El Niņo Commentary
Location: New York
Author:
Michael Schlacter
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
We are walking down a slippery slope again this Autumn 2006, with El Niņo rumors and misconceptions abounding, as they were in Autumn 2002. Many short-term forecasters and government outlooks jump on any developing El Niņo conditions without proper regard for ENSO intensity or which Pacific ENSO regions are producing the warm SST anomalies.
The most
common and critical climate science error/misconception that is
propagated, says that somewhat weaker El Niņo conditions simply produce
somewhat weaker versions of the Coast-to-Coast Warm Winter we witnessed
during the robust 1997-1998 event.
This is a dangerous fallacy, as weak and moderate ENSO events often
produce regional Winter conditions completely opposite to that of strong
ENSO events. Most recently this happened in Autumn 2002 when evolving
moderate ENSO conditions had everyone abuzz and writing off the entire
Winter Season. As late as December 2002, NOAA/NWS updated their official
Winter Outlook (mimicked by most others) with these black & white, El Niņo
= Warm conclusions:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s1074.htm
What actually occurred that Winter was something dramatically different
for most Mid-West, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States, as the attached
temperature graphic illustrates. Rather than the "El Niņo Warmth" these
people were told to bank on, Boston had its coldest Winter in 63 years,
Baltimore had its coldest Winter in 40 years and Detroit and New York
rattled off 8 colder-than-normal months.
Every year is a fresh roll of the climate dice, but as we strongly
cautioned in Autumn 2002, we strongly caution again in Autumn 2006, about
forecasters' oversimplification of the very complex ENSO processes.
As we first advised last week, you should be prepared for another noticeable up-tick in the 2006 Hurricane Season. Our research indicated that another Hemispheric and Tropospheric transition was under way that should ignite Atlantic Basin Tropical activity, and this should finally reach the Gulf, Caribbean and eventually Atlantic over the Holiday Weekend.
The previous such transition we had
advised of produced 5 Named Storms, 4 of which became Hurricanes, 2 of
which became Major Hurricanes, between August 21st and September 12th of
this year. Such favorable atmospheric transitions tend to flare up the
entire Atlantic Basin (from Texas to Africa), and historically have
supported multiple Named Storms alive simultaneously.
Specifically, the Gulf and Caribbean have been mostly free of clouds over
the last month, so this area bears watching throughout October as the
waters continue to warm, especially now that shear will slacken in the
coming days. Although most activity this season has occurred on the
Atlantic side, it is important not to write off the season for the Gulf,
Caribbean, Bahamas and Gulf Stream (spurred by frontal boundaries). One
only needs to remember 1995 which saw Hurricane Opal reach Category 4 in
the Gulf in October after a relatively quiet June-September to boot.
2006 Tropics Status:
In an average entire Atlantic Hurricane Season we witness 10 Named Storms,
and we now have 9 (through September).
In an average entire Atlantic Hurricane Season we witness 6 Hurricanes,
and we now have 5 (through September).
In an average entire Atlantic Hurricane Season we witness 2 Major
Hurricanes, and we already have 2 (through September).
In an average entire Atlantic Hurricane Season we witness 3 Named Storms
making U.S. Landfall, and we already have 3 (through September).
{FYI: During the 2004 and 2005 Seasons, NHC declared the first
classification of a tropical system in either their 5 PM or 11 PM advisory
periods an imbalanced 65% of the time, and outside of the work day (i.e.
post-4 PM and Weekends) an imbalanced 80% of the time. So far in 2006, TD
# 1 (later ALBERTO) , TD #6 (later FLORENCE), and TD #7 (later GORDON)
were initially classified over a weekend, and TD # 3 (later CHRIS) ,TD # 4
(later DEBBY) ,TD # 5 (later ERNESTO) , TD #9 (later ISAAC) and were all
initially classified during the weekday evening hours.}
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.riskcenter.com/