so this whole El Nino thing was a joke? (living in, costs)

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by NativeOrange

This is completely inaccurate.

As of this Monday, Niño 3.4 anomalies are still at 2.5 Celsius, while Niño 3 is at 2.3. That's still on the strong to very strong category. It would take an act of "God" to bring those to neutral in mere weeks. Unless your talking about Niño 1+2, which is not a good indication of El Niño strength unless you live in Equatorial South America.

Factor in that we just recorded the strongest westerly wind burst on record in early January, and you can bet that this Niño is not going to die slowly.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...-fcsts-web.pdf

This is conforms with an article in the NY Times, Sunday. There was an extensive report on NOAA activity in the Pacific, where they're studying current conditions, which they describe as the strongest El Nino in over 10 years. Massive amounts of water are going up into the atmosphere, causing turbulent cloud formations. This reminds me of the article Tulemutt posted a few months ago, on "atmospheric rivers". They're trying to understand the phenomenon better, so that they'll be better able to make accurate predictions in the future. According to that information, there's still plenty of time for a mass of rainfall to hit the Pacific coast for the current El Nino.

Someone on this forum within the last week or so posted a multi-decade list of El Nino years, and there were, according to that, IIRC, 4 El Nino events in about 12 years, from the late 90's through the early 2000's. I wonder if someone might find that again, and post it. But in the current decade, the frequency seems to have fallen off, for the time being. But they're expecting it to become much more frequent, due to ocean warming.

Of course, that could change, if there's sudden oceanic cooling if the Antarctic ice experiences a massive melt, along with Greenland. Possibly that could introduce a self-correcting mechanism for global warming. If we're lucky. Maybe....

[Ruth4Truth]

OK, here's one chart of El Nino/La Nina years, and this one even gives intensity ratings, helpfully. There were actually 4 El Ninos in the first decade of the 2000's, alone. Every 2 years, more or less. The last strong-very strong one was in 1997/98.

El Nio and La Nia Years and Intensities

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

This is conforms with an article in the NY Times, Sunday. There was an extensive report on NOAA activity in the Pacific, where they're studying current conditions, which they describe as the strongest El Nino in over 10 years. Massive amounts of water are going up into the atmosphere, causing turbulent cloud formations. This reminds me of the article Tulemutt posted a few months ago, on "atmospheric rivers". They're trying to understand the phenomenon better, so that they'll be better able to make accurate predictions in the future. According to that information, there's still plenty of time for a mass of rainfall to hit the Pacific coast for the current El Nino.

Someone on this forum within the last week or so posted a multi-decade list of El Nino years, and there were, according to that, IIRC, 4 El Nino events in about 12 years, from the late 90's through the early 2000's. I wonder if someone might find that again, and post it. But in the current decade, the frequency seems to have fallen off, for the time being. But they're expecting it to become much more frequent, due to ocean warming.

Of course, that could change, if there's sudden oceanic cooling if the Antarctic ice experiences a massive melt, along with Greenland. Possibly that could introduce a self-correcting mechanism for global warming. If we're lucky. Maybe....

With the blocking ridge in place any atmospheric river that sets up any time soon will go into British Columbia.

[NativeOrange]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

Well in terms of sensible weather, here is what we now have:

TODAY BEGINS A LONG STRETCH OF OFFSHORE FLOW AND LOW HUMIDITIES. GRADIENTS AND WINDS WILL REMAIN FAIRLY LIGHT (GENERALLY < 30 MPH) THROUGH THURSDAY AS A WEAK TROF APPROACHES TONIGHT AND BRINGS NOTHING BUT AN INCREASE IN HIGH CLOUDS TO THE AREA. ON FRIDAY THE LAX-DAG GRADIENT IS EXPECTED TO JUMP TO AT LEAST 6 MB OFFSHORE WITH JUST ENOUGH UPPER SUPPORT TO GENERATE LOW END ADVISORY LEVEL SANTA ANA WINDS ACROSS PARTS OF LA/VENTURA COUNTIES. TEMPS WILL CONTINUE THEIR SLOW CLIMB BACK TO NORMAL THURSDAY THEN ABOVE NORMAL FRI/SAT WITH THE INCREASE IN OFFSHORE GRADIENTS AND DOWNSLOPE WINDS. OVERNIGHT LOWS WILL STILL BE CHILLY BUT THOSE TOO WILL BE TRENDING UP OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS. .LONG TERM...(SUN-WED) AFTER THE LAST LITTLE SHORT WAVE MOVES THROUGH THE AREA SATURDAY THE UPPER RIDGE IS EXPECTED TO REALLY TAKE HOLD ACROSS THE WEST COAST, PEAKING IN STRENGTH ON TUESDAY. OFFSHORE GRADIENTS WILL NUDGE UPWARD SUNDAY INTO MONDAY WITH MORE ADVISORY LEVEL NORTHEAST WINDS EXPECTED. DOESN`T SEEM LIKE THE FLOW ALOFT IS IDEAL FOR A WARNING LEVEL EVENT BUT CAN`T RULE THAT OUT. THE WARMING TREND WILL CONTINUE THROUGH AT LEAST TUESDAY WITH 80S STARTING TO POP UP SUNDAY AND MID TO HIGH 80S POSSIBLE BY MONDAY OR TUESDAY ACROSS PARTS OF LA/VENTURA COUNTIES. OFFSHORE FLOW DOES START TO WEAKEN SLIGHTLY TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, ENOUGH TO PROBABLY DROP WINDS BELOW ADVISORY LEVELS, BUT WELL ABOVE NORMAL TEMPS TO CONTINUE THROUGH MID WEEK. THE RIDGE WILL START TO WEAKEN WEDNESDAY BUT LOW LVL TEMPS ARE THE SAME OR EVEN SLIGHTLY WARMER WED SO PROBABLY LITTLE CHANGE OR SLIGHT WARMING WEDNESDAY MOST AREAS EXCEPT THE IMMEDIATE COAST.

============================

Also: CPC are prog'ing below normal precip until at least mid month.

Correct. This I can agree with. But to say El Niño is close to neutral, despite its current effect on CA, is not accurate.

[NickofDiamonds]

It looks like it will be warm enough this weekend to hit the bike path at the beach with flip flops, shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt.
And with the recent rains, it's time to mow the lawn.
It does seem like winter is over, for awhile anyway.

[eqttrdr]

Farmer's Almanac > Idiot meteorologists

[Des-Lab]

As usual, the pundits could not have been more wrong.

There may have been an El Niño from a purely academic sense. The actual real world picture has not been any different. And if anything, there's been LESS rain. Not more. This "epic wet winter" that they've been warning us about for what seems like hundreds of years now has been a bust and once again...the ones standing there jumping up and down screaming about it have had it blow up in their face again.

And they can't figure out why no one takes them seriously. I for one would not trust a climatologist to tell me what day of the week it is, much less the weather. The fact is they are just too wrong, too often.

The precipitation we've seen to date does not seem to be at all unusual or anything more than a typical year. And now with hot, dry, and windy....expected to last pretty much indefinitely....

[Hwnwbrwncw]

Originally Posted by Des-Lab

As usual, the pundits could not have been more wrong.

There may have been an El Niño from a purely academic sense. The actual real world picture has not been any different. And if anything, there's been LESS rain. Not more. This "epic wet winter" that they've been warning us about for what seems like hundreds of years now has been a bust and once again...the ones standing there jumping up and down screaming about it have had it blow up in their face again.

And they can't figure out why no one takes them seriously. I for one would not trust a climatologist to tell me what day of the week it is, much less the weather. The fact is they are just too wrong, too often.

The precipitation we've seen to date does not seem to be at all unusual or anything more than a typical year. And now with hot, dry, and windy....expected to last pretty much indefinitely....

Sounds like you're the true expert. Maybe you should be a meteorologist.

Whether it rains or not in LA does not make it an El Nino event.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

With the blocking ridge in place any atmospheric river that sets up any time soon will go into British Columbia.

Yes. It seems the Pacific Northwest has been getting the big dump from the El Nino activity, starting last fall already. What's causing that very stubborn ridge?

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Yes. It seems the Pacific Northwest has been getting the big dump from the El Nino activity, starting last fall already. What's causing that very stubborn ridge?

Could be due to PDO or an oscillation at an even lower frequency.