bluewave

More traditional June El Niño 500 mb pattern forecast for next week as this record El Niño continues to gain steam.

Looks like some cooler and hopefully wetter weather is on the way for next week following more unusual warmth this week for a developing El Niño. A ridge out West and a trough near the Great Lakes is a closer match to El Niño June expectations. It’s forecast to occur right as this event is setting records for the warmest Nino 3.4 SST on record for early June.

This past November was in 2025. Part of the reason this El Niño is becoming record breaking so early on is due to the accumulation of record SST warmth in the WPAC. The WWBs beginning in November 2025 started the kelvin waves and warm push eastward. These are record breaking WWBs that we haven’t seen since the late 1990s. So a record WPAC warm pool initiation plus record WWBs equal a record El Niño. Also note how Nino 1+2 never fully cooled off after the last super El Niño in 2023-2024. So it’s no surprise that this event is becoming so strong given the much warmer background state that it’s originating in. Past climate reconstructions along with modeling support the hypothesis that it’s normal for El Niños to become more frequent and stronger as the world warms. So the 2020s will be the first decade with super El Niños over +2.0° occurring only 3 years apart. Plus recent studies show that at some point in the future we can warm enough to enter a sustained El Niño climate. But we really don’t know the global temperature threshold at which this could theoretically happen. Still uncertain if this could even occur in our modern warmer climate or the stronger and more frequent El Niño mode continues. https://apnews.com/article/4379af505f994766a4fa332e9c7a923a https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/09/25/1-2-el-nino-events-could-be-extreme-mid-century https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.354.6317.1210 https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/10/631/2019/

Looks like there could have been some small hail near the Jones Beach West End.

Yeah, we can go back to last November to see the very beginning of this record El Niño event for so early in the season. The WWB over the Maritime Continent was essentially tied for the strongest on record during the month of November. It began to give that record warm pool a nudge to the east with the record WWBs expanding eastward in the following months.

Nino 3.4 getting to 29.27 is really impressive so early in this event. The all-time record was 29.82 back on 11-17-15. They may need to extend the scale since the current forecast peak over is 30°C.

The NJ warm spots away from the sea breeze are tied for the most 90° days by June 6th. Time Series Summary for SOMERSET AIRPORT, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2026-06-06 6 0 - 2021-06-06 6 1 2 2023-06-06 4 0 - 2000-06-06 4 13 5 2022-06-06 3 0 Time Series Summary for HARRISON, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2026-06-06 8 1 2 2018-06-06 7 0 - 2010-06-06 7 15 3 2021-06-06 5 0 - 2013-06-06 5 0 - 2002-06-06 5 5 - 2001-06-06 5 7 Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2026-06-06 8 0 - 1991-06-06 8 0 - 1986-06-06 8 0 2 2010-06-06 7 0 3 2021-06-06 6 0 - 2002-06-06 6 0 - 1936-06-06 6 0

Similar recent theme of the wind gusts being more impressive than the actual rainfall amounts. Another very warm with below average rainfall pattern coming up this week. Hopefully, the models are correct about the wetter pattern with the Great Lakes trough during week 2 approaching the summer solstice.

Warm spots away from the sea breeze influence like Harrison and Newark are currently in 1st and 2nd place for the most 90° days by June 5th. Time Series Summary for HARRISON, NJ 90° days by June 5th Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2026-06-05 8 0 2 2018-06-05 7 0 3 2010-06-05 6 15 Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ 90° days by June 5th Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1991-06-05 8 0 - 1986-06-05 8 0 2 2026-06-05 7 0 3 2010-06-05 6 0 - 2002-06-05 6 0 - 1936-06-05 6 0

Yeah, we could have active forcing from the WPAC and CPAC over to the EPAC with how extensive the warm pool is forecast to become. Notice how the pattern from the Great Lakes to the Northeast wasn’t all that different between 1997-1998 and 2023-2024. Forcing either focused near the EPAC in 1997-1998 or more split like 2023-2024 between the WPAC and CPAC along with the EPAC yielded roughly similar results for the Great Lakes and Northeast.

Record breaking WWB for this time of year driving those record Nino 3.4 SSTs.

The core of the 30C+ SSTs will probably shift over closer to MJO 7 and Nino 4 as the current forecast would surpass even 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 in those locations. The Euro has Nino 4 exceeding +2.0 which would be a first if it verifies. The previous Nino 4 record was 30.21C and +1.51 back in November 2023. Perhaps some areas could approach +31.0C. Even Nino 3.4 could get close to +30.0 C like in 2015-2016. The Euro has the warm pool east of Japan continuing. The IOD peaks in October and the SSTs near the Maritime Continent begin to rebound by December. So an historic and extensive area of extreme SSTs from the WPAC into the ENSO regions being forecast. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ersst5.nino.mth.91-20.ascii 2015 11 23.93 2.28 27.95 2.84 30.13 1.44 2023 11 23.73 2.07 27.20 2.10 30.21 1.51

Very impressive progression of model forecasts over the last several months. Now we are getting past the spring predictability barrier. So this most recent forecast update incorporates the big increase in upper ocean heat and continuing WWBs.

The latest June update from the ECMWF has the ONI plumes Nino 3.4 average around +3.6 and the RONI near +3.0.

The super El Niño warmth has traditionally began later in the summer and persisted into the following summer. So this year we are getting off to an early start with the warmth. Even against the warmest 1991-2020 means, the ensembles have the usual warm spots close to +7 to +10 over the next 10 days. Since normal highs this time of year are only in the upper 70s to around 80° next week.