Say, Ed, do you happen to have last year's diagram of the 6-mo. SST forecast from about this time? I haven't been saving the CPC weekly ENSO discussions, but I am trying to recall -- wasn't a La Nina also forecast at this time in 2006? And if so, I'd guess that the diagram would have looked pretty similar to this year's at this time.
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I did find some archived CPC information.
In April 2006, this NINO 3.4 forecast didn't show any indication of an El Nino event, but instead forecast ENSO-neutral conditions right out to the beginning of 2007:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/bulletin_0406/figf4b.gif
The forecast forum outlook for April 2006 was: "ENSO-neutral conditions are expected during the next 3-6 months." What's more, that was the continued outlook for May and June. And even in July, the forecast was only conservatively modified: "ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue for the next one to three months, with a 50% chance that weak warm episode (El Nino) conditions will develop by the end of 2006." This indicates the forecast is only accurate a month or two out.
The March 2007 outlook states, "A transition from ENSO-neutral to La Nina conditions is possible during the next 3 months." Yet Pacific equatorial SST anomalies continue to move in the positive, not negative, direction, and the thin finger of cool water continues to retreat -- while the remainder of the EastPAC north of the equator is warmer than usual, and the ITCZ is active.
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I found I'd saved a discussion from May last year. Most interesting was that the dynamic models in the diagram did predict the El Nino in spite of the CPC's forecast -- the CPC statistical models were mainly below zero. This year the model situation is reversed, with most of the dynamic models predicting La Nina.
I also looked at the depth anom for both the equator and 2N and 2S for the last week. A bit more of the cooler water is surfacing at the equator now, probably because of surface winds.
This lends more support for a La Nina.
But I'm starting to feel like there is no ENSO-neutral, just El Nino + La Nina.  There seem to be not only elements of both, in a strange combo, but a holding pattern right now, until the next wave gets things moving again, and when that will happen and what direction it will push things is not predictable.
Edited by Margie (Sat May 05 2007 01:31 PM)
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