HIGHLIGHT: The seasonal mean NINO3.4 anomaly was positive at 0.76 C for NDJ2014/15, unchanged from OND, and the third running 3-month mean > 0.5C.

The CA method, acting on global NDJ2014/15 seasonal means as latest input, but using a string of global SST going back one year, has all of its members staying positive until MAM 2015. By that time all members will have fallen below 0.5C. The ensemble mean has already peaked at about 0.75 in NDJ2014/15. So much for a very weak warm event in winter 2014/15 in terms of Nino34 SST. CA-SST is non-committal about what might happen later in 2015, but if anything slightly +ve.

Weights were stable from last month. There are 8 (5) large +ve (-ve) weights in excess of abs(0.10). Four years in the 1956-1965 decade have unusually high weights (like 1959 +0.19 and 1964 -0.16) – this old decade has only recently become so important in constructing the analogue. Moreover, 1957, 1958 and 1959 are ALL strongly positive, so in addition to interannual, the interdecadal plays a big role here.

Announcement: Next month, data thru DJF2014/15, the covariance matrix will be upped by one. This could lead, potentially, to rather big changes assigned to individual years.

Table 1. Inner products (IP; scaled such that the sum of absolute values is 100; not shown) and weights (Wgt multiplied by 100.) of each of the years to construct an analogue to the sequence of 12 consecutive overlapping 3-month periods defined as the base (currently the 12 overlapping seasons string DJF2014 thru NDJ2014). Years in the table are labeled by the year of the middle month of the most recent predictor season. Weights for 1956 and 2013 are less (by 50%) because only half the members use these years ("early" members use 1956, "late" members 2013). Data currently thru Jan 2015. Next month the year 2014 will have a weight in this table.

Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Weigt
1956	xx	-6	1966	xx	-5	1976	Xx	10	1986	xx	10	1996	xx	1	2006	xx	0
1957	xx	13	1967	xx	9	1977	Xx	3	1987	xx	-11	1997	xx	1	2007	xx	7
1958	xx	13	1968	xx	-9	1978	Xx	-4	1988	xx	-5	1998	xx	-13	2008	xx	-2
1959	xx	19	1969	xx	1	1979	Xx	4	1989	xx	1	1999	xx	-15	2009	xx	9
1960	xx	-5	1970	xx	-2	1980	Xx	0	1990	xx	2	2000	xx	-4	2010	xx	3
1961	xx	1	1971	xx	-16	1981	Xx	-5	1991	xx	-3	2001	xx	5	2011	xx	12
1962	xx	-1	1972	xx	-3	1982	Xx	-4	1992	xx	1	2002	xx	9	2012	xx	12
1963	xx	-3	1973	xx	-3	1983	xx	3	1993	xx	1	2003	xx	9	2013	xx	10
1964	xx	-16	1974	xx	7	1984	Xx	-4	1994	xx	-3	2004	xx	-3	2014	xx	NA
1965	xx	-8	1975	xx	-1	1985	Xx	-3	1995	xx	5	2005	xx	7		xx	Xx

Weights are high +ve (>+0.10) for 2013,2012,2011,1986,1976,1959,1958,1957

Weights are high -ve (< - 0.10) for 1999,1998,1987,1971,1964

Ens ave Nino34 anomaly forecasts, for leads -3, -2, -1, 0 etc: in plain numbers (ensemble mean):

0.76	0.72	0.59	0.34	0.28	0.23	0.22	0.19	0.12	0.09	0.14	0.19	0.17	0.05	-0.04	0	0.08	0.12	0.12	0.11	0.18
NDJ		JFM15		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS

One month ago:

0.75	0.77	0.68	0.5	0.32	0.25	0.19	0.19	0.17	0.15	0.13	0.21	0.25	0.14	-0.01	-0.06	0.01	0.11	0.14	0.11	0.05
	NDJ		JFM15		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ

Two months ago

0.6	0.66	0.78	0.76	0.63	0.46	0.38	0.29	0.25	0.17	0.17	0.18	0.25	0.25	0.19	0.07	0.02	0.09	0.16	0.12	-0.02
SON		NDJ		JFM15		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ

Three months ago:

0.35	0.41	0.63	0.92	0.88	0.8	0.65	0.58	0.45	0.35	0.19	0.14	0.13	0.21	0.31	0.29	0.2	0.14	0.19	0.25	0.2
	SON		NDJ		JFM15		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM

Four months ago

0.28	0.3	0.44	0.73	0.88	0.88	0.83	0.7	0.66	0.56	0.46	0.28	0.19	0.2	0.34	0.53	0.56	0.46	0.32	0.28	0.26
JAS		SON		NDJ		JFM		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM

Anomalies relative to 1981-2010 climo.