Subsurface Equatorial Pacific Ocean Heat Fading – El Nino May End

Weak El Nino barely hanging on.

Upper ocean heat east of Dateline to fuel El Nino collapses.

Discussion: The latest 8 ensemble members of the NCEP CFS V2 Nino34 SSTA forecast reveal El Nino ends during summertime with neutral ENSO ahead for the core of the tropical cyclone season (Fig. 1). Upper ocean heat is vanishing east of the Dateline (Fig. 2) while remaining upper ocean warmth is shifting westward (Fig. 3). The Nino SSTA regions indicate El Nino is barely hanging on (Fig. 4).

Fig. 1: The latest NCEP CFS V2 ENSO phase forecast using Nino34 SSTA indicates the most recent 8 ensembles are trending into neutral ENSO.

Fig. 2: The upper ocean heat east of the Dateline has diminished to cooler than normal during the past week indicating no fuel remaining for El Nino.

Fig. 3: Across the equatorial Pacific Ocean most of the upper ocean heat is confined to the upper 100 meters and shifting westward while water beneath is cooling rapidly.

Fig. 4: The 12-week observations of each Nino SSTA region used to monitor ENSO indicates weak El Nino is barely hanging on.