17 July 2014

El Nino May Take The Stage, but His Opening Act is Not Rocking The House

Posted by Dan Satterfield

From NOAA Climate Prediction Center

From NOAA Climate Prediction Center

Just looking at the latest on El Nino from the CPC, and I must say I’m not yet impressed.

Most of the atmosphere/ocean coupled models are still forecasting an El Nino to develop, but temps in the Pacific have cooled some in the past two weeks. Perhaps more importantly, the atmosphere has not started to respond, with greater than normal rainfall continuing in the West Pacific. In an El Nino, the warm water off the coast of South America causes an increase in rainfall over the central and eastern areas of the Equatorial Pacific.

So far the atmosphere seems to still be in a neutral mode, and the temps in the Nina 3.4 region (This area of the Pacific is where we look to decide if an El Nino or La Nina is underway) are actually a bit cooler than a few weeks ago. The update from the CPC (Warning: it’s mainly for meteorologists) is HERE.