2025-2026 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

Here is a snippet from my outlook, which I'm still balls deep in.

So much for the warm pool ending La Nina prematurely.

 

During the month of October, there was some speculation in certain weather circles that La Niña may meet a premature demise owed to an encroachment of the subsurface warm pool from the west.

 

However, Eastern Mass Weather cited the strong Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), as well as a precedent for a the subsurface cold pool to recover after a retreat to the east during last summer as protective factors against an earlier than forecast peak.

 

 

Comparisons were also made to the subsurface of the 2008, which had similar subsurface warmth on the western flank and still did not peal until mid winter.

 

This has analysis has ultimately proven correct, as the subsurface warmth has reclaimed much of the western flank of region 3.4 and event some of region 4 on the heels of consistent trades bursts

[40/70 Benchmark]

[brooklynwx99]

it's refreshing to see these blocked patterns begin to show up in the medium range. similar stuff happened last year

[dmillz25]

13 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

it's refreshing to see these blocked patterns begin to show up in the medium range. similar stuff happened last year

Hopefully it doesn’t link up with the SER like last year

[donsutherland1]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

Eric Webb expects a rapid -IOD collapse starting soon, which models are showing the effects of as I showed on their Dec IO SST anomaly maps. He’s expecting El Niño to get started very early, which he said elsewhere could conceivably save Feb from being a mild month (we’ll see):

A more rapid shift towards El Niño is probably the one wild card we could play that would have the potential to significantly alter the outcome of the latter part of this winter/February in our favor (though even then it wouldn't be a guarantee that things would shift favorably even in that scenario).

 

Were the La Niña to collapse prematurely, that would herald the likelihood of warmth in parts of the East in both January and February. Perhaps the best proxy for rapid collapses are cases where the ENSO R3.4 anomaly was -0.50° or below during December and >-0.50° during January. There were only four cases since 1950 that met that criteria: Winters 1951-52, 1952-53, 1974-75, and 2001-02. 

I don't expect this winter to meet such criteria. If so, the coming winter would wind up quite a bit warmer than what I'm currently thinking and also what the latest ECMWF suggested.

[stadiumwave]

10 hours ago, snowman19 said:

It’s showing an east-based -NAO for December 

 

Agree, but my point was last year missed.

[stadiumwave]

43 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

it's refreshing to see these blocked patterns begin to show up in the medium range. similar stuff happened last year

 

Yea, when it's changes that much it makes you think how in the world can you put stock in an 11-15 day output. 

[George001]

13 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Agreed. Unless we see a major SSWE and SPV destruction or close to it, I don’t see how we avoid a canonical La Niña mid-late January and especially February and March

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a repeat of last Feb with storms taking more of a northern track. I am all in on a big January though. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

26 minutes ago, George001 said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a repeat of last Feb with storms taking more of a northern track. I am all in on a big January though. 

I actually like February better than most of January.

[George001]

15 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I actually like February better than most of January.

I’m not nearly as negative about Feb as many here, but that surprises me. Just curious, what do you think many of us who are less optimistic about Feb are missing? Or are you just less optimistic about January?

edit: I just saw your post raising concerns about the pac jet for January. 

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Were the La Niña to collapse prematurely, that would herald the likelihood of warmth in parts of the East in both January and February. Perhaps the best proxy for rapid collapses are cases where the ENSO R3.4 anomaly was -0.50° or below during December and >-0.50° during January. There were only four cases since 1950 that met that criteria: Winters 1951-52, 1952-53, 1974-75, and 2001-02. 

I don't expect this winter to meet such criteria. If so, the coming winter would wind up quite a bit warmer than what I'm currently thinking and also what the latest ECMWF suggested.

Thanks, Don.

Did you mean to include 1951-2 and 1952-3 or are those typos?