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El Nino/La Nina update: today's analogy PDF Print
Written by John Olzsewski   
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El Nino/La Nina update: today's analogy
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Rather like that very early now-called 'soap opera': 'The perils of Pauline”, the perils of La Nina could be today's analogy set in the 'will she or won't she' see-saw category.
The latest Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data shows La Nina standards across the far eastern equatorial Pacific.

It shows a stationary tendency across the central Pacific (the western range of the La Nina SST measure). Below surface temperatures continue in the colder than normal range, cloudiness in eastern Pacific skies is below the normal: indicating drier air together with reduced convection while the indicators of the Southern Oscillation show no oscillation (the normal or standard situation). This set of indicators is all in the 'will she' stable.
However, the aspects of the outlooks remain less positive. The computer models and their analysts find difficulty in leaving the 'won't she' status.
The practical weather situation supports the 'will she' standpoint. By now, the Indian Monsoon season is drawing to its close, but the reports of torrential rains and subsequent flooding have been flooding in for the past weeks and, most recently, the third major river, the Irrawaddy, has joined the flooding fraternity. Further rains have made wet headlines in Vietnam; even into mainland China reports of heavier storms have been heard.
The east African, Kenya and Ethiopia, rains have brought floods to that part of the continent. The Sahel region, often cited for its dry potential, has received consistent rains. For some months now, our local marine weather maps have shown the tendency for the anticyclones to extend ridges to the Antarctic continent thus emphasizing the north-south-north air flow associated with a La Nina influence.
However, from the computer standpoint, the very recent memory of the un-discerned ENSO development of just under one year ago, its failure to keep to the prediction together with its rapid switch to the opposite, a more La Nina-prone situation, cannot be dismissed. The models did not grasp this rapid on-again off-again turn of events. When there is an unstable base, it is more than likely that products based on the regular standard will have an element of disarray. The unstable base is, I do feel, the aspect of and influence of Global Warming inducing a measure of climate change. To expect those dedicated analysts to have this aspect fully sorted out is asking quite a lot. The aspects are not fully described and thus their impact lacks definition. Yet the weather world and its watchers expect outlooks, so the hesitancy can be well understood.


 
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DATE: Fri 19 Dec -
Thu 08 January 2009
Volume 22 No.50