El Nino Climate Watch

The Winter/Spring climate forecast is out.

Our El Nino friend has left the building.   Sea temperatures in the South Pacific waters have returned to normal with neutral conditioned favored for the 2017 spring/summer.

Synopsis: ENSO-neutral conditions have returned and are favored to continue through at least the Northern Hemisphere spring 2017.

            La Niña conditions are no longer present, with slightly below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) observed across the central equatorial Pacific and above-average SSTs increasing in the eastern Pacific (Fig. 1). The latest weekly Niño index values were -0.3°C in the westernmost Niño-4 and Niño-3.4 regions, and +1.5°C in the easternmost Niño-1+2 region (Fig. 2). The upper-ocean heat content anomaly increased during January and was slightly positive when averaged across the eastern Pacific (Fig. 3), a reflection of above-average temperatures at depth (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 tropical Pacific, and upper-level westerly winds were near average. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system is consistent with ENSO-neutral conditions.

Go to for full report:  http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/index.shtml