Modiki El Niños and Atlantic hurricane activity
It's an El Niño year, which typically means that Atlantic hurricane activity will be reduced. But not all El Niño events are created equal when it comes to their impact on Atlantic hurricane activity. Over the past 150 years, hurricane damage has averaged $800 million/year in El Niño years and double that during La Niña years. The abnormal warming of the equatorial Eastern Pacific ocean waters in most El Niño events creates an atmospheric circulation pattern that brings strong upper-level winds over the Atlantic, creating high wind shear conditions unfavorable for hurricanes. Yet some El Niño years, like 2004, don't fit this pattern. Residents of Florida and the Gulf Coast will not soon forget the four major hurricanes that pounded them in 2004--Ivan, Frances, Jeanne, and Charley. Overall, the 15 named storms, 9 hurricanes, and 6 intense hurricanes of the hyperactive hurricane season of 2004 killed over 3000 people--mostly in Haiti, thanks to Hurricane Jeanne--and did $40 billion in damage.
A new paper published in Science last Friday attempts to explain why some El Niño years see high Atlantic hurricane activity. "Impact of Shifting Patterns of Pacific Ocean Warming on North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones", by Georgia Tech researchers Hye-Mi Kim, Peter Webster, and Judith Curry, theorizes that Atlantic hurricane activity is sensitive to exactly where in the Pacific Ocean El Niño warming occurs. If the warming occurs primarily in the Eastern Pacific, near the coast of South America, the resulting atmospheric circulation pattern creates very high wind shear over the tropical Atlantic, resulting in fewer hurricanes. This pattern, called the Eastern Pacific Warming (EPW) pattern, occurred most recently during the El Niño years of 1997, 1987, and 1982 (Figure 1). In contrast, more warming occurred in the Central Pacific during the El Niño years of 2004, 2002, 1994, and 1991. The scientists showed that these Central Pacific Warming (CPW) years had lower wind shear over the Atlantic, and thus featured higher hurricane activity than is typical for an El Niño year. One of the paper's authors, Professor Peter J. Webster, said the variant Central Pacific Warming (CPW) El Niño pattern was discovered in the 1980s by Japanese and Korean researchers, who dubbed it modiki El Niño. Modiki is the Japanese word for "similar, but different".
Figure 1. Difference of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) from average during the peak of hurricane season, August-September-October, for seven years that had El Niño events (except for 2009, when the SST anomaly for July 1 - 3 is plotted). On the left side are years when the El Niño warming primarily occurred in the Eastern Pacific (EPW years). On the right are years when the warming primarily occurred in the Central Pacific (CPW years). Shown on the top of each plot is the number of named storms (NS), hurricanes (H), and intense hurricanes (IH) that occurred in the Atlantic each year. Atlantic hurricane activity tends to be more prevalent in CPW years than EPW years. An average hurricane season has 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. Image credit: NOAA/ESRL.
What, then, can we expect the current developing El Niño event to do to 2009 hurricane activity? Kim et al. note that in recent decades, the incidence of modiki CPW El Niño years has been increasing, relative to EPW years. However, the preliminary pattern of SST anomalies in the Pacific observed so far in July (lower left image in Figure 1) shows an EPW pattern--more warming in the Eastern Pacific than the Central Pacific. If Kim et al.'s theory holds true, this EPW pattern should lead to an Atlantic hurricane season with activity lower than the average 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. There is still a possibility that the observed warming pattern could shift to the Central Pacific during the peak portion of hurricane season, however. We are still in the early stages of this El Niño, and it is unclear how it will evolve.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Hope so SRT. And just rain. It is roll...ACK!! Lights just went nuts. BBIAB
stay safe over there!
I think homeless will be back in a bit the weather is quite bad here
Being a botnet attack, thousands of pc's participated and did not even know it.
It would be recommended that everyone ensure you have the latest net security updates in place. I am told this was a test.
If you would like to see if you have any issue with conflicker, just try to access one of the major security software providers like Symantec.com. If you cannot access their site, you are probably infected. Hope this helps for some, there appears to be more to come.
BTW, this article will provide a more detailed understanding of the current senario. The other is on conflicker.
4th cyber attack
Infection Test imbedded in this article
Link
Link
HAHA! thanks for the dust off :)
I need to get into the habit of doing so!
LMBO! That pic does do some summing up! Love it!
That said, I second the motion for a good soaking. Get me 3-4 days worth of rain over a week, with totals around 5-6", and this area will be much better off. (I don't want 5-6" in one day, though... then it just runs off)
Typhoon Watch for region of Northern Phillipines, southern Japan island (Okinawa), Taiwan, and southeastern China!
well said!
One near the prime meridian and the other nearing 10E
Are they doing this with the weather models?
Link
The GFS is really trying to spin it up, but as soon as the model goes to a lower resolution at 168hr, it completely loses it.
lol! that is amazing...haha! needed that laugh
Then it rained. And rained. And rained a couple of days later. Rinse and repeat. And if you call now we'll send two more weeks of rain for the price of one.
Soggy under the 200% of normal rainfall during the last 14 days. (and my sky isn't that blue.)
Now a trip into the yard makes me sing a certain little song by GNR.
Thanks SRT. Hope you got some rain. We finally did for about 10 minutes lol. That's so weird how those things can pop up out of nowhere. Geesh! I think round 2 is coming from the east. Hopefully it's not as angry as that one.
Weather Student I'm sorry I missed your question. I saw the story on the weather channel. I think it happened yesteday but they didn't mention any injuries or anything. Apparently they thought it as a tornado but NWS said it was strait line winds. Now I understand the importance of those Thunder storm warnings. I knew the lightning was bad but didn't realize the winds could be so strong and not be a tornado.
EDIT: Oh, goody. I can see my own posts, now. Thanks for waving you guys, but I didn't see anyone licking their elbows.
Are you okay...mentally?
No better or worse than usual. I am trying to lighten my own mood a little...annoying tech issues at work and home on vastly different computers festering in the back of brain during every waking moment lately. Maybe I will lighten the mood in here in the same stroke...couldn't hurt.
Jokes at my expense are ok...just only throw if you can catch.
I see the guys were a bit funny earlier. Good.
Well I am new to this site and I knew what you were trying to do with those two posts, so its all good,
your middle line about the jokes is very good advice.
Try this, if you can make it through the 3 short videos :)
Found it while looking for some mixed music. I used to DJ many moons ago and it caught my eye. I learned some things from this even though I didn't want to. Its about all of us in the end. All 3 or don't waste your time.
L8RLink
I'm here. Currently watching the wave over the yucatan based on the PTHMF index.
Mood seems good to me. We got a nice evening update from StormW. It's been civil. We've seen some humor and good lighthearted stuff. From weird tornado stuff to skating babies.
I'm certainly not complaining.
Do I have to break out the pics of my relatives from WV? :)
Solar System's Wild Weather
I hope to get a blog on recurvature of TCs 2mr.
Many thanks.
And the blogs go by...
I have friends from Taiwan but not sure they are into checking weather like I am. That said, I'm a novice -- is the Typhoon watch enough of a threat that I should mention it to them?
Aqua...do me a favor and send me a message.
Just want to check on things.
And I'd keep an eye out for that tropical wave near 35. Something's spinning maybe.
Was lurking before that (moved to FL in 2004), but all in after that. Rocked my world, both personally and professionally.
Bottom line. I was NOT prepared.
Interesting topic,reminds me of NGC's 'The Universe' space and the planets orbit the sun,very fascinating.
Wilma was in 2005.
Shuttered up 3 times at least in 2004 (over 20 windows).
Then... 2005... welcome to FL. ;)
C'mon...WILMA?? We had to use the greek alphabet that year, I mean it was ridiculous! So forgive'm if he got the year wrong. We were lucky to remember our own names after that.
Wilma was weird in Central Florida
50mph winds and 50 degree temps
Putting up shutters and my lung collapsed. Called spontaneous pneumo something-or-other.
Spend 7 days in ICU, with no one visiting you for half of that and NO CABLE!
They both hit me in St. Lucie . =/
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