2025-2026 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

Some folks need to practice staying out of "defense mode" when someone else insinuates that they may be wrong, and/or have bias....I know it's tough to do, but when you own shit like that, not only is it better for your own mental health and prospects for personal enrichment moving forward, but it disarms the other side entirely, and avoids the OT bickering that derails these threads. I have bias, and am often wrong...it's called being human.

It's also fine if you don't actually agree that you are wrong....just tactfully explain it and the other side remains venomous, then they look like the ass.

[EasternLI]

8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I declared a mea culpa on that last night....I was wrong on latter December blocking, though did get the emergence of Pacific troughing right...end result is I will be too warm for December. and maybe January. The stat warming last month was more impactful than I had theorized.

Your work is always solid! You do a tremendous job combing through data and laying out reasoning for your thoughts. But you want to get it right, I get that. I'm not really sure if anyone anywhere was really confident how that would go. Tricky situation. I sure had some doubts. Welcome development though for sure.

[stadiumwave]

Unless there is strong coupling between the stratosphere & troposphere it really does not matter.

 

[GaWx]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Strong PV doesn't necessarily mean "torch", either...

Indeed, which is something I’ve posted about before. I added this right after you read my post:

 But a stronger than avg SPV would by no means automatically be a death sentence to a cold E US. Example: Jan of 2025 had a near record strong SPV at times.

 In addition to Jan of 2025, these strong SPV Jan periods were also cold and/or snowy in at least much of the E US:

-2022

-Jan 1-8 of 2018, which had very cold and a very rare SE coastal snow

-2016: cold around the period of the huge NE snowstorm

-2014

-2nd half of 2011: big snows/cold NE

-1st half of 2010

-Jan 1-17 of 2009

-2nd half of 2005

-2nd half of 2000

-1st half of 1996

-1984

-Jan 1-18 of 1981

-Jan 9-20 of 1979

 

 

[bluewave]

 

[GaWx]

24 minutes ago, bluewave said:

 

 Based on your and Don’s reliable snowy La Niña Dec indicator, I’ve already predicted a near to above avg Jan+ NYC snowfall of  21”+, which would very likely mean a seasonal total of 30”+. We’ll see if it works once again.

[40/70 Benchmark]

19 minutes ago, bluewave said:

 

@MJO812Congrats....I was wrong on December snow in NYC, and you were right. Reason being I missed the late month blocking. Let's see if you guys get above my 19-29" seasonal call.

[GaWx]

Based on the overall 0Z/6Z model consensus being not as cold in the E US as the 12Z/18Z model consensus, which had lead to ~15% gain by late evening (best day’s gain of all of 2025 so far), natural gas has not surprisingly had a good amount of selling, including profit taking, which has NG down over 4%. But that level is still 10-11% higher than the close of Monday.

 Let’s see whether or not the 12Z will bounce back colder. This market will likely tell us the answer without having to actually look at the models, themselves.

[brooklynwx99]

1 hour ago, stadiumwave said:

Unless there is strong coupling between the stratosphere & troposphere it really does not matter.

 

same exact thing happened last year, though it was even more impressive with a lack of a SSW. gives more credence to prolonged blocking with the EPS reloading in the LR

[GaWx]

On 12/22/2025 at 10:57 AM, GaWx said:

Look at how much the US population weighted HDD rose on the EPS mean from the 12/17 12Z run to the 12/22 0Z run for 12/28-31: 25 HDD (from 74 to 99)! This is from a way BN 74 to a NN 99. Normal is 100 HDD.

12/17 12Z HDD run in purple on left

 

12/22 0Z HDD run in purple on left

 Followup: As the quoted post showed, US pop weighted HDD rose sharply on the EPS from the 12/17 12Z run’s well BN 74 to the 12/22 (Mon) 0Z run’s NN 99 for 12/28-31, meaning a much colder change.

 What has happened on the EPS since that Mon run?

- 12/28-31 has maintained 24 of that 25 HDD gain from 12/17 with it at 98 HDD

- 1/1-4 has gone from a well BN 78 HDD in the 12/22 0Z run to a NN 101 on the 12/24 0Z run. And that’s even with the 12/24 0Z run not being as cold as the 12/23 12Z run’s 108 HDD!

-So, just since a week ago, the EPS’ US pop weighted HDD have increased a whopping ~47 HDD just for the period 12/28-1/4 (from way BN to NN)! That is a US avg of 6F colder per day, which probably means something like 8F colder/day in just the E US, alone, since the W is probably a little warmer.

12/24 0Z HDD run left side in purple:

12/22 0Z HDD run left side in purple

 

12/17 12Z HDD run left side in purple: look at how warm that run was compared to today’s! All days had BN to well BN HDDs:

 

 

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

 Followup: As the quoted post showed, US pop weighted HDD rose sharply on the EPS from the 12/17 12Z run’s well BN 74 to the 12/22 (Mon) 0Z run’s NN 99 for 12/28-31, meaning a much colder change.

 What has happened on the EPS since that Mon run?

- 12/28-31 has maintained 24 of that 25 HDD gain from 12/17 with it at 98 HDD

- 1/1-4 has gone from a well BN 78 HDD in the 12/22 0Z run to a NN 101 on the 12/24 0Z run. And that’s even with the 12/24 0Z run not being as cold as the 12/23 12Z run’s 108 HDD!

-So, just since a week ago, the EPS’ US pop weighted HDD have increased a whopping ~47 HDD just for the period 12/28-1/4 (from way BN to NN)! That is a US avg of 6F colder per day, which probably means something like 8F colder/day in just the E US, alone, since the W is probably a little warmer.

12/24 0Z HDD run left side in purple:

12/22 0Z HDD run left side in purple

 

12/17 12Z HDD run left side in purple: look at how warm that run was compared to today’s! All days had BN to well BN HDDs:

 

 

Should have just bought silver! 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

52 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Should have just bought silver! 

I bought in at $48! Trying to decide whether to sell today, or hold on a little longer. That $50 mark was a top that held for 50 years when just about every other metal has hit a new all time high, so when it finally passed it, it accelerated. 

Gold had its 2nd best year since the 1970s in 2025. It has an Up signal for next year, per a method I've backtested.. 

[mitchnick]

29 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I bought in at $48! Trying to decide whether to sell today, or hold on a little longer. That $50 mark was a top that held for 50 years when just about every other metal has hit a new all time high, so when it finally passed it, it accelerated. 

Gold had its 2nd best year since the 1970s in 2025. It has an Up signal for next year, per a method I've backtested.. 

I started in late August when it was in the upper $30's with physical silver. Been buying ever since. I never got into the metals because of the transaction costs (dealer reduced prices, ebay, etc), but I have no intent on selling. It's going to children/grandchildren, so I don'tcare abouttransaction costs. But I do believe we go higher from what I see with all the sovereign hoarding, especially China. And then it's been added as a critical metal. Too much more to mention here.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Really respectable -NAO showing up in the long range on 12z GFS ensembles. Near +300dm on the mean south of Greenland at hr384. 

[GaWx]

 Today’s Euro Weeklies didn’t just hold onto all of yesterday’s widespread significant colder changes. They also cooled the only week that wasn’t cooled yesterday: Jan 5-11!

Yesterday’s Jan 5-11:

 Today’s Jan 5-11 is below. This cooling means there are no more widespread mild weeks being forecasted in the E 1/2 of the US like there were just 2 days ago:

 Today’s also has a stronger suggestion of a +PNA in the means for 1/12-18:

[PhiEaglesfan712]

3 hours ago, mitchnick said:

I started in late August when it was in the upper $30's with physical silver. Been buying ever since. I never got into the metals because of the transaction costs (dealer reduced prices, ebay, etc), but I have no intent on selling. It's going to children/grandchildren, so I don'tcare abouttransaction costs. But I do believe we go higher from what I see with all the sovereign hoarding, especially China. And then it's been added as a critical metal. Too much more to mention here.

Just like a weather pattern, these things can really turn on a dime. I thought gold and silver still had a lot of room to grow in summer 2011, but that was the peak, and the price went down for years. (Thank goodness I didn't buy.)

[mitchnick]

34 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Just like a weather pattern, these things can really turn on a dime. I thought gold and silver still had a lot of room to grow in summer 2011, but that was the peak, and the price went down for years. (Thank goodness I didn't buy.)

Neither did I then!

[raindancewx]

Here is the warm up no one thought was real - definitely verified as a much warmer period.

[Terpeast]

2 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Here is the warm up no one thought was real - definitely verified as a much warmer period.

This warm up was projected to be more central/east, and ended up further west. 

[raindancewx]

I'll go out on a limb and say that I expect a pretty wet period for a lot of the West in January. I believe that's part of the transition out of the current pattern.

CFS is pretty wet nationally for the US - something like 2/3 of the country is depicted as wetter (and warmer) than last January currently.

[EasternLI]

Well now here it comes on the 00z 12/25 EPS. Pacific jet extends, wave breaks that semi-permanent pacific block, +PNA setting up. Merry Christmas 

[snowman19]

If this couples with the troposphere, we have issues next month. The SPV is about to strengthen rapidly, become quite strong, consolidate and move up over the pole. We haven’t had coupling so far and we didn’t last winter, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. Different QBO evolution this year. This is something to watch very closely

 EDIT: @stadiumwave Again, I said “this is something to watch very closely.” I didn’t say anywhere that it would couple. There is no guarantee that this does couple nor that it doesn’t couple. I did read Commodity’s tweet. Merry Christmas 

 

 

 

 

[stadiumwave]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

If this couples with the troposphere, we have issues next month. The SPV is about to strengthen rapidly, become quite strong, consolidate and move up over the pole. We haven’t had coupling so far and we didn’t last winter, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. Different QBO evolution this year. This is something to watch very closely
 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess you failed to read...Merry Christmas 

 

[Krs4Lfe]

3 hours ago, EasternLI said:

Well now here it comes on the 00z 12/25 EPS. Pacific jet extends, wave breaks that semi-permanent pacific block, +PNA setting up. Merry Christmas 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked about how we will need whole scale changes in order to move that death ridge out of the central US and move it briefly over the east and then the pattered can start to reset with a PNA building over the western US, which will lead to heights falling across the east. We have certainly had the cold this winter and we will have more storms too once that PNA establishes itself. With such a large ridge over the central US it’s hard to have much storms aside from the northern stream can produce. Having that PNA is our ticket to bigger when opportunities.

[Krs4Lfe]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

If this couples with the troposphere, we have issues next month. The SPV is about to strengthen rapidly, become quite strong, consolidate and move up over the pole. We haven’t had coupling so far and we didn’t last winter, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. Different QBO evolution this year. This is something to watch very closely

 EDIT: @stadiumwave Again, I said “this is something to watch very closely.” I didn’t say anywhere that it would couple. There is no guarantee that this does couple nor that it doesn’t couple. I did read Commodity’s tweet. Merry Christmas 

 

 

 

 

A coupled SPV is the last thing we will need. That usually allows the Arctic and northern zones to remain frigid but generally, like 2020 winter, doesn’t allow for any cold air to spill over into the US . Hopefully that doesn’t happen.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

If this couples with the troposphere, we have issues next month. The SPV is about to strengthen rapidly, become quite strong, consolidate and move up over the pole. We haven’t had coupling so far and we didn’t last winter, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. Different QBO evolution this year. This is something to watch very closely
 

 

 

 

 

 Merry Christmas to snowman and everyone!

 A 100+ mph or 50ish m/s SPV 10 mb zonal wind peak has been forecasted for over a week on the EPS (by the way, 80-85 mph is normal…so 100 mph isn’t as anomalously high as it may sound).

 During these cold and often snowy E US periods in Jan, the SPV averaged 100 mph+ (peak in mph noted) keeping in mind that the Jan of 2026 peak is being forecasted at ~110-120 mph:

 

-2025: 130 peak

-Jan 1-8 of 2018, which had very cold and a very rare SE coast big snow: 130

-2016 had cold around the period of the huge NE snowstorm: 150!

-2014: 120

-2nd half of 2011 had big snows/cold NE: 110

-1st half of 2010: 120

-Jan 1-17 of 2009: 150!

-2nd half of 2005: 160!

-2nd half of 2000: 125

-1st half of 1996: 130

-1984: 155!

-Jan 1-18 of 1981: 150!

-Jan 9-20 of 1979: 125

———————————

 Anyone can see all of these zonal wind peak details here, which is where I just got them from:

https://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/ann_data.html#ncep_clim_stats_nh

 

[GaWx]

 Merry Christmas, fellow wx nerds/weenies!

 Today’s MJO forecasts aren’t bad at all for early Jan and heading into mid-Jan with them mainly on the left side and weak:

GEFS:

EPS:

JMA:

[SnowGoose69]

EPS/GEPS at 00Z long range were close, GEFS not much but at 06Z GEFS was closer to those 2.  Seems main difference is GEFS though stronger on the negative side on the AO/NAO is more + on the EPO and - on the PNA than the EPS/GEPS.  But if we go with history as GA has posted a few times, odds favor the +PNA in January in these similar winters.