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With the season having ended, it is time for my annual review (see previous reviews here and here) of how NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s Winter Outlook did....Starting off with temperature The Winter Outlook issued on November 15, 2018*, for December-February was one that tilted towards the warm side (1). Reality… well—and this is for all those GenXers out there—reality bites. Instead of a warmer-than-average Northern Plains, Pacific Northwest and West Coast, temperatures were colder than average. And the southeastern United States, a place where the winter outlook saw an equal chance of all options, was the warmest compared to average....

Several feet of new snow is expected in the Sierra Nevada mountains this weekend as another El Niño-influenced storm moves into Northern California. In what some are calling a "March Miracle," the Sierra have been hit by a series of powerful storms this month. That's important because the Sierra snowpack is a key source of water for California, which is in its fourth year of a drought. The storms have boosted the snowpack and replenished reservoirs. Heavy showers pummeled L.A. and Ventura counties Friday afternoon, and forecasters said there was a chance of some light rain in some areas of...

Guest Post by Bob TisdaleAUSTRALIA’S BOM UPGRADES ENSO TRACKER STATUS TO EL NIÑO ALERTOn November 18, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) upgraded the conditions in the tropical Pacific from El Niño “watch” to “alert” levels, “indicating at least a 70% chance of El Niño occurring”.  See the rest of their update here.NOAA’S WEEKLY NINO3.4 DATA The sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific are a commonly used ENSO index. NOAA’s Oceanic NINO Index is a form of the data of that region. According to NOAA’s weekly sea surface temperature data for the NINO3.4 region, as of...

PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — The anticipated blockbuster return of El Niño is looking more like it will be a flop, a climatologist said Monday. Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory say that unless developing weak-to-modest El Niño conditions strengthen, California will continue to stay bone dry. El Niño describes a weather pattern involving a warming of equatorial waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, a condition that is associated with increased rainfall on the west coast of North America. El Niño conditions in 1997 and 1998 doubled rainfall up and down California, Patzert said. “Those very strong El Niños happen every 30...

Peru says El Niño threat over, waters cooling and fish returningLIMA (Reuters) – The worst of the potentially disastrous weather pattern El Nino is now behind Peru and cooling sea temperatures are luring back schools of anchovy, the key ingredient in fishmeal, authorities said on Friday.Temperatures in Peru’s Pacific peaked in June, rising 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) above average levels, but have since retreated and will likely return to normal by August, the state committee that studies El Nino said.“The possibility of us seeing an extraordinary Nino is ruled out,” said German Vasquez, the head of the committee.Read more:...

No single climate phenomenon has more influence on year-to-year variation in average global temperature than the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). When the central tropical Pacific Ocean is warmer than average (El Niño) or colder than average (La Niña), a cascade of atmospheric changes ensures that many parts of the globe feel the effects. But here’s a problem to consider: if the ocean today is warmer than the long-term average, won’t it look like the tropical Pacific is in a permanent El Niño? Won’t La Niña—the cool phase—just disappear? Will we have to redefine the nature of these influential climate events?...

Enlarge Image Climate of violence. El Niño-Southern Oscillation events hold sway over nearly half the nations of the world, many of which have experienced surges in violence during El Niño years. Credit: Hsiang et al., Nature Tensions between the Peruvian government and the rebel group the Shining Path erupted into bloody clashes in 1982—the same year that an El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event scoured potato fields across the hilly nation. Doomsayers might see cause and effect, but scientists have so far struggled to connect widespread violence with global climate phenomena. Now, a new study suggests that civil strife is...

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put...

A new peer-reviewed study calls into question the so-called ‘consensus’ on the causes of global warming by saying that “Nature, not man, responsible for recent global warming.” The new study authored by three Australian scientists and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research says that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) accounts for the vast majority of temperature variability. Authored by Chris de Freitas (University of Auckland in New Zealand), John McLean (Melbourne) and Bob Carter (James Cook University), the new study is sure to cause waves among those debating the causes of global warming. Completely contrary to the mainstream media’s...

El Niño May Have Been Factor In Magellan's Pacific VoyageA new paper by North Carolina State University archaeologist Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick shows that Ferdinand Magellan's historic circumnavigation of the globe was likely influenced in large part by unusual weather conditions -- including what we now know as El Niño -- which eased his passage across the Pacific Ocean, but ultimately led him over a thousand miles from his intended destination. (Credit: iStockphoto) ScienceDaily (May 16, 2008) — A new paper by North Carolina State University archaeologist Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick shows that Ferdinand Magellan's historic circumnavigation of the globe was likely...

WASHINGTON – It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever. The broken record was fueled by a waning El Niño and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday. Records on the planet's temperature have been kept since 1880. Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn't just nudge past the old record set in...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday dramatically downgraded its forecast for a winter of warm El Niño rains, the latest twist in a year of weird weather across Southern California. Federal weather officials had been saying for months that the region would have a wet winter, but the Southland hasn't recorded significant rain since May. NOAA said the latest weather and ocean temperature data now show that El Niño will have "minimal effects" across California and the rest of North America, following the lead of other forecasters, who in recent weeks said El Niño was fizzling.