GaWx

14 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Not a tough call to be long Oil for tomorrow. 

 Thanks, Chuck. That appeared to be a good call to me, too. But so far, crude is staying down with it ~$84. Are you surprised? Of course, it can turn on a dime at just about any point. Regardless, anyone who had the courage to short it near its Sun evening 119 high is up a huge amount if they’re still short!

Now you see it:

Now you almost don’t (to nobody’s surprise of course):

1 hour ago, cmillzz said:

No surprise it’s been such a warm March thus far. Classic warm mid-latitudes pattern that will continue for the foreseeable future outside of the brief St. Patrick’s day cold shot

Indeed. I count only ~6 days of cold in the bulk of the E US: 3/13 and 3/16-20. But the 2nd one is quite intense for mid-March and I’ll thoroughly enjoy it as this short period of false winter gives us down here relief from the false summer!

 A -PNA, +AO, and +EPO are aiding the warmth along with MJO phases 5 and 6 through yesterday. Those two have averaged the warmest phases during March following a Niña winter. The main opponent is and will continue to be the -WPO, which in combo with MJO phase 8 (2nd coldest March Niña phase) is likely what’s going to allow the brief two cold periods.

The +1.85 NAO of March of 1989 is in danger of being exceeded for a new record strong March +NAO:

 Remember to double these to very roughly estimate the tabular values, which means that today’s GEFS mean is progging a March 1-24 NAO way up at ~~+2.3 to +2.75!

59 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

GFS drives 850s below freezing much sooner than anything else. Not much difference synoptically or in surface depiction between it and anything else. Just way too quick with post frontal CAA east of mountains with the passage of the strong arctic front. I could see flakes mix in somewhere in Virginia but this will not be more than that (and mountain snow). Not really worth over analyzing, GFS just defies physics while other models understand cold is delayed by the mountains 

 Thanks for your explanation. I see that the surface temp is safely above 32.

 Here’s the surface pressures of the relevant 6Z GEFS members as of the end of the snow period for portions of NC: what do they (2, 4, 7, and 14) have in common? lowest SLP both stronger and centered ~150-200 miles off SE coast:

And here’s the 6 hour qpf: check out member 14 with its 1.25” swath:

 The 6Z GFS suite is looking really stupid in being on its own including all of the main short term models in showing a snow threat in portions of C and E NC on Thu (3/12). Why is the GFS showing this??

GFS (Kuchera):

GEFS mean (10:1):

 

GEFS mean is almost all from the clueless members 4 and 14 with a small assist by 2 and 7 while the other 26 members essentially have nothing outside of the mtns:

2 hours ago, StantonParkHoya said:

I know it’s time to put away the dreams of snow and cold and embrace the season of Spring


.

 It’s already been like summer for many in the SE on many days this month. Many are headed for one of the warmest Marches on record. I have enough summer as it is. I’d prefer March be more like a spring month. Thus, I’m looking forward to the cooldown and am hoping April overall comes in less warm than March. This has zero to do with snow.

1 hour ago, MJO812 said:

The models looked colder than what they are showing now.  I admit that they will be wrong in a long duration cold pattern. I will never rule out snow until April though.

Is that good jackass?

1 hour ago, JACKASS said:

So... fail.

 Contributing to the problem of models looking colder further out in time is that WxBell Euro 2m Euro Weeklies maps are too cold, something I’ve emphasized in many posts. I know that @donsutherland1and Anthony are, among others, fully aware of this issue.
 

 How do I know they’re too cold? I’ve on many occasions compared the WB maps to the in-house ecmwf maps, especially in later weeks as the WB cold errors grow. The WB maps are essentially always colder and often by a significant amount in later weeks. Has anyone ever wondered why the NE US and much of W US are just about always below normal on WB during later weeks of the Weeklies? So, as the periods get closer, the WB maps more often than not warm up as the magnitude of the cold errors reduces.

5 hours ago, pazzo83 said:

there was some talk of a oil reserve release among G7 economic ministers / leaders, but it's not clear how serious or immediate that is.

3 hours ago, LordBaltimore said:

I follow this stuff pretty closely. It's going to be bad for some time. Most of the oil wells in the middle east are shutting down because there's no place to put the oil. When wells are shut down it's difficult and expensive to start them up again. So basically 1/4 of the worlds oil supply is going to be missing for months. Gas will be getting very, very expensive. 

Crude front month plunged 10 cents in just 25 minutes a little while ago! I wonder what happened.

 It’s now down 5 on the day to 86, which is an amazing $33 lower than its 119 peak just 17-18 hours ago! This is an historic day for crude oil in terms of volatility.

Edit: Now I know why. I just read that Trump says the war “could” end soon. But he could say the opposite tomorrow and it go right back up. After all he only days ago said it could easily go longer than a month. It must be a nightmare to trade this and stocks due to whiplash! But that also provides opportunities if timed right due to luck. Is this a cousin to the TACO trade?

 KATL’s warmest March on record is the 64.5F of 2012. That appears out of reach. However, their 2nd warmest is the 61.8 of 1945. Is it reachable?

 As it is now, a record warmest first 1/2 of March near 64.5 is looking likely there assuming I haven’t missed any warmer ones. But then it’s looking to cool down significantly to ~50 for 3/16-22. That would bring the MTD down to ~60 as of March 22. After that, March 23-31 would need to average above 66 to get the full March average to 61.8. That’s ~8 AN for 3/23-31. Although it isn’t looking explicitly that warm, it is looking pretty mild on the extended ensembles. So, I suppose there’d be a chance for it to end up that warm assuming models aren’t warm enough although that’s 2-3 weeks away, too far to be able to predict.

A good number of the last posts here would imho better belong in the 25-26 thread instead of 26-27. Isn’t March of ‘26 part of 25-26? And then the last post was about DJF 25-6.

42 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Transient 316-3/20 cooldown, then a massive warm surge across the entire CONUS moves in right around the Equinox
 

 IF this occurs, we’d be looking at the realistic possibility for the 2nd warmest March on record in places like Atlanta. Currently, their warmest on record is the 64.5F of 2012. That appears out of reach. However, their 2nd warmest is the 61.8 of 1945.
 

 As it is now, a record warmest first 1/2 of March near 64.5 is looking likely there assuming I haven’t missed any warmer ones. But then it’s looking to cool down significantly to ~50 for 3/16-22. That would bring the MTD down to ~60 as of March 22. Then March 23-31 would need to average 66.2 to get the full March average to 61.8. That’s ~8 AN for 3/23-31. I suppose there’d be a chance for it to be that warm although that’s 2-3 weeks away, too far to be able to predict.

Today’s MJO forecasts:

GEFS 
 

EPS:

@EastonSN+

6Z GEFS clown mean for St. Patrick’s Day at 10:1:

10 hours ago, pazzo83 said:

crude oil just hit $118/bbl - hope folks have bikes / scooters / EVs or their Smartrip card ready for this summer lol

 Thankfully, though the front month of crude is still up sharply from Friday (~10-11%), some sanity has returned relative to where it was at its 119 peak near 10:30PM last night as it has fallen back to the low 100s. Later months hadn’t been up nearly as sharply based on the feeling that crude won’t stay up more than a relatively short period.

 Once crude finally does start settling down and falling back, the ever-present challenge of retail following through will be there as they love spiking their prices quickly and reducing them back much more slowly.

18 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

crude oil just hit $118/bbl - hope folks have bikes / scooters / EVs or their Smartrip card ready for this summer lol

 This is excluding the huge rise last week, which was the largest one week rise in the history of crude futures!

Much needed heavy rain, due to drought, from a recently popped up thunderstorm now. This will also help to clean off the widespread pine pollen that’s on everything.

Purely for entertainment as this is well out into fantasyland on 12Z GFS:

16 minutes ago, roardog said:

The subsurface is obviously very warm and that's of course what the models are seeing. This doesn't always lead to that warmth surfacing though. There's more to it than just a warm or cold subsurface. We've seen early subsurface warmth trick the models before. I think 2017 was one of them years where that happened. Wasn't 2014 another one? The subsurface of course wasn't as warm as this year though. It'll be interesting to watch as the year progresses. 

-My post above yours shows that the March Euro going back to 2005 was too warm by the most in 2014 and 2017 (1.1 too warm). 

-2014 OHC wasn’t that warm in Feb but was in March

-2017 OHC wasn’t that warm in Feb/Mar

-1990, which is too far back to see model progs, had quite warm OHC in Feb/Mar (+1.1), but it didn’t lead to El Nino as it peaked at only +0.4 per ONI

Edit: This shows that OHC may have at least temporarily peaked in Feb:

12 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Unless RDU drops much faster than expected this evening we have blown the record out of the water with a low of 66 this morning. That’s a 6 degree record break, very significant 

It might cool back to ~63-4 this evening due to the rain, but it shouldn’t get back down to 60 before midnight as it looks now.

On 3/5/2026 at 9:30 PM, GaWx said:

Whew. All signs are increasingly pointing to a significant, if not strong to very strong, El Niño event. I'll have more to say in coming weeks & months, but for now I'll just say that this is increasingly likely to become a major regional-to-global climate driver in 2026-2027.

https://twitter.com/Weather_West/status/2029694752199754045?

 

 

My thoughts on this newest Euro 3.4 prog:

- They’ve generally been getting stronger the last few months.

-This run implies a super Nino peak.

-Keep in mind, however, that this is a prog of ONI, not RONI. RONI currently is ~0.5C lower. So, this implies Aug RONI to be near +2.1 -0.5 = +1.6.

-Keep in mind that the Euro has a warm bias in 3.4 of several tenths. So, a bc prog of RONI would very likely be only in the low +1s range in Sept.

On 3/5/2026 at 10:33 PM, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

^+2c by September, which the mean Euro is predicting, has only been done twice since 1950 (1997 +2.1, and 2015 +2.2). They were the two strongest El Nino's at a later peak since 1950 (ONI). 

If you adjust -0.5 for the RONI, +2c by September would be the 8th strongest El Nino on record. 

More on the Euro warm bias for predicting ENSO ONI:

Euro JAS ONI March prog vs actual

2026: ~+1.5/?

2025: +0.26/-0.28

2024: -0.39/-0.07

2023: +1.11/+1.37

2022: +0.04/-0.87

2021: +0.10/-0.45

2020: +0.09/-0.53

2019: +0.94/+0.19

2018: +0.5/+0.3

2017: +1.1/-0.1

2016: -0.4/-0.5

2015: +1.8/+1.9

2014: +1.3/+0.1

2013: +0.4/-0.3

JJA:

2012: +0.6/+0.3

2011: -0.5/-0.6

2010: -0.3/-1.1

2009: +0.4/+0.5

2008: -0.6/-0.4

MJJ:

2007: -0.2/-0.5

2006: +0.3/0

JJA:

2005: +0.4/-0.1

Summary of March 2005-25 Euro ONI progs:

-2025’s +1.5 prog is 2nd warmest to 2015’s +1.8, which verified very closely

-14 too warm with 6 being 0.7+ too warm

-5 within 0.2 (2 of those El Niño)

-only 2 too cold, though 1 was El Niño, with both being 0.3 too cold and recent (2023 and 2024)

-Avg miss: +8/21 = +0.4 with largest +1.2 (twice)

-Avg miss for Nino alone: only +0.2 with misses being -0.3, +0.2, -0.1, +1.2, -0.1, +0.3

-Keep in mind that these progs are for ONI, not RONI

On 3/5/2026 at 11:59 PM, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Euro seasonal going crazy for Strong El Nino later this year

On 3/6/2026 at 8:50 AM, GaWx said:

The Euro ENSO forecasts have a warm bias per looking at 20+ years of forecasts even as late as forecasts issued in early summer. Also, this chart is predicting ONI. RONI has now replaced ONI for official NWS monitoring:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/roni/

 RONI is currently ~0.5C cooler than ONI meaning that this chart is implicitly predicting only ~+1.6 in Sept rather than +2.1. If one then does a bias correction, they’d come up with only a low +1s RONI for Sept (moderate as of then) although it’s still rising then on the chart implying higher later.
 

@Stormchaserchuck1

More on the Euro warm bias for predicting ENSO ONI:

Euro JAS ONI March prog vs actual

2026: ~+1.5/?

2025: +0.26/-0.28

2024: -0.39/-0.07

2023: +1.11/+1.37

2022: +0.04/-0.87

2021: +0.10/-0.45

2020: +0.09/-0.53

2019: +0.94/+0.19

2018: +0.5/+0.3

2017: +1.1/-0.1

2016: -0.4/-0.5

2015: +1.8/+1.9

2014: +1.3/+0.1

2013: +0.4/-0.3

JJA:

2012: +0.6/+0.3

2011: -0.5/-0.6

2010: -0.3/-1.1

2009: +0.4/+0.5

2008: -0.6/-0.4

MJJ:

2007: -0.2/-0.5

2006: +0.3/0

JJA:

2005: +0.4/-0.1

Summary of March 2005-25 Euro ONI progs:

-2025’s +1.5 prog is 2nd warmest to 2015’s +1.8, which verified very closely

-14 too warm with 6 being 0.7+ too warm

-5 within 0.2 (2 of those El Niño)

-only 2 too cold, though 1 was El Niño, with both being 0.3 too cold and recent (2023 and 2024)

-Avg miss: +8/21 = +0.4 with largest +1.2 (twice)

-Avg miss for Nino alone: only +0.2 with misses being -0.3, +0.2, -0.1, +1.2, -0.1, +0.3

-Keep in mind that these progs are for ONI, not RONI

1 hour ago, 64Storm said:

@GaWx What is the current record for number of record highs broken in the month of March at KATL? Any idea?

The current record number of non-shared record highs in a single March at KATL is 3 set by two of them: 1974’s Mar 8-10 and 1907’s 20th, 22nd, and 28th. Before today, 1974 had been the only March with a current 4 non-shared record highs for Mar 7-10. Wednesday’s (3/11) high is forecasted to be close to the record of 82. So, if Wed is 83+, then 2026 would join 1974 and 1907 with 3 non-shared record highs. Stay tuned!

 March 1-11 of 2026 is likely headed to a record high for Mar 1-11, beating out Mar 1-11 of 1974. It’s likely going to end up near the normal for Apr 25-May 5!

 I may as well say that March 1-15 of 2026 is also likely headed for a record high there for March 1-15.

KATL once again had a record high today of 83, beating the daily record by 3!

 Tonight’s 0Z runs will be the last runs to be released during standard time. Starting with tomorrow’s 6Z runs, they’ll be released an hour later on the clock due to the switch to DST at 2AM. That won’t change back til early Nov assuming no changes in the law before then. 

On 3/6/2026 at 6:35 PM, MJO812 said:

Keep denying the colder trend. This has been happening all winter. Soon or later the warmth will win out but not now.

 After a cold March 12th-13th and then a couple of days of mild, the EW are still showing ~7-8 days of BN dominant cold in the E US that ends ~Mar 23rd. After that, in the NE they show back and forth averaging NN into early April.