2025-2026 ENSO

[Stormchaserchuck1]

6 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

This isn't the same Chuck that we had in 2006-07 *warmest winter ever* LOL

I'm just observing that the pattern seems to be breaking a little

Obviously above average is the way to go, as something like 80% of the months across the US are above average over the last 5-10 years. This coming heat ridge is also a SE ridge flexing, but it's happening with a strong +NAO which isn't as bad, imo. 

[LibertyBell]

9 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I'm just observing that the pattern seems to be breaking a little

Obviously above average is the way to go, as something like 80% of the months across the US are above average over the last 5-10 years. This coming heat ridge is also a SE ridge flexing, but it's happening with a strong +NAO which isn't as bad, imo. 

I want to know when places like PHL, NYC and JFK will hit 100, and I don't care about siting issues, as NYC did just fine hitting 100+ in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.  If CC is truly increasing our summer maxima a significant amount it should have no problem hitting 100 in the city and at JFK even with siting issues and a sea breeze.  It would hit 100+ before the sea breeze comes in, which typically doesn't happen until after 2 PM.

 

[LibertyBell]

20 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Wait...I like to talk about heat records?  

Actually, I like to talk about all weather records and cold/snow far, FAR outnumber heat when it comes to what i talk about. I know my local climate history like the back of my hand. My interest is local weather history and occasionally looking up other areas for certain things, events, etc. My thing is not spending hours, days, and weeks scouring through anything on xmacis or NCDC to find some rural middle of nowhere site I can plug into my latest post.

BTW....its funny that you take coop data from 1903 at face value but have an entire laundry list of what is wrong with tons of official data (if you dont like the outcome). There are two upper peninsula stations that had official weather data in 1903. On July 1, 1903 Sault Ste Marie had a high/low of 76/60 while Houghton (closer to Baraga) had a high/low of 70/52. Downstate Detroit had a high/low of 90/70 with Lansing seeing 90/63 and Grand Rapids 84/67. 

Highs from north to south in MI on July 1, 1903

Houghton- 70/52

Baraga- 66/20

Sault Ste Marie- 76/60

Lansing- 90/63

Grand Rapids- 84/67

Detroit- 90/70

Yup, that 20F is completely believable 

well heat records can be very interesting and we can talk about them in historical context about what was happening in the country/world at the time  I think that's why you like talking about heat records with me.

For example do you know some people blamed the extremely hot 1944 summer on nuclear testing lol?

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

7 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

This isn't the same Chuck that we had in 2006-07 *warmest winter ever* LOL

November, December, and most of January was extremely warm. Temperatures really bottomed out in February 2007.

Aside from the historically cold February 2015, I believe February 2007 is the next coldest February this side of 1980.

[LibertyBell]

9 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

November, December, and most of January was extremely warm. Temperatures really bottomed out in February 2007.

Aside from the historically cold February 2015, I believe February 2007 is the next coldest February this side of 1980.

Yep February-April 2007 were really cold with the VD2007 storm, the St Paddys Day 2007 storm and the Tax Day Noreaster in April.  The first three weeks of January 2007 (it hit 70) were warmer than the first three weeks of April 2007!

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

12 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

November, December, and most of January was extremely warm. Temperatures really bottomed out in February 2007.

Aside from the historically cold February 2015, I believe February 2007 is the next coldest February this side of 1980.

March was warm. It ended up being 7th warmest Winter to date, if I remember correctly. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Still an impressive -PDO.. and my N. Atlantic SST Winter NAO prediction method is now running positive

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

well heat records can be very interesting and we can talk about them in historical context about what was happening in the country/world at the time  I think that's why you like talking about heat records with me.

For example do you know some people blamed the extremely hot 1944 summer on nuclear testing lol?

 

Yeah...trust me, cold/snow are absolutely my #1. Hell the main reason I follow this thread is because as soon as one winter/snow season ends im looking forward to the next one. But heat records are interesting too, and it is summer. 

I have looked up tons of old newspaper articles online (I have an account where I can look at any Detroit Free Press since 1837), and i can assure you that heat, cold, snow/lack of snow etc were just as big of news stories then as they are now. The one huge difference is that back then anomalous weather was noted as such...but it wasn't blamed on anything. It was just a given that the weather always changes. And that fact, which will never change regardless of cc, is something that is sadly missed by some in the modern era.

[LibertyBell]

4 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Yeah...trust me, cold/snow are absolutely my #1. Hell the main reason I follow this thread is because as soon as one winter/snow season ends im looking forward to the next one. But heat records are interesting too, and it is summer. 

I have looked up tons of old newspaper articles online (I have an account where I can look at any Detroit Free Press since 1837), and i can assure you that heat, cold, snow/lack of snow etc were just as big of news stories then as they are now. The one huge difference is that back then anomalous weather was noted as such...but it wasn't blamed on anything. It was just a given that the weather always changes. And that fact, which will never change regardless of cc, is something that is sadly missed by some in the modern era.

When I looked up Central Park I was shocked to learn that the very first time they hit 100 was also the latest it's ever happened -- September 7th 1881 -- 101 degrees!

The only other time they have ever hit 100+ in September was in 1953 at the end of the longest heatwave on record, 12 days -- 102 degrees and also the all time monthly record (it hit 100+ a record 4 times in 1953, evenly split between two 7+ day superheatwaves, later matched by the very dry summer of 1966.)

 

[LibertyBell]

36 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

March was warm. It ended up being 7th warmest Winter to date, if I remember correctly. 

we had a 5 inch sleet storm here in the middle of March lol

[TheClimateChanger]

2 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Wait...I like to talk about heat records?  

Actually, I like to talk about all weather records and cold/snow far, FAR outnumber heat when it comes to what i talk about. I know my local climate history like the back of my hand. My interest is local weather history and occasionally looking up other areas for certain things, events, etc. My thing is not spending hours, days, and weeks scouring through anything on xmacis or NCDC to find some rural middle of nowhere site I can plug into my latest post.

BTW....its funny that you take coop data from 1903 at face value but have an entire laundry list of what is wrong with tons of official data (if you dont like the outcome). There are two upper peninsula stations that had official weather data in 1903. On July 1, 1903 Sault Ste Marie had a high/low of 76/60 while Houghton (closer to Baraga) had a high/low of 70/52. Downstate Detroit had a high/low of 90/70 with Lansing seeing 90/63 and Grand Rapids 84/67. 

Highs from north to south in MI on July 1, 1903

Houghton- 70/52

Baraga- 66/20

Sault Ste Marie- 76/60

Lansing- 90/63

Grand Rapids- 84/67

Detroit- 90/70

Yup, that 20F is completely believable 

It was two separate sites. Baraga 1N was 60/20; and Wetmore was 66/20. Even Gaylord in the lower Peninsula was 72/49, so there was a wide disparity from south to north.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

Yep February-April 2007 were really cold with the VD2007 storm, the St Paddys Day 2007 storm and the Tax Day Noreaster in April.  The first three weeks of January 2007 (it hit 70) were warmer than the first three weeks of April 2007!

 

April 2007, in addition to being cold, was really wet. I think it was the wettest April on record at PHL. If only we had that wet pattern in February, we could have done some epic snow totals that month.

[roardog]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Yeah...trust me, cold/snow are absolutely my #1. Hell the main reason I follow this thread is because as soon as one winter/snow season ends im looking forward to the next one. But heat records are interesting too, and it is summer. 

I have looked up tons of old newspaper articles online (I have an account where I can look at any Detroit Free Press since 1837), and i can assure you that heat, cold, snow/lack of snow etc were just as big of news stories then as they are now. The one huge difference is that back then anomalous weather was noted as such...but it wasn't blamed on anything. It was just a given that the weather always changes. And that fact, which will never change regardless of cc, is something that is sadly missed by some in the modern era.

Yeah. It seems people that don’t follow the weather always have this misconception that drastic daily changes in weather and or extreme heat or cold never used to happen. It doesn’t help when any media story about the weather basically reinforces that idea.

[snowman19]

Still an impressive -PDO.. and my N. Atlantic SST Winter NAO prediction method is now running positive

IMO we are at least a year away (maybe longer) from any substantial PDO change

[bluewave]

On 6/17/2025 at 6:53 PM, michsnowfreak said:

Im well aware of the mean temps in the warm stretch the last decade. I was wondering why you picked 27°, but i noticed in the 1948-1958 stretch the coldest winter was 26.9° lol. I look at every winter in great detail, and the past 10 years is no exception. We've had some cold months and arctic blasts, but not enough solid 3-month cold to get a big DJF temp departure (2024-25, 2021-22, & 2017-18 were slightly colder than avg). Fortunately, snowfall hasn't been anywhere NEAR a 10 year low. Much like snowfall in winter being the most important metric for me, max temps are the most important of summer. So regardless of what the summer mean temp ends up, Im more concerned with how many hot days we have vs mild muggy nights. We pretty much made it past mid June without any hot muggy weather, so I consider that a win. Todays the first real muggy day. Still doesn't mean im excited about the coming heatwave. 

Regarding magnitude of anomalies, summer departures will never come CLOSE to a winter departure in either extreme, so it’s no comparison. We had a temp departure of -14.5° in Feb 2015. Meanwhile, July 2011 (hottest on record) was +5.2°.

The recent winter 10 year average temperature for Detroit set a new record in 2025 at 30.8°. The previous record ending in 1958 was 29.3°. But that 10 year streak was followed by an average of 23.1° in 58-59. It’s unlikely absent a major volcanic eruption anytime soon that Detroit can have another winter that cold again in this much warmer climate. Since readings near that level were last seen prior to the two baseline temperature jumps in 15-16 and 23-24. 

My comparison to how warm a summer departure for warmth would be if Detroit and the Great Lakes saw March 2012 or winter 2023-2024 occur in the summer was proportional and not the exact magnitudes of the departures. It’s what such a summer would look like in proportion to a peak above other recent summers. Since we know the range of the departures is generally greater during the cold season. 

A proportional relative to summer climatology high temperature heat extreme has occurred in a few regions of extreme drought. A dust bowl repeat for the Upper Midwest would be equivalent to such a summer extreme. But luckily the conditions where the farmers removed the topsoil on the Great Plains leading to that extreme are no longer present. In fact, the record  irrigation and corn production has lead to a local summer cooling in spots. Though the dew points have been very extreme since the 90s making the real feel close at times. Plus flash flooding has been more of a concern than extreme drought from the Upper Midwest to Great Lakes. 

While many areas have experienced record summer heat during the 2020s, the most extreme heat was in association with the record drought in the Pacific Northwest . This allowed several stations to surpass their all-time highs by 6°+ back in 2021. Areas further east have been too wet during the summer to allow high temperature extremes this high. 

[LibertyBell]

12 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The recent winter 10 year average temperature for Detroit set a new record in 2025 at 30.8°. The previous record ending in 1958 was 29.3°. But that 10 year streak was followed by an average of 23.1° in 58-59. It’s unlikely absent a major volcanic eruption anytime soon that Detroit can have another winter that cold again in this much warmer climate. Since readings near that level were last seen prior to the two baseline temperature jumps in 15-16 and 23-24. 

My comparison to how warm a summer departure for warmth would be if Detroit and the Great Lakes saw March 2012 or winter 2023-2024 occur in the summer was proportional and not the exact magnitudes of the departures. It’s what such a summer would look like in proportion to a peak above other recent summers. Since we know the range of the departures is generally greater during the cold season. 

A proportional relative to summer climatology high temperature heat extreme has occurred in a few regions of extreme drought. A dust bowl repeat for the Upper Midwest would be equivalent to such a summer extreme. But luckily the conditions where the farmers removed the topsoil on the Great Plains leading to that extreme are no longer present. In fact, the record  irrigation and corn production has lead to a local summer cooling in spots. Though the dew points have been very extreme since the 90s making the real feel close at times. Plus flash flooding has been more of a concern than extreme drought from the Upper Midwest to Great Lakes. 

While many areas have experienced record summer heat during the 2020s, the most extreme heat was in association with the record drought in the Pacific Northwest . This allowed several stations to surpass their all-time highs by 6°+ back in 2021. Areas further east have been too wet during the summer to allow high temperature extremes this high. 

our modern farming practices are horrible, we need to completely defund the corn and soybean cartels and we need more super derechos to take them down.

why is the Pac NW getting the drought and not us? They have an ocean to their west and the flow is west to east and we have an entire continent to our west, shouldn't they be getting the excessive rains and we getting the drought?

1995 was an extremely hot summer in the midwest.

The 1990s really were like the 1930s-1950s era for big summer heat, we haven't seen that kind of consistent heat since (though we did see it briefly from 2010-2013.)

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I actually really like this cold 500mb over Greenland for Winter -EPO potential.. it's a correlation that I've been working with over the past 12 years, strong +NAO periods are correlating with -EPO +time

-EPO is my early hedge for next winter, as well...I was just telling a forecaster on FB that I associate with that I feel good about ridging INVO AK next season.

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 hours ago, snowman19 said:

IMO we are at least a year away (maybe longer) from any substantial PDO change

I would have to agree.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Obviously its ridiculously early, but there is some major work to do for us to see anything other than an east-based cool ENSO event take shape (assuming it is cool ENSO) given the evolution of the subsurface this spring.

[40/70 Benchmark]

That said, orientation is not a big deal when the ENSO event meager, as this one should be...but all things being equal, I'd still prefer to see to see it east-based.

Defintely some interesting early season hedges to be made with a cool/ENSO easterly QBO combo....

[Terpeast]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Still an impressive -PDO.. and my N. Atlantic SST Winter NAO prediction method is now running positive

Interesting that both pac and atl have similar spatial patterns 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

My comparison to how warm a summer departure for warmth would be if Detroit and the Great Lakes saw March 2012 or winter 2023-2024 occur in the summer was proportional and not the exact magnitudes of the departures. It’s what such a summer would look like in proportion to a peak above other recent summers. Since we know the range of the departures is generally greater during the cold season. 

Didn't we get that in July 2012?

[LibertyBell]

30 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Didn't we get that in July 2012?

what about July 2010?

[PhiEaglesfan712]

13 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

what about July 2010?

Some places were very warm, but it wasn't as widespread: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/statewide/mapping/110/tavg/201007/1/rank

In fact, 2011 was more widespread than 2010: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/statewide/mapping/110/tavg/201107/1/rank

[michsnowfreak]

16 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

When I looked up Central Park I was shocked to learn that the very first time they hit 100 was also the latest it's ever happened -- September 7th 1881 -- 101 degrees!

The only other time they have ever hit 100+ in September was in 1953 at the end of the longest heatwave on record, 12 days -- 102 degrees and also the all time monthly record (it hit 100+ a record 4 times in 1953, evenly split between two 7+ day superheatwaves, later matched by the very dry summer of 1966.)

 

Detroit has hit 100F 3 times in Sept- Sept 2, 1953; Sept 3, 1953; Sept 15, 1939.

While the highest temp in Sept 1881 was "only" 94F (hit twice), this is by far the warmest Sept on record to this day. So much so that the 2nd warmest Sept, 1931, is a whopping 2.3F colder. The weather was unusually muggy late in the month with unheard of lows in the upper 60s to low 70s. Makes me wonder how bad the Fall color season was that year.

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, michsnowfreak said:

Detroit has hit 100F 3 times in Sept- Sept 2, 1953; Sept 3, 1953; Sept 15, 1939.

While the highest temp in Sept 1881 was "only" 94F (hit twice), this is by far the warmest Sept on record to this day. So much so that the 2nd warmest Sept, 1931, is a whopping 2.3F colder. The weather was unusually muggy late in the month with unheard of lows in the upper 60s to low 70s. Makes me wonder how bad the Fall color season was that year.

wow I wonder if that was going into a big el nino? and it looks like your 1953 was as extreme as ours was!

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

The recent winter 10 year average temperature for Detroit set a new record in 2025 at 30.8°. The previous record ending in 1958 was 29.3°. But that 10 year streak was followed by an average of 23.1° in 58-59. It’s unlikely absent a major volcanic eruption anytime soon that Detroit can have another winter that cold again in this much warmer climate. Since readings near that level were last seen prior to the two baseline temperature jumps in 15-16 and 23-24. 

My comparison to how warm a summer departure for warmth would be if Detroit and the Great Lakes saw March 2012 or winter 2023-2024 occur in the summer was proportional and not the exact magnitudes of the departures. It’s what such a summer would look like in proportion to a peak above other recent summers. Since we know the range of the departures is generally greater during the cold season. 

A proportional relative to summer climatology high temperature heat extreme has occurred in a few regions of extreme drought. A dust bowl repeat for the Upper Midwest would be equivalent to such a summer extreme. But luckily the conditions where the farmers removed the topsoil on the Great Plains leading to that extreme are no longer present. In fact, the record  irrigation and corn production has lead to a local summer cooling in spots. Though the dew points have been very extreme since the 90s making the real feel close at times. Plus flash flooding has been more of a concern than extreme drought from the Upper Midwest to Great Lakes. 

While many areas have experienced record summer heat during the 2020s, the most extreme heat was in association with the record drought in the Pacific Northwest . This allowed several stations to surpass their all-time highs by 6°+ back in 2021. Areas further east have been too wet during the summer to allow high temperature extremes this high. 

Completely disagree that it would take a major volcanic eruption to see a winter avg temp of 23.1F. We were 2.2F colder than that in 2014! Detroit saw a mean temp of 23.3F in 2014-15 following 20.9F in 2013-14. 

Now obviously its not common. The 23.1F mean temp in 1958-59 is the 18th coldest winter on record (and was at the time the coldest in 23 years). But I hate talking in absolutes about future weather. 

2023-24 was a warm winter but it had been seen before. March 2012 had never been seen before.

[GaWx]

3 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

wow I wonder if that was going into a big el nino? and it looks like your 1953 was as extreme as ours was!

Regarding wondering if it was going into a big El Niño, what year are you referring to?

[LibertyBell]

Just now, GaWx said:

Regarding wondering if it was going into a big El Niño, what year are you referring to?

1881 Larry

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, michsnowfreak said:

Completely disagree that it would take a major volcanic eruption to see a winter avg temp of 23.1F. We were 2.2F colder than that in 2014! Detroit saw a mean temp of 23.3F in 2014-15 following 20.9F in 2013-14. 

Now obviously its not common. The 23.1F mean temp in 1958-59 is the 18th coldest winter on record (and was at the time the coldest in 23 years). But I hate talking in absolutes about future weather. 

Both 2013-14 and 2014-15 were extremely cold here, the peak of the cold was February 2015