Return of El Niño?

[cheapski]

Its up to the city of Glendale! I would have tarped them myself. The sandbag site is in a local park with all the materials except tools available. I suspect when the weather gets serious about another threat of rain the bags will be gone pretty quickly.

[bikensnow102]

this is pretty cool.....
we expect heavier than average snowfall, with most of it from January 1st onward, though we do expect some heavy snow to start falling this month and in December. Temperatures are expected to be near average, with some wide variations and extreme cold spells. We will be adding more detail to this as we go along. (snowforecast.com)

[noworkski]

From (more good stuff here)- http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

Cloudiness near the date-line over the equatorial Pacific is another important indicator of El Niño conditions, as it typically increases near and to the east of the dateline during these episodes. Somewhat consistent with an El Niño event, cloudiness near the date-line has been generally greater than normal during September and October. Cloudiness over Indonesia and much of northern and eastern Australia has been below average over the last few months, which is also consistent with El Niño conditions. However, there has also been enhanced cloudiness to the west of the date-line, a pattern which is unusual when compared with typical El Niño events, however such conditions have occurred in a$$ociation with more westerly focused El Niño events, as have occurred in 2006 and to a lesser extent, 2002.


Recent forecasts from the POAMA model, run daily at the Bureau of Meteorology, show a steady warming with SST remaining above El Niño thresholds into early 2010, peaking over the summer months.

Mammoth season snowfall (during the referenced period)-

2001-02 - 299.6
2002-03 - 356.0
2003-04 - 348.9
2004-05 - 570.1
2005-06 - 578.54
2006-07 - 222.0

What kind of year will we have?

[snowboard247]

What kind of year will we have?


2004-05 - 570.1
2005-06 - 578.54

[ride395]

That's the forecast...

Synopsis: Conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions
during June − August 2009.



I'm not expecting it to be a strong El Niño and wouldn't be surprised to see it return fairly quickly to ENSO-neutral conditions. I wonder if it will even reach the threshold to become an official El Niño...

[noworkski]

Isn't that vapor to the west and south-southeast of Hawaii the El Nino fed moisture we want to get trapped into the westerlies? Are we watching the infancy of El Nino?

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat ... op-12.html

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat ... op-12.html

[cheapski]

Its hot out there! Too bad the episode is supposed to peak around Nov/Dec.

[SurfnSnowboard]

Ooooh pretty colors!



El Nino Picking Up Steam - JPL

[cheapski]

Bill Patzert in September:

The current El Nino "is definitely wimping out on us," Patzert said.

"The dice are definitely loaded. When you have a weak El Nino or a disappearing El Nino, it's a below-normal rainfall year," he said.

Bill Patzert from the article:

"In the American west, where we are struggling under serious drought conditions, this late-fall charge by El Niño is a pleasant surprise, upping the odds for much-needed rain and an above-normal winter snowpack," said JPL oceanographer Bill Patzert.

Maybe Bill P didnt read the prediction chart back in July clearly calling back then for a peak in DJF.

[TonyC]

We also had a weak el nino 04-05 and look how that season turned out...3rd largest on record!

But then again we also had a weak el nino 06-07 and look how that season turned out...5th worst on record!

Perfect example of why mild-to-moderate El Nino is not a reliable snow predictor.

by WeatherGuy » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:21 pm

The Euro still has a El Nino type pattern for mid-winter. Check out the huge blocking ridge in Canada and massive low in the Central Pacific along with the merging of the polar and subtropical jets just north of Hawaii. Get out the slippery-slide!
It might not be a good season to go to Whistler though.

Here's an example of why weather forecasts 2 months out aren't worth much. Anybody else notice what's been going on in Whistler this month? Opened Nov. 14 with a natural base of 40-45 inches. 79 inches season to date snow with another 4-5 feet possible this week.

With regard to the current level of El Nino persisting through the northern winter, that's very likely based upon past seasons. El Nino as measured by MEI

is very persistent from July - January. As you can see from the month-to-prior-month correlations below, the March-June timeframe is when El Nino/La Nina episodes are most likely to break up. NONE of the seasons with MEI near its current SEP/OCT level of .999 turned negative during the northern winter except 1963-64, which was first negative in FEB/MAR. Several of them were essentially neutral by the April - June timeframe though.
JAN 97%
FEB 95%
MAR 94%
APR 91%
MAY 92%
JUN 94%
JUL 98%
AUG 97%
SEP 98%
OCT 97%
NOV 98%
DEC 98%

There are 8 seasons where El Nino averaged near its current strength for the season as a whole. Mammoth percents of normal snowfall during those seasons were 164%, 154%, 139%, 138%, 135%, 101%, 68%, 62%. That includes half of Mammoth's top ten seasons and an impressive overall average of 120%. But note the two very low years, and the 2/8 incidence there is similar to the overall 9/41 incidence of a less than 70% season. So no guarantees.

I should also note that there were 4 seasons with similar to current El Nino strength where the El Nino sgnificantly strengthened (2) or weakened (2) during the northern winter. ALL of those were very bad snow years, less than 80% both at Mammoth and overall in western North America. Add those seasons to the other 8 and the Mammoth average drops to 99%.

[TheSnowman]

The Weather guy was taking mid winter not mid fall...

[ocboarder]

Wow, please tl;dr that!

[ride395]

The Weather guy was taking mid winter not mid fall...

The important conlcusion is that 'the boy' doesn't guarantee jack ... but it sure gets weather nerds and ski freaks all agog.

[2NAKLLR]

...and fishermen.

[TonyC]

The Weather guy was taking mid winter not mid fall...

And you think he can predict weather 4-5 months out......??????

Interestingly, the Whistler alpine is not particularly sensitive to El Nino, even though Washington State and interior western Canada are. Again, no guarantees. All of the above regions had excellent seasons in 2006-07 while it was sparse at Mammoth.