Island Climate Update 171 - December 2014

An overview of the present climate in the tropical South Pacific Islands, with an outlook for the coming months, to assist in dissemination of climate information in the Pacific region.

10 December 2014

An overview of the present climate in the tropical South Pacific Islands, with an outlook for the coming months, to assist in dissemination of climate information in the Pacific region.

Download ICU 171 (PDF 313 KB)

Download ICU Water Watch (PDF 798 KB)

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Island Climate Update

In this issue

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    Introduction

    Sea surface temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific have crossed El Niño thresholds in November 2014.

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    El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

    During November 2014, Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) steadily increased across the equatorial Pacific ocean and all NINO indices have now crossed the conventional El Niño thresholds.

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    South Pacific Convergence Zone forecast December 2014 to February 2015

    The ensemble of global climate models for rainfall that are used in METPI show an area of higher than normal rainfall associated with the SPCZ position.

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    Tropical rainfall and SST outlook: December 2014 to February 2015

    The dynamical models forecasts indicate that the west equatorial as well as some parts of the southeast Pacific are likely to experience normal or above-normal rainfall for the December 2014 - February 2015 season as a whole.

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    ICU Water Watch

    Based on rainfall anomaly classification over the past six months and forecast rainfall anomaly classification over the next 3 months.

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    Data sources

    Sources of South Pacific rainfall data