El Nino and La Nina
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The latest weekly ENSO outlook was released by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center today and show that while the sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean are quite warm at the moment, neutral ENSO conditions are expected to continue through Northern Hemisphere winter (70% chance) and spring (65% chance). In neutral conditions there is no…
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The latest outlook for El Niño was released this morning by NOAA. It shows that ENSO conditions are currently neutral and are expected to remain so for at least the first half of 2020. In the Southeast neutral winters generally have more swings in temperature between warm and cold episodes because there is less influence…
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Physics Today posted an interesting article late in November which discussed some new research on trends in the strength of El Niño over time. The research, by Dr. Kim Cobb of Georgia Tech and others, looked at chemical swings in the growth of coral and other indicators in the tropical Pacific Ocean over the last…
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The best forecast clue for what winter is likely to be like in the Southeast and other parts of the US is whether El Niño or La Niña is present in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. This year we have neutral conditions, which makes a winter prediction tougher. But NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center still issued a…
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According to a new study of 33 El Niños dating back to 1901 and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, climate change appears to be making the events stronger by shifting their hottest conditions west of the International Dateline over time. This can cause more extreme weather by shifting the regional…
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A story in Yahoo News this week noted that a group of international scientists have recently announced a new method of predicting the occurrence of an El Niño in 2020, farther out that has ever been predicted before. Their method, using a computer model which looks at changing temperature patterns over the Pacific Ocean, gives…
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The latest ENSO update from NOAA shows that neutral conditions are occurring in the eastern Pacific Ocean right now and are expected to continue for the next few months. When there is no El Niño or La Niña occurring, it is harder to make a useful prediction about what is likely to happen in the…