Back in March 2012 I was led into a false sense of security. After a disappointing winter 2011-12 which was unusually cold over Europe, was rather mild here in the UK. We ended up experiencing the warmest March on record here in Scotland with three straight days of all-time record warmth. Each day was warmer than the last.

It was the 2nd or 3rd driest March on record for the UK and indeed it was a very very warm March over the Midwest US thanks to a very strong +NAO. The UK was coming off an unusually dry 2 year period following back to back La Ninas.

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Check out just how much waters warmed between the end of February and the end of March due to that strong, persistent high overhead.

Based a lot on the warm, dry March I foolishly called for the 1st truly warm, dry summer since 2006. I failed to see one major player. The El Nino! Waters of course warmed big time over that 4 week period and because of the warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific, I didn’t see the wet April and then wet summer coming.

This time I’m ready and I hope I’m on the right page this time because I believe this dry, settled theme won’t last. Next week is looking like a repeat of Easter holiday week where high pressure sits overhead making for warm days and cool night but the lack of wind and warmish days should allow further warming of our surrounding waters. With that nino now coming on nicely and warming right up against the South America coast, I recon we’ve a much wetter May coming and this will influence the mean height field for the summer.

Unfortunately, based on the above, there’s nothing written in stone that the skies open and we see plenty of rainy, cool weather. I still recon we’ve some good spells of warm sunny weather. While there’s similarity between now and March 2012, we’re nowhere near as extreme as back then. The El Nino was in response to the strong La Nina and the Pacific was in reverse mode. The Atlantic was more warm than cold and the El Nino we’ve got going now is looking stronger and is much more expansive across the equatorial basin than 2012, so I am not for one minute saying it’s the same and these ideas are going to play out just beautifully. I was stung in summer 2012 and in winter 2011-12, I am working hard to learn from my mistakes.

Let’s just look at how this El Nino is coming along. The past winter saw a west to central Pacific based warm ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) event but back in March we’ve seen a strong westerly burst and waters are sharply warming now over the eastern equatorial Pacific.

Anthony Sagliani of AccuWeather tweeted these charts showing the weak or westerly trade anomalies persisting across the equatorial Pacific as a strong Kelvin wave reaches the E Pacific.

Now that waters are warming around us and an extension of abnormally warm water runs all the way back into the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific, we should see an enhanced southerly or sub-tropical jet this summer, I believe wetter times are ahead for us as a result, perhaps not till May and this wetter theme may take us into June as the stronger El Nino kicks in. The trouble is each nino episode is different and reacts differently to our atmosphere and so there’s a good deal of uncertainty remaining over how wet and how that wet will get distributed.

Check out these infrared, false colour satellite views representing an enhanced sub-tropical jet coming out of the equatorial Pacific and crossing Mexico and the Southern US, notice how this plume extends out from the Caribbean and actually comes up and over the UK, following the very warm water over the central Atlantic.

This shows are tropical connection all the way from the Pacific that could lead to some substantial rain episodes here this summer.

CFSv2 monthly shows a cooler, wetter summer for the UK.

See video for today’s discussion.

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Tags: el nino, ENSO, Super El Nino