bluewave

Will be interesting to see if the Euro April 5th release turns out to be as reliable as its El Niño forecast issued back in April 2023. https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/2023-April-quick-look/?enso_tab=enso-sst_table

Yeah, looks like another warmer month coming up as the Western and Eastern ridges merge like we saw in March.

Yeah, we have been at daily record levels since the 23rd. https://bsky.app/profile/climatecasino.net/post/3mhv47nbqqk2j Earth's global 2m surface temperature just posted the hottest March 23rd on record, and likely the hottest March 23rd in the last 120,000+ years. 8:38 AM · Mar 25, 2026

80° warmth could make it onto Long Island to start April with the downsloping flow behind the front this afternoon.

Newark just missed the all-time March warmest minimum temperature by 1° yesterday. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Month of Mar Highest Monthly Minimum Temperature Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1998 63 0 2 2026 62 0 - 1985 62 0 - 1910 62 0 3 1949 60 0 - 1945 60 0 4 2016 59 0 - 1851 59 0

Will be interesting to see the Euro seasonal Nino 3.4 forecast on April 5th once it initializes this event. Wouldn’t be surprised if it increases Nino 3.4 temperatures from the March 5th update. If we get these WWBs continuing and not reversing like we saw in June 2014, then this could be our first two events reaching at least +2.0 C on the ONI scale and around 28.57 C only three years apart. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/oni.ascii.txt NDJ 2023 28.57 2.06 NDJ 2015 29.26 2.75 OND 1997 29.02 2.40 NDJ 1982 28.76 2.23 NDJ 1972 28.54 2.12

First back to back Marches with 2+ days reaching 80°. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Month of Mar 80° days Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1998 5 0 - 1945 5 0 2 1910 4 0 3 2026 3 1 4 2025 2 0 - 2016 2 0 - 1990 2 0 - 1977 2 0 - 1938 2 0 - 1921 2 0 5 2021 1 0 - 2020 1 0 - 2011 1 0 - 2007 1 0 - 1989 1 0 - 1986 1 0 - 1985 1 0 - 1962 1 0 - 1946 1 0 - 1908 1 0

Just a wild out of season warm event for the Southwest.

March is becoming too warm for much snow during the 2020s. It will be interesting to see if we can sneak in a snowier bounce back March before the 2020s ends. Even though several spots haven’t seen a 10” event in March since 1993, most would be happy with a nice 1-3” or 2-4” type event.

On track to finish the March 70° day count just behind 2012. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Month of Mar days reaching 70° Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1945 10 0 2 2012 9 0 3 1946 8 0 4 2026 6 1 5 2016 5 0 - 1998 5 0 - 1989 5 0 - 1986 5 0 - 1921 5 0 - 1913 5 0 - 1910 5 0

This could only be the 6th March with a low temperature staying over 60° at a spot like Newark. https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=kewr Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Month of Mar Warmest Minimum Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1998 63 0 2 1985 62 0 - 1910 62 0 3 1949 60 0 - 1945 60 0

I think that it’s still too early to focus in on the exact magnitude of the El Niño which is beginning to emerge . We need to watch the development into June to have a better idea once we get past the spring forecast barrier. The long range climate models have more of a coast to coast ridge look going forward like we saw this March with warmth extending across the country. So this would be a departure from the cold West and Warm East configuration. This may be related to the continuous North Pacific warm pool from Japan to California not really matching any traditional PDO composite. So it’s theoretically possible that we can get a robust Coast to Coast ridge like we saw this March regardless of the exact strength of the coming El Niño. Since the record 500 mb ridge over the West this past winter really wasn’t related to the La Niña magnitude.

The warm spots like New Brunswick have a chance at another 1-2 March days reaching 70° and could get close to 2012. Time Series Summary for New Brunswick Area, NJ (ThreadEx) - Month of Mar Number of 70° days Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1945 11 0 2 2012 8 0 3 1946 7 0 4 2026 6 3 - 1921 6 0 5 2016 5 0 - 1989 5 0 - 1948 5 0 - 1913 5 1 - 1910 5 2 - 1903 5 0

There also seems to be a type of underlying pattern with pairs of winters sharing similar overlapping locations of where their primary ridge and trough locations are found. We can take this back to at least the 09-10 to 10-11 winters. Same story for the 2020s so far. So in a very general sense perhaps the next few winters will find a way to share this similarity also. Obviously, this is all in hindsight and we will need to see how things evolve heading into next winter and beyond. It’s interesting that the models are indicating a potentially robust El Niño development in 26-27 following two winters with strong blocking across the North Pacific into Western North America like we saw following 13-14 and 14-15.