Monday, December 11, 2006

+ENSO Reaches Moderate Strength

Quibblers might claim since the threshold for a moderate event is 'near 1'...the current ENSO reached that point last week when the 12-week moving average was 0.95°C......but this week/s 3.4 anomaly of 1.4°C nudged the number just over the top.



So if we/re on the threshold of a moderate +ENSO...where/s this LW pattern that we expect to accompany these SSTs?



Instead...we have this over NOAM today...



Hold the despair. There are similarities in the planetary flow this year compared to the onset of the last +ENSO.

The previous +ENSO began during the late summer of '04. The region 3.4 anomaly stayed at or slightly above 0.75°C from the fall through mid-winter before fading by early spring.

In the run-up to that winter from 11/1 through 12/9...the mean LW regime over NOAM was...



And this is where we are today for the same period...


Not much difference, eh?

Compare that to the mean 5H Z during the '04 / '05 +ENSO/s MET winter.

That/s more like it! Ridge-W, Trof-E and split flow across the southern tier.

This strongly suggests we might just have to take our shoes off and sit a spell before the main event gets a'goin'. By the end of Dec '04...the LW pattern had transitioned to one more akin to the 5H composite for +ENSO winters (as shown above).

The snows of '04 were generally near or below period of record normal (PORN) in the Mid-Atlantic and better than PORN across New England.



Keep your snow pants on...it/ll get here when it gets here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You know, I hate to be a suck butt but this is some excellent stuff you're doing. Concise, logical, supported w/ relevant information, and coming to logical conclusions.

Unfortunately it doesn't pass muster in terms of reaching out to a broader spectrum of wx weenies (i.e. the unwashed masses). There's no wild-eyed raving, unsubstantiated gibberish, overuse of jargon, or name-calling. Further, the blogs are not laced w/ spelling mistakes and Abu Ghraibing of the english language. Market research indicates that most wx weenies seem to enjoy having to guess whether they are reading english or have actually stumbled upon a new variant of pig latin. Much work to be done here.

Signed,

Focus Group Staff