GaWx

This tweet is deceptive. I’m surprised the smart pro met. Ethan said this. Of course the SSTs are significantly warmer than 29 years ago due to GW. But you know that the measure of Nino strength isn’t SST but rather SSTa. Relative SSTa: 02APR1997 1.1 -0.3 0.1 1.1 01APR2026 0.6 -0.3 -0.2 0.3 So, per relative anomalies, not only is 2026 not warmer than 1997, it is 0.5 cooler in 1+2, 0.3 cooler in 3.4, and 0.8 cooler in 4! https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/rel_wksst9120.txt @mitchnick

Also, there was 2/9-10/1973 and 3/24/1983 in large parts of the SE. Regardless of snow or not, the relatively predictable thing about strong El Niños is their tendency to be wet Nov-Mar in most of the SE.

Webb exhibits at times a tone that borders on being over the top to get attention. “Hilariously strong”?

I fully get that 1877-8 is as strong as any El Niño on record based on Nino 3.4 as Eric Webb’s and other tables show. But it’s the H5 maps that were shocking to see since I had never seen any H5 maps before the late 1940s. Now after reading what you posted above, I realize this 1877-8 H5 is no more than the equivalent of a wild educated guess as all it is based on is surface data as that’s all the only data they have.

Being that the current OISST dailies suggest that RONI is likely ~-0.3 to -0.4, it is a very tall order to get the full April averaged RONI to rise all of the way to +0.6, which is what this BoM run has. We’ll see what the very strong WWB/TC triplets are able to do. The rate of April warming would probably have to be well beyond record highs to get April RONI up to +0.6. The daily RONIs may have to approach +1.5 by April 30th!! I don’t see that being realistic at all.

Makes perfect sense to me.From JB:April 5, 2026The forecast numbers have been taken way down.The Canadian model has been thrown out.The European indicates a powerful El Niño and a negative AMO "look".The closest analog is 2015.The impact forecast is a roll of the dice.Impacts will likely be below normal and scattered.There is always the threat of one (un)lucky punch.Early season Gulf or SE system a concernThe Western Pacific will take up the Global slack.Eastern Pacific Mexican higher impact season possibleThe forecast numbers for the 2026 seasonTotal storms: 9-13Hurricanes: 3-5Major Hurricanes: 1-2Landfalling U.S. hurricanes: 1-2Impact storms on the U.S. when at least a warning is issued: 3ACE Index: 85-105The closest analog is 2015

In 2023, the same BoM model also had it getting to +2.4 at the same time (Sept) as per snowman’s post at the bottom of this post. Here was that 4/8/23 run: But “it” back then was ONI, which like now was then ~0.5 higher than RONI. So, it implicitly was predicting RONI only at +1.9. Thus, the current BoM prog on an apples to apples basis is progging 0.5 warmer than what it had 3 years ago. But also keep in mind that the ‘23 BoM turned out to be significantly too warm for the ONI. In Sept, ONI verified to be only +1.64 meaning a large bust of +0.76! RONI was only +1.15. If this BoM run were to bust as badly to the top warm side, the Sept RONI would be at +1.64.

Thanks. Do you have a link to the source for the map Chris posted?

Chris, I’m curious. How is it possible to come up with even approximate geopotential hts for way back in 1877-8?

I ended up getting the better part of 1/2” of much needed rain from thunderstorms late this afternoon. That was the best rain in quite awhile!

I became aware of coral reef bleaching with the terrible event that affected the reef near the FL Keys in the summer of 2023, when there was a marine heatwave. I clearly remember that the heating of the waters there was made worse by a lack of rainfall/clouds. I think winds were mainly pretty light. Even not so shallow waters near the coral warmed into the low to mid 90s! This was like the SW US heatwave. There were these unique conditions that when superimposed on overall already warmer than avg waters due to GW favored heating the waters to record high levels. I posted about this many times in the warming oceans thread of this CC section. This extreme warmth lasted for many weeks, which was much too long for the coral to avoid bleaching, when the stressed coral expels the beneficial algae that it feeds on. The good news is that scientists supposedly moved portions of most, if not just about every, species to safety into much better conditions allowing them to thrive and prevent extinction. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/confronting-floridas-coral-collapse-153304/ Good news was that 2024 and 2025 FL Keys waters weren’t nearly as warm since the conditions favoring the marine heatwave weren’t present. I also read that there are some coral species in other parts of the world where normal SSTs are warmer that tolerate much warmer temperatures, which will help as the oceans continue to warm since some of these species could be placed elsewhere to help combat the bleaching problem. Ultimately though, the hope of course is for oceans to stop warming. https://eos.org/articles/some-corals-are-more-heat-resistant-than-thought

To get the strongest Nino in 140 years, the ONI would probably need to get up to ~3.0 to allow RONI to exceed the 2.5 RONI peak of 1982-3 and thus become the strongest since 1887-8. Keep in mind the Euro longterm warm bias that could possibly be causing its April prog to be too warm.

Happy Easter to the forum members! Hopefully it’s a joyous one. We have the successful rescue in Iran of a downed U.S. airman to help celebrate it. Also, Happy Passover! One more warm humid day before a several day cooldown with highs in the upper 60s or low 70s. But before that, I’m hoping for some good rainfall amounts later today and this evening as it is extremely dry here.

Thanks, Charlie. 1. Isn’t the range of science based predictions of the amount of GW in the very longterm in a pretty wide range as opposed to a narrow range? My understanding is that he’s near the lower end of that range. 2. In addition to the warming effect of increased CO2, there are other factors that could come into play. Spencer believes that there are negative feedback factors that will ultimately limit the amount of GW compared to most model projections. That’s supposedly why he’s near the lower end of the range. 3. He said it MAY even be beneficial not that it would definitely be beneficial. There’s the potential benefit of larger global crop sizes due to a greener planet resulting from a combo of longer growing seasons where they’re currently grown, an increase in the amount of crops grown in higher latitudes, and the increased CO2 photosynthesis effect. Also, cold has killed a good bit more than heat from what I’ve read. However, I do realize that eventually deaths from heat will rise enough to potentially start killing more than cold though that would likely still be a long ways off if that were to happen. Could these good things outweigh the bad things and make it net beneficial? I’m not saying that but it could be debated. Personally, I’m worried about rising sea levels. 4. A greener Earth could be one of the negative feedbacks that Spencer has cited since greener means cooler highs such as has occurred in the Midwest. In addition, drought frequency in the Midwest has dropped since the 1990s.

Thanks, Chris. 1. The April run comes in a bit stronger for ONI than the Mar run for the same months compared. For example, the Mar run had Sep at ~+2.1 vs the Apr run having Sep at ~+2.25. So, that’s clearly a bullish trend since the prior run for a stronger ONI. 2. RONI is still ~0.5 cooler than ONI. So, ~0.5 still needs to be subtracted off of the Euro output to approximate its implied RONI prog. 3. It’s important to still keep in mind a longterm warm bias of the Euro ONI progs based on the avg of ~20 years of progs though those that verify as El Niño have averaged a lower warm bias. Examples: -the April ‘17 run progged moderate El Niño (+1.1) for ASO (see below) vs it verifying way down at -0.3 for ONI, a whopping +1.4 miss. That’s an extreme, of course, but one doesn’t find misses anywhere near that same magnitude the other way. In addition, the April ‘14 run had ASO up at +1.5 vs verification of only +0.3, another big miss of +1.2. Furthermore, the April ‘12 run had ASO up at +1.0 vs verification of only +0.4 for a +0.6 miss. Some recent April run ASO ONI misses have also been large to the too warm side: -2025: ASO prog of +0.4 vs actual of -0.4 for miss of +0.8 -2022: ASO prog of -0.3 vs actual of -1.0 for miss of +0.7 -2021: ASO prog of 0 vs actual of -0.6 for a miss of +0.6 2020: ASO prog of -0.1 vs actual of -0.9 for a miss of +0.8 So, based on the -0.5 RONI adj. and the notable Euro warm bias, the actual RONI peak could easily verify as only a moderate peak. My current wild guess is for low to middle end strong RONI peak.