GaWx

Today’s -29 is the 33rd straight day with a sub -5 SOI. Tomorrow will make 34. That’s pretty historic because that will make it the 3rd longest sub -5 streak on record back to 1991! The only two longer ones were in 1997-8 and they were extremely long: 51 and 42 days, respectively. The beauty of the SOI is that it doesn’t appear to be strongly affected by CC. Thus it doesn’t need a RONI-like adjustment to remain a good indicator of ENSO strength.

RDU’s high was an absolutely blazing 103!! Thank you, drought.

Just to clarify to insure appropriate context: -There’s no doubt that currently Nino 3.4 is very warm for so early in the year. But keep in mind that Eliot’s chart showing the current warmth is from a combination of GW and El Nino. On that basis, it’s clear that Nino 3.4 is by a good margin the warmest on record. -But the best way to compare to past years as far as just El Niño component, itself, is to look at the relative anomalies for the same point in the year. Currently, relative 3.4 is ~+1.0. I’ll now compare to other weeklies, which go back to 1982: 09JUN1982 1.0 11JUN1997 0.8 10JUN2015 0.6 14JUN2023 0.4 So, going back to 1982, 2026 is currently near the warmest on record about tied with 1982, which is itself obviously quite notable. To go back further, I need to look at relative monthlies. So, these won’t give as precise a comparison, but they’re still worth mentioning. Currently, the CFS is projecting June of 2026 to be ~+0.95. I’ll now compare to some past June relatives: 1957 6 1.13 1965 6 1.09 1972 6 0.98 So, 2026 is projected for June, alone, to be slightly cooler than 1957/1965 and ~same as 1972. So, folks need to be careful to not let others deceive you. The current El Niño strength is by no means out on its own and is instead in the general vicinity of 1982, 1972, 1965, and 1957 for the warmest since 1950. Going back further is less reliable for comparison purposes. But per Eric Webb’s MJJ 3.4 anomalies, one could argue that 1877, 1902, 1905, and 1941 could have easily been similar, if not warmer than 2026 in mid June. There’s a good chance that 1877 was a bit warmer and some chance that 1905 was slightly warmer in mid June.

Indeed! That 11AM 95 at RDU is along with Rocky Mount, NC, the hottest of ALL major reporting stations in the SE. 24 hours ago, RDU was “only” 90 and Rocky Mt was 91.

1. The RDU area has some of the driest soils in the SE. So, that’s affecting the current/recent temps for the entire RDU area, not just RDU, itself. 2. The RDU sensor, itself, over the years (not drought related) has been hotter than surrounding major stations supposedly due to the configuration of the station as has been discussed here and at other places.

The latest CFSv2 release has actually cooled ~0.15 to 0.20 vs that from the start of June for the periods starting with JJA: June 1st release: relative peak ~+3.0 (OND) and rapid cooling to ~+2.25 DJF Today’s release: relative peak ~+2.8 (OND) and rapid cooling to ~+2.1 DJF

There were nasty steamy highs of 92 at ATL and 94 at SAV.

RDU reached 101 for a new record!

RDU was once again with their 99 THE hottest at 2PM by 2F of ALL major reporting stations in the entire SE! Louisburg, NC, was next at 97.

Semi-fake news RDU sensor was 97 at 1PM and was by 2F the hottest in the entire SE among official reporting stations with Rocky Mount, NC, and Brunswick, GA, next at 95!

The Triangle, Triad, and neighboring S VA was the only area in the entire SE to notably worsen as the rest of the SE either was unchanged or improved vs last week’s map.

As of noon, RDU (and Rocky Mt, NC also) was at 94F, not surprisingly THE hottest in the entire SE. I’m including all SE states including FL. With 94 at noon, RDU has a a good shot at ~101-2 despite the NWS forecast having “only” upper 90s for the Raleigh area. This, of course, is assuming that clouds and convection don’t start to increase there or even in the general vicinity: “TODAY MOSTLY SUNNY. ISOLATED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS THIS AFTERNOON. HOT WITH HIGHS IN THE UPPER 90S. SOUTHWEST WINDS 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF RAIN 20 PERCENT. HEAT INDEX VALUES UP TO 102.”

Big news in the ENSO monitoring/ranking world: ECMWF yesterday finally followed NOAA’s lead and implemented its own version of a relative Nino 3.4 index! Although the general idea is the same, it is its own unique relative index and thus is calculated somewhat differently. Also, they use different databases to determine SSTs. Here’s ECMWF’s own graph showing both the traditional and the new relative Nino 3.4 SST anomalies going back to 1982: Note the following based on this ECMWF graph: -Most recently relative was ~0.5 cooler, similar to NOAA -It has 2023-4 ~same as NOAA with ~+1.5/+2 (relative ~0.5 cooler) -Like for NOAA, relative has been cooler since ~2014. -Similar to NOAA, the relationship was much more variable prior to 2014 including: -only small differences between relative/non-relative for 1997-8 just like for NOAA -relative being a large ~0.6C warmer in 1991-2 just like NOAA -relative being ~0.35 warmer in 1982-3 similar to NOAA’s ~0.3 warmer and warmest on record like for NOAA -But, ECMWF has bigger variations/extremes than NOAA for both El Niño and La Niña: -The ECMWF’s strongest La Niña since 1982 is just as for NOAA 1988-9, but it’s way down at -2.5 (for both) vs only -1.9 for NOAA (for both) -The ECMWF’s strongest El Niño is 1982-3 for both measures and is significantly stronger than NOAA with +3.1 relative/+2.75 non-relative vs NOAA’s +2.5/+2.2. This probably should be kept in mind when looking at the Euro’s ENSO progs vs history —————————————————— Measuring the strength of El Niño – introducing Relative Niño indices 10 June 2026 However, as the climate warms, interpreting these anomalies becomes more challenging. Rising background temperatures can make recent El Niño events appear stronger, and La Niña events weaker. To address this, with the support of the WMO, ECMWF is introducing an additional measure of El Niño strength, alongside the more traditional Niño 3.4 SST anomalies, in its seasonal forecast from 1 June 2026: the Relative Niño indices. These indices compare the Niño 3.4 region with the rest of the tropics at the same time, offering a perspective that is less sensitive to long-term warming. This will provide an additional tool for describing the likely strength of an upcoming El Niño event. Even with this adjustment, current forecasts suggest that El Niño may be unusually strong later in the year. https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/science-blog/2026/measuring-strength-el-nino @40/70 Benchmark@LakePaste25@bluewave@snowman19@donsutherland1among others

The extreme dry soils in parts of NC are favoring that highs there will be a little hotter and threaten records vs most other areas of the SE. It will be interesting to see what actually happens. Much will depend on the pattern of mid afternoon pop-up thunderstorm activity and how far reaching are the associated outflow boundaries. OTOH, the ATL area, where it has been raining a good bit more, isn’t favored to threaten record highs. Their forecasts have mainly lower 90s.

I’ll use simple hypothetical examples to illustrate why I think RONI is a better way to measure ENSO for both historical classification purposes and relevant effects: -assume worldwide ocean anomalies are in 2026 all +1C vs 1996-2025 climo due to GW and assume it’s uniform across all of the oceans -thus ONI would also be +1C/El Nino since it doesn’t separate out the 1C warming from GW -but there’s no El Nino signature as it’s +1C everywhere in the oceans -per RONI it’s perfectly neutral (0C) ENSO -classifying it as neutral makes more sense to me -now change it to +3C in 3.4 but keep a uniform +1C in all other oceans -now there’s a clear El Niño signature, but how strong is it? -ONI would classify it as +3C Nino -RONI would classify it as close to +2C Nino, which makes more sense to me @LakePaste25@bluewave