. . . . . . . . PROGNOSTIC DISCUSSION FOR LONG-LEAD HAWAIIAN OUTLOOKS CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER NCEP NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WASHINGTON DC 3 PM EDT THURSDAY DEC 19 2002 MONTHLY OUTLOOK DISCUSSION FOR JAN 2003 SSTS IN THE CENTRAL EQUATORIAL PACIFIC ARE CLOSE TO 2 DEGREES C ABOVE NORMAL AND ARE EXPECTED TO REMAIN WELL ABOVE NORMAL THROUGH THE MONTH OF JANUARY. LOCAL SSTS REMAIN NEAR NORMAL IN THE VICINITY OF HAWAII. NEARLY ALL GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS INDICATE DRY CONDITIONS FOR ALL HAWAIIAN ISLANDS IN ASSOCIATION WITH EL NINO CONDITIONS. EL NINO ALSO VERY SLIGHTLY FAVORS COOL TEMPERATURES IN JANUARY. FCST AVE LIM FCST BLW MEDIAN ABV HILO B4 71.6 0.5 B10 3.5 7.5 11.0 KAHULUI B3 71.9 0.5 B6 1.6 2.2 2.9 HONOLULU EC 72.9 0.7 B5 0.7 1.4 3.5 LIHUE B3 71.7 0.5 B8 1.4 3.1 4.8 . . . . . . . . SEASONAL OUTLOOK DISCUSSION FOR JAN-FEB-MAR 2003 TO JAN-FEB-MAR 2004 REFER TO THE 90 DAY DISCUSSION FOR FORECASTS OF EQUATORIAL PACIFIC SST AND DETAILS OF THE GENERAL BACKGROUND TO THE FORECAST. MODERATE EL NINO CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO CONTINUE THROUGH THE EARLY PART OF THE YEAR. STATISTICAL TOOLS AND NUMERICAL MODELS SHOW THE POSITIVE SST ANOMALIES IN THE NINO 3.4 REGION DECREASING THROUGH LATE BOREAL WINTER INTO SPRING. NINO 3.4 SST PREDICTION TOOLS DISAGREE ON HOW FAST THE CURRENT WARM ENSO CONDITIONS WILL WEAKEN... WITH THE NCEP COUPLED MODEL... MARKOV STATISTICAL TOOL... AND THE CANONICAL CORRELATION ANALYSIS KEEPING NINO 3.4 SSTS POSITIVE THROUGH THE FALL ... WHILE THE CONSTRUCTED ANALOG HAS BELOW NORMAL SSTS BY THE SUMMER. PAST CASES WITH MATURE WARM ENSO CONDITIONS IN WINTER FAVOR A RETURN TO NEUTRAL CONDITIONS BY SUMMER. ENSO IS THE PREDOMINANT PREDICTIVE SIGNAL FOR HAWAII ON THIS SERIES OF FORECASTS AND IS ASSOCIATED WITH BELOW MEDIAN COOL SEASON PRECIPITATION. PAST EL NINO EPISODES HAVE BEEN WEAKLY ASSOCIATED WITH BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES DURING THE COLDER HALF OF THE YEAR AND RESULTS IN ELEVATED CHANCES FOR BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES EXCEPT AT HONOLULU WHERE RECENT WARMING TRENDS SHOULD COUNTERACT THE EL NINO-RELATED COOLING THROUGH MAM... AND FAVOR WARMER THAN NORMAL TEMPERATURES AFTERWARDS. ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS FOR HILO FROM JJA THROUGH ASO ARE FROM WEAK LAGGED CORRELATIONS WITH WARM NINO 3.4 SSTS AND NEGATIVE SOI INDEX VALUES IN THE SPRING. HILO TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION FCST AVE LIM FCST BLW MEDIAN ABV JFM 2003 B4 71.8 0.4 B20 23.9 30.9 39.4 FMA 2003 B3 72.1 0.4 B15 29.5 35.9 43.1 MAM 2003 B3 72.8 0.5 B5 28.3 34.9 42.6 AMJ 2003 B3 73.9 0.4 B3 22.0 26.8 32.2 MJJ 2003 B2 75.0 0.4 EC 19.1 23.1 27.8 JJA 2003 EC 75.9 0.4 EC 19.5 24.2 29.6 JAS 2003 EC 76.3 0.4 EC 22.2 27.1 32.7 ASO 2003 EC 76.2 0.4 EC 23.4 27.0 31.0 SON 2003 EC 75.5 0.4 EC 25.8 31.7 38.4 OND 2003 EC 74.2 0.4 EC 26.1 33.1 41.3 NDJ 2003 EC 72.8 0.4 EC 25.5 32.9 41.7 DJF 2004 EC 72.0 0.4 EC 20.1 27.2 35.9 JFM 2004 EC 71.8 0.4 EC 23.9 30.9 39.4 KAHULUI TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION FCST AVE LIM FCST BLW MEDIAN ABV JFM 2003 B4 72.4 0.5 B10 6.0 8.1 10.6 FMA 2003 B3 73.2 0.5 B8 4.3 6.0 8.1 MAM 2003 B2 74.4 0.6 B2 2.9 4.2 5.8 AMJ 2003 EC 75.8 0.6 EC 1.0 1.8 3.1 MJJ 2003 EC 77.3 0.6 EC 0.7 1.1 1.5 JJA 2003 EC 78.6 0.5 EC 0.8 1.1 1.3 JAS 2003 EC 79.1 0.5 EC 0.9 1.2 1.5 ASO 2003 EC 78.9 0.5 EC 1.3 1.8 2.5 SON 2003 EC 77.8 0.5 EC 2.2 3.1 4.3 OND 2003 EC 75.9 0.5 EC 4.2 5.7 7.6 NDJ 2003 EC 73.8 0.5 EC 5.7 7.8 10.4 DJF 2004 EC 72.5 0.5 EC 6.8 9.0 11.7 JFM 2004 EC 72.4 0.5 EC 6.0 8.1 10.6 HONOLULU TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION FCST AVE LIM FCST BLW MEDIAN ABV JFM 2003 EC 73.5 0.4 B4 4.1 5.8 8.0 FMA 2003 EC 74.5 0.4 B5 3.4 4.6 6.1 MAM 2003 EC 76.0 0.4 B4 2.4 3.2 4.3 AMJ 2003 A3 77.7 0.4 B2 1.2 1.8 2.6 MJJ 2003 A5 79.3 0.4 EC 1.0 1.4 2.0 JJA 2003 A5 80.7 0.4 EC 0.8 1.2 1.6 JAS 2003 A5 81.2 0.4 EC 1.1 1.5 2.0 ASO 2003 A5 81.0 0.5 EC 1.7 2.6 3.8 SON 2003 A5 79.6 0.5 EC 2.7 4.0 5.9 OND 2003 A3 77.3 0.5 EC 4.5 6.2 8.4 NDJ 2003 A3 75.0 0.5 EC 4.1 6.1 8.7 DJF 2004 A2 73.5 0.4 EC 5.0 6.9 9.1 JFM 2004 A2 73.5 0.4 EC 4.1 5.8 8.0 LIHUE TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION FCST AVE LIM FCST BLW MEDIAN ABV JFM 2003 B5 72.4 0.4 B15 8.0 10.8 14.1 FMA 2003 B4 73.1 0.4 B10 7.5 9.6 12.0 MAM 2003 B3 74.4 0.4 B7 7.3 9.2 11.4 AMJ 2003 EC 75.9 0.4 B5 5.3 7.0 9.0 MJJ 2003 EC 77.5 0.4 EC 4.6 6.2 8.0 JJA 2003 EC 78.8 0.3 EC 4.6 5.6 6.6 JAS 2003 EC 79.3 0.3 EC 5.1 6.2 7.4 ASO 2003 EC 79.0 0.3 EC 6.3 8.0 10.0 SON 2003 EC 77.7 0.3 EC 9.1 10.9 12.9 OND 2003 EC 75.6 0.3 EC 10.7 13.3 16.2 NDJ 2003 EC 73.6 0.3 EC 9.8 12.5 15.8 DJF 2004 EC 72.4 0.4 EC 8.6 11.4 14.7 JFM 2004 EC 72.4 0.4 EC 8.0 10.8 14.1 FORECASTER: D. UNGER NOTE - EC (EQUAL CHANCES) HAS REPLACED CL (CLIMATOLOGICAL PROBABILITIES) AT THOSE LOCATIONS WHERE THE FORECAST IS UNCERTAIN. CLARIFICATION: EC INDICATES EQUAL CHANCES THAT THE CLIMATE WILL FALL INTO ANY ONE OF THE THREE RANGES OR CATEGORIES WHOSE BOUNDARIES ARE SPECIFIED IN THE TABLES BELOW. A FORECAST SPECIFICATION OF EC MEANS THERE IS NO PARTICULAR TILT OF THE ODDS TOWARD ABOVE - NORMAL - OR BELOW NORMAL CONDITIONS IN THE OUTLOOK. FOR EXAMPLE - A4 MEANS A 4% HIGHER THAN NORMAL CHANCE THAT TEMPERATURE OR PRECIPITATION WILL BE IN THE ABOVE CLASS - B3 MEANS A 3% HIGHER THAN NORMAL PROBABILITY THAT TEMPERATURE OR PRECIPITATION WILL BE IN THE BELOW CLASS - AND N2 MEANS A 2% HIGHER THAN NORMAL PROBABILITY THAT TEMPERATURE OR PRECIPITATION WILL BE IN THE NEAR NORMAL CLASS. WHEN EC IS SPECIFIED THE PROBABILITY OF THE MOST LIKELY CATEGORY CANNOT BE PREDICTED. NOTE - THESE OUTLOOKS ARE INTENDED FOR USE PRIOR TO THE START OF THEIR VALID PERIODS. WITHIN ANY VALID PERIOD OBSERVATIONS AND SHORTER RANGE FORECASTS SHOULD BE CONSULTED. ALSO - THIS SET OF OUTLOOKS WILL BE SUPERSEDED BY THE ISSUANCE OF THE NEW SET NEXT MONTH ON THURSDAY JANUARY 16 2003 NNNN NNNN