Stormchaserchuck1

Flagstaff, AZ's record high for the month of March is 73 They are projected to hit 87 Friday, 14 degrees higher than all time high for the month with 11 days to go! Thursday Sunny, with a high near 86. Friday Sunny, with a high near 87. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 83. Flagstaff has never hit 100F in the Summertime. So their difference between this March's high temp and previous March's all time (since 1899) is greater than the difference between this March's high and their all time highest temp ever recorded. The next 7 straight days there +4> than their previous monthly record (77 or higher every day).

Flagstaff, AZ's record high for the month of March is 73 They are projected to hit 87 Friday, 14 degrees higher than all time high for the month with 11 days to go! Thursday Sunny, with a high near 86. Friday Sunny, with a high near 87. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 83. Flagstaff has never hit 100F in the Summertime. So their difference between this March's high temp and previous March's all time (since 1899) is greater than the difference between this March's high and their all time highest temp ever recorded.

Palm Springs, CA hit 106F today, a new monthly record. Palm Springs, CA has now come within 28 degrees of the all time highest temperature ever recorded on Earth in the wintertime! They are expected to go higher tomorrow and Friday.

The heat wave in the SW, US over the next 10 days is probably more impressive than 2012. Ranks up there with June 2021 in the NW with std of top warm departures all time.

March 2026 is likely going to finish the warmest March on record for CONUS

Here is what a typical El Nino Summer looks like in the 1948-2020 dataset

March SSW's have not coincided with lagging -NAO's the last few times.

^ Current NWS forecast for Flagstaff Thursday Sunny, with a high near 83. Friday Sunny, with a high near 85. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 81.

Looking a little warmer for us in the medium/long range, under constant +nao

Roger put a lot of effort into this, to give us fun competition for many years. RIP buddy

Since the pre-El Nino composite has worked out 4 months in a row, here is April's preceding El Nino's that develop later in the year.. let's see if we can make it 5 matching months in a row

I have sleet

Since 2011, the 2 El Nino Atlantic Hurricane seasons have looked like this 2023 2015 In contrast, the Strongest La Nina season since 2011 looked like this: 2020 Tied 2nd Strongest La nina season.. 2016 Tied 2nd Strongest La nina season.. 2022 You can see generally more E -> W trajectory of storms in La Nina seasons vs more S -> N in El Nino seasons.

Daily records 4 days with an average of beating previous record by +10F/day.

New NWS forecast has downtown Phoenix hitting 108F Friday, with 11 days to go in the month. This is up there in std's of top records broken. June 2021 in the PNW and SW Canada comes to mind.

NWS forecast for Phoenix.. their all time March high on record was March 26, 1988, 100F. They have only hit 100 once in March (someone correct me if I'm wrong, that's what I've seen other people post). Wednesday Sunny, with a high near 102. Thursday Sunny, with a high near 105. Friday Sunny, with a high near 107. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 106. Sunday Mostly sunny, with a high near 103.

It will be interesting to see if RONI vs ONI makes a difference this season, because RONI will be ~-0.5c vs ONI. That difference in Moderate Nino range is historically about 2 NS/yr 2023 was +1.1c RONI (ASO), and +1.6c ONI and that season had 20 Named Storms, and slightly above average ACE. (SSTAs in the Atlantic so far this year are nothing close to 2023).

^Well we've had 5/6 recent years La Nina (RONI), and 7/10 recent years La Nina. In 20-21 we were -0.1c away from Strong Nina, so I don't think we are "due". Actually history shows that 4/6+ ENSO-state occurrence flips in the following 3-5 years 2:1

And temps higher than the low 60s

I think getting off for a thunderstorm is a little ridiculous, temps will be what low 60s? But kids probably go to school too much anyways.

2009 -1.3 1986 -0.3 If you're going to include those, you should include 1957: -2.7 So we've never in developing Moderate+ El Nino's since 1950 had a March SOI over +2.1 Now it has recently reversed on the daily from positive, to negative (-9) on March 15th.

Sometimes. Here is how a Nino 3.4 El Nino usually develops.. first over the dateline: Sometimes Stronger El Nino's will develop in the far east and spread west to Nino 3, but they typically don't jump to where the western ENSO regions have the same +std as the east.

12z ECMWF has Phoenix hitting 104-104 March 20-21. 12z EPS is 103-102

An El Nino is likely to develop by the Summer of 2026. The ENSO subsurface is very warm Since 1985, the most extreme ENSO subsurface anomalies for this time of the year, 8/10 (80%) became favored warm/cold ENSO state later that year. The CPC on March 12 has put up an El Nino watch for 2026: Climate Prediction Center: ENSO Diagnostic Discussion They are giving an 80% chance that August-Sept-Oct (peak Hurricane season) will be El Nino In 1995, a positive phase to the AMO cycle began, and a major uptick in Atlantic Hurricane activity occurred. Since 1995, we have averaged the following number of storms per year in various ENSO states (using the RONI): El Nino (7 years): 12.1 TS, 5.0 Hurr, 2.6 MH Neutral (11 years): 16.1 TS, 8.0 Hurr, 3.4 MH La Nina (13 years): 17.4 TS, 8.4 Hurr, 4.3 MH Climate Prediction Center - Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) El Nino has been associated with much lower activity, and that occurs back to 1950 and before. Since 1995, Strongest 3 El Nino's (ASO>+1.2): (3 years): 10.3 TS, 3.7 Hurr, 1.7 MH Since 1995, Weakest 4 El Nino's (ASO<+1.1): (4 years): 13.5 TS, 6.0 Hurr, 3.3 MH So, there has been a pretty big difference between the El Nino being weaker or stronger for the Hurricane season in terms of total activity. It's important to monitor ENSO going forward, current projections are probably right around +1.0 ASO RONI. AMO CPC AMO Index stopped updating January 2023 I made a raw and smoothed graph of the AMO 1995 to Jan 2023: Raw Smoothed In Summer/Fall 2023, the Atlantic was record warm, and then Summer/Fall 2024 was warmer than that. They were the #2 and #1 AMO Seasons on record, so the trend continues to be Up-general, although the 2025 Season was much colder Atlantic SSTs. Record warm SSTs in 2023 helped 20 Named Storms occur (4th highest all time) in a +1.1c ASO El Nino. Last season (2025) was a colder AMO in Weak La Nina, and had 13 Named Storms, 4 Major Hurricanes. Anomalies in a bunch Something that we have seen in the past few seasons is Top 1% Rapid Intensification with certain storms. 2023 - Lee 2024 - Milton (honorable mention to Beryl, the earliest Cat 5 on record) 2025 - Erin and Mellisa What are some other indicators to how active the season will be? April-May Atlantic Sea-level pressure Since 1995, the most active Atlantic Hurricane Seasons minus the least active Atlantic Hurricane Seasons, have this preceding April-May sea-level pressure anomaly in the Northern Hemisphere -AO and -NAO in April-May precedes more active Atlantic Hurricane seasons +AO and +NAO in April-May precedes less active Atlantic Hurricane seasons Atlantic SSTs Current global SSTA [time sensitive] Never too early to start discussing! Thoughts? Related Discussions:

Ok, I saw a different graph at another time.