TELECONNECTIONS BETWEEN TROPICAL PACIFIC SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES AND NORTH-CAROLINA PRECIPITATION ANOMALIES DURING EL-NINO EVENTS

Linear teleconnections of El Nino events and precipitation over a regi onal coastal land mass were analyzed. Two statistical techniques were used. First, the Empirical Orthogonal Function extracted major varianc es of the monthly tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies a nd coastal North Carolina precipitation anomalies. Second, the Canonic al Correlation Analysis calculated the linear combinations of the anom aly data sets that were highly correlated. The results show that El Ni no-related precipitation anomalies along the North Carolina coast were positive from November to May and negative between June and October c onsistent with large-scale studies. Results indicate simple, linear st atistical techniques can be effectively adopted to determine teleconne ctions on a local scale.