Island Climate Update 186 - March 2016

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.

08 March 2016

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 186 (PDF 1.1 MB)

Download ICU Water Watch (PDF 350 KB)

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Island Climate Update

In this issue

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    Introduction

    Strong El Niño conditions continued in February 2015.

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    El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

    Strong El Niño conditions continued during February 2016, but the event is clearly in its decay phase, having reached a peak at the end of 2015.

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    South Pacific Convergence Zone forecast March to May 2016

    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: March to May 2016

    The dynamical models are in agreement to forecast continuing El Niño conditions for the March – May 2016 period (99% chance).

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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