BUSTED ... well at least there is SOME Good news on the El Nino

Well it's time to concede a couple of major points here as we move to middle December. The biggest one is that I'm wrong and that my forecast the second-half December is in the process of BUSTING. I supposed technically one could say well wait until the last day of December to make that call but really all you are doing as a forecast meteorologist is just playing some sort of stupid game. As a forecaster one should be able to figure out where the pattern is going even if we cannot predict the exact track of a low-pressure area this far out in advance.

The pattern is not going to repeat itself like it did in the late November into early December and we're not going to see another +PNA redevelop... and there is going to be no surge of even seasonally cold air back into Most of the CONUS. Its called a forecast BUST... and I have got it.

As I stated in the last column last Saturday and Sunday when the medium & long-range models took the evolving pattern in a whole new direction... not just with the low-pressure area coming out of the Southwest track gained thousands of miles further to the north and west than originally thought... but also with the breakdown of any even moderate +PNA ridge... I fairly quickly deduced that the entire forecast Idea that I had for the second-half December was rapidly headed into the crapper.

The primary reason that I was able to adjust forecast and come the conclusion that my overall view all of the second-half December was going to bust without having to wait for 12/31 is the use of the technique that I call SOE or sequence of events. Just because I had developed this idea for a return to seasonally cold temperatures in the second-half of December does not mean that my ideas were going to be correct. I had a backup plan and I knew that if there is not going to be returned to a seasonally cold pattern over central and eastern North America... the odds which strongly favor the mild El Niño induced pattern continuing. Thus once I saw the shift over the weekend in the models I bailed.

At this point let me congratulate also one particular forecaster who went for a very mild December across most of the CONUS. He's an undergraduate student at Millersville University and has above-average meteorological skills for an undergrad. In fact if any of you traders out there are interested in scooping up a hot rookie prospect from the minor leagues and into your team/ company send me e-mail and I'll tell you how to reached this Guy. You could do a lot worse than pick up this Guy fresh out of school and quite frankly I think if he went into the government it would be wasted his talents.

On the other hand I am encouraged by one piece of data which came out yesterday and I'm sure that by now some of you heard / read. Over the last two weeks or so I've been talking about how the El Nino evernt SEEMS to have reached a peak or a plateau... and I was citing the sub surface SSTA as proof that the large areas of very warm waters underneath the surface in equatorial Pacific waters were weakening especially on the western side near the dateline-- ENSO region 4 and 3.4.

Yesterday the enso 3.4 region dropped from 1.4 to 1.3... the first drop since the 1st week of SEPT. Moreover the AUS folks data shows even further weakening of the El Nino with the SSTA in ENSO 3.4 dropping to +1.19!!!

To be sure such a minor drop is not that big a deal BUT it does have significant implications. First it does seem to support the idea that there is a connection between the warm sub surface SSTA and the surface enso readings. All during the Autumn when the sub surface temperatures for rapidly warming the El Nino moved steadily from weak levels of SEPT and OCT to moderate in NOV and DEC. Second there is of course the chance that the El Nino might surge back to +1.4 or maybe even +1.5 but given the fact the last three weeks it has held steady... and now see this drop... any sort of rise in the next 2 weeks would be a temporary aberration and I think it's safe to say that the ENSO has peaked. The data is increasing that the El Niño is beginning to weaken but I am not yet convinced of that because it is still a Little early to make THAT call. Come next Monday 12/25 IF the SSTA in enso 3.4 holds steady or weaken again THEN we got something!!! THIRD... in the WINTER forecast I maintain that if you look at all winter when there was a weak SHORT LIVED La Nina (like we had in 2005-06) that was then followed by a El Nino the very next winter... None of the El Nino reached a sustained moderate El Niño that lasted all winter. At Best there were couple of instances where the El Niño briefly reached moderate status for a one-month period but then dropped back into the WEAK El Nino thresholds.

Again the data seems to be supporting that idea but I'm not yet ready to declare victory on this concept just yet.

The working theory about how a weakening El Nino might affect the JAN FEB MAR -- IF it is indeed weakening -- goes like this. The data is overwhelming that when you have a weak El Nino event temperatures run below normal and sometimes significantly below normal over the central and eastern CONUS. Good examples of this are the winters of 2002-03 or 77-78 . Back in September and October 2006 when the El Nino was really developing it was of course still "weak" and not surprisingly the months of September and October 2006 the first time in several years we saw back to back cold months. Then inNovember when the El Nino reached moderate status the pattern turned dramatically wamer within a week or two of seeing the El Niño reaching the threshold over +1.0 in enso region 3.4. I guess by now you can see where this is going... IF the El Nino is weakening and it does dropped to +1.0C by the end of DEC or early JAN 2007 then we may see a return toward say cold pattern much like we saw on September and October. Sounds far-fetched? Maybe it is but a does seem to work and awful lot of time and I'm not one that gets wrapped up in hair brain far-fetched schemes and ideas very often.

Synoptically the pattern remains a very warm one dominated by the Pacific jet. The big ULL in the southwest states moves out of the Rockies and across the central Plains next couple days and bring that area significant snowstorm and pass well west of Chicago. The problem is of course that such a track is only going to reinforce the warm air over the eastern third the US. Another strong s/w crashes in the Pacific Northwest this weekend and drops southward into the Rockies and the great Basin once more bring that area another significant snow... and that to also closes off over Southwestern Texas 12/24. That Low is over the southeast coast on Christmas night and there is a weak HIGH over the Northeast... but that High is made up of Pacific Mild air and will slide out to sea . There really is nothing to be overly excited about in terms of winter weather temperatures patterns or threats through the end of the month. There are some interesting thing showing up at Day 12 or Day 15 on some ensembles but until I see more proof that something is going to change of the high latitudes I will remain very cautious.