17 July 2014
El Nino May Take The Stage, but His Opening Act is Not Rocking The House
Posted by Dan Satterfield
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.
Were just waiting for the (alleged) big Kelvin wave to hit.
I live and farm in southern manitoba , canada . We are very concerned with our weather this coming months, aug thur dec for our up and coming harvest. We are worried about an earlier frost , damaging the crops. Do you have any insight on this. We are 63 from the North Dakota border . W
El NIno tends to bring warmer than normal temps to Manitoba, and a bit drier than normal, but each one is different, and this may be a weak one. I have driven through your part of Manitoba by the way… such beautiful country. Oh Canada! One of the prettiest drives I have ever made was from Winnipeg to Banff- in MID WINTER.
Very interesting. Last time I talked with my family they saw a lot of dead marine birds in a coastal town south of Lima. Our past experience is that starving birds precede a strong Niño year. Good to know Pacific temperatures are not that bad.