Our spring webinar will be held tomorrow at 11am ET! We have spent a lot of time researching this pattern we are in. We can draw some clues by comparing our current pattern to years that featured similar atmospheric conditions, and where we think these atmospheric variables will trend based on the latest data and trends. Our webinar will break all of this down along with our thoughts, and we’ll also have a live question and answer session, so be sure to come with your questions! If you can’t watch it live, you can still see the recording later! Sign-up at bamwx.com/webinar. Below, we will discuss briefly just a few of the things we will bring up tomorrow.
El Nino or not? To get the official El Nino classification, you need anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific (ENSO 3.4 region) of 0.5ºC (0.9ºF) for 5 consecutive, overlapping 3-month periods. Here is how ENSO 3.4 has faired over the past several months: In general, the values have hovered up and down around 0.5ºC, (averaged +0.8º in NOV-DEC-JAN), but latest observations have been slightly below +0.5C anomalies.
In general, SST anomalies have trended a bit downward from where they were to begin the winter season. However, we are still maintaining warmer waters here, with an emphasis in the western and eastern ENSO regions currently. The eastern ENSO region tends to undergo more variable changes given the shallower waters here. The loop below shows sea-surface temperatures from normal starting November 14th, and ending January 30th.
Latest data would suggest our positive ENSO event has peaked, and shows signs of decline during the summer. Actually, you’ll notice a lot of this data initialized too warm already with the ENSO SST anomalies. Model ENSO forecasts should be especially taken with a grain of salt this time of year.
Will this be classified as an “official” El Nino? We need one more 3-month period to see an average anomaly of +0.5ºC or greater to get this official El Nino. We have a chance, but there is certainly some uncertainty given the recent cooling trends. Again, ENSO trends will be very important to monitor through the spring, and will have a big impact on how the pattern trends into summer. We’ll explain tomorrow in our webinar!
Another factor we are watching includes soil moisture profiles compared to last year at this time. Drought is a non-issue for all areas east of the Rockies, while last year we were starting off spring with lingering drought conditions in portions of the Plains.
Precipitation over the past 30 days has been abundant for just about everyone:
Check out precipitation totals from early November to now. You can see how wet it has been across the Ag Belt, especially the Ohio Valley region.
Trends over the next couple of weeks really target the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys for excessive rain potential. Here are the probabilities for 2″+ of rain over the next 2 weeks:
Bottom-line, we are not going into the spring season with any lack of soil moisture.
For the spring pattern, let’s look at what some data is suggesting. The CFS model shows an idea of a warmer than normal spring for many, with some cooler anomalies underneath a warmer northern U.S.
It actually forecasts a drier spring in the Ohio Valley, with wetter conditions over the southern Plains:
There is other data backing up this idea as well. In our webinar we will discuss the other data and how that compares to our analog years we have come up with.
Summer ideas?? For fun, the European seasonal data updated today. If it has its way a cooler and wet summer would be in store over much of the Ag Belt:
We are also watching recent cooling trends in the”Pacific Meridional Mode” region. If these trends continue, that would edge us toward hotter/drier risks.
We’ll break these items down and have much more in our webinar tomorrow 11am ET/10am CT. Come with your questions! Sign-up for our webinar: bamwx.com/webinar.
