GaWx

My area got only a couple of hundredths today (all this morning), much less than expected and thus disappointing. But I’m still thankful we got 1.2” on Saturday (5/2) and am also looking forward to weekend prospects for good rains. It’s overall still going in the right direction.

My local area has received only very light rain so far (couple of hundredths at most) today. However, there’s supposedly the bulk of it to come.

Although not for all areas, of course, I feel that next week’s map may show notable improvement (say at least one drought category) in portions of the SE. Besides the current system, there’s more waiting in the wings for much of the SE Sat-Mon, especially S areas! The N 1/2 of AL was the only area on the SE drought map that showed notable improvement.

Keep in mind that the heavy rains covering much of the SE US since yesterday are of course not taken into account since these weekly maps are based on data being submitted no later than 8AM two days ago. Only the N 1/2 of AL showed improvement.

Looking at official rainfall totals, a large portion of AL, TN, N and C GA, NW SC to CAE, and NC including CLT received ample to very heavy (flooding) rainfall since yesterday! Fantastic news regarding the drought and kudos to the Euro Weeklies to being on top of this potential for several weeks.——————This is just from FFC:MOST LOCATIONS HAVE SEE ANYWHERE FROM 0.5" TO 1.5" OF PRECIP WITH SOME ISOLATED LOCATIONS SEEING UPWARDS OF 2" TO 4". 1 LOCATION HAS SEEN 5.29" (CSG).

The following is very interesting as regards the controversial topic of potential significant deep ocean heating from sources independent of AGW such as deep ocean seismic activity: Apr 28, 2026 An anomaly in global sea level rise is explained by deep ocean heating by David Appell, Phys.org Scientists found that up until 2016 that the global mean sea level (GMSL) "budget," accounting for all the energy flows that create sea level rise, was "closed," but since then it has developed a hole in it. The budget is no longer closed, at least according to ocean heat data, down to 2,000 meters. Where was the missing cause for the latest sea level rise? Now a new examination of sea level in the global ocean since 2016 has closed the GMSL budget and brought the sea level books back into order. The new researchappears in the journal Earth's Future. The paper is important for showing that deep ocean heating can no longer be ignored when considering sea level rise and its acceleration. Deep ocean heat's growing role In particular, the researchers, with lead author Anny Cazenave, an emeritus scientist at the Laboratory of Space Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS) at Toulouse, France, found that accounting for sea level rise from expansion due to added heat in the deep ocean, below 2,000 meters, allowed the GMSL budget to be "almost closed" since 2016. "The next step," they write, "will be to determine whether the recent deep ocean change is due to internal climate variability, forced anthropogenic response or a combination of both." https://phys.org/news/2026-04-anomaly-global-sea-deep-ocean.html ——————————————— @donsutherland1, @chubbsand others, your thoughts? Does this imply that deep ocean seismic activity MAY actually be an independent nontrivial source of ocean warming after all? Perhaps this may help explain the pockets of extreme ocean warming such as has been the case in the W PAC? Keep in mind that David Appell is not at all an AGW skeptic.

Well, well, well…if it isn’t the GFS up to its old tricks again. The 18Z GFS literally gives Tahiti on 5/13 a record low May SLP due to a nearby tiny surface low that gets as low as 1002 mb, highly unusual for May as it’s ~12 mb/0.36” BN. This results in ~1004.5 mb Tahiti pressure on 5/13. How low is this vs May history back to 1992? Well, the record low is 1004.7 (5/10/2002, during another incoming Nino). Second lowest? 1006.1 (5/31/1997, another incoming El Niño). Other very low SLPs there in May were also during incoming El Niño periods: 1007.5 on 5/9/2015 and 1007.8 on 5/19/2009. Will the record low May Tahiti SLP verify? Very highly doubtful considering that only the 18Z GFS had it that low with a tiny low almost right on top of Tahiti whereas other models had no low: 18Z GFS: 1002 low very near Tahiti But other recent GFS runs have also had a tiny low nearby though not as close. The brand new 0Z has the low but it’s not as close nor as strong (1005 instead of 1002). So, its lowest 24 hour averaged Tahiti pressure is only down to 1009 mb (on 5/12). I thought it was a good idea to post this because this could cause a couple of very strong -SOIs 5/12-13. Even just down to 1009 at Tahiti like the 0Z GFS has would mean a -35ish 5/12 SOI with near avg Darwin SLPs. This reminds me to mention that while Tahiti SLPs have been BN to MBN for most of the last 30 days (common with incoming Nino), there still have been no high pressures at Darwin, which have largely been NN. This is near the opposite of how April of 1997 went. It had 17 days of Darwin SLP of 1012+ vs only one day of that in April of 2026! There are few, if any, 1012+ in sight as of now other than possibly today, which may end up just above 1012 at Darwin.

Lots of power outages in Boulder and Denver areas from the very heavy wet snow. Is this going to end up a May record breaker for Boulder? This is from Boulder:

I had another enjoyable evening walk due to still pretty comfy dewpoints for early May. Third nice day in a row!

They’re not mentioning that the Euro has had a warm bias though it’s lowest for an actual Nino (few ticks on average with a couple almost perfect). May run has almost never verified too cool. They’re probably not aware of this bias. You won’t be less you study the verifications going back aways like I did. Of course even a warm bias doesn’t mean it will definitely verify colder.

1982-3 was east based and was an amazing winter snow wise in much of the SE US (E AL to NE NC)!

Also, note that like the CFS that the Euro has the Nino being pretty east based. Taking a few tenths off of this Euro prog due to its warm bias and then cooling it ~0.5 to roughly estimate RONI likely yields something pretty similar to the +2.5 C peak RONI (+2.7C peak month) of the most recent CFS runs, which would be near a record warm RONI (back to 1950) and would be a 1982-3 redux.

Also, note that climo used for TT’s CFS is 1984-2009, which is cooler than 1991-2020. If these CFS happen to verify, they’d make much more sense vs history of strong El Niño with their coolest anomalies in the S US vs the coolest anomalies on Cansips being in the N US, which is extremely out of sync with strong Nino climo. Also, the CFS has had and continues to have a stronger and more E based Nino vs a not quite as strong C to W based Nino on the Cansips runs: CFS: pretty E based and very strong Cansips: much more C to W based and not quite as strong

The slight lowering from March does though jibe with the slight downward trend of these WCS dailies:

The April and FMA relative and non-relative have just been released and they suggest the most recently calculated differential is ~0.6C: 1. FMA: ONI +0.11 RONI -0.48 0.59 diff vs 0.56 diff. JFM 2. April alone: ONI +0.36 RONI -0.24 0.60 diff. vs 0.55 in March