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Editor's note: Jan. 12, 2021. This post from last winter is getting a lot of fresh attention thanks to its appearance somewhere in the Google news feed last week. Although the details of the state of the tropospheric and stratospheric vortexes in this post are from last year, the explanation of the basic science of these atmospheric features is still solid. Come back and visit us on January 28 for an update on the current state of the polar vortex and how the Sudden Stratospheric Warming event that happened in early January may influence mid-latitude weather in coming weeks.  Just kidding! But, oh well, you clicked and now we’re all going to go for a walk together down polar vor…   Read article

Ocean and atmosphere conditions in the tropical Pacific are ENSO-neutral, and forecasters favor neutral through the spring. Wait, don’t go! As usual, there’s a lot more to the ENSO story. Get organized The sea surface temperature in the Niño3.4 region in the east-central equatorial Pacific, our primary location for monitoring the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon, has been above average for a few months now. In fact, the 3-month-average (the Oceanic Niño Index) in October–December was 0.46°C above normal, which rounds to 0.5°C. “Hey!” you say. “Isn’t that the El Niño threshold?” Indeed it is, but of course El Niño requires more than a couple months of above-average…   Read article

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) tracks U.S. weather and climate events that have great economic and societal impacts (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions). Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 258* weather and climate disasters where the overall damage costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index, as of January 2020). The cumulative cost for these 258 events exceeds $1.75 trillion. During 2019, the U.S. experienced a very active year of weather and climate disasters. In total, the U.S. was impacted by 14 separate billion-dollar disasters including: 3 major inland floods, 8 severe storms, 2 tropical cyclones (Dorian an…   Read article

Here at the ENSO Blog, we talk about a lot of different climate patterns, not just the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO!) pattern. We’re named after ENSO because that’s the 800-pound gorilla, the most influential seasonal climate phenomenon so far identified—check out the FAQ for a lot more info on ENSO. But the global ocean/atmosphere system features many other, smaller gorillas, and some chimpanzees, lemurs, koalas, lions, and a platypus or two. (These are definitely not technical categories, although I might dedicate the rest of my career to making them so.) Some of those other animals climate patterns, such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, are carefully monitored because they’re kn…   Read article

Honestly, I could reprint last month’s outlook post and it wouldn’t be that far off from this month. But we have a responsibility to create new posts that we take seriously here at the ENSO blog! So give me a second to “control-c” last month’s ENSO update…. Ahh there we go… And now to hit “control-v”… ENSO-Neutral conditions are solidly in place at the moment. Forecasters estimate a 70% chance that neutral conditions last through the winter, and a 65% chance of continuing through spring. This all probably has you thinking “EN-So what”, or “this all about ENS-nOthing”, or “please ENS-top doing these horrible puns”. But bear with me as we dive into what is going on. You can’t ENS-…   Read article