GaWx

5 minutes ago, FPizz said:

Does this have anything to do with the El Nino?  Maybe very warm in Argentina, and cold up 80N?  Just wondering.  

Good question. I don’t know but they’re both fascinating to see.

—————————
Aside: I’ve been having big problems today with inability to connect, lag, etc. This is similar to the problems of a few weeks ago. Anyone else having problems?

The coldest on record DMI 80N+ temps continue! This started in late May and hasn’t stopped! I once again just checked every year back to 1958:

The OHC per this is now >+2.5 due to a rapid rise! Due to possible interpolation in the near future IF this were hitting a (temporary) max, this could be cooled on future graphs. But even if so, July has almost definitely hit a new high for the event:

***I’ve been having big problems today with inability to connect, lag, etc. This is similar to the problems of a few weeks ago. Anyone else having problems? @Wow

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Some extreme effects from this record developing El Nino showing up in South America.

 

 

Chris, I find it fascinating that the previous warmest was in August, another winter month! Do you know if that was also in El Niño?

 The -SOI streak just hit 72 days, which is tied with 1997 for the 2nd longest -SOI streak since the daily record start in 1991! There’s a near 100% chance that it will reach a new 2nd longest streak of 73 days tomorrow:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/DailySOI1887-1989Base.txt

11 hours ago, mitchnick said:

I'm not taking anything personal on this Board. Lol I'm just being blunt. You've said several times that the seasonal models are just spitting out canonical enso winter forecasts and Cfs2 clearly didn't based on the temp forecast you criticized but never posted. And remember, you picked the 23/24 winter as the example. 

But we agree on 1 thing. The seasonal models won't be right in all locations around the globe. If you're going to judge them based on an entire continent or the world, then fine, they stink. But that doesn’t mean they can't be close in some areas. I only care about the east, specifically the N. Mid Atlantic. As Gawx has proven in several recent posts on the subject, they've been pretty good around here lately, including 23/24. So they are worth considering. And like I said, if they showed warm, please don't kid yourself that you wouldn't be posting or referencing them. 

To set the record straight, 25/26 rather than 23/24 is the winter that I said that @bluewavewas too harsh on as regards the 8/1/25 Euro and mid-July ‘25 CFS performance overall for the Conus. They forecasted ~+2F anomalies for the Conus averaged out geographically, which was ~36F. I posted them here:

That means they were predicting the 7th or 8th warmest winter on record back to 1895. It ended up at 37.1F, which is ~3F above both the 1993-2016 climo base of the Euro and the 1991-2020 climo base of the CFS and the 2nd warmest on record. That’s a decent performance by these two imho, especially with DJF being ~6 months out! They missed by only ~1F and thus still predicted quite a warm winter even though not warm enough:

0Z UKMET: significantly stronger than last few runs and not as far N track allowing it to avoid LA for the most part and actually landfall just S of Galveston as TS, where Joe Bastardi said he may be hanging out:

GLOBAL MODEL DATA TIME 0000UTC 21.07.2026

TROPICAL STORM BERTHA ANALYSED POSITION : 28.5N 86.2W

ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL022026

LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND
VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS)
-------------- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
0000UTC 21.07.2026 0 28.5N 86.2W 1005 32
1200UTC 21.07.2026 12 28.7N 86.4W 1001 42
0000UTC 22.07.2026 24 29.3N 87.1W 1001 37
1200UTC 22.07.2026 36 29.4N 87.6W 1002 37
0000UTC 23.07.2026 48 28.9N 89.0W 1002 42
1200UTC 23.07.2026 60 29.0N 90.3W 1004 37
0000UTC 24.07.2026 72 28.5N 92.6W 1000 40
1200UTC 24.07.2026 84 29.1N 94.9W 1006 38
0000UTC 25.07.2026 96 CEASED TRACKING

 12Z UKMET is slightly stronger than 0Z with it showing 35 knots/barely TS this time before it dissipates by hour 60 moving W into LA, a similar track to 0Z/6Z runs. It then comes out S of LA but in a weakened state below TD status as it heads into the Galveston vicinity:

TROPICAL DEPRESSION 02L ANALYSED POSITION : 28.4N 85.5W

ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL022026

LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND
VERIFYING  TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS)
-------------- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
1200UTC 20.07.2026 0 28.4N 85.5W 1008 23
0000UTC 21.07.2026 12 28.8N 85.9W 1006 25
1200UTC 21.07.2026 24 28.7N 86.3W 1005 35
0000UTC 22.07.2026 36 29.4N 86.9W 1004 33
1200UTC 22.07.2026 48 30.1N 87.6W 1006 29
0000UTC 23.07.2026 60 CEASED TRACKING

6 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

Here comes the +IOD….there are no road blocks ahead to stop this thing from strengthening and strengthening

 

 

 

 

And with the projected TC forecasts, the WWBs and DWKWs are just going to keep coming

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have a guess for the +IOD peak?

15 hours ago, GaWx said:

Don’t forget that CDAS is slightly cold biased. But this chart isn’t relative. Relative OISST is in the +1.6-+1.7 range.

 I’m guessing that tomorrow’s weekly relative Nino 3.4 release will have it at +1.5 with +1.6 on the high end.

The weeklies keep coming in lower than my guesses as Nino 3.4 came in at only +1.4 for last week vs my +1.5 guess. This is surprisingly low when considering that it is OISST based. It is for the prior week averaged out, but still +1.4 looks low when comparing to this relative OISST graph. The avg of last week, the last 7 dots on the image below, is actually ~+1.6!

4 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The weekly ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly rose to +3.6°C during the week centered around July 15. Only the 1982-83 and 1997-98 super El Niño events saw comparable or higher values.  The last such anomaly occurred during the week centered around December 24, 1997 (+3.6°C). A strong El Niño is ongoing.

 Thanks, Don. It’s very warm there, no doubt, indicative of a strong Nino.

 I prefer to compare the relative weeklies for the best apples to apples comparison to the strength of past events due to the GW effect on tropical oceans skewing the straight ENSO anomalies higher in more recent years:

For the week centered on 7/15/26, the relative region 1+2 anomaly was at +2.8, a rise from the +2.6 of the prior week and the highest yet for this event.

How does +2.8 compare to past events back to 1982 in mid July?

2023: +2.8

2015: +2.3

1997: +3.7

1982: +0.5

 So, going back to 1982, 2026’s +2.8 is tied with 2023 for 2nd warmest anomaly in mid-July on a relative basis with 1997 being the warmest:

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

20 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Completely agree. IMO this is going to easily be the strongest super El Niño in history on the RONI and the traditional ONI for both peak and trimonthly average. I also think the August MEI goes above +2 and it would not surprise me at all if we tie or exceed the strongest MEI month on record sometime this fall or winter (*which I believe is +2.9 back during the 1982-83 super Niño*). I’m sure @GaWx has the actual MEI stats for that

Correct, Adam. 1982-3 bimonthlies peaked at +2.9. Get this, that peak wasn’t til April-May of 1983. Although April-May is very late even for the MEI peak, it does sometimes peak sig. later than the 3.4 SST anomaly peak. Why? My guess is atmospheric lag vs SSTa peaks since MEI has an atmospheric portion. There’s nothing better to illustrate atmospheric lag than to look at SOI lows for strong Nino events per the monthlies:

Event……..SOI low….SSTa peak…Lag (months)
1982-3……Feb ‘83…….Dec ‘82……..2

1991-2…….Jan ‘92…….Jan ‘92…….0

1997-8……Mar ‘98……..Nov ‘97…..4

2009-10….Feb ‘10………Dec ‘09….2

2015-6…...Jan ‘16………Nov ‘15…..2

2023-4…..Feb ‘24………Dec ‘23….2

 So, avg lag from SSTa high to SOI low for these 6 strong events was 2 months.

 MEI peaked late in 1982-3, 1997-8, and 2009-10 (although it didn’t in 2015-6 and 2023-4).

https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/

Jim Cantore thinks it is on its way to becoming Bertha:

“Visible showing a nice twist with TD2 circulation center. There is lightning within the southern flank of that circulation. On its way to TS Bertha status.”

https://twitter.com/JimCantore/status/2079191019812192469
 

For the first time in 7 runs, the UKMET doesn’t have a TS from this: it dissipates in the NW GOM similarly to the prior run

TROPICAL DEPRESSION 02L ANALYSED POSITION : 28.0N 84.9W

ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL022026

LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND
VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS)
-------------- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
0000UTC 20.07.2026 0 28.0N 84.9W 1009 23
1200UTC 20.07.2026 12 28.5N 85.5W 1008 22
0000UTC 21.07.2026 24 28.3N 85.7W 1006 27
1200UTC 21.07.2026 36 28.9N 85.6W 1005 32
0000UTC 22.07.2026 48 29.7N 86.1W 1005 31
1200UTC 22.07.2026 60 30.3N 86.8W 1008 28
0000UTC 23.07.2026 72 CEASED TRACKING

NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 84 HOURS
FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 84 : 28.5N 90.9W

LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND
VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS)
-------------- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
1200UTC 23.07.2026 84 28.5N 90.9W 1009 25
0000UTC 24.07.2026 96 28.7N 91.7W 1010 24
1200UTC 24.07.2026 108 28.8N 93.4W 1012 28
0000UTC 25.07.2026 120 CEASED TRACKING

On 7/17/2026 at 7:39 PM, snowman19 said:

@Gawx

 Thanks, Adam.
 For the period May-July, we’re likely headed to ~-22 avg SOI. One has to go all of the way back to 1905 to find any year at -22 or lower for May-July! Then it was -27. But that was a second year Niño (moderate). The only other one was in 1896, a strong Nino. That was at -28. Per Eric Webb’s tables, 1895-6 barely missed a low end weak Nino because there were only 4 tri-months in a row of +0.5 surrounded by +0.3s! So, 1896-7 was practically a 2nd year Nino. So, 2025-6 with 2024-5 having been La Niña is in uncharted territory going back to the mid-1800s as regards the extremely intense summer -SOI.

17 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

El Nino's effects do propagate to the Stratosphere and the Strat winds are opposite +QBO vs El Nino so it is possible there is some correlation

No other year on record was nearly as wacky as 15-17 QBO-wise. 48-53 maybe couldn't get out of -QBO and that had a string of La Nina's. 

Chuck,

I don’t follow you.

Do you see anything that could prevent a +QBO from starting ~now or in autumn and then going through winter? If so, what? I’ve been banking on it based on the common ~24 month pattern.

37 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The 2015-16 El Nino screwed up the progression of the QBO if I remember correctly.

Did anyone ever figure out why and if it could happen again? I would think its decent odds for this year with this El Nino, even though the QBO is off a bit from where it was then.

How do you know that the El Niño is what caused this? Couldn’t it just be a coincidence? I’m suspicious of that because I couldn’t find even one similar occurrence with any of the other super-Nino events!

@40/70 Benchmark@Stormchaserchuck1

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

19 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

+2 for Nino 3.4?

Don’t forget that CDAS is slightly cold biased. But this chart isn’t relative. Relative OISST is in the +1.6-+1.7 range.

 I’m guessing that tomorrow’s weekly relative Nino 3.4 release will have it at +1.5 with +1.6 on the high end.

1 hour ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I think they are re-adjusting some of the daily SOI's. I remember it being higher in recent days. This is quite a streak:

19 Jul 2026	1013.04	1016.50	-27.15	-27.71	-19.78
18 Jul 2026	1013.56	1016.50	-23.95	-27.02	-19.48
17 Jul 2026	1013.50	1016.95	-27.09	-26.34	-19.15
16 Jul 2026	1013.27	1018.25	-36.50	-25.58	-18.73
15 Jul 2026	1012.10	1017.65	-40.01	-24.45	-18.16
14 Jul 2026	1011.36	1016.35	-36.56	-23.53	-17.62
13 Jul 2026	1010.44	1015.10	-34.53	-23.20	-17.20
12 Jul 2026	1009.89	1015.20	-38.53	-23.21	-16.92
11 Jul 2026	1011.77	1015.80	-30.66	-23.06	-16.66
10 Jul 2026	1013.16	1015.45	-19.94	-22.84	-16.52
9 Jul 2026	1011.59	1014.45	-23.45	-22.68	-16.60
8 Jul 2026	1008.90	1015.20	-44.63	-22.32	-16.71
7 Jul 2026	1009.02	1015.35	-44.81	-21.68	-16.58
6 Jul 2026	1011.31	1015.45	-31.33	-21.34	-16.28
5 Jul 2026	1010.44	1015.25	-35.46	-21.21	-16.03
4 Jul 2026	1010.84	1015.20	-32.69	-21.02	-15.72

 

90-day SOI hasn't been -20 since 1998.. first biggest El Nino event of the 2000s.

That July 16th Darwin 1018.25 mb is its 2nd highest on record back to 1991. The highest is only barely higher, 1018.35 (mid-2004).

*Corrected

31 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Again to reiterate, a Winter east vs west-based El Nino

Thanks, Chuck. So, temps are clearly colder with W vs E based. Is some of this because the strongest El Niño winters tend to have warmer 1+2?

 However, with regard to wintry precip, itself, the SE appears to have done a bit better with C based (3.4 warmest) than W based (4 warmest) if I’m recalling my research correctly. 

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

My statement was correct. The winter of 2025-2026 was the 2nd warmest on record for the CONUS.

While it’s difficult to find a perfect match, the forecasts were close to a 1994-1995 outcome which was the 12th warmest winter for the CONUS.

So for the CONUS the seasonal forecasts were too cold due to the extreme nature of the warmth out West.

I kept the scales in (C )for a direct comparison to the ECMWF forecast.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/national/time-series/110/tavg/3/2/1895-2026

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/03/we-just-had-the-second-warmest-winter-in-u-s-history-despite-icy-blasts/

Rankings and departures out West were much higher than the East

Verification in (C)

 I realize ‘25-6 DJF was mild overall in the CONUS on a geographic basis. I’m not disputing that. But I think you’re being a bit too harsh on model performance for 25-6.

 The winter averaged 37.1F, which was 3.1F warmer than the Euro’s climo base of 1993-2016 and 3.0F warmer than the CFSv2’s climo base of 1991-2020. The forecasted mean anomaly for both the 8/1/25 Euro and the mid-July ‘25 avg CFSv2 was ~+2F for the CONUS on a geog. area basis or ~36F. This was actually a bit warmer than the 35.6 of 1994-5. Thus, the models were only ~1F too warm on a geog. area basis.

 Here are the warmest CONUS winters since 1895-6 (excluding 2025-6):

37.5 in 2023-4

36.8 in 2015-6

36.5 in 1999-00

36.4 in 1991-2

36.3 in 2011-2

36.3 in 1998-9

36.0 in 1999-00

 
 Thus, with their ~36F progged mean, these 2 models were essentially predicting about the 7th-8th warmest CONUS winter since 1895-6. It came out 2nd. I think that’s pretty darn good.
 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/national/time-series/110/tavg/3/2/1895-2026

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The models were too cold with their 2025-2026 CONUS forecast since the magnitude of the Western warmth was significantly greater than the cold in the East. Just by looking at any of the seasonal models would not have given any indication of the 2nd warmest winter on record for the CONUS.
 

 
 Mid July ‘25 CFSv2 2m fcast for winter 25-6:


8/1/25 Euro 2m fcast for winter 25-6:

Actual 2m for winter 25-6:

So, these 2 were much too warm in the E US, pretty close central, and not nearly warm enough W, especially in/near Rockies. W coast though was fairly close.

*Edited for typo

12Z UKMET: 6th run in row with TS but dissipates off TX

TROPICAL DEPRESSION 02L ANALYSED POSITION : 27.1N 85.2W

ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL022026

LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND
VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS)
-------------- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
1200UTC 19.07.2026 0 27.1N 85.2W 1012 22
0000UTC 20.07.2026 12 27.9N 84.9W 1009 22
1200UTC 20.07.2026 24 27.6N 85.5W 1008 27
0000UTC 21.07.2026 36 28.2N 85.5W 1005 30
1200UTC 21.07.2026 48 28.8N 85.7W 1004 35
0000UTC 22.07.2026 60 29.3N 86.0W 1003 35
1200UTC 22.07.2026 72 29.4N 87.1W 1004 46
0000UTC 23.07.2026 84 29.2N 88.2W 1004 40
1200UTC 23.07.2026 96 28.0N 90.7W 1002 48
0000UTC 24.07.2026 108 28.1N 93.9W 1005 33
1200UTC 24.07.2026 120 CEASED TRACKING