La Niña drawing to a close
La Niña, the cooling of the equatorial Pacific waters off the coast of South America that has dramatically affected our weather for most of the past two years, is almost done. Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the tropical Eastern Pacific in the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W, also called the "Niña 3.4 region", have warmed rapidly over the past two weeks, and were 0.4°C below average on February 27. This is slightly warmer than the -0.5°C threshold to be considered La Niña conditions, and is the first time since early August that La Niña conditions have not been present. It is likely that SSTs will continue to warm during March and April, and NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is predicting that they will declare an official end to La Niña sometime between March and April. A moderate to strong La Niña began in the summer of 2010, weakened briefly during May - July 2011 to neutral status, then re-intensified to a borderline weak/moderate La Niña from August 2011 - January 2012.
Figure 1. Comparison of the sea surface temperature departure from average from January 4 and February 22, 2012, over the tropical Eastern Pacific. During January, a large region of the ocean was more than 0.5°C cooler than average, meaning a La Niña event was present. Beginning in mid-February, waters warmed rapidly from east to west along the Equator, signaling and end to the La Niña event. Image credit: NOAA.
The forecast: neutral or El Niño conditions by fall
The period March - May is the typical time of year that El Niño or La Niña events end, and it is common for the opposite phenomena to take hold by fall. Since 1950, there have been twelve La Niña events that ended during the first half of the year; during six of those years (50%), an El Niño event formed in time for the August - September - October peak of hurricane season. The official forecast from Columbia University's IRI and NOAA's Climate Prediction Center calls for a 31 - 32% chance of an El Niño event during the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. El Niño conditions tend to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity by creating high levels of wind shear that tends to tear hurricanes apart. Given the relatively high chance of an El Niño event this fall, plus ocean temperatures over the tropical Atlantic that are cooler than we saw in 2011 and 2010, I doubt we'll see an Atlantic hurricane season as active as the ones in 2010 and 2011 (nineteen named storms both years, third busiest seasons on record.) The demise of La Niña also means that global temperatures should begin to approach record warm levels by the end of the year. The cool waters of a La Niña event keep global temperatures cooler than average.
Figure 2. Computer model forecasts of El Niño/La Niña made in mid-February 2012. The forecasts that go above the red line at +0.5°C denote El Niño conditions; -0.5°C to +0.5°C denote neutral conditions, and below -0.5°C denote La Niña conditions. Most of the computer models are predicting neutral or El Niño conditions during the fall peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. Image credit: Columbia University's IRI.
I'll have a new post by Wednesday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Thought I better warn you - just saw an amazing, almost unprecedented phenomena... Dere's real bonafide SUNSHINE poking thru ocassionally as the dreary solid overcast skies are finally breaking, lifting out... somewhat!
Hey, I'll take the above-avg warmth in exchange for a lil sun after the days on end of overcast / nuisance drizzle and dense fog we've had... Not all that cold with past system but dampness kept a chill feel - LOL, my home thermo temp range yesterday ran a bit narrow, 59.2-61.5F...
Out for lunch,
G'day!
Maybe not so fast on having what you describe as the SOI pushes back a little bit with the index turning positive.It may be a brief spike,but every day that passes with La Nina mantaining respiratory life,it is more hard to have a moderate to strong El Nino by the Summer and Fall.
Link
Well see because the SST's across the equatorial Pacific have really increased over the last 30 days. Only model that showed us going into a El-Nino was the Euro with all other models staying neutral now they are trending toward the Euro.
At birth:
You had a 0.00000000092593% chance of becoming you.
You had a 1.296296296296% chance of being born in a developed country and still being alive today. (this percentage is nearly the same for being born in China)
You had a 0.027777777778% chance of being born in Canada and still being alive today. You had a 0.277777777778% of being born in the US and being alive today.
You had a 6.481481481482% chance of being alive today.
And finally..the percentage that led me to reading about Tamerlane.
You had a 0.210185185185% chance of dying in a large military conflict after the year 1600. This would leave me to assume that around 0.4% of all people have died through war.
Great Post!
S & P declares Greece in default
Posted on February 28, 2012
February 28, 2012 – GREECE - Greece became the first euro-zone member officially to be rated in default, 13 years after the single European currency was adopted to strengthen the European Union.
British Chancellor says the ‘government has run out of money’- pain from austerity cuts are yet to bite
February 27, 2012 – UNITED KINGDOM - In a stark warning ahead of next month’s Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy. Mr. Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers. “The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9107485/ George-Osborne-UK-has-run-out-of-money.html
The weather bureau says there is likely to be record-breaking rainfall and more flooding across parts of New South Wales and the ACT over the next few days.
Many south-western parts of NSW and northern Victoria have been deluged by rain and a flood evacuation warning has been issued for Cooma in the Snowy Mountains.
Weather bureau spokesman Rob Webb says the worst is ahead and that decades-old rainfall records could be broken.
The heaviest falls are most likely in a band running between Broken Hill to the south and central coast including Ivanhoe, Forbes, Young, Cowra, Canberra, Goulburn, Wollongong and Sydney.
"We could see broadly rainfall of 100mm to 200mm over the next few days - some spots even above 300mm," Mr Webb said.
He said there could be moderate to major flooding around the ACT, Cooma and Cootamundra regions extending to the Illawarra.
"There is the potential for large flooding, but as we see this rainfall unfold it really depends on where the rainfall falls and how quickly it falls," he said.
"Included in the flood watch is actually the Nepean-Hawkesbury which runs along the western edge of Sydney.
"We do anticipate some heavy rain to develop in the catchment of Warragamba Dam and that may cause some downstream flooding later in the week in Sydney."
In Cooma, an evacuation warning has been issued for people in low-lying properties as the State Emergency Service fears the town's levees will be breached and cause extensive damage.
SES spokesman Michael Eburn says people in the affected areas are being advised to prepare for evacuation.
"Right now residents should be raising belongings, placing them on tables or anywhere up high, get together any medicines, personal financial documents, photos and mementos, and they should be ready to be out of their homes for about three days," he said.
"The bureau is saying there's a 70 per cent chance of major flooding, so that's a serious risk and it's certainly one that we are taking very seriously."
The Cooma-Monaro Council is offering sand bags to residents to help protect their properties - anyone requiring sand bags can collect them from the Polo Flat Road depot.
Goulburn Council also has sand bags available for collection from the Hetherington Street council depot.
Earlier on Tuesday fire crews rescued a couple and their baby who were cut off by floodwaters about 10km west of Broken Hill.
A spokesman said a Hazmat tanker was used to get across a flooded creek and pick up the stranded trio, who were being taken back to Broken Hill.
_________________________________________________ _____________________________________________
IDN38503
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
New South Wales
Significant Weather Media Release
Issued at 3:56 pm EDT on Tuesday 28 February 2012.
Flood threat for southern and central NSW and the ACT
The Bureau of Meteorology warned today that heavy rain and thunderstorms pose a
significant flood threat to large parts of the southern half of NSW inlcuding
the ACT.
The Bureau has issued a Severe Weather Warning and Flood Watch for a large part
of central and southern NSW with heavy rain developing today and increasing on
Wednesday and Thursday. The Nepean-Hawkesbury River which provides a border to
western Sydney is included in the Flood Watch and is likely to flood before the
end of the week.
"A major rainfall event is unfolding and we expect flooding to develop in the
coming days," the Bureau's New South Wales Regional Director Mr Barry Hanstrum
said today.
"The heaviest falls are most likely in a band running between Broken Hill to
the south and central coast including Ivanhoe, Forbes, Young, Cowra, Canberra,
Goulburn, Wollongong and Sydney. Some locations could receive falls in excess
of 300mm over the next several days," Mr Hanstrum said.
"This event is perhaps the most significant rainfall event that some of these
areas have seen in decades and records may be broken. I urge people to keep a
close eye on the latest warnings issued by the Bureau," he added.
New South Wales State Emergency Service Commissioner Mr Murray Kear has urged
people in areas affected to prepare now. "People living and working along
rivers and streams in the areas affected by the Flood Watch and warnings should
prepare now. If you live in rural areas lift pumps and relocate livestock and
equipment to higher ground. If isolation is likely stock up now on food, fuel,
medicine and other essential items."
"In urban areas if you are in a flood prone location activate your flood plan
and prepare your property and family. It is particularly important that once
heavy rain begins to fall you and your family stay well clear of floodwater".
True enough ST2K, it could... and along with the May '09 hvy rain over FL, SE LA got flooded by that December in the peak of our last El Nino with nearly every station recording 20-26" worth... wettest on record...
And thanks as well (post 305), thought many would find that an interesting observation!
How can you only have a 1.2% chance of being born in China when about 13% of people live in china?
February 27, 2012 – BRITAIN - Thousands of lambs are dying in Britain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9106270/My stery-virus-kills-thousands-of-lambs.html
DHADING, Nepal – More than 20,000 chickens have died of unidentified disease in Naubise VDC’s Dharke and surrounding areas in the past one week.
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?hea dline=20%26sbquo%3B000+fowls+die+in+Dharke+&NewsID =320741
MAURY COUNTY, Tenn. — Horses are dying and now cattle as well and detectives in Maury County have been at a loss to explain how or why it is happening.
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/17005844/myster y-grows-as-more-livestock-dies-in-maury-county
I meant, being born in China and living to this day, out of the total of 108 billion people that ever existed. Realistically, probably about 5%-10% of all people that ever lived were Chinese. Some of the historical famines in China have killed millions before Europe even had a million people on the continent.
0 storms, 0 hurricanes, 0 majors
Oh okay, I gotcha
im not lucky, im blessed
thanks for sharing :)
(edit: this is not my invitation to discuss religion!
i'm just fascinated, amazed, and thankful to simply exist)
Who knew this was a blog on climate summaries?
This blog is on the climate?!? Never knew, no one told me!
when i ponder similar thoughts.. i feel blessed as though a miracle is my mere existence. it doesn't require thoughts of a creator to find wonder in this world, rather i feel more wonder borne out of the slim chance that what we all know to be, is.
So true. In fact, the only motive behind that post is to show just how lucky everyone really is to know the world they know. The world seems more amazing when you look at it like that. :P Everything in history is a luck occurrence caused by something in history that was also caused by a luck chance in history. The world is history, that not only repeats itself but also is defined by itself.
You can predict the future by looking back into history, you can predict your future by looking back also. In my opinion, the future is a mirror of the past.
"Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely- make that miraculously- fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, everyone of your forbears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from it's life quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - evetually, astoundingly, and all to briefly- in you.
Bill Bryson
A Short History of Nearly Everything
WARRAGAMBA Dam could spill over within days - for the first time in 14 years - as a massive rain band drenches NSW, sending drinking water worth millions of dollars down the dam wall and out to sea.
Sydney's desalination plant will still operate - despite the dam potentially being full for weeks or months - with one of NSW's most experienced water experts calling for the plant to be immediately shut down.
The weather bureau last night said between 100mm and 300mm of rain could soak a vast area of the state over the next three days. It issued a severe weather warning for flash flooding for 11 districts.
"This is perhaps the most significant rainfall event that some of these areas have seen in decades and records may be broken." the bureau's NSW regional director Barry Hanstrum said.
The SES issued a flash flood watch for the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.
"We are advising people to be prepared as there is a 70 per cent chance of moderate flooding," a SES spokesman said.
Weather bureau meteorologist Julie Evans said Warragamba's huge catchment area was set to receive very heavy falls.
"Some towns in far western NSW could get their entire annual rainfall in one day," Ms Evans said.
The Sydney Catchment Authority said Warragamba was 88 per cent full.
"If we get 80mm of rain over two days in Warragamba's 9000sq km catchment area ... then the dam will spill," SCA spokeswoman Karen Smith said.
"It is looking very likely and, with heavy rain predicted for all the rivers and tributaries which supply water to the dam, it could spill over as soon as Friday. The last time it spilled was in August 1998 - and that was just a very small spill."
Ms Kelly said Warragamba was not a flood mitigation dam like Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam and could not pre-release water ahead of the deluge.
Professor Stuart White from The University of Technology's Institute for Sustainable Futures, one the authors of the state government's Metropolitan Water Plan, yesterday said it was ridiculous Sydney households were paying an estimated $96 extra in water bills because of the desalination plant when "free water" was set to pour over Warragamba's walls.
He said the desalination plant "should be put in moth balls until the next severe drought".
"It can't be switched on and off all the time. It's my understanding re-starting the plant can cost around a million dollars each time," he said.
It is costing Sydney a lot of money and its not needed right now.
"Every megalitre of water from the desal plant costs between $700 and $800. A megalitre from Warragamba would be between $100 and $200. Last week NSW dams increased their levels by between 50,000 and 60,000 megalitres - that's something like $50 million of water in a week."
The former Labor state government's desalination plant deal included a scheme to keep it in operation for two years as a "proving period", whatever the state of Sydney's water supplies.
Last night the state government refused to reveal whether it could shut down the plant in mid-June.
"The government is considering its options within its contractual obligations," a spokesman said.
Current dam levels:
Sydney catchment
Cataract: 97190ml, 100 per cent
Cordeaux: 93640ml, 97.5 per cent
Avon: 146,700ml, 69.8 per cent
Nepean: 67,730ml, 80.6 per cent
Woronora: 71,790ml, 72.9 per cent
Warragamba: 2,027,000ml, 88.1 per cent
Prospect: 33,330ml, 93.2 per cent
Wingecarribee: 24,120ml, 62.5 per cent
Fitzroy Falls: 9950ml, 89.6 per cent
Tallowa: 7500ml, 100 per cent
Blue Mountains: 2890ml, 96.9per cent
Outside Sydney
Toonumbar: 11236ml, 102 per cent
Pindari: 311695ml, 100 per cent
Copeton: 1,341,322ml, 99 per cent
Split Rock: 325960ml, 82 per cent
Keepit: 417693ml, 98 per cent
Chaffey: 62370ml, 101 per cent
Glenbawn: 750715ml, 100 per cent
Glennies Creek: 280878ml, 99 per cent
Lostock: 20329ml, 101 per cent
Burrendong: 988104ml, 83 per cent
Oberon: 28897ml, 64 per cent
Carcoar: 31443ml, 87 per cent
Wyangala: 942601ml, 77 per cent
Cargelligo: 35591ml, 97 per cent
Burrinjunk: 756225ml, 73 per cent
Blowering: 1317828ml, 80 per cent
Hume: 1906023ml, 63 per cent
Dartmouth: 2968762ml, 77 per cent
Brogo: 9084ml, 101 per cent
Lake Cawndilla: 571551ml, 89 per cent
Lake Wetherell/Tandure: 103684ml, 53 per cent
buggers
I saw dat just now Doc, as I just came from Audubon Park with the Dog.
Scared me a tad..all dat Blue.
...reading this made me sad for some reason..
How about we turn up the accuracy knob?
The S&P has declared Greece to be in "selective defaut" Consequentially they further lowered Greece's credit rating from rotten to a bit more rotten.
""This rating does not have any impact on the Greek banking system since any likely effect on liquidity has already been dealt with by the Bank of Greece," the finance ministry said in a statement."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17187068
That the British government has run out of money and can do nothing to stimulate growth is simply the opinion of a rather sour-faced fiscal conservative who will consider neither increasing taxes on the very rich nor borrowing money to keep Britain from slipping back into a recession.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9107485/ George-Osborne-UK-has-run-out-of-money.html
In the UK, do they have a Coffee Party?
i aint lucky to know the world, i am blessed. :)
so i am an exception, that didnt get here by luck =P
maybe because the post says that evolution is real? or mentions a timeline that we arent even close to(3.8b)
you tell me lol.
ECMWF 5 day 500mb heights/SLP
I have visited the Timurid-era monuments, temples and fortifications in Uzbekistan's Silk Road cities of Bukhara and Khiva, and they are truly stunning. At its peak, it was quite an impressive empire.
Unfortunately, my itinerary did not leave time to visit the Gur-e Amir (Tamerlane's Mausoleum, about 60km from Samarkand). However, Bukhara and Khiva left me in awe.
Is that the one off Madagascar??
Since we're on the subject, here's another passage from that same book that I really like:
"If you imagine the 4,500-billion-odd years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 A.M., with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. Not until almost 8:30 in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first jellyfish and the enigmatic Ediacaran fauna first seen by Reginald Sprigg in Australia. At 9:04 P.M. trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgess Shale. Just before 10 P.M. plants begin to pop up on the land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow.
"Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10:24 the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 P.M. and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight. The whole of our recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds, a single human lifetime barely an instant. Throughout this greatly speeded-up day continents slide about and bang together at a clip that seems positively reckless. Mountains rise and melt away, ocean basins come and go, ice sheets advance and withdraw. And throughout the whole, about three times every minute, somewhere on the planet there is a flash-bulb pop of light marking the impact of a Manson-sized meteor or one even larger. It's a wonder that anything at all can survive in such a pummeled and unsettled environment. In fact, not many things do for long."
"This is like a homeowner trying to economize by disconnecting the smoke detector," said Jeff Ruch, president of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group that has raised the issue.
Both are real. Creation started, evolution continues.
Also, beginning to clear in S Arkansas:
On the link, you can see the shear crossing in different directions.
Headline designed to knot bloomers.
But if one reads past the headline...
"NOAA officials say the cuts aren't sacrificing public safety. For one, they say the buoy system will still operate despite chances it will take longer for NOAA crews to repair broken buoys at sea. And the outreach programs already have created computer risk maps, paid for thousands of coastal warning signs and funded materials for schools and civic groups, said Susan Buchanan, a NOAA spokeswoman."
Face it, if we want to cut spending and are not willing to make the super-wealthy pay their fair share then we don't get everything we want.
It's a choice, do we get extra tsunami buoys or do McCain, Mittens and their friends get to buy yet another houses and yachts?
The survey by the University of Michigan and Muhlenberg College says 62 percent of those asked last December think the Earth is getting warmer. That's an increase from 55 percent in the spring of that year. It's the highest percentage in two years.
Nearly half the people who say they believe in global warming base that on their own personal observations of the weather. Climate scientists say daily local weather isn't evidence of climate change. But they also say long-term climate change is so dramatic that people do recognize and experience it.
The survey of 887 people has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
LINK TO STORY
I think it's just that when I see a beautiful sunset or awesome looking clouds on a warm and breezy afternoon I am not grateful that I'm lucky.. but I am happy to thank the Creator who I know loves His creation and intentionally made it wonderful in the hopes that human kind would realize that nature did not happen by chance and in turn would acknowledge the existence of a higher power. I know this qualifies me as deluded in about 50% of the blog community.. That's okay with me..
BRAVO! Very well said. Unfortunately, the denialists stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Through osmosis they've somehow acquired vastly more climate knowledge than all of the climate scientists combined.
MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0164
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0225 PM CST TUE FEB 28 2012
AREAS AFFECTED...N CNTRL KS INTO S CNTRL NEB
CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...WATCH POSSIBLE
VALID 282025Z - 282300Z
STORMS SHOULD INCREASE IN INTENSITY AND COVERAGE THIS AFTERNOON
INTO THE EVENING FROM NRN KS INTO SRN NEB. DAMAGING
WINDS...MARGINALLY SEVERE HAIL...AND PERHAPS A TORNADO OR TWO WILL
BE POSSIBLE. A WATCH IS LIKELY TO BE ISSUED THIS AFTERNOON.
SURFACE ANALYSIS SHOWS A DEEPENING LOW OVER NW KS...WITH STRONG
PRESSURE FALLS ACROSS THE WARM SECTOR...BOUNDED ON THE N BY A WARM
FRONT DRAPED W-E ACROSS SRN NEB....AND TO THE W BY A COLD FRONT
CONSOLIDATING ACROSS ERN CO INTO ERN NM/W TX.
AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT...A DRYLINE WAS DEVELOPING DUE TO VERY
STRONG BOUNDARY LAYER MIXING...FROM WRN KS INTO THE OK/TX
PANHANDLES. TO THE E...BOUNDARY LAYER DEWPOINTS WERE RISING THROUGH
THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 50S F...RESULTING IN MARGINAL INSTABILITY AROUND
500-750 J/KG.
SATELLITE IMAGERY ALSO CLEARLY SHOWS THE UPPER VORT CENTER OVER NERN
CO...WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY OVERSPREAD WRN NEB/KS AND OVERTAKE THE
DRYLINE. AS THIS OCCURS WITH TIME...COOLING ALOFT WILL STEEPEN LAPSE
RATES ALOFT...AND AN UPTICK IN CONVECTIVE INTENSITY IS EXPECTED. THE
MAIN MITIGATING FACTOR TO SEVERITY IS THE LOW LEVEL MOISTURE...WHICH
MAY STRUGGLE TO RISE INTO THE LOWER 50S F NEAR THE WARM FRONT AND
INTO NRN KS LATER TODAY.
THAT SAID...AS THE COLD FRONT ACCELERATES EWD...FORCING WILL BE
FAVORABLE FOR LONG LIVED CONVECTION...CAPABLE OF AT LEAST DAMAGING
WINDS. LOW LEVEL SHEAR WILL REMAIN STRONG...AND MAY RESULT IN
SUPERCELLS...OR EMBEDDED MESOCYCLONES IF LINE SEGMENTS OCCUR. THE
MARGINAL MOISTURE ALONG WITH TIME OF DAY BECOMING LATE WILL LIKELY
MITIGATE THE TORNADO THREAT.
..JEWELL.. 02/28/2012
Current webcam view from the Porcupine Lodge in White Pine, Michigan:
Viewing: 301 - 351
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