2014 May Quick Look 	   		  	   		  			 				Technical ENSO Update 				[h=3]May 15, 2014 				[h=2]Recent and Current Conditions The SST anomaly in the Nino3.4 region in recent weeks has been in the  neutral range but rising during the mid-April to mid-May period, 2014.  For April the Nino3.4 SST anomaly was 0.24 C, indicative of neutral  conditions, and for Feb-Apr it was -0.18 C. The IRI’s definition of El  Niño, like NOAA/Climate Prediction Center’s, requires that the SST  anomaly in the Nino3.4 region (5S-5N; 170W-120W) exceed 0.5 C.  Similarly, for La Niña, the anomaly must be -0.5 C or less. The  climatological probabilities for La Niña, neutral, and El Niño  conditions vary seasonally, and are shown in a table at the bottom of  this page for each 3-month season. The most recent weekly SST anomaly in  the Nino3.4 region was 0.5 C, which is warmer than the 0.24 C observed  in March, and is at the borderline of an El Niño condition if it were to  persist. The trend is then an upward one both for Feb-Apr to April, and  from April to last week’s observation.
 [h=2]Expected Conditions What is the outlook for the ENSO status going forward? The most  recent official diagnosis and outlook was issued earlier this month in  the 
NOAA/Climate Prediction Center ENSO Diagnostic Discussion,  produced jointly by CPC and IRI; it called for a likelihood for neutral  ENSO conditions continuing into part of the remainder of spring 2014,  but with probabilities of El Niño rising to 67% by Jun-Aug 2014, and to  78% by northern autumn 2014. The latest set of model ENSO predictions,  from mid-May, now available in the 
IRI/CPC ENSO prediction plume,  is discussed below. Currently, Nino3.4 SST anomalies are at the  borderline of neutral and weak El Niño. Positive anomalies are marked  near the dateline and also in the far eastern part of the Pacific  basin.  Subsurface temperature anomalies across the eastern equatorial  Pacific are well above average levels, due to a downwelling Kelvin wave  triggered by two westerly wind events in the western tropical Pacific  during the Jan-Mar period. These anomalies at depth have been surfacing  in the far eastern part of the basin. In the atmosphere, the basin-wide  sea level pressure pattern (e.g. the SOI) has been close to average  recently. The low-level zonal winds have shown westerly anomalies in  portions of the basin, such as somewhat east of the dateline during late  April/early May, while the upper level winds have shown easterly  anomalies over some longitude bands. Anomalous convection (as measured  by OLR) has been positive near the dateline, and just slightly positive  in some portions of the basin east of the dateline.  Together, these  features continue to reflect ENSO conditions near the borderline of  neutral and weak El Niño. The hints toward some ocean-atmosphere  coupling (westerly wind anomalies and positive SST anomalies in the  central equatorial Pacific) could induce larger anomalies in both ocean  and low-level atmosphere that could lead to increased coupling as the  onset of El Niño conditions likely gets underway over the course of the  coming month or two.
 As of mid-April, none of the dynamical or statistical models models  predicts La Niña SST conditions for the May-Jul 2014 season, 56%  predicts El Niño conditions, and 44% indicates neutral ENSO. At lead  times of 3 or more months into the future, statistical and dynamical  models that incorporate information about the ocean’s observed  subsurface thermal structure generally exhibit higher predictive skill  than those that do not. For the Aug-Oct 2014 season, among models that  do use subsurface temperature information, none predicts ENSO-neutral  SSTs, 100% predicts El Niño conditions and none predicts La Niña  conditions. For all model types, the probability for neutral ENSO  conditions is below 50% for all forecast periods, and is highest (near  40%) for May-Jul 2014 (very beginning of period) and Jan-Mar 2015 (very  end of period). Probabilities for El Niño rise to 72% for Jun-Aug and  Jul-Sep 2014, and as high as 87% for Sep-Nov, falling to about 60% by  Jan-Mar 2015.  No model predicts La Niña conditions for any of the  3-month periods between May-Jul and Jan-Mar 2015.
 
Note  - Only models that produce a new ENSO prediction every month are included in the above statement.
 Caution is advised in interpreting the distribution of model  predictions as the actual probabilities. At longer leads, the skill of  the models degrades, and skill uncertainty must be convolved with the  uncertainties from initial conditions and differing model physics,  leading to more climatological probabilities in the long-lead ENSO  Outlook than might be suggested by the suite of models. Furthermore, the  expected skill of one model versus another has not been established  using uniform validation procedures, which may cause a difference in the  true probability distribution from that taken verbatim from the raw  model predictions.
 An alternative way to assess the probabilities of the three possible  ENSO conditions is more quantitatively precise and less vulnerable to  sampling errors than the categorical tallying method used above. This  alternative method uses the mean of the predictions of all models on the  plume, equally weighted, and constructs a standard error function  centered on that mean. The standard error is Gaussian in shape, and has  its width determined by an estimate of overall expected model skill for  the season of the year and the lead time. Higher skill results in a  relatively narrower error distribution, while low skill results in an  error distribution with width approaching that of the historical  observed distribution. This method shows probabilities for La Niña no  higher than 2% for any period between May-Jul 2014 through Jan-Mar  2015.  Model probabilities for neutral ENSO conditions are near 50% for  the initial period of May-Jul 2014, near 40% for the next running period  of Jun-Aug, and the hover near 30% through the northern summer and fall  2014, rising again to near 35% for Dec-Feb 2013-14 and just over 40%  for Jan-Mar 2015. Probabilities for El Niño are just above 50% for  May-Jul 2014, rise to near 60% for Jun-Aug, nearly 65% for Jul-Sep, and  rise to near 70% for Sep-Nov, Oct-Dec and Nov-Jan 2014-15. It is clear  that the models collectively favor El Niño over other ENSO conditions  between Jun-Aug 2014 and Dec-Feb 2014-15.   
 A plot of the probabilities  generated from this most recent IRI/CPC ENSO prediction plume using the  multi-model mean and the Gaussian standard error method summarizes the  model consensus out to about 10 months into the future. The same  cautions mentioned above for the distributional count of model  predictions apply to this Gaussian standard error method of inferring  probabilities, due to differing model biases and skills. In particular,  this approach considers only the mean of the predictions, and not the  total range across the models, nor the ensemble range within individual  models.
 The probabilities derived from the models on the IRI/CPC plume  describe, on average, a transition from neutral ENSO conditions during  late northern spring to a likely development of El Niño development  during May-Jul 2014, as the objective model-based probabilities for El  Niño exceed those for neutral ENSO by more than a small margin between  Jun-Aug 2014 and Dec-Feb 2014-15. The consensus of model predictions  calls for a weak to moderate El Niño event. A caution regarding this  latest set of model-based ENSO plume predictions, is that factors such  as known specific model biases and recent changes that the models may  have missed will be taken into account in the next official outlook to  be generated and issued in early October by CPC and IRI, which will  include some human judgement in combination with the model guidance.
  
 
| Season | La Niña | Neutral | El Niño | 
|---|
| DJF | 37% | 28% | 35% | 
| JFM | 34% | 37% | 29% | 
| FMA | 30% | 48% | 22% | 
| MAM | 26% | 54% | 20% | 
| AMJ | 24% | 54% | 22% | 
| MJJ | 25% | 51% | 24% | 
| JJA | 25% | 50% | 25% | 
| JAS | 27% | 46% | 27% | 
| ASO | 29% | 40% | 31% | 
| SON | 32% | 34% | 34% | 
| OND | 34% | 31% | 35% | 
| NDJ | 37% | 27% | 36% | 
 Climatological Probabilities