Island Climate Update 188 - May 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.

09 May 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 188 (PDF 1.2MB)

Download ICU Water Watch (PDF 348 KB)

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Island Climate Update

In this issue

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    Introduction

    El Niño conditions weakened further in April 2016.

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    El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

    El Niño conditions eased in the tropical Pacific during April 2016, with sea surface temperatures (SSTs) now typically only about +1°C warmer than normal.

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    South Pacific Convergence Zone forecast May to July 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: May to July 2016

    The dynamical models are in agreement to forecast rapidly weakening El Niño conditions for the May – July 2016 period, with a return to neutral conditions over the season as a whole the most likely outcome (76% 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