El Nino Update

EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION

issued by

CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS  

and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society        

12 January 2017

 ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory

Synopsis: A transition to ENSO-neutral is expected to occur by February 2017, with ENSO-neutral then continuing through the first half of 2017.

            La Niña continued during December, with negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies continuing across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific (Fig. 1). The weekly Niño index values fluctuated during the last month, with the Niño-3 and Niño-3.4 regions hovering near and slightly warmer than -0.5°C (Fig. 2). The upper-ocean heat content anomaly was near zero when averaged across the eastern Pacific (Fig. 3), though near-to-below average subsurface temperatures were evident closer to the surface (Fig. 4). Atmospheric convection remained suppressed over the central tropical Pacific and enhanced over Indonesia (Fig. 5). The low-level easterly winds were slightly enhanced over the western Pacific, and upper-level westerly anomalies were observed across the eastern Pacific. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system remained consistent with a weak La Niña.

For full report go to:   

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/index.shtml