bluewave

There are papers discussing changes to the teleconnections like the NAO and AO as the climate continues to warm. Bigger swings from one state to another. One of the best papers actually came out a year before the biggest swings began in the NAO and AO in 2009-2010. That is more the exception than the rule since most papers only come out after the change had already occurred.

According to most of us on this forum. But the majority of the population movement is to places like the Deep South and Desert Southwest like Phoenix. Just go on YouTube and pull up videos about how people in these areas stay in the AC as much as possible in the warm season. There is a couple on there that used to live in Minnesota that would rather deal with Phoenix summer heat than Upper Midwest winter cold. They adjust their summer routines to only go outdoors early in the mornings for more than a few minutes to avoid the heat. But to each their own. This world provides a wide array of climates to accommodate everyone’s wants and needs.

Sample sizes in a rapidly shifting climate will never be as large as they were when we were on a colder and more stable temperature regime prior to the 1980s and 1990s. Thresholds are a common part of systems like the climate which can have non-linear elements blending with more familiar linear ones. But the models aren’t advanced enough to know exactly where these are ahead of time. Most of the time a crossed threshold is a rear view mirror assessment. This is what so many climate studies come out after the fact instead of before. The post I responded to said the coldest stretch since the 1970s.

Yeah, the winters in the Northeast and across the CONUS really warmed following the 2015-2016 baseline temperature jump. Last winter was our first colder winter against the long term means since 2014-2015 in the Northeast. Almost seems like the 2015-2016 caused more of a non-linear shift than something gradual. So it will be interesting to see what things look like following this significantly stronger El Niño. Getting 3 baseline increases from 2015-2016 to 2023-2024 and now 2026-2027 is very extreme for such a short period of time. We had to wait 18 years from 1997-1998 to 2015-2016. Now we are getting our first super El Niños only 3 years apart. Matches with the findings of the recent corals studies showing stronger El Niños as the climate warms.

The cold in the East this past winter was weak sauce compared the the hard winters of the 1970s.

Within the U.S. this is true since we have widespread access to air conditioning. Most of the movement within the U.S has been from cooler locations to warmer ones. Outside this forum most people applaud the much milder winters since they require less heating demand which has become so expensive these days. They will put up with warmer summers since the extra cooling costs are less compared to what a really cold winter like we would regularly get in the past did to winter heating bills. But the movement to warmer locations within the U.S comes with risks. Water shortages are becoming an issue out West with some smaller communities losing water rights. Wildfires have become a big issue with the land becoming so dry combined with human and natural ignition sources on the rise. Another risk is that over the coming decades is that the Western droughts begin to creep out into the Plains lowering crop yields. Places like France and The UK with much smaller agricultural output have suffered significant crop losses this summer. Plus increasing exposure to extreme flood events across the U.S from rainfall and tropical systems.

Last season was the best this new much warmer climate could do as compared to the 95-96. More warmth was a factor in the NAO reversing so quickly in March as corals studies have found bigger NAO and AO swings from one state to another as the climate has warmed. Much less available cold made last winter the 2nd warmest for the CONUS.

You are talking local patterns and nuances more than the actual strength of the event. The last event in 2023-2024 jumped the planet to a new higher global temperature baseline with a relatively weaker RONI. The Nino ridge was among the strongest on record with the warmest winter in record for the CONUS and much of North America. It’s debatable whether the weaker Aleutian low was a function of RONI or just a symptom of weaker upper lows in general over the years with both La Ninas and El Niños. Notice this past winter with a weak La Niña configuration closest to 1995-1996 the ridge overpowered the pattern with smaller 500 mb lows.

NOAA and other agencies maintain both the ONI and RONI. The paper it’s based on developed it more for marginal events like weak La Ninas and El Niños where the WPAC warm pool was extending more influence than the Nina regions. This was not specifically designed for higher end El Niños or La Ninas.

RONI is a relative metric to other areas of SST warmth. It’s not a realistic gauge of how strong the actual El Niño event is. The planet doesn’t care about relative metrics as the global temperatures are setting records every day now with how extreme this event is becoming.

Urban spots away from the seabreeze made it to 10 days reaching 95°+ again. This has become a common theme in recent years. In the old days we would get cooler summers in between. Data for January 1, 2026 through August 28, 2026 #95°+ days Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. NJ NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP WBAN 10 NJ HARRISON COOP 10 NJ TETERBORO AIRPORT WBAN 10 NJ TETERBORO AIRPORT COOP 10 Time Series Summary for HARRISON, NJ - Jan through Dec Most 95° + Days Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2002 22 8 2 2021 17 0 - 2005 17 9 3 2022 16 0 - 2012 16 21 - 2010 16 30 4 2020 15 0 - 1999 15 4 5 2018 14 0 6 2024 13 0 - 2016 13 0 7 2025 12 0 8 2013 11 0 9 2026 10 126 10 2019 9 0 - 2006 9 4

New OLR record for so early in an El Niño as this becomes the strongest east based event for the date. In recent days, the warming has intensified off the coast of #Ecuador and northern #Perú. It is there that @enfenperu measures and assesses #ElNiñoCostero. From an atmospheric and oceanic perspective, OLR values are at historic lows for this time of year in the central and eastern Pacific. This is evidence of coupling between the ocean and the atmosphere. The depth of the warm waters to the west of #Galapagos (the last point where we can compare all events), the volume of warm water clearly exceeds that of 1997, while those of 2015 and 2023 were much smaller. This sheds light on the robustness of the event in the eastern Pacific.

The wetter climate leading to all these summer flash flood warmings has made it more challenging to sustain extended 90° day counts like in 1988 without clouds or rain interrupting. The most severe droughts in recent times have been focused out West. In the old days droughts were often from the Plains into the East. Plus stronger sea breezes due to summer circulation changes also interrupt the 90° day runs. But overall 90° day counts have been increasing just inland from the sea breeze fronts.

I think what you have been noticing is that the high temperatures during coolest summers each decade back to the 1940s are rising more rapidly than the warmest ones. Notice how we haven’t had any cooler summers after 2010 like we regularly got through 2009. Most of the record heat since 2010 during the summers has occurred in June and July. Maybe the late August into early September record heat of the 1940s into 1950s was a function of the late summer droughts from the Plains into the East.

While the minimum departures were a little warmer relative to the maxes, the average highs were still warmer than what is normal even using the warmest 1991-2020 climate normals period. I agree that it felt cooler relative to the heat that we had earlier in the summer. This has largely followed the 2020s summer pattern of major heat early on followed by heavy rains.

August was warmer than normal for most of the area using the warmest 1991-2020 climate normals.

Yeah, rapid warming of the SSTs near Japan as the main ridge axis migrated west from the July position north of Hawaii.

At least the start of September will show some similarity to 2023 and 2015. But the forecast is for a stronger Southeast ridge this time. Matches the summer theme of stronger mid-latitude 500 mb ridging than past developing super El Ninos.

The numbers show that we didn’t get the cooler developing super El Niño summer that was common in the past. We were significantly warmer than 2023. It was also warmer than 2015 which also didn’t have the extreme 100°+ heat that we had from May into mid-July. Most of the years you cited were the summers which followed the El Niño events and not before. The entire CONUS was too warm to allow a cooler summer here like 1972, 1982, and 1997.

This was the warmest developing super El Niño summer across the area. In the past these summers weren’t as warm like 2023. Several older ones were on the cooler side. Multiple locations in the top 10 for warmest summer through August 25th. Plus a number of stations got close to their all-time highs in early July which didn’t happen during any of the other developing super El Niño summers. Parts of NJ also reached 100° in May which set a new monthly maximum temperature in spots. Time Series Summary for NEW BRUNSWICK 3 SE, NJ Warmest Summers through August 25th Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2010-08-25 76.6 0 2 2024-08-25 76.1 0 3 2022-08-25 75.9 0 - 2005-08-25 75.9 0 4 2020-08-25 75.8 0 5 1999-08-25 75.6 0 6 2026-08-25 75.5 1 7 2016-08-25 75.3 0 8 2011-08-25 75.1 0 9 2021-08-25 75.0 0 10 2019-08-25 74.9 0 - 2012-08-25 74.9 0 - 2002-08-25 74.9 0 11 2025-08-25 74.8 0 - 2006-08-25 74.8 0 12 2008-08-25 74.5 1 13 2013-08-25 74.4 0 14 2018-08-25 74.3 0 15 2015-08-25 74.2 0 16 1988-08-25 74.1 0 17 1995-08-25 73.9 0 - 1994-08-25 73.9 0 18 1983-08-25 73.8 0 19 2017-08-25 73.6 0 - 1987-08-25 73.6 0 20 1973-08-25 73.5 0 21 1980-08-25 73.3 0 22 2023-08-25 73.2 0 - 1991-08-25 73.2 1 23 1981-08-25 73.0 0 - 1968-08-25 73.0 0 24 2003-08-25 72.9 0 - 1984-08-25 72.9 1 Time Series Summary for ISLIP-LI MACARTHUR AP, NY Warmest Summers Through August 25th Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2025-08-25 74.9 0 2 2010-08-25 74.8 0 3 2020-08-25 74.7 0 4 1999-08-25 74.6 0 5 2022-08-25 74.4 0 6 2024-08-25 74.3 0 7 2019-08-25 74.2 0 - 2016-08-25 74.2 0 8 2011-08-25 74.1 0 9 2026-08-25 73.6 0 10 2021-08-25 73.5 0 11 2013-08-25 73.4 0 - 2012-08-25 73.4 0 - 2005-08-25 73.4 0 12 2006-08-25 73.3 0 13 2018-08-25 73.2 0 - 2015-08-25 73.2 0 - 2008-08-25 73.2 0 - 1994-08-25 73.2 0 14 2002-08-25 73.1 0 - 1995-08-25 73.1 0 - 1991-08-25 73.1 0 - 1966-08-25 73.1 0 15 1980-08-25 72.9 0 16 1988-08-25 72.8 0 17 2023-08-25 72.6 0 - 1969-08-25 72.6 0 Maximum 1-Day Mean Max Temperature for HARRISON, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 107.0 2011-07-22 through 2011-07-22 2 106.0 2026-07-03 through 2026-07-03 - 106.0 2010-07-06 through 2010-07-06 3 104.0 2001-08-09 through 2001-08-09 4 103.0 2026-07-04 through 2026-07-04 - 103.0 2025-06-25 through 2025-06-25 - 103.0 2025-06-24 through 2025-06-24 - 103.0 2012-07-18 through 2012-07-18 5 102.0 2025-07-30 through 2025-07-30 - 102.0 2022-07-25 through 2022-07-25 - 102.0 2013-07-19 through 2013-07-19 - 102.0 2005-08-13 through 2005-08-13 - 102.0 1999-07-18 through 1999-07-18 - 102.0 1999-07-06 through 1999-07-06 - 102.0 1999-07-05 through 1999-07-05 Maximum 1-Day Mean Max Temperature for JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 104.0 1966-07-03 through 1966-07-03 2 103.0 2011-07-22 through 2011-07-22 3 102.0 2026-07-02 through 2026-07-02 - 102.0 2025-06-25 through 2025-06-25 - 102.0 2025-06-24 through 2025-06-24 - 102.0 2011-07-23 through 2011-07-23 - 102.0 1999-07-05 through 1999-07-05 - 102.0 1963-07-01 through 1963-07-01 Time Series Summary for HARRISON, NJ - Month of May Maximum Temperature Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2026 100 0 2 2022 96 0 - 2016 96 0 - 2013 96 0 - 1996 96 4 6 2017 95 0 - 2010 95 2 - 2007 95 0 - 2001 95 0

Great graphic from the NWS showing how Bridgeport was significantly ahead of the other major sites for summer rainfall this year.

North Atlantic close to the all-time warmest set back in 2023.

Looks like the last week of August will feature near average temperatures.