Yeah, I remember last year at this time, we were getting excited about the "high probability" of a El Nino coming - then, as the months went by, the probability kept shrinking - til winter came - and No El Nino! :-(
Here we go again:
THU APR 30, 2015 AT 07:00 AM PDT
Super El Nino Likely as Huge Warm Water Wave Hits West Coast, Extreme Marine Die Off Developing
In early March, the strongest wave of tropical convection ever measured (known as the Madden Julian Oscillation) by modern meteorology moved into the western Pacific from Indonesian waters bringing an outbreak of 3 tropical cyclones, including deadly category 5 Pam which ravaged the south Pacific islands of Vanuatu. This extreme outburst of tropical storms and organized thunderstorms pulled strong westerly winds across the equator, unleashing a huge surge of warm water below the ocean surface. Normally, trade winds blow warm water across the Pacific from the Americas to Australia and Indonesia, pushing up sea level in the west Pacific. When the trade winds suddenly reversed to strong westerlies, it was as if a dam burst, but on the scale of the earth's largest ocean, the Pacific. The front edge of that massive equatorial wave, called a Kelvin wave, is now coming ashore on the Americas.
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