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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Good lord, he's back...
same "virus" ?
SSTs in the tropical atlantic may be normal or below but I guess he sure didn't look at the GOM or areas around Florida those are 1-2 degrees above
Isabel was a real bad experiance. Had more storm surge than Ike.
New Orleans, Base Reflectivity 0.20 Degree Elevation Range 48 NM
TDWR High Definition Radar
New Orleans, Velocity Azimuth Display Wind Profile Range 124 NMI
Microbursts and Straight Line Winds in that Line.
""""67. stormkat 9:40 AM CDT on July 08, 2008 Hide this comment.
i told you guys last thursday bertha was going to be a fish storm..i told you the strong trough off the east coast would cause a major weakness in the high and bertha would pass 200 miles to the east of bermuda...well jw what
happen to the storm that you said was going to
develop in the leeward islands...thats the
reason why i do my own forecasting i dont need
these computers...you guys think they are gospel..if you continue to follow them you will very seldom be right in a forecast...jw it looks like you really bombed on that one but like i said we all makes mistakes..i was right on with bertha and my forecast for the rest of the month is no tropical storms the shear has kicked in all over...guys like i said all along the famous dr gray blew it again this year and he will have to revise his forecast from 15 named storms to 7 if he gets that many...the dust is starting to develop on the coast of africa so that could kill anything from developing ...my latest data shows the tropics to be very quiet for july unless a cold front heads into the GOM then we will have to watch it closely...but thats not expected to happen guys...i will keep you informed and ill be back in 3 weeks unless something develops in the GOM...if you guys would like to email me feel free to do so...i will answer any questions you might have...im here to help you...stormkat""""
Sad, just ignore him.
Ignore means that,..ignore.
Thank you so much for this update...
Defeats the purpose of ignore if you quote him. :p
I said it 3 days ago, including the mention off GA. Don't really expect anything too exciting the next few days though even. When it shifts again, the last low may ride the gulf stream north instead of just north of Bermuda like the ones before it. That could get interesting.
I still give the Caribbean blob a chance of a moments glance of a swirl in the BOC like the last two waves.
Sea breeze is fired up here..decent winds, a white out of rain & the lightning is scaring the kids.
I know where you are coming from, but to correct the record for any lurkers that may take you at face value and be misinformed, shear is only 5-20 over the entire gulf and dropping. That is not high.
Well then they need to take the quote option away.
I know. You are actually one of my favorite posters in here.
So, 456 -- Any subtropical or tropical development with that system off the Carolinas?
The 2009 wildfire season roared to life in Alaska on 02 July - 03 July 2009, with a number of very large and very intense fires breaking out across interior portions of the state. A ridge of high pressure was in place over the region, allowing Fairbanks to experience a high temperature above 80º F (27º C) on both days. GOES-11 visible images (above) showed some impressive smoke plumes developing on 02 July, especially from the fire located to the east-southeast of Fort Yukon (station identifier PFYU) — note the pulses of “pyrocumulus” that emanated from this >19,000 acre “Little Black One” fire complex:
I agree, just hope the lurkers who read the blog daily realize that "numbers" are great on paper and in theory until they effect you, stay prepared and alert.
LOL
getagameplan.org
Thank you
I don't think it will be tropical. But it won't be frontal. it could end up being a barotropically cold or hyprid system, not sure right now.
Betsy-1965 a year which only featured 5 or 6 storms, Betsy was the costliest hurricane at the time
Agnes-1972 a year which featured 7 storms, Agnes surpassed Betsy as the costliest U.S. hurricane
Alicia-1983 a year which featured only 4 named storms, devastated Galveston and Houston and was one of the costliest hurricanes at the time
Andrew-1992 a year which featured only 6 tropical storms, shattered Hugo's record as the costliest U.S hurricane (at the time) and still remains the second costliest storm behind Katrina.
I'm sure there are many more that I am forgetting right now, but I hope everyone can see the point.
Be prepared every year because no one can determine, for sure in advance precisely what will happen.
As long as they leave the ignore feature, that's ok.
Sometimes the "quote" is the only way we know he's said anything.
Are you supporting stormno? If you are, you are crazy.
With one notable exception (StormW), I am very leery of anything said by anyone with "storm" at the start of their name. Too much misinformation completely disconnected with what most of us know as "reality".
Where is STORMTOP? I look forward to his highly intellectual forecasts.
I just snorted Dr. Pepper out of my nose...thanks...
;)
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