Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Westward Propagation of El Nino Beginning

Westward propagation of warm water anomalies in the ENSO monitoring area has begun, as seen in this animation link.

Weekly sea surface temperature anomalies show a movement westward of waters with temperatures anywhere from 1-1.5 degrees above normal in the image above. This westward movement enhances the potential for a central-based or west-based El Nino this winter, both of which would be better for an East US snowy winter than an east based Nino.

It will take some time to see if this propagation continues, but this is an encouraging sign for those wanting snow on the East Coast and Northeast regions.

Andrew

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What does a west-based el nino mean for the southwest...especially Colorado?

Andrew said...

Generally a warm Western US and cool eastern US. That would probably signal a ridge dominating over the region for a west based Nino.