GaWx

31 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Incredible! Downloaded data from SERCC (observations from March 1-April 14, forecast values through April 19) reveals nearly 80 long-term threaded stations are in the midst of their warmest spring on record, calculated by average daily high temperature. Led by Huntington, West Virginia, where the first 50 days of spring has seen a mean high temperature of 72.8F, an astounding 12.1F above the 1991-2020 mean. Again, that's a 50-day average!

Have you changed from the “Global Warmer” to the “US Warmer”?  
 The US has only 2% of the world’s surface area and only 6% of the world’s land surface area and that’s including Alaska. This is the same argument used against those talking about how hot the US was in the 1930s summers.

14 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

Do you have Canada by chance?

It’s the 15th and still no March QBO has been released. What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on? It never has taken more than a few days into the new month to release it.

 

 Nino 3.4 SSTa levels have finally started rising during the last 2 days, a 0.2C increase. Often there’s a delayed response to strong -SOI levels as they usually don’t produce SST rises immediately (reminder: these are straight rather than relative but the point is the rise):

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

His linear, arithmetic approach to the question is not how nature works. 

He doesn't appear even aware of "synergy" in the system, emergent properties of complex systems that are wholly dependent upon the interactions of products, that cannot be very coherently pre- assessed or predicted because they do not exist until they are manufactured by the system.  

A+B -->  A'         C+D --> C'          ;       A' + C'   -->   A''       where A'' is the synergistic bi-product.

If we really wanna roll sleeves in how nature works, A, B, C, and D, are all partial derivatives occurring in time - it's really more like

d(A)+d(B) -->  A'         d(C)+d(D) --> C'          ;       d(A') + d(C')   -->   A''

We've been talking about this for years at this point in here.   The increased frequency of 'extra special' heat waves, Globally, surpassing all predictive tools ( sometimes by very large margins ), have already been denoted as "synergistic heat waves" in various climate publications/among the compendium of accredited sources.   

There's probably going to need some discrete reanalytic study, but it's much more likely that the heat in the SW U.S. during March was a phenomenon of this ilk.  

 

Tip,

Thanks for your reply.

 We know that the Arctic has warmed considerably more than middle latitudes, especially in winter. Thus, the contrast between the avg Arctic temp. and the avg mid latitude temp has lowered, which has reduced the avg speed of the polar jet. Thus per the source noted below:

“A slower and more contorted jet stream allows cold air to move further south and warm air to move further north, and it also allows weather systems to persist longer than usual. Under these circumstances, episodes of severe cold or protracted heat, as the UK experienced in spring and summer 2018 respectively, become more likely.”

https://theconversation.com/arctic-breakdown-what-climate-change-in-the-far-north-means-for-the-rest-of-us-123309#:~:text=The exceptional rate of Arctic ( the,and determines the paths of weather systems.

 But I still have to wonder if this phenomenon along with the up to 3F warmer globe were strong enough factors on their own to result in the W US heatwave being a record producer or would it without CC still have been a record producer but just at a lower level? I don’t see how this can be proven one way or the other. With the extreme heat so much hotter than the prior record, that would be quite the feat for CC’s influence.

 So, I’m at least for now maintaining what I said on April 3rd:

“had there been no GW the US still could have had their warmest month since the late 1970s but with not as warm temps.”

 All I said on April 3rd was “could”. After all, one would have to prove that it “could not” to conclude that I’m wrong. Fair enough?

 

 The final strat. warming occurred on April 9th, 13 days earlier than average:

 

@snowman19

 Does anyone disagree with what Chris Martz says here?
 
 He says that a record hot W US March would still have occurred had there been no GW because that elevates the starting temperature by no more than about 3F whereas records were smashed by 10-20F. So, this heat wave would still have been unprecedented in the records in scope. It just wouldn’t have been quite as hot, which is consistent with my thinking.

 I essentially already had said all of this ITT on April 3rd at this link:

 

 I’d like to add that the extreme cold over AK/W Canada and the record strong March +NAO were likely all associated with each other. Also, note that on a seasonal basis, cold/warm E US winters are often associated with warm/cold W US winters due to the opposite reaction idea. Also, a cold US winter is often associated with a warm Canadian winter.
 

 The W heat was caused by a record strong upper level ridge over the W US. But the ridge, itself, was associated with an atmospheric Rossby wave. Because of La Niña, there was low frequency convection over the W and C tropical Pacific. That caused a cyclonic circ. (deep low) to form over Hawaii. Downstream of that, a record strong ridge was pumped up over the W US:

 

18 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

 So far as regards the effects on Nino 3.4 SSTa, it’s been all bark and little or no bite with it still at ~-0.2 to -0.3C. It should resume warming shortly, but it’s done none the last 3 weeks.

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Weekly SSTA (just updated) for Enso 3.4 and 4 have been stuck at +.2C and +.6C respectively for the past 3 weeks. Looking forward to a month from now since we're still in a Niña hangover of sorts that should be wiped out by then.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for

The latest official weekly for 3.4 was semi-stalled at -0.3 after being -0.2 the week before and -0.3 two weeks before:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/rel_wksst9120.txt

Latest 10 day CFSv2 ensemble mean forecast of RONI: +2.0 peak OND. Note that unlike the BoM’s nearly impossible +0.6 for April, this has a much more sensible -0.3:

 The newest BoM prog (dated April 11th) is unchanged and thus still has a RONI of +0.6 for April averaged out. This is almost certainly going to end up much too warm for April:

 

How do I know it is almost definitely going to bust much too warm for April?

 

Weekly RONI equivalent: 3rd column is 3.4

01APR2026         0.6       -0.3       -0.2        0.3
 08APR2026         1.0       -0.2       -0.3        0.2

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/rel_wksst9120.txt

 
 So, the weeks centered on April 1/April 8 were -0.2/-0.3.

 Here’s the current OISST, which isn’t relative and thus one needs to subtract ~0.5 from it:

 As the above chart shows, there’s been no net warming for the last 3 weeks and the latest few days of OISST have been only +0.05 to +0.15. Subtracting 0.5 gives ~-0.4 for the RONI equivalent. April 1-11 OISST are likely no warmer than ~-0.3 for RONI equiv. To be conservative in converting from OISST to ERSST, I’ll call it -0.2 for RONI MTD. The weeklies I showed suggest between -0.2 and -0.3. 
 

 How is it even possible for April RONI as a whole to come in anywhere near as warm as +0.6? These daily OISST readings (don’t forget these are not relative) would need to skyrocket to an avg of at least ~+1.5 for Apr 12-30!! And with OISST starting off at <+0.2, there are going to have to be some +2++ dailies starting no later than 2 weeks from now! Nothing even remotely close to that extremely rapid rate of warming has occurred on record. Thus, BoM is looking to bust much too warm for Apr RONI. With Apr being way off, the credibility of the rest of the run is compromised.

QBO (30 mb) still has not updated for March! I don’t recall it ever taking nearly this long for any month, which has me a bit concerned:

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

Latest OHC:

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

 

I’ll compare 2026 to others.

 Here’s 2026 with its first strong -SOI period not til days 98-102:

2026  98 1010.27 1010.30  -17.45

2026  99 1009.30 1011.45  -32.74

2026 100 1009.19 1011.45  -33.53

2026 101 1009.56 1011.00  -27.62

2026 102 1010.69 1010.75  -17.67

 

1) 1994: already had strong -SOI days 75-90:

1994  75 1009.95 1009.25  -16.33

1994  76 1011.21 1009.00   -9.08

1994  77 1010.30 1008.65  -11.78

1994  78 1009.25 1009.30  -19.92

1994  79 1009.33 1009.25  -19.32

1994  80 1010.65 1008.60   -9.86

1994  81 1011.61 1009.45   -9.32

1994  82 1012.00 1010.25  -11.30

1994  83 1010.73 1009.80  -15.23

1994  84 1009.74 1010.30  -22.37

1994  85 1011.13 1011.00  -19.08

1994  86 1012.49 1011.90  -16.86

1994  87 1012.66 1011.95  -16.27

1994  88 1012.31 1012.15  -18.90

1994  89 1012.79 1011.85  -15.19

1994  90 1012.12 1011.85  -18.36

2) 1997: already had strong -SOI days 81-90:

1997  81 1011.33 1011.55  -20.69

1997  82 1009.53 1010.25  -23.08

1997  83 1009.46 1010.35  -23.92

1997  84 1009.17 1010.95  -28.17

1997  85 1009.38 1011.65  -30.50

1997  86 1008.01 1011.85  -38.04

1997  87 1007.55 1011.15  -36.91

1997  88 1010.10 1010.60  -22.07

1997  89 1011.92 1011.00  -15.24

1997  90 1011.97 1010.55  -12.85

 

3) 2002: already had strong -SOI days 72-80

2002  72 1010.71 1012.50  -28.24

2002  73 1010.25 1011.40  -25.18

2002  74 1011.11 1011.10  -19.62

2002  75 1010.70 1010.90  -20.63

2002  76 1009.60 1010.35  -23.27

2002  77 1010.04 1010.55  -22.13

2002  78 1012.20 1010.55  -11.78

2002  79 1013.25 1010.20   -5.07

2002  80 1010.45 1008.90  -12.26

 

4) 2004: already had strong -SOI days 87-97

2004  87 1010.56 1010.65  -20.11

2004  88 1009.84 1011.25  -26.42

2004  89 1009.20 1011.25  -29.49

2004  90 1008.64 1011.75  -34.56

2004  91 1007.47 1011.75  -40.16

2004  92 1006.10 1012.30  -61.94

2004  93 1005.85 1012.25  -63.38

2004  94 1006.74 1011.55  -51.92

2004  95 1005.93 1011.20  -55.23

2004  96 1007.71 1011.00  -40.96

2004  97 1008.59 1010.60  -31.73

5) 2014: already had strong -SOI days 73-80

2014  73 1010.53 1009.55  -14.98

2014  74 1009.38 1010.70  -25.99

2014  75 1008.55 1009.75  -25.42

2014  76 1009.09 1010.40  -25.94

2014  77 1009.21 1009.75  -22.26

2014  78 1007.89 1010.20  -30.73

2014  79 1007.49 1009.30  -28.34

2014  80 1009.69 1008.25  -12.78

6) 2015: already had strong -SOI days 67-79:

2015  67 1007.50 1008.10  -22.55

2015  68 1008.11 1008.65  -22.26

2015  69 1008.73 1008.20  -17.14

2015  70 1009.33 1008.65  -16.42

2015  71 1009.24 1008.45  -15.89

2015  72 1009.91 1007.55   -8.38

2015  73 1010.42 1007.65   -6.42

2015  74 1010.41 1008.90  -12.45

2015  75 1006.90 1010.15  -35.23

2015  76 1005.66 1009.05  -35.90

2015  77 1008.13 1008.65  -22.16

2015  78 1010.35 1009.55  -15.84

2015  79 1008.79 1011.20  -31.21

7) Even the non-Nino 2012, which psyched out the Euro, had an earlier strong negative period:

2012  90 1011.39 1009.80  -12.06

2012  91 1009.90 1010.70  -23.50

2012  92 1010.45 1011.70  -26.25

2012  93 1012.60 1012.20  -14.35

2012  94 1012.53 1013.55  -24.59

2012  95 1011.19 1013.45  -33.53

2012  96 1010.10 1012.15  -32.01

2012  97 1009.94 1011.85  -31.01

2012  98 1009.98 1011.60  -28.91

2012  99 1010.16 1011.65  -27.98

2012 100 1011.50 1011.45  -16.87

 

 OTOH, 2026’s strong -SOI is ahead of 2006, 2009, 2018, and 2023.

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

Great write up from ECMWF on how to interpret the recent El Nino forecast so early in the development process.

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/science-blog/2026/el-nino-2026

Chris,

 1. The writeup you linked us to specifies what we already knew: the U.S. now incorporates RONI for its official ENSO updates vs the Euro still not doing so. So, to approximate RONI based on the current difference, ~0.5C should be subtracted from the Euro progs since they are still predicting a straight ONI.

2. The following shows that although the Euro’s too warm ASO ONI prog was highest for April progs in 2017 (+1.4), it was also significantly too warm in 2025 (+0.8), 2022 (+0.7), 2021 (+0.6), 2020 (+0.8), 2014 (+1.2), and 2012 (+0.6). Moreover, misses to the cold side were much less frequent and smaller. So, based on averaging out the misses, a notable warm bias is evident although it isn’t as large when El Niño actually verifies. None of this means ONI will definitely verify colder than the April Euro prog, but rather to not be surprised if it verifies several tenths colder based on a bias corrected ONI prog:

 

 Today from JB: any comments? Is he making sense saying that in the cold season it’s harder to get record cold further N?? That doesn’t sound right. What am I missing? Aren’t SDs/variances larger at higher latitudes? See what I bolded below.

 OTOH, due to GW, if he had said it’s harder to get record cold than record heat, I’d agree. So, in that regard, much of AK/Canada having its coldest March on record in this 2-3F warmer world certainly is quite remarkable.

 From JB:

However, later he says this, which I agree with since variances in summer are not as large as March:

“Now lets look at the March map again off the PSL site. you have got areas 12 above normal in the time of the year when its much easier to get that warm, then when you are at the hottest time of the year, pulling this off like 1934,1936 is much harder to do.”

———————

 PHX was 6.5 warmer than any other Mar on record whereas Fairbanks was only 2.4 colder than any other Mar on record. But, 2.4 colder in a warmer world might be about as impressive.

 Opinions?

 

40 minutes ago, suzook said:

November? We all will be burned down to nothingness by then. This is beyond ridiculous.

 My water bills are looking to be outrageously high, but I have no choice if I want to keep the grass healthy.

21 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

If (IF) this is correct, that is insane for a 13 models/637 member ensemble mean for September, at +2.2C, since the El Niño will still be strengthening at that point. They normally peak in November or December….
 

UKMET has been one of the better models in recent years. It’s going ~+2.05 for Sep ONI and would likely rise a few more tenths from there. Then take off ~0.5 to convert to RONI. So, ~+1.5-1.6 C RONI in Sept and rising per UKMET.

 Euro ONI is just over +2.2 in Sept and rising, but it has tended to verify too warm although not as much warm bias verified on average in actual El Niños.

 This all suggests to me a mid to high grade strong RONI peak as of now. I’ll continue to update.

5 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Welp ... I was wrong about March when it comes to predicting the product result, below.  I had presumed recently that we'd result a more obvious local geographic ( 'local' relative to the entire world) cool zone/island anomaly relative to the whole "inferno" that is clearly and coherently, unarguably the product's character below... eh hm.  Said island had been a persistent leitmotif since late last autumn... 

Still, you know, it really didn't sensibly come off that way?  I recall seeing March colder locally comparing to the whole country on a lot of days... In fairness I think what is actually going on is that this product below is the "anomaly".  What we experienced may have technically been a warm anomaly, just not as demonstrative or obviously so as everywhere else... SO, in that vein and sense it might still qualify.  

Also, having that impressively deep cold garland lording over top the Canadian Shield while there's a quasar spanning the conterminous U.S., definitely helps explain why we've been getting these wild 40 to as much as 50+ F air mass whiplashes, too.

Anyway, here is the tabulation and mean for March provided by https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/

 

•  

• Quote

That’s the coldest March for Canada, overall, since 2002, which is below:

 

57 minutes ago, BooneWX said:

The forests in the western half of NC are littered with dried debris from Helene. It’s a powder keg and I’m afraid one cigarette flung out of a window could cause a disaster. 

 I’ve been sprinkling the yards recently. The drought in this area and especially to the SW is about the most severe in the entire SE with widespread D3 (extreme) here to D4 (exceptional) in SC GA to NC FL. See map below.

 Although it’s unpredictable, the good news is that a strong El Niño appears to be on the way. If that verifies, much of the SE should see wet relief by November based on history and long range models:

 

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Thanks. So we can realistically say super nino winters were: 1877-78, 1888-89, 1957-58, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1997-98, 2015-16.

 Yeah, that’s what I have. I find it amazing that there were none for the 68 winters between 1888-9 and 1957-8. I wonder whether or not this is random, especially considering there were 7 over the subsequent 68 winters 1957-8 through 2024-5!

7 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Are the only super events 1877-78, 1982-83, 1997-98, & 2015-16?

 

 

Add to those using a peak of 2+ RONI for 1950+: 1888-9, 1957-8, 1965-6, 1972-3, 1991-2

Nov: NMME is warmer than its prior run and much more E based than Cansips Modoki:

Nov SSTa NMME latest run:

 

Nov SSTa NMME prior run:

 

Nov SSTa Cansips

42 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We have plenty of time to watch this one develop. Remember, these ENSO plume forecasts are just basically repeater models. They extrapolate the current conditions going forward. They are correct when the actual conditions repeat. When changes occur they exhibit errors.

So if these record WWBs continue, then we have a shot at what they are showing. All I can say is that the models did a great job on the plumes from April of 2023.

We would probably need a wind reversal on the order of June 2014 to avoid a +2.0 or greater ONI outcome. Once we verify the June conditions then things will come into better focus.

The big story in 2023-2024 was the models underestimating the Nino ridge and warmth along the Northern Tier and overestimating the Aleutian low and troughing in the South and East. So it will be interesting to see how things go with this event.

The 4/23 ONI fcasts: BoM much too warm and Euro/CFS/UK somewhat too warm. Actual JAS +1.37

1. BoM: +2.17 for JAS or 0.80 too warm

2. Euro: +1.57 for JAS or 0.20 too warm

3. CFSv2: +1.56 for JAS or 0.19 too warm

4. UKMET: +1.58 for JAS or 0.21 too warm

 OTOH, the avg of all 17 dynamicals was +1.33, which was almost perfect.

ONI history:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/oni.ascii.txt

 

4/23 ONI forecasts: 

https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/2023-April-quick-look/?enso_tab=enso-sst_table

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

 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