GaWx

 Yesterday’s publicly available Bastardi video (“Saturday Summary”) didn’t at all talk about the upcoming mild E US (gee, I wonder why lol) and instead talked about the expected upcoming El Nino being a Modoki. He’s using CANSIPS SSTAs to predict that, which I feel is wrought with risk as it similarly predicted a Modoki El Niño for this past autumn last year at this time:

What verified per this same model? A redeveloping La Niña: look how far off CANSIPS was!

  Here’s CANSIPS trying again for Modoki El Niño next autumn: will it verify this time or will it again bust? Opinions?

 Based on the following latest CANSIPS prog of ASO SST anoms, which he showed in his video, he’s going all-in on Modoki next hurricane season and continuing through winter:

 Based on this Modoki prog, JB is going for:

-very active and threatening to US 2026 hurricane season using the highest impact on US El Niño seasons of 1969 and 2004 as analogs (which he considers Modoki) along with a very warm Atlantic with ACE of 140-180, 17-21 NS, 8-10 H, 3-5 MH, 1-3 US H landfalls, and 1-2 MH US landfalls

-cold winter throughout much of Conus due to limited time spent in warm phases 4-7. He’s saying that 2023-4 was a warm flop only because models were wrong in predicting typical cold around Australia. It ended up warm there and in W Pac in general, which lead to a dominant +WPO instead of the progged -WPO. He said that warmth there was due to the “sudden impact of geothermal a couple of years ago”. He said SST anoms E of Australia rose an unprecedented 5 degrees from Nov to Jan, which he said had nothing to do with CO2 or solar. He expects none of the same as 23-24 this time with W Pac undersea seismic activity down and thus there instead being the typical cold around Australia during El Niño this fall/winter

—————

My primary concerns with JB forecast:

- Will it actually be Modoki? CANSIPS can’t be trusted for one thing.

- 2004 and 1969 were weak Ninos per ONI/RONI. Will 2026-7 actually be a weak Nino per RONI?

-JB tends to forecast the more threatening H season and cold E US winter scenarios and has even admitted to having a cold bias

@snowman19@donsutherland1

On 2/13/2026 at 5:52 AM, chubbs said:

I'd be cautious without a peer reviewed paper. There is a lot of misinformation on climate out there. We see it here all the time. Most of the published studies I've seen show a negative effect. One that will increase in the future. Warmth is a benefit in northern areas, but a negative further south. Here are a couple of links.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00491-0

https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/climate-change-cuts-global-crop-yields-even-when-farmers-adapt

Hey Charlie,

 This is from yesterday from a very experienced pro met., Mike Maguire, who believes in AGW:

Let me point out what is REALLY going to happen with high confidence:

Fossil fuels are finite. There was only X amount of plants that died while life existed on this planet that got sequestered/buried in the ground and decomposed/concentrated into fossil fuels. At the rate that we are burning them, it won't be much longer before they start running out.

BTW, all the CO2 we've been returning back into the atmosphere was there before as a beneficial gas and the building block for all of life. This scary false narrative of "CO2 is the highest its been in X zillion years" is intentionally meant to make people think there's something wrong with that, instead of receiving it as the profound gift that it's been for life on our massively greening  planet.

https://co2coalition.org/facts/140-million-year-trend-of-dangerously-decreasing-co2/
 

 Anyways, back to the fact that fossil fuels will be running out with certainty and the horrific disaster that will occur to the planet and human beings when that happens, almost with certainty.

 We constantly hear that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100+ years and the carbon pollution that we are spewing into the atmosphere today, will be damaging the planet past 2100. Complete hogwash!!!!!!!!!!

—————

 Does anyone disagree with anything Mike said in this post? If so, what and why? He believes in AGW but feels it is net beneficial for the globe. I don’t agree with him because I have a bigger concern about sea level rise being that I’m not far from the coast and he’s a Midwesterner. But otherwise, what about his points about it continue to lead to increased greening of the planet? Also, he’s shown evidence that cold kills more than heat although I do wonder if that will eventually switch after enough warming.

11 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Thanks. Ya we’ve noted this too. I tried to fire out wha it was but it’s as if they set the freezing temp to 35 instead of 32 or something. It defaults anything close to snow. 

 You’re welcome.

 It’s not just that though. As my example and examples that can be found on just about every run show, it literally has very heavy snow with these Gulf blobs when temperatures aren’t just a few degrees above 32 but rather as warm as ~40 degrees above 32! How can a major company let these Euro AIFS snow maps with this obvious major issue that’s as plain as day continue to be released before getting them fixed?

3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

The ensemble means have a snowy bias. I’ve discussed why before.  Part of it is skewed results from big snow outlier members. The median right now which is a better indicator is only 1” for DC and about 2” for Baltimore and you. That’s a much more accurate indicator of what the model thinks the chances of snow are.   You could also look at the probability output and see you only have a 40% of 3” over the next 15 days. So it’s saying you have a 60% of NOT getting any significant snow!  
 

But everyone pots the colorful mean maps because they always show more snow because a handful of unlikely 20” members of the ensemble skew the snow higher!  
 

There are other issues too but I’ll leave it there. However…you still want the snow output to be good. Because yea you just said it. When thay be bad we NEVER snow!  It’s no hope!  When they do show snow it doesn’t mean we will snow it just means we have a shot.  I’d say today’s EPS would say about a 30-40% chance of some snow depending on where you are for the majority of the area.  So that means it likely WONT snow. But it’s better than having no fucking chance. 
 

I swear to god how are some people on here for 20 years and still haven’t learned how to use a tool or how probabilities work!  

 The WB Euro AIFS ensemble means are often the snowiest of the ens means due to having a true snowy bias likely resulting from an algorithm issue at WB although I suppose the issue could be internal at ECMWF (doubtful). This is most easily exhibited by the numerous times (every run) when individual members have blobs of heavy snow well out over the Gulf/Atlantic when temperatures are in the 60s-70s. Even Bastardi has noted this oddity about his company’s own Euro AIFS snow maps! These blobs even show up on all of the ens means although obviously lighter. Notice that no other end snow maps have this oddity.

(This isn’t the first issue I’ve seen with WB maps by the way. For example, their Euro Weekly 2m maps are colder than the ecmwf in-house maps.)

Example: member 46 (far right) getting heavy snow during hours 60-66 (6Z to 12Z on 1/22/26) on the 18Z 1/19/26 run 200 miles out into the Gulf while temperatures are above normal (70s)! While laughable, it is more importantly indicative of a significant snowy bias on its maps:

 Actually, this can be seen in subtropical regions throughout the globe. It even shows snow blobs now in Australia during their summer, for example!

Per ecmwf (not WxBell): Today’s Bleaklies are, indeed, on the bleak side for Mar in most of the E US though NE is NN.

3 hours ago, suzook said:

Interesting. For ATL area we averaged 45.7 degrees Feb 1-12 which doesn't seem to bad to me, especially after the brutal Jan we had. I guess for Feb 45 average is low?

Good catch.

But, GSO/RDU/New Bern were 33.3/35.7/35.2 (MB). Also, Greenville (NC), FAY, LUM, and ILM were MB.

Yes, ATL was 46.4 (NN). AHN was 44.4 (NN).
 

GVL was 39.4 (B). GSP was 41.0(B). CLT was 38.8 (B). Also, B were MYR, CHS, CAE, AGS, and SAV.

I should have said N and E NC, specifically, for the “brutal” Feb 1-12.

I just looked at SAV: averaging -1.5 for winter through 2/12 vs -0.4 prior winter. This makes 2025-6 the coldest thru 2/12 since 2010-1 there and in GSO meaning coldest in 10-20 years, which is close to what map has for those.

Map has N GA incl ATL-AHN coldest in 5-10 years…I’m checking now…….

AHN thru 2/12: 25-6: 45.4

24-5: 45.8

17-18: 44.8

Coldest in 5-10 is correct

ATL thru 2/12:

2025-6: 49, 45.2, 46.4

46.99

2024-5: 44.7 (2), 59.1

47.04

So, ATL 25-6 barely colder than 24-5 thru 2/12

**20-21: 46.15 (2), 47.6

So, 20-1: 46.4 thru 2/12 meaning colder than 25/6 meaning 25-6 is coldest since 20-1 meaning coldest in 5 meaning map’s coldest in 5-10 correct

@suzookfor ATL update just added

7 hours ago, yotaman said:

Last January was brutally cold. Not so sure about that map.

It’s because Feb 1-12 2026 has been brutal (coldest in many years) while Feb 1-12 of 2025 was the warmest in many decades in much of SE.

22 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The latest teleconnection forecasts have turned increasingly toward an AO+ as February moves into its final week.

If these forecasts are accurate, the return of colder weather, albeit not severely cold, following the February thaw that remains likely through February 20 +/- a few days could wind up being fairly short-lived. If so, even if February ends with cooler than normal temperatures as suggested by the ECMWF weeklies, a milder regime could rebuild during the opening week of March. Forecasting skill for the teleconnections is fairly low beyond 10-14 days, so it will probably be another 5-7 days before one can be more confident about the outcome for the first week of March.

Finally, the cooler weather with some opportunities for rainfall that will build into the Southwest by the middle of next week probably won't last more than a week. Warmer temperatures should return to close February.

Check out today’s GEFS AO prog, a pretty notable change downward vs yesterday:

30 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Do you have a reference for climate change improving crop yield? Most studies I have seen show that adverse temperature and precipitation effects cancel any benefit from CO2 fertilization. As you note yields have increased by improvements in seed varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and better farming practices. The chart below shows how different yields would be in a world without climate change compared to our current one; a “decline” in this case means that in such a world yield growth would have been even higher. Climate effects have been small with more negative than positive effects on major crops.

https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields-climate-impact

Hey Charlie, I don’t have any links to provide right now. I’m going off of what a pro met. has posted elsewhere a number of times for years. Also, don’t forget that it isn’t just the CO2 Fertilizer Effect that’s beneficial. It’s also the longer growing seasons.

 Who broke the Bleaklies? Whereas I haven’t been able to get them all evening, I did look at the WxBell interpretation of them. That suggests they’ve cooled closer to the run from two days ago during several Bleaks fwiw.

@MJO812

2/13/26 edit: Bleaklies were finally fixed at ecmwf site

Today was downright chilly! Looking forward to a pretty cold evening walk.

Edit: The walk was very enjoyable in the near calm chill with mid 40s. Tomorrow will be another lovely day. Saturday will be a little warmer (~upper 60s high), but with still nice low dewpoints.
 
 These are the types of days I dream about during the long monotonous hot and humid summers here.

1 minute ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Boy you hit about all the MMGW scapegoat talking points there, didn't you?   You forgot about rape though.  (Yes, it's a thing)

I'll just hit one of the scaries for now - crop failures - the rest can be inferred.

 

 Some of the crop yield increases were likely helped by better technology, but not nearly all of it. GW/AGW have helped significantly with crop sizes, something often intentionally glossed over

48 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Well there's also the fact that it's lot harder to survive in extreme cold than it is in extreme heat, which is why so many more people die each year from cold weather.

Human comfort / survivability is not one of the negative effects of MMGW.    Sea level rise and increase in storms, yes.   But not the temperature itself.

IMO areas becoming "difficult to survive in" is a non-issue for MMGW.   Any slight increase in storm activity is just noise in the overall background of improved infrastructure and weather prediction.  A *lot* fewer people die these days from hurricanes and floods than they did in years past.

(Sea level rise of course is a non-issue w/regards to survivability; the creep is way slower than natural human birth/death cycles.   I always have to laugh when I hear of literal human "danger" proposed as being due to sea level rise.)

 Another positive effect of AGW/GW is regarding the world food supply due to the photosynthesis effect of CO2 as well as longer growing seasons. These favor larger crops/larger global food supply/less starvation. That shouldn’t be ignored in the full objective assessment of AGW/GW, which certainly has significant negative effects. However, there are  some good things, too, like fewer deaths from cold as you said and fewer deaths from starvation. These good effects are often glossed over by those wanting to only emphasize the bad effects.

 I saw the following image today:

 I’m not doubting the general accuracy of this. For example, this shows NO record lows at KATL vs 37 record highs since 2020. The last record low there including ties was way back on 9/7/2017! So, the zero record lows is confirmed.

 A better representation of the SE US to minimize the warming effects of UHI as well as warming from increased traffic on airport runways (big problem at ATL for example) would be to use a rural station like the far N GA small town of Blairsville, GA, which has a pretty long record (back to 1931):

 Per my counting (hoping I didn’t miscount…if I did it should be only minimally off):

 Since 2020 including ties, it has had 24 different days with record highs and 7 days with record lows.

Since 2010, 65 with highs and 25 with lows

Since 2000: 87 with highs and 42 with lows

 So, of course GW is real. But large cities’ records often cause an exaggeration of the degree of warming. So, it’s important to separate out UHI/airport effects as much as possible.
——————

Daily records from here:

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=ffc

2 hours ago, BooneWX said:

Gonna be sinful and say I don’t overly enjoy March snow. Yea, all snow is nice, but we all know it just doesn’t hit the same way when it melts in 2 hrs and takes a miracle to accumulate on the roads. By the time March 1 comes around it’s meteorological spring and my brain switches to sneezing, pine pollen and the Master’s. Don’t forget your pre emergent! In my years of experience, Valentine’s is the best time to apply it without risking being too late. 

Here there has been accumulating snow in March only 2 times in the modern record: 1993 and 1986. However, there have also been 9 traces, including 1980 and 1960. And way back in 1837, there was the 2nd biggest snow on record on March 3rd. We also had a major ZR/IP on 2/25/1914.

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Great charts showing how much smaller the geographic footprint and magnitude of these Arctic arctic outbreaks have become relative to the areas of record warmth.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/uspa/warm-cold/0

 

 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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The Dec-Jan period was the 7th warmest for the Contiguous U.S. since 1940. 21.1% had the warmest Dec-Jan during that period. 0.0% had the coldest Dec-Jan; 0.0% had the 2nd coldest, 0.0% had the 3rd coldest, .... all the way thru the 13th coldest.

 

9:32 PM · Feb 4,

 A better representation of the SE US to minimize the warming effects of UHI as well as warming from increased traffic on airport runways (big problem at ATL for example) would be to use a rural station like the far N GA small town of Blairsville, GA, which has a pretty long record (back to 1931):

Per my counting (hoping I didn’t miscount…if I did it should be only minimally off):

Since 2020 including ties, it has had 24 different days with record highs and 7 days with record lows.

Since 2010, 65 with highs and 25 with lows

Since 2000: 87 with highs and 42 with lows

So, of course GW is real. But large cities’ records often cause an exaggeration of the degree of warming. So, it’s important to separate out UHI/airport effects as much as possible.
——————

Daily records from here:

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=ffc

40 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Really not very warm in NE.

Agreed. It’s still not warm at all for you as you average NN during this 3 week period on this run. However, that’s a bit warmer than the prior run, which had y’all averaging a little BN.
 Hoping the next few runs reverse cooler from this in the E US.

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

The earth's output is not constant. Instead It is modulated by ENSO. More radiation out during El Nino when the atmosphere is relatively warm and less during La Nina when the atmosphere is cool. Similarly the global surface temperature is modulated by ENSO, the earth's surface is warmer during el nino. Note that the climate system is dominated by the ocean and the rise in ocean temperature is steadier than the global surface temperature.

There is also some variation in solar output over the 11-year solar cycle. If you take an 11-year average of global surface temperatures (below) most of the enso and solar variability is removed. Leaving mainly man-made forcing and a small volcano contribution.

 This suggests ~0.20/decade 1980-2000 and ~0.24/decade 2000-2020.

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are significantly warmer than the last few for the 3 wks 2/23-3/15 

40 minutes ago, suzook said:

No snow

Thank you.

 Y’all predicting no more snow in y’all’s locations down in the SE US with it looking mild next week and with it getting late are obviously very reasonable predictions. But do you expect any more hard freezes? That and cold in general are obviously part of winter, too. Cold without snow is a lot more common than cold w/snow. Even in this warmer era, an average of 4 freezes in March occurs. Do you expect any March freezes in ATL? TIA

14 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Winter is over for the piedmont 

What is your definition of “winter is over”? I read this often from various people as if it’s a black and white thing but without them explaining what they mean. Thanks.

The period Feb 1-7, 2026 was in MJO phase 8 as per this image:

 Using Baltimore again as a proxy for the E US, Feb 1-7 was the coldest La Nina Feb phase 8 on record in terms of both average anomaly and cumulative anomaly. Keep in mind that 

-It averaged 9 BN. The prior coldest was 7 BN and that was just a one day period.

-The cumulative anomaly was 66 BN over the 7 days. The prior largest cumulative Feb phase 8 La Niña anomaly was only 36 BN, which was over a 9 day period in mid Feb of 1999.

  Comparing this to other Feb MJO phases during La Niña:

- This very cold phase 8’s cumulative anomaly of 66 BN is the third largest of all phases with only these two exceeding that:

1. Early Feb of 1996’s phase 3 added up to 84 BN over 7 days

2. Late Feb of 2008’s phase 1 added up to 70 BN over 10 days.

Warmth won’t last per EWs for last few days, including today’s, as SE goes back down to back and forth averaging NN and NE goes back to cold: these are for 2/23-3/1

8 minutes ago, NyWxGuy said:

-NAO rising to positive. -PNA becoming deeper. Meteorology over modelology, it shouldn't take much for us to understand that is opposite of the a good winter pattern. That's about as bad as it gets 

Hoping after a mild week 2 for an improvement to mainly NN in the SE late month into March!

 The chances for an overall Feb -PNA are good as of now with a strong -PNA upcoming. This goes through Feb 24th:

AO now rising sharply:

NAO is, like the AO, also rising. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this rise will be enough to get the DJF NAO >-0.25, the # I’ve always used to classify a winter as -NAO vs neutral. DJ is at -0.5. In order for DJF to rise above -0.25, the Feb NAO would need to end up >+0.25, which is a decent possibility per this: