Blogs

El Niño continued to build during June, despite some shorter-term fluctuations in the climate system (here’s looking at you, MJO). CPC/IRI forecasters are still very confident that this event will persist through the winter, and they continue to favor a strong event, with the three-month average sea surface temperature in the Niño3.4 region expected to peak at more than 1.5°C above normal. Nearly all the computer models are in agreement, and the atmosphere and ocean continued to behave in a very El Niño-like manner. So what is there to talk about this month? Well, a few interesting things happened over the past few weeks. First, a quick rundown of where we find ourselves in the beginni…   Read article

“El Niño is Strong!” “No, it’s Moderate!” “But the [insert your favorite ENSO indicator here] is the largest it’s been since the El Niño of 1997-98!” We are now nearing 1.5 degrees Celsius in the Niño-3.4 index for a 7-day or weekly average. Among the post-college age crowd who can remember it (yes, this officially means you’re old), the level of warmth in sea surface temperatures this time of year harkens back to 1997-98 El Niño, which ended up becoming a record strength event.   Are these weekly numbers impressive? Yes. But when a weekly value hits 1.5°C is El Niño instantly considered strong? I’d argue no. While a short-term (daily or weekly) number might be striking, i…   Read article

In the monitoring branch, our temperature analyses garner a lot of attention. We are asked big questions such as: What was the warmest year on record? How fast are global temperatures changing? These are important questions that we work to answer, but our regional-scale data and services also have immense benefits. Someone smarter than me once said, “No one ever died under a global temperature time series.” This is a great way to say that we can report on global average temperatures all we want, but it is the local impacts of change and variability that matter for the average person. At the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), we work tirelessly to translate our treasure…   Read article

...but it's still a seasonal forecaster's best friend. After El Niño conditions were declared in March and Climate Prediction Center’s latest forecast predicted El Niño’s continued strengthening during the upcoming summer and fall, I think it is safe to say we are well within the time period where everything will be blamed on El Niño. It rained on your wedding day? El Niño. Had an outdoor picnic ruined by a late afternoon thunderstorm? El Niño. Was it hot …during the summer? El Niño. Usually these are exaggerations. Mike Halpert and Tony Barnston in past posts have shown what type of U.S. and global impacts are associated with an El Niño for the late fall and winter and for the summ…   Read article

  Two weeks ago, I wrote about 2015’s chances of dethroning 2014 as the warmest year on record and how the maturing El Niño increases those odds. This week, going Beyond the Data, we’ll unpack what that first-place ranking really means. In the big picture, the actual rank of an individual year isn’t that important. In fact, using ranks can really over-emphasize their importance. So why do we use them? The Power of Context Let’s start with something light, like some [really amateur] comparative psychology. As animals, we use real-time information to identify threats. This keeps us (and bears) from walking into fires. As humans, we seek patterns. It’s what we do. We thrive…   Read article