Monday, October 29, 2012

"He's Baaaack!"; El Nino Returns

The El Nino, once thought to be gone, has made a sudden reappearance in the face of what could have been a growing threat of a La Nina.

This past week has brought a new body of warmer than normal water over the western ENSO region, and this can only mean one thing: the El Nino has returned. I declared a few months ago that the El Nino was dead, and I stand by that post. What it did was die off on the surface but remain 'dormant' underwater. It is only now that we are seeing this underwater warm pool move towards the surface, and in response we see this new El Nino-style body of water.

Remember when I started saying that there was cooling that resembled a La Nina? Well, it died off. It's still there, and you can see the blue blob off the coast of South America on the image above. However, as it began moving west, there was no sustained cooling in its original formation along the coastline. That said, this scare is over.

So, all is back to normal. The El Nino seems to have returned, and will strengthen if the underwater warm pool continues to move towards the surface. Considering it's west-based this time around, the temperature anomalies favor a warm West US and cool East US, as shown below.

Andrew

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does this raise the chances for above average precipitation for New Mexico this winter?

Andrew said...

It could if the subtropical jet stream becomes active through the winter.

WinterStorm said...

So, does this change your winter thoughts at all? Also, great job on the coverage of Sandy! Everybody stay safe over there!

Anonymous said...

Interesting information regarding the El Nino coming back to life and being centered in the central pacific. I guess if you looked at the 2 most recent articles I would probably say that the brunt of winter would be displaced eastward and while the Mid-West may get off to a fast start at the beginning of winter it appears as though the snow and cold shifts east to the inerior Northeast and the coast. Do you agree???