Blogs

This week’s Beyond the Data edition looks a little more deeply at NCEI’s monthly U.S. climate report for March. Cold season blues...or reds, rather One of the handful of obscure meteorological/climatological seasons is the “cold season,” which in the U.S. runs from October through March. Now, I know it’s a stretch for a reader in, say, St. Paul to think of  Arizona’s typical  October-through-March average temperature in the upper 40s as a “cold season,” but it's all relative.  For a state where the daytime high in the summer is 92F,  the term "cold season" applies in Arizona, too.  Speaking of Arizona’s “cold season,” this was the warmest such season on…   Read article

La Niña conditions prevailed through March, but it’s very likely the great La Niña of 2017–18 is a sinking ship. ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to arrive within the next couple of months, meaning sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific will return to near the long-term average. Amity Island The Niño3.4 Index, our very favorite measurement of the central Pacific sea surface temperature, was about 0.5°C cooler than average over the past week, according to the weekly OISST data set. This anomaly (the departure from the long-term average) is just on the border of neutral conditions: when the Niño3.4 Index is in between -0.5°C and 0.5°C. Of course, when we’re talking EN…   Read article

I know it may seem a bit ridiculous to say that winter is over when the eastern half of the United States keeps getting repeatedly smacked by nor’easters. But from a meteorological perspective, winter lasts from December 1 – February 28. And it is over. Which can mean only one thing! It is time for the ENSO Blog’s annual post looking back at how NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s Winter Outlook did. So for residents of the Northeast, I ask you to postpone shoveling out your car for 10 minutes, because it’s time to talk forecast verification. (I have an obsession, see here, here, here and here). Let’s start with the temperatures The Winter Outlook, which came out in November…   Read article

Welcome to the sprung forward part of our calendar. (yawns) I'm really sorry about that. I didn't sleep well last night. If you’re one of the thousands of Americans who strolled into your first appointment about 56 minutes late today, I feel your pain. Been there, done that! So, let’s protest the onset of Daylight Saving Time by springing back. Take that, clocks! Today’s Beyond the Data will look back into some of the supplemental information attached to our February / Winter State of the Climate reports. Insider tip: the fun stuff is always in the supplemental information. We’ll pull out some fun regional trivia, but there’s at least one lesson about the climate system…   Read article

The great La Niña of 2017–18 is dwindling, and forecasters expect the return of neutral conditions by the March–May season, estimated at about 55% likelihood. Neutral conditions are favored to continue through the summer. It’s too early to get a picture of next fall and winter, due to the spring predictability barrier and the absence of strong signs one way or the other. There are a few interesting features we’ll watch closely over the next few months… but first, this update on current conditions! Stick your toe in La Niña may be weakening, but she’s still making an impression on the average sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific. The Niño3.4 index, which measures the depart…   Read article