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Wasn’t it supposed to be sunny today? It’s raining here

Just awful. Defense and offense.

I think the NAM did the best with the track of the nor’easter. I believe it was the first to hook it back to the coast.

Close to peak in central Maine. Makes for a pretty commute.

You said in your earlier post that I responded to: “It was a+2.1 event up until a few years ago before the CPC dropped it to +1.8. So until very recently it was rated as a lower end super.” 1. The CPC officially now has 72-3 at +2.0, not +1.8, as I showed, because ONI hasn’t been official since Feb. 2. You said, “With an event as extreme as this RONI can make the event seem weaker than it actually is.” No, it’s not RONI making the event seem weaker. It’s ONI making the current Nino seem stronger than it really is due to GW. That’s the reason the RONI exists. ONI isn’t per NOAA and BoM the absolute strength of the 26 Nino, itself, because that exaggerates the strength due to adding the increasing warming from GW to the warming from El Niño, itself. The warming from El Niño, itself, is what RONI measures. I’ll use a hypothetical example to illustrate better: -Say that the avg worldwide tropical ocean 30 year SSTa is at +1.0 vs its prior 30 year avg. Now say that 3.4 is also at +1.0 vs its own 30 yr avg. Per ONI it’s a +1.0 Nino. But per RONI it’s at 0.0/neutral because it’s measuring the contrast of the 3.4 anom vs the anomaly of the tropical waters. NOAA and BoM at the least have determined that +1.0 is deceptively high in this example because 3.4 is up to +1.0 due to GW, not because of El Niño. Measuring the true strength of ENSO means measuring the contrast with surrounding tropical waters. If 3.4 and avg tropical waters are both at +1.0c there’s essentially no contrast (no relatively warm tongue in 3.4) and thus no Nino. A contrast is needed to have a Nino (or a Niña) per the official RONI. With no contrast like in this example it is neutral. @mitchnick

https://bsky.app/profile/bmcnoldy.bsky.social/post/3mwss7mmx2k26

I agree. But most modeling was going in a different direction and some were questioning whether this Niño was coupling.

It all waxes and wanes. Nothing new in the earth's history will come of it. But I can see how using RONI could "upset" some who think (or make a living from) the end of the world is coming.

December 24th

Not really that crazy, october is typically cold in the east during Nino.

The planet doesn’t care about squabbles based on how humans define things. It just responds to the actual temperatures. So the headline story for the planet right now is that we are exceeding past super El Niño events by a wide margin and it’s still only early October. All-time SST records are increasing from Nino 3.4 to 1.2.

So anything that dares to minimize CC can't be better. Typical coming from the paid CC spokesman, Ben Knoll.

I would lock in. The energy futures market for natural gas, heating oil, electricity is pretty nuts out to next year. Every 3rd party electricity supplier in New England is like $15-20 more a month right now for rates. Eversources standard supplier rates are currently much cheaper until the price adjustment hits in Dec. Its pretty much guaranteed there will be huge increases coming this winter as usually 3rd party electricity suppliers are much cheaper.

The old ONI that we used before the recent updates was also +2.1. It’s perfectly fine to use the ONI as a measurement of the actual intensity of the event. With an event as extreme as this RONI can make the event seem weaker than it actually is. https://x.com/BenNollWeather/status/2105084471750037987 From a scientific perspective, part of the challenge is that weather patterns in different parts of the world are not equally sensitive to the same El Niño index. In South America, for example, Niño 1+2 is particularly important, while patterns across the U.S., Australia, Singapore and many other regions are more closely associated with conditions in Niño 3.4. Some rely on a blend of ocean-atmosphere indicators (e.g., ONI, RONI, SOI, EQSOI, OLR, MEI, etc.) to capture coupling. For the public, the minutiae of those indices matter much less. What's record-breaking in one index may not be record-breaking in another, and I think it's incumbent on the communicator to make that clear. At the very least, if a record is being claimed, then a reference to the index/data set being used is essential (see attached). Not everyone will read the fine print, but it's duty of care. I think there's an opportunity for a larger body to step in (e.g., WMO) to classify a record El Niño event, if there's sufficient evidence, like they would a global temperature record. Lastly, I think the RONI-ONI debate will go on for years. RONI is more closely tied to atmospheric responses. ONI informs absolute extremes. In the ONI space, every tenth of a degree matters to global water vapor levels and temperatures, and therefore, the weather. The best approach is up for debate, but I think showing both is a fair balance. One El Niño, many ways to measure it! https://x.com/WeatherProf/status/2105064342441939064 On the other hand, if you are trying to communicate the absolute strength of this El Niño vs other historic El Nino’s, how global warming has impacted it, or how it may impact global temperatures in the coming months - then use the traditional ONI or raw sea surface temperature anomalies. Certainly it can be confusing to the public, but I’d argue the relative index inadvertently obscures the larger climate signal - it can be misleading because it basically subtracts the warming that has occurred in recent decades. So it’s unintentionally deceptive.

Rinse and repeat, rainfall in central NC not going to amount to nearly the totals we were expecting all week: Given the mesoscale and subsequent nrn stream influences noted above, precipitation amounts have trended lower across model guidance in the past 24 hours for cntl NC, particularly over the Piedmont.

Yes, compensated by more NHEMI warmth in the US, and the tropical and sub-tropical Pacific this year. The antarctic had a bigger impact on global and SHemi temperatures than the arctic because it has strong anomalies and its influence extends to nearby sea ice and ocean.

bring on winter

It will probably hit 72 in December

It will only take one well-timed cold air mass amidst all that moisture = massive snowstorm. Strong Nino winters can offer up opportunities for substantial snows.