The APEC Climate Center has launched its new Probabilistic El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Forecast on it's the APCC website (www.apcc21.org, menu tab: Climate Information Services > Seasonal Forecast > ENSO) on November 26, 2018.

The ENSO cycle describes the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmospere in the east-central Equatorial Pacific Ocean. Complex weather patterns result from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean. The ENSO name combines the two phenomena of El Nino and Southern Oscillation due to the typical occurrence of El Nino in coincidence with low atmospheric pressure on east.

In the newly launched APCC probabilistic ENSO forecast, there are three stages of ENSO: El Nino, La Nina, and neutral stages. There are also three classifications of intensities: strong, moderate, weak. Calculations of the probabilities of each of these categories are performed for a six-month forecast. This information is then visualized in an easy-to-understand format and uploaded onto the APCC website.(www.apcc21.org)

APCC expects that the probabilistic ENSO forecast will contribute to its efforts to provide more diverse and practical forecast information to its climate information users.