El Niño 2015-16 becoming Poster Child for "All El Niños are not the same!" - Golden Gate Weather Services

El Niño 2015-16 becoming Poster Child for "All El Niños are not the same!"

El Niño 2015-16 becoming Poster Child for "All El Niños are not the same!"

Among the mantras from the past year by myself, SF State Professor Dr. John Monteverdi and many other responsible meteorologists, are that 1) each El Niño is unique, 2) the number of past events is statistically very small for comparison, and 3) that there are "no guarantees". To date many of the blogs, webpages and associated articles have look at the similarities to previous strong and very strong El Niño events.

However, as the El Niño 2015-2016 and its impacts continue to unfold, Dr. Monteverdi and I felt it's important to look at how this year is dissimilar in many ways to previous events. To that end we have co-authored the following page: Differences Between 2015-16 El Niño and Previous Strong and Very Strong Events.

Below is one of the figures from that page, which breaks down the Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies (SSTAs) for each of the strong and very strong El Niños for all four of the Niño sampling regions in the tropical Pacific. Other data includes how the circulation patterns are different along with how the November through January precipitation and temperature patterns don't match very well with previous events,

Image: https://gallery.mailchimp.com/204b7b5836feabf8f536d0226/images/c9b40d77-01d2-41fe-87ca-6be270055740.png

Coming soon, will be a separate page with how the second half of the winter during these events has looked.

Jan Null, CCM
Golden Gate Weather Services

Dr. John Monterverdi, CCM
San Francisco State University

Jan Null

Jan Null has been a meteorologist in the San Francisco Bay Area for 50 years and is frequently seen on television and heard on the radio when weather is in the news. Twenty-six years ago he founded a consulting firm, Golden Gate Weather Services, after a 24-year career with the National Weather Service. Mr. Null is a Bay Area native, having grown up in Oakland and lived in the East Bay until 2006 when he moved to Saratoga. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Atmospheric Science from UC Davis in 1974 and his Master’s from San Jose State in 1992. Jan joined the National Weather Service in 1974 at the Weather Service Forecast Office in Redwood City. He worked as an operational forecaster throughout his career, including 13 years as Lead Forecaster. During his tenure at the NWS he also served as Meteorologist-in-Charge at the Center Weather Service Unit at the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Center in Fremont. He also did extensive research into the relationship between El Niño, La Niña and California rainfall and throughout his career he was a frequent media spokesperson for the agency. Jan has also been an Adjunct Professor and Lecturer at San Francisco and San Jose State Universities where he taught one evening a week for nearly 30 years. In 1998, Jan founded Golden Gate Weather Services, a consulting firm that specializes in forensic meteorology. He frequently serves as an expert witness in litigation where the weather is a factor. This often involves reconstructing past weather events or as his wife refers to it: “CSI Weather”. Mr. Null is also an internationally recognized expert of the sad topic of the heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles. After the death of a child left a vehicle in San Jose in 2001 he did a comprehensive study of vehicle temperatures that was ultimately published in Pediatrics in 2005. Since that time he has spoken at numerous national conferences and worked with a wide variety of child safety advocacy groups and agencies to raise awareness about the dozens of children who die from hyperthermia in hot vehicles each year. This data continues to be updated at NOHeatstroke.org. In his spare time he is a serious amateur photographer, specializing in wildlife and landscapes. Jan is married to Susan Hollis, a lifelong Saratoga resident and Realtor. He has two adult children in the Bay Area and the world’s most adorable 9-year old granddaughter and 4-year grandson.

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