HIGHLIGHT: The seasonal mean NINO3.4 anomaly was 2.3C for JFM2016, down several tenths from DJF. We appear to have been at the maximum of this super warm event in the ND timeframe.

The CA method, acting on global JFM2016 seasonal means as latest input, but using a string of global SST going back one year, has all of its members staying >1.0 for Nino34 from now thru MAM2016. There is a significant cool down predicted in 2016, ensemble mean -0.85 by late fall 2016. The first negatives in some members show up in 3-mo-mean MJJ.

There are 8 (5) large +ve (-ve) weights in excess of abs(0.10), listed below.

Weights changed little from last month although a few -0.09s were pushed over -0.10, thus an increase into list of large –ve years. Of the historically strong warm event years (58, 73, 83, 98) the weights are now evenly 0.11, 0.10, 0.09 and 0.13 respectively. The years preceding (57, 72, 82, 97) have all –ve weight (-0.03, -0.06, -0.07 and -0.07). Transition to La Nina is thus baked in as per these weights. The weight for 2015 (the string ending with JFM2015), however, is still high, and this puts a damper on the possibility for a La Nina forecast for 2016, but only for the 6 “late” members of the ensemble of 12. The weight for 2015 should go down dramatically if neutral or cold conditions were to develop. Some sort of non-linearity and an oddity related to the spring transition. 2014 (a failed warm event of sort) also has a high weight.

There have been other changes last month. Another completed year of data was added which in view of co-linearity did change weights. The covariance matrix went up in size from 59X59 to 60X60. And the weight assigned two month ago for example to 1997 (the year of mid month of string NDJ) will be found under 1998 ( the year of mid month of string JFM)

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 FMA2015 thru JFM2016). Years in the table are labeled by the year of the middle month of the most recent predictor season. Weights for 1956 and 2015 are less (by 50%) because only half the members use these years ("early" members use 1956, "late" members 2015). Data currently thru Mar 2016.

Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Wgt	Year	IP	Weigt
1956	xx	-6	1966	Xx	-12	1976	Xx	-5	1986	xx	-2	1996	xx	-5	2006	xx	0
1957	xx	-3	1967	Xx	-10	1977	Xx	8	1987	xx	2	1997	xx	-7	2007	xx	3
1958	xx	11	1968	Xx	-8	1978	Xx	2	1988	xx	-3	1998	xx	13	2008	xx	1
1959	xx	10	1969	Xx	5	1979	Xx	-3	1989	xx	-1	1999	xx	1	2009	xx	-5
1960	xx	16	1970	Xx	-1	1980	Xx	0	1990	xx	8	2000	xx	-8	2010	xx	9
1961	xx	7	1971	Xx	-12	1981	Xx	-3	1991	xx	-2	2001	xx	2	2011	xx	-3
1962	xx	-3	1972	Xx	-6	1982	Xx	-7	1992	xx	10	2002	xx	-2	2012	xx	9
1963	xx	-1	1973	Xx	10	1983	xx	9	1993	xx	-4	2003	xx	2	2013	xx	1
1964	xx	7	1974	Xx	-6	1984	Xx	-6	1994	xx	-8	2004	xx	-2	2014	xx	10
1965	xx	-16	1975	Xx	1	1985	Xx	-13	1995	xx	9	2005	xx	8	2015	xx	13

Weights are high +ve (>+0.10) for 2015, 2014,1998, 1992,1973,1960,1959,1958

Weights are high -ve (< - 0.10) for 1985,1971,1967,1966,1965

Ens ave Nino34 anomaly forecasts, for leads -3, -2, -1, 0 etc: in plain numbers (ensemble mean of 12):

2.32	2.08	1.53	0.61	0.19	-0.21	-0.42	-0.59	-0.7	-0.81	-0.84	-0.78	-0.64	-0.59	-0.36	-0.22	-0.21	-0.25	-0.2	-0.18	-0.17
JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON16		NDJ		JFM17		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON

One month ago

2.62	2.44	1.89	1.02	0.52	0.14	-0.23	-0.44	-0.65	-0.78	-0.93	-1	-0.98	-1.04	-0.74	-0.5	-0.36	-0.32	-0.33	-0.25	-0.25
	JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON16		NDJ		JFM17		MAM		MJJ		JAS

Two months ago

2.8	2.7	2.31	1.47	0.94	0.4	-0.01	-0.4	-0.62	-0.85	-1.01	-1.19	-1.25	-1.6	-1.33	-0.91	-0.56	-0.32	-0.2	-0.11	0.04
NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON16		NDJ		JFM17		MAM		MJJ		JAS

Three month ago:

2.79	2.78	2.61	2.04	1.45	0.95	0.46	0.09	-0.27	-0.44	-0.61	-0.7	-0.84	-1.36	-1.29	-1.05	-0.7	-0.39	-0.21	-0.11	-0.06
	NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON16		NDJ		JFM17		MAM		MJJ

Four months ago:

2.44	2.52	2.68	2.54	2.06	1.48	1	0.5	0.13	-0.2	-0.29	-0.38	-0.43	-1	-1.08	-1.03	-0.85	-0.58	-0.33	-0.22	-0.17
SON15		NDJ		JFM16		MAM		MJJ		JAS		SON		NDJ16		JFM17		MAM		MJJ

Anomalies relative to 1981-2010 climo.