bluewave

One of reasons February 1983 had such a memorable snowstorm and 1998 didn’t was probably related to how east based 1998 was in February. 1982-1983 really didn’t become east based until after the winter was over. It was more full-basin in February compared to 1998.

Interesting timing of the release date on this new study since we could at least see our first monthly global temperatures near +2°C. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10237-9 nature articles article Article Open access Published: 25 March 2026 Moderate global warming does not rule out extreme global climate outcomes Effectively communicating worst-case projections of global future climate—hereinafter referred to as worst-case climate outcomes—is essential for risk assessment and developing robust adaptation strategies to global warming1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Yet, current approaches for identifying spatially consistent climate outcomes are limited, with worst-case global climates typically communicated via the average of climate model projections at high global warming levels, such as 3 °C or 4 °C above the preindustrial era8,9. Here we show that extreme global climate outcomes may occur even under moderate 2 °C warming for several sectors. For droughts in global key breadbasket regions, precipitation extremes over highly populated areas and fire weather extremes across forests, global climatic impact-drivers at 2 °C of global warming may turn out to be much more extreme than model-averaged projections at 3 °C or 4 °C warming. We derive these results by identifying sector-specific, spatially consistent potential high- and low-impact global climate outcomes through spatially averaging projected sector-relevant climatic impact-drivers across key global regions. Our approach can easily be adapted to a wide range of sectors to support the improvement of sector-specific climate risk assessment and to inform climate policy. As global warming approaches 1.5 °C (ref. 10), these findings underscore the urgency of rapid mitigation to limit warming well below 2 °C, as even a 2 °C world may entail severe impacts.

It’s not so far-fetched when you consider a much weaker event in 1982-1983 lingered into June and July 1983.

It’s as if there was an underlying mechanism linking the 2023-2024 and 2026-2027 events together. Notice how Nino 1+2 never fully returned to La Niña following that event. Plus we got the Nino-like pattern in December 2025 with the small warming in Nino 1+2 and record +PNA for a December La Niña.

It would be interesting to know what the specific mechanism was that caused the WWBs to become stronger than 2023-2024 and even 1997-1998. While the CFS is outside its effective range by next June, it still has strong WWBs going. The CanSIPS indicates the same even though the SOI forecast relaxes. While it’s still too early in the game to know exactly what is happening, would be impressive if some type of bigger shift in the Pacific equatorial trade wind regime is occurring outside the usual ENSO dynamics. The WWBs north of the equator never fully relaxed in EPAC following the 2023-2024 El Niño event.

Nino 3 at +3.878 is currently showing the most anomalous warmth relative to all-time records for any time of year. The Euro and CFS both have the Nino 3 peak in December well above the previous 1997 and 1982 records. There is so much accumulated warmth on the long range CFS, that it’s showing El Niño conditions lingering into next June. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ 16SEP2026 25.3 4.6 28.6 3.8 29.6 3.0 29.6 1.0 26NOV1997 25.8 3.7 28.4 3.3 28.9 2.2 29.3 0.7 29DEC1982 26.1 2.7 28.5 3.2 29.1 2.6 28.8 0.4

This will be a good test of the new google deep mind AI model which is similar to the Euro and AIFS looping back west toward the coast.

BDR had the record rainfall and onshore flow and is a good distance from NYC. So nothing artificial there. NYC is the only urban station so cool. Notice how it compares to the closest sites.

With the warmest part of the month behind us, all stations are above normal for September so far. NJ and Eastern PA have been the warm spots this month. We can see the artificial cooling at NYC due to the trees too close to the sensor. September 1st-20th temperature departures MPO…..+2.7° PHL……+4.3° SMQ…..+2.3° NBW…..+3.5° EWR…..+2.2° NYC……+0.6° LGA…….+1.6° JFK…….+2.3° HPN……+1.6° BDR…..+0.5° ISP…….+1.5°

Still a long way out to know for sure. The 12Z GEM and UKMET are OTS. The GFS made a shift to the right from 6z. So we’ll have to see what the Euro and AIFS does today. These very strong blocking patterns are tricky for the models to handle. Since there is a fine line between capturing a system and suppressing it offshore.

Even if the PDO goes neutral during the winter, relatively speaking it would be much lower than the +1.70 peak in March 2016 and +1.47 in February 1998. The main difference would be the much warmer West Pacific from Japan to south of the Aleutians. My guess is that this would promote more ridging from east of Japan to perhaps north of Hawaii. Could weaken the Aleutian low and also the low which typically resides near the Southeast US. This could also potentially shift the STJ location. Plus we have seen weaker troughs in general over the last decade and stronger ridges. Very wide spread between the global SST forecast for the February and 1998. So the PDO values might not fully capture the SST difference. Also note how much warmer the Atlantic is forecast to be.

Yeah, near record 588 dm block north of the Great Lakes is very impressive for late September.

Especially if the surface low gets captured by the upper low and gets pulled in from the east by later in the week. Several models have been showing these cyclonic loop scenarios. Still early for details like that but the blocking to the north and closed low are very strong for this time of year. So there is at least some potential.

It got a mention in the recent CPC discussion. Like we have been discussing, could result in weaker low pressure centers with this El Niño. Would fit the recent pattern of overpowering ridges with smaller areas of low pressure. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/fxus05.html There are two factors that make the current situation unique. The first factor is the presence of a fairly strong, negatively phased Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), with the August PDO index value of -1.11 . The "Big Three" historical El Niño's since 1950 include the warm events of 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16, all of which occurred when the PDO phase was positive, leading to constructive interference. This time, however, the PDO phase is negative and may dampen the typical impacts of a strong El Niño in certain areas. The second factor involves the large region of warmer-than-normal SSTs that is typically present in the Gulf of Alaska during strong El Niños. The current situation shows a significant westward shift in these warmer SSTs, which may allow for slightly cooler water to influence portions of the U.S. West coast. In addition, even with the possibility of one or more cold air outbreaks across the northwestern quarter of the Lower 48 states, it is unlikely that this will have much of an impact on the average temperature for a 90-day season.

It’s part of the same pattern which produced the record 600 dm pattern this week. The strength of that ridge may be key to how much rain we actually get this week. Some of the stronger high pressure models like the OP Euro keep most of the rain offshore this week. Other models like the AIFS and CMC have more rain especially near the coast with weaker high pressure to the north. But like we saw with the blizzard in February, the AI and other models beat the Euro which was too suppressed with the coastal low. So this will be a good test of how the AI models handle warm season wavelengths with East Coast lows.

Probably related to how warm the subsurface is from Japan to south of the Aleutians. So every time the PDO rises it meets resistance right around neutral. Will be interesting to see what the ceiling is for the PDO as the super El Niño intensifies going into the late fall and winter. The Euro seasonal maintains the warm pool there through February.

Really unusual fall into spring pattern that year. All-time October warmth followed by not much winter to speak of. Then the record late T of snow in May. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Month of Oct top 5 warmest maximum temperature Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2019 96 0 2 1941 93 0 3 1949 92 0 4 1959 91 0 5 1939 90 0 - 1938 90 0 - 1908 90 0 Monthly Data for October 2019 for Upton NY NWS CWA Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. NJ NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP WBAN 96 NY LAGUARDIA AIRPORT WBAN 95 NJ HARRISON COOP 95 NJ TETERBORO AIRPORT WBAN 95 NY JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WBAN 95 NJ CANOE BROOK COOP 94 NJ CALDWELL ESSEX COUNTY AP WBAN 94 NY NY CITY CENTRAL PARK WBAN 93 NY SHRUB OAK COOP 91 CT STAMFORD 5 N COOP 91 NY RIVERHEAD RESEARCH FARM COOP 91 NY MOUNT SINAI COOP 91 NY FARMINGDALE REPUBLIC AP WBAN 90

Depends on the year since the ridge location and intensity has been quite variable during previous super El Niño Octobers. This year is doing its own thing so far with the ridges stronger and further south than usual. We’ll have to see what the pattern looks like in early October since all we have now is a snapshot for the start of the month.

80s have become more common in October during the last decade. We even had November 80s two years during the 2020s. The average for warm spots like Newark has been 4 days reaching 80° past the end of September. Monthly Number of Days Max Temperature >= 80 for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Oct-Nov Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Mean 3 0 4 2025 4 0 4 2024 4 2 6 2023 6 0 6 2022 0 1 1 2021 5 0 5 2020 0 0 0 2019 3 0 3 2018 3 0 3 2017 5 0 5 2016 3 0 3 First/Last 80° Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Each section contains date and year of occurrence, value on that date. Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Minimum 02-21 (2018) 09-28 (2020) 181 Mean 03-28 10-18 203 Maximum 04-15 (2024) 11-06 (2024) 2025 03-29 (2025) 85 10-07 (2025) 83 191 2024 04-15 (2024) 83 11-06 (2024) 83 204 2023 04-06 (2023) 83 10-28 (2023) 84 204 2022 04-14 (2022) 88 11-07 (2022) 81 206 2021 03-26 (2021) 84 10-20 (2021) 80 207 2020 03-20 (2020) 80 09-28 (2020) 81 191 2019 04-08 (2019) 80 10-07 (2019) 80 181 2018 02-21 (2018) 80 10-11 (2018) 81 231 2017 04-10 (2017) 82 10-21 (2017) 81 193 2016 03-09 (2016) 82 10-19 (2016) 87 223

I like the Euro monthly forecasts issued on the 5th which have been doing a pretty good job compared to some of the other guidance.

Overlapping forecast signal showing up near the start of October. A more traditional Nino ridge south of Hudson Bay developing. With the lingering mid-latitude ridge underneath.

The continuing record WWBs are making this the strongest east based event for so early in the season.

Yeah, we could see a subtropical or tropical system eventually form next 2 weeks somewhere to our south. Not what the waterlogged parts of the region want to hear. Even if we don’t get a well defined system, the high moisture could lead to heavy downpours with weak lows and stalled fronts.

September 500mb ridge axis continues to be much further south and stronger than past developing super El Niño events. This has lead to the record warmth across the CONUS this month. At the least the trough near the West Coast matches with the other years. But it’s a weaker area of low pressure than 1997.

More of the same since the big 2007 shift. So most years making a forecast for a minimum in the 4s has done very well. The exceptions were a little above in 2009, 2013 and 2014. The only years below 4 million sq km were 2012 and 2020. My guess is that we would need a strong dipole pattern like we saw from 2007-2012 to challenge the 2012 record. 2020 came the closest but quickly fell behind during the early August period which had the big storm back in 2012. I suppose the other possibility is that we get a really warm Arctic winter into spring some day that allows us to surpass the 2012 with a less extreme summer. But that hasn’t been the case so far as all these weak dipole summers since 2013 have made the 2012 minimum to challenging to pass. The volume remains so low with the loss of older sea ice that even a very favorable pressure pattern this summer like this one can’t get us back to pre 2005-2007 extents. While there was significant cold near the North Pole at times early this summer, it was too narrowly focused to do much. The overall Arctic was near the warmest summer on record. This became obvious with the recent record open water close to the North Pole. https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/analyses/new-abnormal The new abnormal THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2024 Since 2007, the Arctic sea ice minimum has dropped below 5 million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles) every year, except in 2009, 2013, and 2014, when extent barely crossed the 5 million square kilometer mark. Such low extents would have been hard to imagine in the 1990s, when extent averaged 6.46 million square kilometers (2.49 million square miles). This persistent new normal, and the related losses of most of the old and thick ice, are prominent characteristics of the new, warmer Arctic—resiliently low in ice cover despite more than a decade of variations in seasonal climate patterns and oceanconditions. Rick Thoman @alaskawx.bsky.social Follow Arctic-wide sea ice extent has (very likely) reached the minimum for 2026 In NSIDC analysis. At 4.60 million square kilometers (about 2.5 times the size of Alaska), this ties with last year for the 11th lowest since 1979. But that's still lower than every year's min prior to 2007. #Arctic #SeaIce ALT 12:55 PM · Sep 18, 2026