2025-2026 ENSO

[bluewave]

On 1/16/2026 at 10:35 AM, so_whats_happening said:

I applaud you for taking the advice and using a single source for both. I still don't like the SSTA-Global map but that is of my own.

Do you happen to have the site to see the depth of the warmth within this region or is that just a twitter thing?

I do find this year interesting even though we are in the Nina like atmospheric pattern/ base state it is not typical for us to see systems (in this particular pattern) going up the coast with little affect from a SER feature especially since we are entering mid to late January. This would and should be a time period where we see systems running right into the lakes almost similar to the a few days ago but over the next week and change we look to have this Nino like pattern evolve something is just off about this year so far.

The -PDO is 100% responsible still for the lack of precip in the east and SE how long that lasts will another interesting thing to watch over the next couple months. I personally would have thought by now we would at least be touching near average monthly precip totals.

It’s how this particular flavor of -PDO since the 2018-2019 rapid warming east of Japan and south of the Aleutians is manifesting. Sure this wasn’t the strongest La Niña that we have ever seen.

This new flavor of -PDO defined more by the warmth east of Japan and eastward than the cold off the West Coast resulted in the historic snows by a very wide margin in Juneau, Alaska with the very strong Pacific Jet undercutting the -WPO and helping to reinforce the -PNA.

The Northern stream has been so dominant that the East Coast through the first half of winter as the storm track has been forced to the south and east away from the 40/70 benchmark which has been a common occurrence since 2018-2019. All the kickers coming in from the West in the fast flow have lead to poor wavelength spacing. So the KU benchmark snowstorm track hasn’t able to get going during the first half of winter.

The record warmth and dry conditions from the West into the Plains south of the Pacific Jet has also been very impressive. Probably related to the configuration of marine heatwaves across the Pacific and possibly the Atlantic and Indian Oceans also. 
 

Enhanced Northern Stream and weakened Southern Stream since December 1st

 

Snowiest Decembers Time Series Summary for Juneau Area, AK (ThreadEx) - Month of Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2025	82.0	0
2	1964	54.7	0
3	1975	51.0	0
4	1991	49.3	0
5	1979	48.4	0

On 1/16/2026 at 10:45 AM, SnowGoose69 said:

Didn't 23-24 mostly just fail because the El Nino was too strong?  Historically 1.5 or 1.6 is about the furthest you can take them or the whole country tends to pretty much torch.  I think 82-83 and 97-98 had alot of SER issues at times because the Aleutian Nino vortex just becomes so expansive it leads to a trof out west or in NW Canada

But the seasonal forecast models correctly forecast the strength snd still had the Nino trough forecast into the East. Due to the record WPAC warm pool for such a strong El Nino, the Canadian +PNA ridge was much stronger and displaced into the East. So the forcing had a further west lean into the Pacific than we normally get during El Niño. So there were Nino-like and Niña-like elements which blended together that winter. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

6 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Really emphasizes that when things get warm they shatter records and the opposite side is only average to modestly BN at best. 

Yeah, the last time the west was record warm (in 2014-15), at least there was an easy explanation: It was a strong +PDO winter, with a warm neutral/weak el nino. Easy to see in that configuration why you would get a record warm west and a well below average east.

With the current configuration (-PDO/-ENSO/-IOD), there really is no reason why the west should be breaking their 14-15 records. You're not going to get anywhere near record cold in the east (like we did in 14-15) with that configuration.

[SnowGoose69]

3 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Yeah, the last time the west was record warm (in 2014-15), at least there was an easy explanation: It was a strong +PDO winter, with a warm neutral/weak el nino. Easy to see in that configuration why you would get a record warm west and a well below average east.

With the current configuration (-PDO/-ENSO/-IOD), there really is no reason why the west should be breaking their 14-15 records. You're not going to get anywhere near record cold in the east (like we did in 14-15) with that configuration.

Yeah makes no sense at all for the west to be torching like this in this type of winter.  But as we have said in here we've seen the east torch in El Nino setups recently in oddball configurations.  Dec 2015 was one, that was likely more due to the MJO being record strength in phase 5 or 6 though.

[GaWx]

 The largest DJF 2 day drop of the EPO down into a -EPO was 367 (2/9-11/1996) followed by 364 (1/16-18/61). There’s a slight chance these are exceeded 1/14-16/26. We won’t know until Mon (reporting lag). If they aren’t exceeded, it would have a good chance to end up 3rd biggest drop (300+). The 1/14 EPO was +88. So, to get the record drop, the 1/16 would need to go <-279.

 This isn’t a measure of the strongest EPO ridge but rather it’s a measure of the fastest developing one.

Records go back to 1948.

https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/epo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

[EastonSN+]

[raindancewx]

We're entering the part of the pattern now that can produce snow and ice storms in the Southern Plains. My window for that was 1/15-2/15 this winter, its part of the cold retrogression into the Plains from the East. You can see the models starting to pick up the potential for these systems in the long range now.

That's pretty much how I imagined it - big highs western Canada, storms moving east via Utah, picking up STJ energy as the La Nina dies.

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

There actually is an emergent signal already....maybe it gets abandoned at some point, but this should ultimately grow.

 

[MJO812]

Weeklies 

[MJO812]

[jaxjagman]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

We're entering the part of the pattern now that can produce snow and ice storms in the Southern Plains. My window for that was 1/15-2/15 this winter, its part of the cold retrogression into the Plains from the East. You can see the models starting to pick up the potential for these systems in the long range now.

That's pretty much how I imagined it - big highs western Canada, storms moving east via Utah, picking up STJ energy as the La Nina dies.

Its why the GFS is such a shitty model in the long range,it has the Jet Max into the Great Lakes with a subtropical ridge building in the SE,good luck with this ice storm it shows

[MJO812]

1 hour ago, jaxjagman said:

Its why the GFS is such a shitty model in the long range,it has the Jet Max into the Great Lakes with a subtropical ridge building in the SE,good luck with this ice storm it shows

Check out the 18z. Further south because of the press to the north .

[snowman19]

@donsutherland1 In a shocking turn of events….the WWB isn’t as strong as it was hyped to be:

 

[GaWx]

The old record long MJO phase 6 for DJF of 13 days (was during La Niña of 1998-9) will be beaten per model progs. Records go back to 1975. It started on Jan 5th and will likely end on Jan 20th or 21st meaning a 16-17 day long phase 6:
 

https://www.bom.gov.au/clim_data/IDCKGEM000/rmm.74toRealtime.txt

[snowman19]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

@donsutherland1 In a shocking turn of events….the WWB isn’t as strong as it was hyped to be:

 

^To add to this, after all the nonstop hype and bombastic posts on twitter from a few people (some pro mets) about a record-breaking very strong WWB coming….they have some explaining to do, now that the actual WWB strength is going to be nowhere near as close to what they were predicting…guaranteeing really….

[GaWx]

7 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

^To add to this, after all the nonstop hype and bombastic posts on twitter from a few people (some pro mets) about a record-breaking very strong WWB coming….they have some explaining to do, now that the actual WWB is going to be nowhere near as close to what they were predicting…guaranteeing really….

 I agree that whoever these folks are who touted this very strong WWB should admit their mistake so they can move on beyond it. Are the models that bad?

 Does this mean that 2016-7, which had a very strong WWB, is less of an analog? @donsutherland1

[donsutherland1]

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 I agree that whoever these folks are who touted this very strong WWB should admit their mistake so they can move on beyond it.

 Does this mean that 2016-7, which had a very strong WWB, is less of an analog? @donsutherland1

I don't believe 2016-17 is a good analog. I only referenced it, because it had probably the strongest WWB during any La Niña in recent decades. Personally, I didn't think the 2026 WWB would measure up to that event. So far, it has fallen far short.

[donsutherland1]

8 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

^To add to this, after all the nonstop hype and bombastic posts on twitter from a few people (some pro mets) about a record-breaking very strong WWB coming….they have some explaining to do, now that the actual WWB strength is going to be nowhere near as close to what they were predicting…guaranteeing really….

Yes. I agree. We'll see if they ever acknowledge it.

[jaxjagman]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

@donsutherland1 In a shocking turn of events….the WWB isn’t as strong as it was hyped to be:

 

This is more than likely from a Rossby Wave,the models have been showing the Rossby Wave train more amplified into the WP and MC,this has been a issue since fall 

[GaWx]

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are colder than yesterday’s in the E US and are I think the coldest yet for the bulk of Feb. All of weeks 3-6 cooled thanks largely to a higher PNA and a lower AO/NAO. It is no longer looking mild!

 Look at how much the PNA has risen over the last week, especially for 1/27-2/10:

1/10 run:

Today’s run:

 

This has resulted in much better H5:

Yesterday’s run:

 

Today’s run: this is a cold look

[Krs4Lfe]

It’s still surprising to see the lack of snow and cold west of the Midwest in the north east. That will change very soon as waves of cold and snow are likely to travel across the plains and towards the south even. The northeast and the Midwest has truly lucked out with the overall lack of warmth, aside from the 7 to 10 day thaw that we just had. But aside from that, winter has been no longer be seen for much of the US. That statistic I mentioned yesterday, with snow cover at the lowest since 2012 window, is very eye-opening. Seems like something that you would see in a super warm, super El Niño, and I know La Niña’s are usually o, but the warmth and dry conditions have been off the charts this winter with almost wall to wall record setting warmth from the plains to the West Coast.

[Krs4Lfe]

Just now, Krs4Lfe said:

It’s still surprising to see the lack of snow and cold west of the Midwest in the north east. That will change very soon as waves of cold and snow are likely to travel across the plains and towards the south even. The northeast and the Midwest has truly lucked out with the overall lack of warmth, aside from the 7 to 10 day thaw that we just had. But aside from that, winter has been no longer be seen for much of the US. That statistic I mentioned yesterday, with snow cover at the lowest since 2012 window, is very eye-opening. Seems like something that you would see in a super warm, super El Niño, and I know La Niña’s are usually o, but the warmth and dry conditions have been off the charts this winter with almost wall to wall record setting warmth from the plains to the West Coast.

We would need a January-February 2015, February 2021, January 2023, January 2024 (those last 2 were very good for the west( type scenario to change course for much of the central and West US, which is blowing past their all time warm and dry winters from long ago

[bluewave]

8 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are colder than yesterday’s in the E US and are I think the coldest yet for the bulk of Feb. All of weeks 3-6 cooled thanks largely to a higher PNA and a lower AO/NAO. It is no longer looking mild!

 Look at how much the PNA has risen over the last week, especially for 1/27-2/10:

1/10 run:

Today’s run:

 

This has resulted in much better H5:

Yesterday’s run:

 

Today’s run: this is a cold look

The story going back to November has been the long range models trying to weaken the ridge out West only to correct stronger the closer in time we got to forecast time.

The ridge was able to shift out into the Plains for the first half of January. Now the models want to bring it back West again later in January.

There have been plenty of comments that we don’t usually see this with a -PDO. Maybe this ridge is somehow related to the big +NPM spike back in the fall with the marine heatwave off the West Coast. 

Plus this -PDO since 2018-2019 has been more defined by the WPAC warm pool to the East of Japan and south of Aleutians than the cold pool off the West Coast like we used to get with -PDOs prior to the last decade.