2025-2026 ENSO

[MJO812]

2 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

ready 2 b buried

Same

It has been a while

[A-L-E-K]

^

[40/70 Benchmark]

29 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

^

It least he has a few flakes dancing around the bad news

[bluewave]

16 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

The winter of 2013-14 was decades into the mainstream acknowledgment of "global warming" and was the most severe winter this area had recorded.

If you get a favorable pattern where everything aligns for any given region, you absolutely can get a severe winter and cc is going to do nothing to stop it.

This is where we get into non-linear climate shifts as opposed to the more generic and bland sounding CC term. 

From around 1880 to 1982 we were more or less in a common climate era as the temperature didn’t change that much. Then once emissions began to accelerate after 1980 temperatures began to rise at faster rate. The 1970s were the last time the CONUS had top 10 coldest winters. 

The next era was from 1982 to 1997 when be began to notice a faster rate of warming than before 1982. Regionally we were still getting very cold winters during this period. But the cold wasn’t as widespread as back in the 1970s. 

The first real jump in global and national temperatures occurred in 1998. So the next era with similar temperatures occurred from 1998 to early 2015. Some regions like the Midwest and Great Lakes were able to have a very impressive cold and snow in 2013-2014. But this cold couldn’t reach the magnitude across the CONUS that it did during the 1970s. So it was more focused into your area.

2015-2016 was the greatest shift or jump in temperatures that we have ever seen. This marks the beginning of a much warmer era where none of the winters since then have been able to rival any of the snow and cold records experienced as recently as 2009-2010 to 2014-2015. This last decade was the warmest on record during the winters for the CONUS by a significant margin. 

So we went from CONUS widespread cold in the 1970s to more narrowly focused regional cold prior to 2015-2016. The cold outbreaks since then have been regionally focused more around 30-45 days rather than the 90 day + regional cold of 13-14 and 14-15.

The geographic footprint and duration of the cold has been getting shorter. Following the 2015-2016 baseline temperature shift or jump, the cold outbreaks between have been more narrowly focused and of shorter duration. 

The area around Rockford, IL set a new all-time low in January 2019 but the duration of the extreme cold wasn’t that long. My area in the Northeast had a great 2 week cold period from late December 2017 into early January 2018. But this didn’t last and was followed up by our first 80° February warmth ever.

Fast forward to February 2021 for the record cold focused in the Plains for around a month. But the magnitude of the warmth in December 2021 around DFW was greater than that of the cold in February 2021. 

Next we experienced another global and national baseline temperature shift or jump to higher during 2023-2024. So the core cold this winter was again more narrowly focused and didn’t rank very high as it followed the 4th warmest December on record for the CONUS.

The common theme since 2015-2016 has been shorter and more regionally focused cold events surrounded by periods of higher ranking record warmth. 

 

 

 

 

[bncho]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

This is where we get into non-linear climate shifts as opposed to the more generic and bland sounding CC term. 

From around 1880 to 1982 we were more or less in a common climate era as the temperature didn’t change that much. Then once emissions began to accelerate after 1980 temperatures began to rise at faster rate. The 1970s were the last time the CONUS had top 10 coldest winters. 

The next era was from 1982 to 1997 when be began to notice a faster rate of warming than before 1982. Regionally we were still getting very cold winters during this period. But the cold wasn’t as widespread as back in the 1970s. 

The first real jump in global and national temperatures occurred in 1998. So the next era with similar temperatures occurred from 1998 to early 2015. Some regions like the Midwest and Great Lakes were able to have a very impressive cold and snow in 2013-2014. But this cold couldn’t reach the magnitude across the CONUS that it did during the 1970s. So it was more focused into your area.

2015-2016 was the greatest shift or jump in temperatures that we have ever seen. This marks the beginning of a much warmer era where none of the winters since then have been able to rival any of the snow and cold records experienced as recently as 2009-2010 to 2014-2015. This last decade was the warmest on record during the winters for the CONUS by a significant margin. 

So we went from CONUS widespread cold in the 1970s to more narrowly focused regional cold prior to 2015-2016. The cold outbreaks since then have been regionally focused more around 30-45 days rather than the 90 day + regional cold of 13-14 and 14-15.

The geographic footprint and duration of the cold has been getting shorter. Following the 2015-2016 baseline temperature shift or jump, the cold outbreaks between have been more narrowly focused and of shorter duration. 

The area around Rockford, IL set a new all-time low in January 2019 but the duration of the extreme cold wasn’t that long. My area in the Northeast had a great 2 week cold period from late December 2017 into early January 2018. But this didn’t last and was followed up by our first 80° February warmth ever.

Fast forward to February 2021 for the record cold focused in the Plains for around a month. But the magnitude of the warmth in December 2021 around DFW was greater than that of the cold in February 2021. 

Next we experienced another global and national baseline temperature shift or jump to higher during 2023-2024. So the core cold this winter was again more narrowly focused and didn’t rank very high as it followed the 4th warmest December on record for the CONUS.

The common theme since 2015-2016 has been shorter and more regionally focused cold events surrounded by periods of higher ranking record warmth. 

 

 

 

 

my major question is why the world doesn't just slightly adjust back from those events like the 15-16 super nino? is it just "unable" to?

[40/70 Benchmark]

16 minutes ago, bncho said:

my major question is why the world doesn't just slightly adjust back from those events like the 15-16 super nino? is it just "unable" to?

Take a wild, crazy, absolute out-of-left-field guess about what his response may entail...go ahead-go nuts....

[FPizz]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Take a wild, cracy, absolute out-of-left-field guess about what his response may entail...go ahead-go nuts....

Haha yes, the tinfoil hat can be worn by many people

[snowman19]

18 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I dont think we'll ever see another 2013-14 here and I've said that many times. However, if everything aligned pattern wise for a similar winter (again, highly unlikely), I do not buy for one minute the bogus "new climate weather adjustment" bs. The winter of 2013-14 was decades into the mainstream acknowledgment of "global warming" and was the most severe winter this area had recorded.

If you get a favorable pattern where everything aligns for any given region, you absolutely can get a severe winter and cc is going to do nothing to stop it.

I would agree that 2013-14 was a once in a lifetime pattern. It was one of the most, if not the most anomalous, persistent +TNH patterns on record. Extremely unlikely to see such an anomalous +TNH pattern again, especially within 12 years…..

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I would agree that 2013-14 was a once in a lifetime pattern. It was one of the most, if not the most anomalous, persistent +TNH patterns on record. Extremely unlikely to see such an anomalous +TNH pattern again, especially within 12 years…..

It really wasn't anything remarkable in terms of sensible weather for my area....maybe 10% above average snowfall with no huge events. Cold was nothing out of the ordinary, either.

[snowman19]

@Gawx This may well turn into the strongest -IOD event since 1917 and 1933….

[GaWx]

11 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

@Gawx This may well turn into the strongest -IOD event since 1917 and 1933….

Snowman, thanks. Do you have a link to a table of monthly IOD history?

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, GaWx said:

Snowman, thanks. Do you have a link to a table of monthly IOD history?

https://psl.noaa.gov/gcos_wgsp/Timeseries/Data/dmi.had.long.data

[MJO812]

[snowman19]

Maybe the time has come to rethink parameters such as SSTs/AMO and ENSO for seasonal hurricane forecasts….

[snowman19]

@bluewave @donsutherland1 

Lack of eastward MJO propagation, -IOD and persistent strong trades has lead to a deep -AAM and La Niña like regime
 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The Apr-May SLP pattern in the Atlantic was a giveaway.. something to look at in future years. Pattern never really supported a major warming of tropical Atlantic SSTs. 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

15 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Lack of eastward MJO propagation, -IOD and persistent strong trades has lead to a deep -AAM and La Niña like regime

We haven't been seeing a big Aleutian ridge though. 

It looks like a vortex over the Arctic circle will get down below 4950dm tomorrow! That is probably record breaking, occurring just north of Russia and coming in close to -500dm. These vortexes over the last few weeks have been something, in the last few days of August we also had a sub-5000dm vortex over the Arctic circle. These extremes are similar to like Cuba hitting freezing. 

[michsnowfreak]

18 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, it is getting more difficult to get very cold winters in an absolute sense (against shifting climo is different)....that said, it's not as pronounced where you live as it is on the east coast.

I understand that, I just meant that if a pattern in place is going to produce a lot of cold and snow, nothings going to stop it.

[michsnowfreak]

8 hours ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, the impressive cold outbreak over the last few weeks has been focused to our west again. The Columbus, OH area saw their 5th coldest 2 week Aug 25 to Sep 7 period. This has been a repeating theme since the 2015-2016 super El Niño global and national temperature jump.

We saw this during this past winter when the coldest anomalies went to our SW and W. Then especially in February 2021 when the record cold went down the Plains and caused all the problems for Texas.

Prior to this we had the record cold stay to our west in January 2019 when new all-time records for cold were set around Rockford, IL. The last impressive cold outbreak for a few weeks centered in the Northeast was back in late December 2017 into early January 2018. The last extended cold to be centered in the Northeast was JFM 2015.

Time Series Summary for Columbus Area, OH (ThreadEx) top 5 coldest Aug 25 to Sep 7
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	1885-09-07	61.9	0
2	1915-09-07	64.3	0
3	1891-09-07	64.6	0
4	1896-09-07	64.7	0
5	2025-09-07	64.8	0
-	1988-09-07	64.8	0
-	1967-09-07	64.8	0

It was the 6th coldest Aug 25-Sept 7 period at Detroit, but coldest since 1935. Color is coming on earlier than normal as well.

[michsnowfreak]

4 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It really wasn't anything remarkable in terms of sensible weather for my area....maybe 10% above average snowfall with no huge events. Cold was nothing out of the ordinary, either.

 

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I would agree that 2013-14 was a once in a lifetime pattern. It was one of the most, if not the most anomalous, persistent +TNH patterns on record. Extremely unlikely to see such an anomalous +TNH pattern again, especially within 12 years…..

The entire pattern was definitely EVERYTHING going right. And everything busted in our favor. In 150 years of data, 2013-14 ranks for Detroit:

Total Snowfall- #1

1"+ Snowcover Days - #1

6"+ Snowcover Days - #1

12"+ Snowcover Days - #1

Cold- DJF #8, NDJFM- #4

And constant wind for drifting snow. Rural open areas in Monroe County, MI (between Detroit & Toledo) had snow completely bury some barns. 

[snowman19]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

We haven't been seeing a big Aleutian ridge though. 
It looks like a vortex over the Arctic circle will get down below 4950dm tomorrow! That is probably record breaking, occurring just north of Russia and coming in close to -500dm. These vortexes over the last few weeks have been something, in the last few days of August we also had a sub-5000dm vortex over the Arctic circle. These extremes are similar to like Cuba hitting freezing. 

Unlike last year when we were in a +AAM regime, this year we are and have been in a strong -AAM, so definitely much more Niña like in that respect

@so_whats_happening Australia’s BOM has changed its parameters for La Niña classification:
 

[donsutherland1]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

Unlike last year when we were in a +AAM regime, this year we are and have been in a strong -AAM, so definitely much more Niña like in that respect

@so_whats_happening Australia’s BOM has changed its parameters for La Niña classification:
 

The new measurement approach is an improvement. La Niñas, particularly weaker ones, would have been masked from a warming of the oceans. They were present, even if not acknowledged. 

[bluewave]

The JMA seasonal just updated for the winter. It was the only model that got the 2013-2014 winter correct with its fall forecasts. This time it has a much different look.

It has a more +PNA pattern than we typically get with a La Niña. So it has a Baja ridge instead of the deep trough we had there in 2022-2023. My guess is that this is a continuation of the ridging and warm water we have been seeing near the West Coast this summer. 

In the East we have the familiar -AO Greenland block linking up with the Southeast ridge. So a milder winter in the East than last winter.

As always these extended forecasts much of the time are low skill. So I just include here for informational purposes.

 

https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/wmc/products/model/map/7mE/map1/zpcmap.php

 

 

Famous forecast from September 2013 showing the record TNH winter

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

16 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Maybe the time has come to rethink parameters such as SSTs/AMO and ENSO for seasonal hurricane forecasts….
 

First time since 1992 we have no tropical activity at the peak of the season. That, of course, followed Hurricane Andrew.

It's looking more and more like Erin is going to be a one-off, like Andrew.

[40/70 Benchmark]

15 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I understand that, I just meant that if a pattern in place is going to produce a lot of cold and snow, nothings going to stop it.

Cold relative to current climo, yes.

[40/70 Benchmark]

15 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

 

The entire pattern was definitely EVERYTHING going right. And everything busted in our favor. In 150 years of data, 2013-14 ranks for Detroit:

Total Snowfall- #1

1"+ Snowcover Days - #1

6"+ Snowcover Days - #1

12"+ Snowcover Days - #1

Cold- DJF #8, NDJFM- #4

And constant wind for drifting snow. Rural open areas in Monroe County, MI (between Detroit & Toledo) had snow completely bury some barns. 

After these past seven seasons, I'd sacrafice my right testicle for that season....but normallu, I would describe it is very ordinary and yawnstipating.

[40/70 Benchmark]

17 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Maybe the time has come to rethink parameters such as SSTs/AMO and ENSO for seasonal hurricane forecasts….
 

I would describe it as rethinking the assumption that a parochial approach to seasonal forecasting will be good enough.....ENSO, and SSTs in general along with every other variable, needs to be contexualized relative to the rest of the globe, which is precisely what RONI attempts to do. Its not the SSTs themselves that are the primary drivers of the hemispheric pattern, but rather the gradients. This is why we need to view ENSO RELATIVE  to the western Pacific, and within the context of tropical forecasting, SSTs RELATIVE to the subtropics. It doesn't matter how extreme ENSO is (warm/cold) if the western Pacific is every bit as anomalous. Likewise, bathwater SSTs in and of themselves are not conducive if the subtropics are even more anomalously warm because the atmosphere will lack the requsite instability and CAPE to foster adequate convection. 

This season is a wonderful lesson in how to engage in tropical forecasting on a seasonal level in a warming climate just as the El Nino of 2023-2024 was very instructive with respect to mid latitude seasonal forecasting.

[jm1220]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The JMA seasonal just updated for the winter. It was the only model that got the 2013-2014 winter correct with its fall forecasts. This time it has a much different look.

It has a more +PNA pattern than we typically get with a La Niña. So it has a Baja ridge instead of the deep trough we had there in 2022-2023. My guess is that this is a continuation of the ridging and warm water we have been seeing near the West Coast this summer. 

In the East we have the familiar -AO Greenland block linking up with the Southeast ridge. So a milder winter in the East than last winter.

As always these extended forecasts much of the time are low skill. So I just include here for informational purposes.

 

https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/wmc/products/model/map/7mE/map1/zpcmap.php

 

 

Famous forecast from September 2013 showing the record TNH winter

 

We may be entering an era where we root for the +NAO because the SE ridge can routinely link up with a Greenland block. That obviously ruins any chance on the East coast for the major cities. But some SE ridge is good since it helps storms turn the corner. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

We may be entering an era where we root for the +NAO because the SE ridge can routinely link up with a Greenland block. That obviously ruins any chance on the East coast for the major cities. But some SE ridge is good since it helps storms turn the corner. 

Depends on how severely positive the WPO is. I think it's important to stop tethering ourselves to these absolute rules because nothing in the atmosphere operates in a vacuum. I think @Stormchaserchuck1put it best...."question everything"-

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The JMA seasonal just updated for the winter. It was the only model that got the 2013-2014 winter correct with its fall forecasts. This time it has a much different look.

It has a more +PNA pattern than we typically get with a La Niña. So it has a Baja ridge instead of the deep trough we had there in 2022-2023. My guess is that this is a continuation of the ridging and warm water we have been seeing near the West Coast this summer. 

In the East we have the familiar -AO Greenland block linking up with the Southeast ridge. So a milder winter in the East than last winter.

As always these extended forecasts much of the time are low skill. So I just include here for informational purposes.

 

https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/wmc/products/model/map/7mE/map1/zpcmap.php

 

 

Famous forecast from September 2013 showing the record TNH winter

 

I totally buy that...I have been adamant that I don't think the PNA is going to be a negative as the consensus does. However, the west Pacific will likely continue to be an issue to some degree....not to the degree that it was on 2022-2023, though.