2025-2026 ENSO

[TheClimateChanger]

If the current long-term trend were to continue, we would be seeing mean January temperatures of about 39.5F in northeast Ohio and about 44F in coastal New York.  Those are warmer than March averages today. Again, that is only extrapolating the ongoing trend. The reality is that the trend is actually accelerating as @bluewavepointed out. Not out of the question, we see warming as high 15-20F per century in the coming decades. Just unbelievable.

[mitchnick]

15 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

If the current long-term trend were to continue, we would be seeing mean January temperatures of about 39.5F in northeast Ohio and about 44F in coastal New York.  Those are warmer than March averages today. Again, that is only extrapolating the ongoing trend. The reality is that the trend is actually accelerating as @bluewavepointed out. Not out of the question, we see warming as high 15-20F per century in the coming decades. Just unbelievable.

Great news. Think of the savings on heating.

[TheClimateChanger]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Great news. Think of the savings on heating.

Yeah, some areas will definitely stand to benefit from these changes. Others might not fare as well, with sea level rises and such.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Since 2010, the only summers that were below the 1981-2010 average here at PHL were 2014 and 2023. However, June 2023 was significantly cooler than September 2023, and if you used JAS 2023 instead of JJA, it would have been above the 1981-2010 summer (JJA) average.

JJA 2014 (75.7) finished .2F below the 1981-2010 average, and JJA 2023 (75.8) finished .1F below the average. JAS 2023 was 76.1F, which would have been above the 1981-2010 JJA average.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just continuing with this insane +AO. This has been on of the most positive AO years May - July so far.  Kind of reminds me of the 80s/90s. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Jan - March 6-8 months after a +AO July

Looks like there is tendency for a -EPO March. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The roll-forward regression for February looks like what we saw mid-Winter last year.. big +NAO/-PNA. Last year also had a very big +AO May-July so it makes sense that it shows something similar

[snowman19]

There are a few studies that show a very strong tendency for 2nd year -ENSO winter’s to be -PNA dominant

[Stormchaserchuck1]

To test my theory of "evening out", let's see what the AAO does in the first half of August this year. This was last year:

2024  8  2 -3.455
2024  8  3 -4.415
2024  8  4 -4.459
2024  8  5 -4.338
2024  8  6 -4.279
2024  8  7 -4.152
2024  8  8 -3.808
2024  8  9 -3.399
2024  8 10 -3.415
2024  8 11 -3.595
2024  8 12 -3.506
2024  8 13 -3.395
2024  8 14 -3.511
2024  8 15 -3.040

Edit: It's suppose to hit +3 in the next few days, which it usually doesn't deviate from +1-2. Maybe there is a little bit of general time leeway too. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

14 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

wouldn't be surprising if we had another -EPO dominant winter with intervals of blocking. still some -PNA, obviously. likely AN temps in the mean, but we'll probably have some colder intervals with blocking... overall, doesn't seem like too much of a deviation from last winter's vibe, which I would run back and see if the dice can roll a bit better

Agree....

[mitchnick]

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Jan - March 6-8 months after a +AO July

Looks like there is tendency for a -EPO March. 

Roll forward didn't work last year, so we're back to "who knows."

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Jan - March 6-8 months after a +AO July

Looks like there is tendency for a -EPO March. 

 

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

The roll-forward regression for February looks like what we saw mid-Winter last year.. big +NAO/-PNA. Last year also had a very big +AO May-July so it makes sense that it shows something similar

Incidentally, this is in perfect alignments with my thoughts.

Thanks.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Roll forward didn't work last year, so we're back to "who knows."

Right...its not a perfect 1 correlation because nothing is...doesn't mean there isn't predictive value to be gleaned.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Roll forward didn't work last year, so we're back to "who knows."

There's enough data where it works as per the correlation coefficient. 

It's /1 so 0.1 is +10%, or 55% chance. 0.3 is +30%, or 65% chance. 0.5 is +50%, or 75% chance. Etc. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

 

Incidentally, this is in perfect alignments with my thoughts.

Thanks.

I'm going with a colder than average March, and probably above average Dec-Feb. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

There are a few studies that show a very strong tendency for 2nd year -ENSO winter’s to be -PNA dominant

Interesting....since 1950, I have 1955-1956, 1971-1972, 1974-1975, 1984-1985, 1999-2000, 2008-2009, 2011-2012, 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 as second year La Nina evemts. The only two DM periods that did not average -PNA out of that data set are 1999-2000 and 2011-2012, which preceeded swings back towards Pacific warm phase from cold phase.

2021-2022 actually had an extensive mid season +PNA mismatch period, but the seaonal mean was biased negative due to the the very stout RNA that ruined December....I could see a similar outocme this season with perhaps not as promounced -PNA, as that was record setting.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Interesting....since 1950, I have 1955-1956, 1971-1972, 1974-1975, 1984-1985, 1999-2000, 2008-2009, 2011-2012, 2017-2018 and 2021-2022. The only two DM periods that did not average -PNA out of that data set are 1999-2000 and 2011-2012, which preceeded swings back towards Pacific warm phase from cold phase.

2021-2022 actually had an extensive mid season +PNA mismatch period, but the seaonal mean was biased negative due to the the very stout RNA that ruined December....I could see a similar outocme this season with perhaps not as promounced -PNA, as that was record setting.

This is also added support for poleward Aleutian ridging....looks alot like more early polar composite.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Notice the two steps forward, one step back type of progression towards the shift back to a warmer Pacific phase that occurred in both 2000 and 2012, where as 2000-2001 flipped strongly positive before 2001-2002 was negative again....2012-2013 was strongly positive and 2013-2014 flipped negative again. This is what I expect to see moving forward....next year will be negative again, but change is afoot IMHO. Its a several year process that will take the latter portion of this decade, but after that we should also be approaching solar min.

[mitchnick]

15 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Right...its not a perfect 1 correlation because nothing is...doesn't mean there isn't predictive value to be gleaned.

 

13 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

There's enough data where it works as per the correlation coefficient. 

It's /1 so 0.1 is +10%, or 55% chance. 0.3 is +30%, or 65% chance. 0.5 is +50%, or 75% chance. Etc. 

I get it, but it's going to miss a whole lot of changes is SSTA, solar, and other variables before winter arrives, so at this range it's hard to get excited one way or the other. Then again, it's hard to get excited over anything at this range.

[40/70 Benchmark]

23 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I'm going with a colder than average March, and probably above average Dec-Feb. 

I think February could be pretty balmy before some potential late season stratospheric shennanigans-

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, mitchnick said:

 

I get it, but it's going to miss a whole lot of changes is SSTA, solar, and other variables before winter arrives, so at this range it's hard to get excited one way or the other. Then again, it's hard to get excited over anything at this range.

This composite below is strongly QBO and solar derived.

11 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This is also added support for poleward Aleutian ridging....looks alot like more early polar composite.

 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I get it, but it's going to miss a whole lot of changes is SSTA, solar, and other variables before winter arrives, so at this range it's hard to get excited one way or the other. Then again, it's hard to get excited over anything at this range.

Well there's a lot of variables included. This is one of them. I posted some pretty cool PDO stuff a few pages back.. you are right, the later into Summer you go the more important some things are.  A side note, but I do really like cold 500mb in any form.. I said this last year. We had almost the same exact strong +AO happening at this time last year, and it was the first time we had a cold 500mb sustained area in long time, I think the whole 2020-2023 period didn't have that. I was saying how it could possibly flip the EPO to negative for the Winter, and we did in fact have some -EPO driven cold. All these composites of best snowfall DCA seasons have cold 500mb all over the N. Hemisphere in the Fall before then.. it doesn't matter so much if there is PNA etc. just that there is widespread 500mb cold. I think it's a new pattern that we entered into last year. 

[GaWx]

The WCS 7/1/25 PDO was all the way down to -3.07, the most negative WCS PDO day of any during the couple of years I’ve been following the WCS. This barely beats the -3.04 of 5/31/24 and the  ~-3.02 of 10/10/24:

 

 

 Barring anything unexpected, this will likely bounce upward from near this level based on prior WCS dips stopping just below -3.

[GaWx]

 The 30 mb June QBO dipped to -13.72 from -4.59 in May. This is following most closely the 2014 progression and secondarily to 1972:

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

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 The 30 mb June QBO dipped to -13.72 from -4.59 in May. This is following most closely the 2014 progression and secondarily to 1972:

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

Really some extreme QBO swings lately

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

 The 30 mb June QBO dipped to -13.72 from -4.59 in May. This is following most closely the 2014 progression and secondarily to 1972:

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

2014 is the best analog, but I didn't include it because it was El Nino.

[bluewave]

The current steep -PDO drop in June was driven by the very impressive subtropical ridge which went across the whole Northern Hemisphere leading to the record subtropical SSTs.
 

 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The current steep -PDO drop in June was driven by the very impressive subtropical ridge which went across the whole Northern Hemisphere leading to the record subtropical SSTs.

It's not often that you see the cold anomaly max (Iceland) exceed the warm anomaly max in the Northern Hemisphere! (Although the relative value of Europe ridge because it was further south is greater). 

[bluewave]

26 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

It's not often that you see the cold anomaly max (Iceland) exceed the warm anomaly max in the Northern Hemisphere! (Although the relative value of Europe ridge because it was further south is greater). 

The ridge is verifying further south toward the subtropics than the climate models have been forecasting. They theorize that this pattern is related to decreasing snow and sea ice. But I think it could be driven by the subtropics and tropics forcing a 500mb standing wave pattern.

Perhaps, there is an interplay at work between all the regions which the climate models haven’t able to pick up on. In any event, the study below came out in 2014 and we have been seeing this pattern quite a bit in recent years.

So the forecast from 2014 picked up in something happening in the climate system even though it’s could very well be an incomplete assessment. 

 

 

 

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

3 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I'm going with a colder than average March, and probably above average Dec-Feb. 

Oh gosh, I hope not. There is nothing more depressing than that combination. I'll take a colder than average January, December, heck even November or October. Even a 2011-12 type winter would be better than this. A colder than average March after an above average Dec-Feb would be a complete waste.