Is a Super El Nino Coming?

The media is going wild about the potential for a SUPER El Nino developing this year.

An El Niño of potentially unequaled strength with profound consequences for humanity.

El Nino 101

As a reminder, El Niño and its close counterpart, La Niña, are associated with sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, specifically in the area known as the Niño 3.4 region (see map below).

Why do we care about the surface temperatures of the central tropical Pacific?   

Because it reveals the state of an important natural atmospheric/ocean oscillation:  ENSO, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, in which warm ocean surface water sloshed back and forth over 4-7 year periods (see below).

The warm water enhances cumulus and thunderstorm activity above, which in turn influences the weather of the entire planet (see below).

Some terminology:

A weak El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area .5-1 °C above normal

A moderate El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area 1-1.5 °C above normal

A strong El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area 1.5-2 °C above normal

A super El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area exceeding 2°C above normal

Predicting El Niño is important because it has a significant impact on the meteorology of the U.S. West Coast and offers the only reliable source of forecasting skill for extended period predictions.

There is little correlation between El Niño and our summer weather, but El Niño winters in the Northwest tend to be warmer than normal with lesser snowfal.

There is a problem we face right now in predicting the El Niño situation next winter:  the El Niño Spring Forecast Barrier.  

A reason why the media needs to be very careful about over hyping things right now.

It turns out that El Niño forecasts made in late winter and spring are often unskillful, while predictions made after July are much better. 

 Furthermore, statistical prediction models are generally less skillful than dynamical models that actually simulate ocean and atmospheric conditions (see below).

With all that said, what do the latest El Niño forecasts indicate?  Is there an intense SUPER El Niño in our future?    The predictions are below for a wide range of models.

All models indicate that La Niña (cooler than normal tropical temperatures) will soon be over.

The statistical models (green lines) are predicting a weak El Niño by this fall, while the more skillful dynamical models are going for a weak to moderate El Niño.    Few are predicting a Super El Niño.

There is one modeling system that is going for a "Super" El Nino, the European Center's SEAS5 model (below).  It is the source of many of the breathless headlines in the media.

The bottom line?

We are certainly moving towards El Niño conditions, but I would be careful about assuming that the Super El Niño prediction of the European Center is correct, due to the spring forecast barrier and the larger differences between other modeling system forecasts.