GaWx

 Agreed and Jax made the correction. But it’s too bad that the monthly updates have stopped. 
 
 In other ENSO news, I still find it interesting that this sharp warming is occurring without a sustained or notably strong -SOI. We’ve had only short periods of strong -SOI so far and I see no long ones over the next week or so. Some negatives sure, but..

20 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah -- it was pretty close to a uniform La Nina pattern last Winter in the US.  Combine that with pre-El Nino conditions for the year after, and you have about a perfect composite. 

Ooops, Chuck, sorry, I misunderstood you in my prior post. I misinterpreted that you were saying strong STJ as opposed to strong La Niña STJ pattern meaning, the opposite, a very weak STJ.

10 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I didn't realize it was such a strong La Nina STJ pattern

The reds are actually BN, not AN. I know, kind of strange coloring.

 The SE drought was/is bad due largely to the very dry winter.

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Does anyone have a site where I can generate 12/1 through 3/31 temp/precip anomaly maps? All of the sites I have checked do NOV-APR, DJF, JFM, etc....it's so annoying. I can't find a site that will allow me to manually enter an arbitrary daily period like PSU had....they all bin them into predetermined periods. I can use the ERA 5 dataset on PSU:

https://psl.noaa.gov/data/atmoswrit/map/index.html

But it plots temps using degrees kelvin and precipitation in MM. Does anyone have a site that can generate DJFM temps maps using degrees F and precipitation using inches?

 What about these? I’m going to delete them soon due to big size taking up too much of my attachments space:

https://psl.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/

 Since the middle of last night, my area had ~18 hours of near continuous rain, which added to ~1.2” at my place. This was well predicted. It was a near perfect rain to help with drought since it was mainly light to moderate meaning little runoff. I’ll refine this final amount later, if needed. Yesterday’s showers added to only a few hundredths.
 
 This is the first event with 1”+ here since way back on Dec 4-5! Great start to May. That also means ~2.2” over the last 7 days in an area that had gone to extreme drought on the latest map due to extreme dryness back to Sept, near the worst drought condition in the US. This doesn’t end the drought but does put a nice dent in it even if only temporary. Hopefully others in a similar situation get similar relief soon if they haven’t already.

 This event should also have helped with the big fires to the SW.

 Due to the rain and N winds north of the front, it was quite cool for May with low 60s all day.

 Based on OISST, Monday’s weekly RONI equivalent for this week averaged out should be warmer than the +0.2 of last week. I’m leaning to +0.4 but +0.5 is possible. Today’s RONI equivalent is ~+0.5-+0.6:

 We could debate the GW component of OHC when comparing to past Nino events. But regardless, the current 5 month rate of warming of 180-100W OHC is the fastest on record (2.69) back to ‘79:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

 So, the avg. steepness of the rise in this graph since Nov is a record for a 5 mo. period:

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

The all-time Nino 3.4 C record was 29.8C set in November 2015. It will be interesting to see the new Euro forecast in a few days. As the middle of its ensemble mean forecast was fairly close with the 2015-2016 event. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/

18NOV2015     23.8 2.0     28.0 2.9     29.8 3.0     30.3 1.7

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/151/meteorology/2015-2016-el-nino-and-beyond

The 2015/16 El Niño broke warming records in the central Pacific, represented by the NINO3.4 and NINO4 indices. At its peak in November 2015, the NINO3.4 SST anomaly reached 3.0°C, breaking the previous record of 2.8°C set in January 1983. In the NINO4 region, large positive anomalies are hard to achieve because average conditions are already warm. In 2015, the anomaly reached 1.7°C, a substantial increase of 0.4°C on the previous record, set in 2009. SST analyses become less precise going back in time, but the size of the anomalies in NINO4 and NINO3.4 means we are fairly confident that these are record values for the whole of the observational period back to 1860. By contrast, in the eastern Pacific (monitored by indices for the NINO3 and NINO1+2 regions) the El Niño remained below the level of the 1982/83 and 1997/98 events. It must be borne in mind that the anomaly records depend on the reference climate, which in this case is a 30-year climate (1981–2010).

 

Thanks, Chris

 To remind all of the obvious, 2026 has the advantage of the warmest merely due to GW, which of course should be taken into account when comparing the strength of the upcoming Nino to others. How much has it warmed since 2015? 1997? 1982? Haven’t oceans warmed at least  ~0.5C since ‘82? The GW component of the tropical oceans should essentially be taken out when comparing strengths of ENSO, which is what RONI does. Even after taking this into account though, 2026 is in contention for the strongest Nino on record.

 This is also the case for OHC comparisons.

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Its my understanding that the pre-1950 ENSO years are more subject to debate re: strength, but still cool to see which years were which. 2002-03 was another cold moderate Nino. 2009-10 was funky but cold in spots. And several others hovered near climo temp-wise.

 2002-3 and especially 2009-10 were cold in the SE.

 Please post May ‘26 obs from your area as well as current wx events/obs for other areas. Hope all or at least most areas of the SE get good rains this month to help with the ongoing drought.

 The two big SE GA fires are now ~40% contained thanks to help from recent rains down there. 

 My area has had some showers this morning, which includes some isolated small heavier ones. The main show (widespread 1”+) for here as well as for the fire areas is tonight through tomorrow.

 Please pin @buckeyefan1TIA

33 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

I disagree. While the mean of a strong Nino is a milder than avg winter in the north, keep in mind theres tons of hugging the warmest and/or least wintry Ninos on record in here by some. Thats not how weather always works.

The strong El Nino of 1911-12 was a brutally cold winter, one of the coldest on record. It definitely didnt fit the mold of a typical strong Nino. And yes, even back then (before we hear about a different climate) strong Ninos generally produced mild winters, including 1877-78 (year without a winter in the upper midwest) and 1918-19 (a winter far less snowy than any ive ever experience).

Using the more common post-1950 list. Moderate are a mixed bag- several cold winters in there. And several of the strong Ninos averaged on the average to cool side of average here.

 Thanks.
1. You’re right that 1911-12 was colder in the Great Lakes/Midwest than in the South (see image below). So, good find and makes my statement wrong about ALL moderate or stronger El Niños on record not being colder in the N than in the S. I stand corrected.

 2. However, though not as cold, the South still had a pretty cold winter (2-4 BN), which is unlike the NN on the Cansips. So, in that regard, the Cansips is still not making sense to me. Also, 1911-2 was about as cold in the S as the NE.

3. By the way, 1911-12 was just a lower end moderate with a peak of +1.2 per Webb rather than strong. But it’s still an exception to my statement since I was referring to moderate or stronger:

https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

 I had ~0.05” yesterday morning, which brought me up to a total of ~1.5” for April, <50% of the normal of ~3.25” but ~double what I got in March (which was almost all on March 8th by the way). The last 1” of the 1.5” was received just since April 26th on 3 different days with most of that (0.8”) falling on 4/26.

42 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Thats the way to run a strong nino. Cansips has been hellbent on a 3rd straight cold winter in the Great Lakes.

That would be very much unlike any moderate or stronger El Niño on record (similar to what the prior run had). So, I still expect it to bust. This looks very strange for a strong+ Nino. The south being warmer than the north doesn’t happen with moderate+ Ninos due to the cooling associated with the stronger than average ST jet and not as cold up north due to the weaker polar jet: this looks much more Niña than Nino in the Conus.

May

DCA:  -0.6

NYC:  -0.3

BOS:  +0.3

ORD:  -1.6

ATL:  -0.5

IAH:  +0.4

DEN:  +2.0

PHX:  +2.6

SEA:  +2.8

Monthly “WP” table has this for D, J, and F 2025-6:
2025 Dec 0.08
 2026 Jan 0.07  Feb 0.23

https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/wp.data
 

Daily WPO has one of the most negative WPO Decembers on record with every day <0. There’s no way that a monthly of +0.08 has anything to do with the actual WPOs of Dec 2025. It looks like a major malfunction:

https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/wpo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Just harkens back to my point about the monthly tabular readings not providing an accurate portray all of the time.....you need to view the dailies because there were significant -WPO intervals this season, which is why it was so cold with more snow.

Is “WP” (monthly table) the same as “WPO” (dailies, which we know were negative most of the winter)? That table has positives in each of D, J, and F! Can’t be the same thing! It has +.08, +.07, and +0.23 lmao.

Dec daily WPO: every day was negative and yet that table has +0.08. So, that table is looking at something else. The monthly table url has “wp” in it. Is “wp” the same as “WPO”?

2025 12 01 -163.44
2025 12 02 -139.59
2025 12 03 -103.12
2025 12 04 -115.00
2025 12 05  -37.98
2025 12 06  -31.37
2025 12 07  -48.33
2025 12 08  -84.47
2025 12 09 -106.99
2025 12 10 -130.04
2025 12 11 -192.25
2025 12 12 -316.04
2025 12 13 -347.69
2025 12 14 -304.25
2025 12 15 -259.07
2025 12 16 -205.71
2025 12 17 -191.49
2025 12 18 -190.96
2025 12 19 -200.61
2025 12 20 -183.89
2025 12 21 -135.08
2025 12 22 -127.59
2025 12 23 -138.14
2025 12 24 -130.99
2025 12 25 -113.55
2025 12 26 -107.01
2025 12 27  -95.19
2025 12 28  -71.08
2025 12 29  -82.61
2025 12 30 -127.57
2025 12 31 -123.82

https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/wpo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I felt like it did, too, so the monthly numbers are incorrect?

Well, I’ll put it this way. That table of monthlies isn’t even close to what the avg of the dailies comes out to. Dec was -WPO every day. Also, Jan and Feb averaged -WPO. I crunched the numbers.

link to daily WPO:

https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/wpo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

@bluewave I was stunned to see that this past season actually averaged +WPO (.44 DJFM)...I would have bet my life that it was -WPO, but only December was. January and February were marginally +WPO, but essentially neutral. Now I feel better about my previous work connecting +WPO to the more active jet, as this makes more sense. We had more variability this season, which is why it wasn't strongly positive like previous years in recent memory...this allowed for the cold, but the +WPO in the mean continued to correlate to a more active jet, which is likely why we only saw one major coastal. The big January event was a huge SWFE.

According to the average of the daily WPOs at the link below, it certainly did average a -WPO this winter:

https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/wpo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

10 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

@bluewave I was stunned to see that this past season actually averaged +WPO (.44 DJFM)...I would have bet my life that it was -WPO, but only December was. January and February were marginally +WPO, but essentially neutral. Now I feel better about my previous work connecting +WPO to the more active jet, as this makes more sense. We had more variability this season, which is why it wasn't strongly positive like previous years in recent memory...this allowed for the cold, but the +WPO in the mean continued to correlate to a more active jet, which is likely why we only saw one major coastal. The big January event was a huge SWFE.

Ray,

 Please provide your link to the monthly WPO. 
Something seems off. TIA

29 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

For much of NC even with the rain we were still below what a normal week should produce this time of year. So it makes sense that t worsened. I can guarantee that the 0.82” I've received THE ENTIRE month has done nothing but worsen the drought. This is our 4th in last 8 months I have recorded less than 1” of rain at my house for the entire month. 

 In my area where ~1” fell on April 26th (during the week ending 8AM on April 28th), which is more than the normal week’s ~0.75”. I don’t see how that area really worsened a category between 8AM on April 21st and 8AM on April 28th with that week being wetter than normal. I’m thinking that some reports came in between 8AM 4/21 and 8AM 4/28 that were based on conditions prior to 4/26. Keep in mind that 8AM 4/28 was merely the deadline to get reports in that would be reflected on today’s map. For example, I’d think that the 4/28 deadline would incorporate reports coming in on, say, 4/25.

 Also, some reports submitted could easily be based on conditions from 1-2 days prior to the submission. So, reporting lag would have two components to consider.

 I’m not saying no area in reality worsened. Your area is a good example of one that really did worsen from what you’re saying. But your area’s worsening doesn’t represent the entire SE.

 This isn’t meant to be a criticism as reporting lag can’t be prevented…it’s totally normal. And I’m not at all trying to downplay the drought, which has been and still is a bad one overall. 

44 minutes ago, bckhd2 said:

My theory for this is that it's hard for 1" of rain to be enough to drop a county a whole category when much of the state has been in some form of drought for 3+ months... FFC mentioned in their discussion today that even the 1-2" in store for central GA Saturday will not "put much of a dent in the drought." I think we will need at least multiple days/weeks of good sustained rainfall to improve by enough to drop a category. This image posted on FFC's Twitter I think does a nice job explaining... we would need over 10" in a month to get back to near-normal. Regardless, I do expect some improvement in next week's update.

 I’m not saying that I expected my county (Chatham) to improve a category. But the bulk of my county worsened a category despite 0.5-1” of rainfall in a good portion of it. I believe reporting lag was the reason for a good portion of that worsening of a category. Some other counties in GA as well as in AL, SC, and S NC were in a similar boat. Example: 4 counties in NE GA. It’s not just my county.

 This isn’t meant to be a criticism as reporting lag can’t be prevented…it’s totally normal.

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Extreme drought exploded in NC this week. Exceptional drought has developed east of Charlotte:

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?NC
 

Hopefully this is the peak 

 I believe that there’s notable reporting lag. I don’t mean just that the map is as of 8AM of two days ago (4/28). 

 Note that not a single area of the SE got better on the map released today vs the map released one week ago (in addition to many areas getting worse). See the maps below. I don’t see how that’s reflecting reality. 

 Based on looking at rainfall reports across the SE for prior to 8AM on Tue there was moderate to heavy rainfall in portions of especially N AL to S NC during the several days prior to April 28th. Despite that, some of those counties actually got worse vs the map as of the prior weekly map. I believe that due to the time needed to gather reports that there’s reporting lag of perhaps a few days. In other words, these maps as of Tue at 8AM are in reality probably reflecting closer to, say, an average of 8AM on Saturday or whatever. Tue at 8AM is just the deadline to get reports in so they have time to compile the map for the Thu AM release. In reality, there’d be reports coming in  before Tue…say on a Saturday for example. And then that Sat submission could have been based on a Fri or Thu observation.

  Map released one week ago:

Map released today: no improvement anywhere and worse in many spots: not realistic imho…example much of my county got nearly 1” of rain on Sunday (heaviest since March 6th), well before Tue 8AM deadline for submission, and yet my county got a worse designation!

 Snapshot current RONI equivalent appears to me to be fairly steady near +0.3C (temporary pause).

I got ~0.15” this morning.