. All you folks just complaining about cold. How about servere cold snaps(-30deg all the way down into Mexico last Feb) along with drought compounded upon dorught compounded upon drought! I hope this model is flawed! If its solid, it means NM and TX will basically become inhabitable in a about a year, two years tops! The rest of the south east of Texas probably will fall into drought as well! The southern farm and ranch land will dry up, while northern farmland floods-this spells disaster for American food independance! Uhm,yeh, my guess food costs will outpace inflation 6 to 1!!!