2025-2026 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, BlizzardWx said:

It would take a pretty sharp reversal to get decent cold anomalies in the plains compared to current guidance for Feb. We are going to be roasting at least first third if not first half of the month, like +10 F above normal if not more for my area. Of course January was like that and we still ended below normal because the last third of the month was so cold. But assuming models trend more favorably after any SSW maybe we still have time.  I don't think it would take much of an eastward shift in the pattern mid month to turn that western trough into GB/Plains trough. 

Yea, we'll see...I certainly don't expect a perfect forecast from 3 months lead.

[so_whats_happening]

3 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Unfortunately it still looks as though things will be intact through Strato to Tropo. There has been residual high latitude blocking on the Pacific side of the arctic a lot this season which has allowed us to remain relatively cold through many of the months. If we can hold that pattern into the second half of February as things relax yet again I would not be surprised at a similar progression as we saw in January for February. The SPV just does not get demolished like we typically want to see.

Well again we saw something similar to this last year around this time. From about the 3rd week of February to mid March there really was not a whole lot that took place. I want to say there was a quick snowfall that snuck in but this was the overall pattern at 500mb after the event took place. The graphs below show a funky wave 2 tried to set up but ultimately ended up being a wave 1 event and tiny lobe was over Greenland for a bit. Similar things don't always produce the same event but I wouldn't expect much out of this if we go down that path.

That is actually fairly typical in split events (if the split event were to occur) the larger more intact lobe goes to Eurasia while a piece splits off to our side. It is the lack of a true split that leads to almost being another wave 1 displacement event again fairly similar to last year at this time.

This was what the Euro and GFS had leading up to the event. I wish I had saved the later portion but I guess I deleted stuff.

All this to say I do want to go out with a bang for the season but my hopes are slowly fading like the winter season.

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Unfortunately it still looks as though things will be intact through Strato to Tropo. There has been residual high latitude blocking on the Pacific side of the arctic a lot this season which has allowed us to remain relatively cold through many of the months. If we can hold that pattern into the second half of February as things relax yet again I would not be surprised at a similar progression as we saw in January for February. The SPV just does not get demolished like we typically want to see.

Well again we saw something similar to this last year around this time. From about the 3rd week of February to mid March there really was not a whole lot that took place. I want to say there was a quick snowfall that snuck in but this was the overall pattern at 500mb after the event took place. The graphs below show a funky wave 2 tried to set up but ultimately ended up being a wave 1 event and tiny lobe was over Greenland for a bit. Similar things don't always produce the same event but I wouldn't expect much out of this if we go down that path.

That is actually fairly typical in split events (if the split event were to occur) the larger more intact lobe goes to Eurasia while a piece splits off to our side. It is the lack of a true split that leads to almost being another wave 1 displacement event again fairly similar to last year at this time.

This was what the Euro and GFS had leading up to the event. I wish I had saved the later portion but I guess I deleted stuff.

Pretty close to a full split.....I would wait to see what actually verified because I still anticipate a full split, more akin to 2018 and 2023.

[so_whats_happening]

13 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Pretty close to a full split.....I would wait to see what actually verified because I still anticipate a full split, more akin to 2018 and 2023.

Vortex stretching is the term but Im still not seeing a split take hold even with the Euro to 240. It took roughly 30 days to translate to the surface in 2018 (split occurred around the first few days of February) leading to the snowfall events around presidents day and into March. Much different outlook this go around.

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Vortex stretching is the term but Im still not seeing a split take hold even with the Euro to 240. It took roughly 30 days to translate to the surface in 2018 (split occurred around the first few days of February) leading to the snowfall events around presidents day and into March. Much different outlook this go around.

I'm not arguing with your interpretation of what guidance shows now, rather I'm arguing that it's still adjusting and not there yet. Wouldn't be the first time.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Guidance was originally insistent that the RNA pattern from the month of December would persist throughout the vast majority of the month of January, with the exception of a brief interval of PNA flex the second week of the month (10th-15th).

 

The above annotation ultimately proved correct in asserting that the forecast return of RNA after mid-month, as suggested by guidance, was in fact erroneous.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

Not trying to burst the meme bubble ... but until that registers in the models as successfully to and thru the 100 mb level, it's unclear (likely not) that there's destined to be a wholesale sigma coupling that eventually/really involves the troposphere.   That may yet happen, but support for that is very vague for the time being. 

300 hour GFS from recency does shows up heights height response over the Alaska sector, so we may just need to bide time

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

@so_whats_happeningDo you have the link to those EURO images?

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Not trying to burst the meme bubble ... but until that registers in the models as successfully to and thru the 100 mb level, it's unclear (likely not) that there's destined to be a wholesale sigma coupling that eventually/really involves the troposphere.   That may yet happen, but that support for that is very vague for the time being. 

300 hour GFS from recency does shows up heights height response over the Alaska sector, so we may just need to bide time

 

 

Exactly.

[so_whats_happening]

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

@so_whats_happeningDo you have the link to those EURO images?

https://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/winterdiagnostics/

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Maybe I'll be wrong this time, but I will defer to my seasonal research until it's obvious that it isn't going to work. It hasn't led me astray yet this season, with the exception of the latter January NAO blocking.

[so_whats_happening]

5 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Not trying to burst the meme bubble ... but until that registers in the models as successfully to and thru the 100 mb level, it's unclear (likely not) that there's destined to be a wholesale sigma coupling that eventually/really involves the troposphere.   That may yet happen, but support for that is very vague for the time being. 

300 hour GFS from recency does shows up heights height response over the Alaska sector, so we may just need to bide time

 

 

Honestly we haven't really needed much influence from the strat this year other than it maintaining at or below average in strength most of the season. i'd rather have the 500mb take the lead but it would have been nice to lock it in with an actual split.

I will not be looking forward to a below average March and April if one were to occur this late in the season.

[bluewave]

On 2/1/2026 at 12:36 AM, snowfan789 said:

Significant portions of the West are record warm and snowless to date for this winter season. It is not unreasonable to describe that as a bigger weather and perhaps climate story than a somewhat cold and somewhat snowy winter in some parts of the approximately eastern third of the country only that is for the most part not record breaking. If you only care about the weather in your own backyard, cool. But if you’re genuinely interested in the weather and climate, then the superlative status of the winter in much of the West presumably would be something you’d deem worthy of attention. It is a major weather-related issue at the present with real and lasting repercussions for the environment and economy in a large portion of the country.

The magnitude of the warmth in the West has been much more extreme than magnitude of the cold in the East.

So the West has been experiencing historic warmth.

While the East has been colder than recent winters, it’s nothing historic compared to our colder winters of the past. 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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How cold has this winter been so far? The first 2/3 of winter 2025-26 is the 7th warmest on record for the Contiguous U.S.

 

10:22 PM · Feb 1, 2026

 

 

‪Climatologist49‬ ‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

· 1d

Here is how all areas ranked from 1 (warmest) to 131 (coolest). Team Red is WAY BIGGER than Team Blue.

 

 

9

 

 

 

 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

13 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Honestly we haven't really needed much influence from the strat this year other than it maintaining at or below average in strength most of the season. i'd rather have the 500mb take the lead but it would have been nice to lock it in with an actual split.

I will not be looking forward to a below average March and April if one were to occur this late in the season.

Agreed ... this brings up another point for me ... Ray and others may know this but, in an ongoing raging -AO winter, which this

...might qualify - objectively we'll have to see if that ending +d(AO) is real or not but it would predate any SSW time-lag coupling enough that a positive AO period could temporally fit prior to the forcing being realized.   Otherwise, the advent of an SSW and actual downward propagation - a prerequisite requirement in the correlation - may not mean anything to a season already heavily downtrodden and cooler than normal resulting.   

Yeah, protracted wet snow on mud winter is not subjectively preferred. LOL.  For me personally...would rather that positive AO above herald in a different sort of seasonal relay.

[NyWxGuy]

6 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The magnitude of the warmth in the West has been much more extreme than magnitude of the cold in the East. So the West has been experiencing historic warmth. While the East has been colder than recent winters, it’s nothing historic compared to our older winters of the past. 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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How cold has this winter been so far? The first 2/3 of winter 2025-26 is the 7th warmest on record for the Contiguous U.S.

 

10:22 PM · Feb 1, 2026

 

 

‪Climatologist49‬ ‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

· 1d

Here is how all areas ranked from 1 (warmest) to 131 (coolest). Team Red is WAY BIGGER than Team Blue.

 

 

9

 

 

 

 

 

It's wild how winter never even got started in the west this year. That's the real story, but I believe media blackout is forcing coverage of the relatively cold conditions in the east. And even with our cold winter in the eastern third of the US, snowfall has not been as epic as 2000s and 2010s during similar cold periods because of a fast pacific flow relating to continuous warm SST anomalies in the North Pacific. The warmth is the real story here 

[TheClimateChanger]

44 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The magnitude of the warmth in the West has been much more extreme than magnitude of the cold in the East.

So the West has been experiencing historic warmth.

While the East has been colder than recent winters, it’s nothing historic compared to our colder winters of the past. 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

Follow

How cold has this winter been so far? The first 2/3 of winter 2025-26 is the 7th warmest on record for the Contiguous U.S.

 

10:22 PM · Feb 1, 2026

 

 

‪Climatologist49‬ ‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

· 1d

Here is how all areas ranked from 1 (warmest) to 131 (coolest). Team Red is WAY BIGGER than Team Blue.

 

 

9

 

 

 

 

 

You can really see how that California tule fog or whatever they were calling it screwed us out of an even warmer December & January.

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

The magnitude of the warmth in the West has been much more extreme than magnitude of the cold in the East. So the West has been experiencing historic warmth. While the East has been colder than recent winters, it’s nothing historic compared to our older winters of the past. 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

Follow

How cold has this winter been so far? The first 2/3 of winter 2025-26 is the 7th warmest on record for the Contiguous U.S.

 

10:22 PM · Feb 1, 2026

 

 

‪Climatologist49‬ ‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

· 1d

Here is how all areas ranked from 1 (warmest) to 131 (coolest). Team Red is WAY BIGGER than Team Blue.

 

 

9

 

 

 

 

 

 Thanks, Chris!

1. Indeed, it’s been such a warm DJ in the W 1/2! Thus, geographically as you showed, that makes it 7th warmest for the contiguous US going back 131 years. 

 2. But based strictly on population weighting or gas heating weighting, which are great measures of energy usage for heating, I’m sure you know it hasn’t been warm at all as it has been ~1F BN in the lower 48 thanks to the heavy pop. weighting of the E Midwest/Great Lakes to Mid-Atlantic/NE’s ~5BN easily outweighing the much more sparsely populated W 1/3 of the US’ ~6 AN.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_days/hfstwpws.txt

 

3. Related to projected upcoming energy usage: yesterday’s natural gas price plunged an historic 25.7%, by far the most in one day since it started trading in 1990!! This was mainly due to the much warmer models in the E US yesterday going out ~3 weeks vs how they looked on Friday, the prior trading day. Was it way overdone in relation to progged demand drop? Of course it was!

 

 Here are the largest NG drops in one trading day since 1990:

-25.7% 2/2/2026

-19.1% 3/18/2004

-17.5% 11/15/2018

-17.0% 6/30/2022

-16.7% 6/14/2022

 

[bluewave]

32 minutes ago, NyWxGuy said:

It's wild how winter never even got started in the west this year. That's the real story, but I believe media blackout is forcing coverage of the relatively cold conditions in the east. And even with our cold winter in the eastern third of the US, snowfall has not been as epic as 2000s and 2010s during similar cold periods because of a fast pacific flow relating to continuous warm SST anomalies in the North Pacific. The warmth is the real story here 

The most impressive short term cold this winter in the CONUS has been the record breaking cold in Florida the last few days. This goes to my point a few days ago about the big temperature swings and smaller geographic footprint of the cold.

So places like West Palm Beach with a very long period of record just tied their all-time warmest winter reading of 90° in late January before falling to their 6th coldest winter low of 30°.

This is against the backdrop of that area and all the locations across the CONUS experiencing a much higher ratio of record highs to record lows. It makes the cold stand out more since it’s more of a novelty than the record warmth which usually dominates

West Palm Beach was finally able to end their longest streak above 30° since 1989. 

Time Series Summary for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx) - Dec through Feb Warmest Temperatures
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2025-2026	90	26
-	2022-2023	90	0
-	2009-2010	90	0
-	1948-1949	90	0
-	1941-1942	90	0
-	1927-1928	90	0
-	1917-1918	90	0

 

Time Series Summary for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx) - Dec through Feb Coldest Temperatures 
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	1894-1895	24	0
2	1904-1905	26	0
3	1976-1977	27	0
4	1989-1990	28	0
-	1984-1985	28	0
-	1920-1921	28	5
-	1916-1917	28	0
-	1898-1899	28	0
5	1981-1982	29	0
-	1969-1970	29	0
-	1917-1918	29	0
6	2025-2026	30	26
-	1983-1984	30	0
-	1970-1971	30	0
-	1962-1963	30	0
-	1906-1907	30	0

Number of Consecutive Days Min Temperature >= 31 
for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx)
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Period of record: 1888-04-16 to 2026-02-02
1	13186	1989-12-26 through 2026-01-31
2	6787	1944-05-14 through 1962-12-12
3	3893	1929-09-29 through 1940-05-26
4	2584	1962-12-14 through 1970-01-09
5	2190	1971-01-21 through 1977-01-18
6	1796	1985-01-23 through 1989-12-23
7	1658	1899-02-15 through 1903-08-31
8	1413	1940-06-28 through 1944-05-10
9	1137	1977-01-21 through 1980-03-02
10	974	1889-07-01 through 1892-02-29

 

 

[TheClimateChanger]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The most impressive short term cold this winter in the CONUS has been the record breaking cold in Florida the last few days. This goes to my point a few days ago about the big temperature swings and smaller geographic footprint of the cold.

So places like West Palm Beach with a very long period of record just tied their all-time warmest winter reading of 90° in late January before falling to their 6th coldest winter low of 30°.

This is against the backdrop of that area and all the locations across the CONUS experiencing a much higher ratio of record highs to record lows. It makes the cold stand out more since it’s more of a novelty than the record warmth which usually dominates

West Palm Beach was finally able to end their longest streak above 30° since 1989. 

Time Series Summary for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx) - Dec through Feb Warmest Temperatures
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2025-2026	90	26
-	2022-2023	90	0
-	2009-2010	90	0
-	1948-1949	90	0
-	1941-1942	90	0
-	1927-1928	90	0
-	1917-1918	90	0

 

Time Series Summary for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx) - Dec through Feb Coldest Temperatures 
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	1894-1895	24	0
2	1904-1905	26	0
3	1976-1977	27	0
4	1989-1990	28	0
-	1984-1985	28	0
-	1920-1921	28	5
-	1916-1917	28	0
-	1898-1899	28	0
5	1981-1982	29	0
-	1969-1970	29	0
-	1917-1918	29	0
6	2025-2026	30	26
-	1983-1984	30	0
-	1970-1971	30	0
-	1962-1963	30	0
-	1906-1907	30	0

Number of Consecutive Days Min Temperature >= 31 
for West Palm Beach Area, FL (ThreadEx)
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Period of record: 1888-04-16 to 2026-02-02
1	13186	1989-12-26 through 2026-01-31
2	6787	1944-05-14 through 1962-12-12
3	3893	1929-09-29 through 1940-05-26
4	2584	1962-12-14 through 1970-01-09
5	2190	1971-01-21 through 1977-01-18
6	1796	1985-01-23 through 1989-12-23
7	1658	1899-02-15 through 1903-08-31
8	1413	1940-06-28 through 1944-05-10
9	1137	1977-01-21 through 1980-03-02
10	974	1889-07-01 through 1892-02-29

 

 

Very impressive. Do you think this will be the coldest outbreak of the 21st century in Florida?

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[BlizzardWx]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, we'll see...I certainly don't expect a perfect forecast from 3 months lead.

And nobody expects perfection! You did a great job this year. I'm really hoping your success keeps going because it would mean we are not done yet. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, BlizzardWx said:

And nobody expects perfection! You did a great job this year. I'm really hoping your success keeps going because it would mean we are not done yet. 

The forecast failures are the most valuable tool...I've had plenty and they are very educational. 

[snowman19]

11 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The forecast failures are the most valuable tool...I've had plenty and they are very educational. 

Even if the stratosphere doesn’t work out this month you have nothing to be upset about. You did a great job since November and were extremely accurate up to this point in time. If it doesn’t work out then oh well, you got the last 3+ months right

[GaWx]

The Jan ‘26 30 mb QBO came in at -25.51, Jan’s 2nd lowest on record to only 2015’s -26.7:

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

 Based on the patterns since 1948, there’s a very high chance (I’d say 95%) that it will be positive by next winter, and there’s a better than even chance for the next +QBO period to start by late summer.

[bluewave]

On 1/31/2026 at 4:09 PM, michsnowfreak said:

Exactly. Didn't we hear that we need a volcano to get a cold winter?

I think you are incorrectly referring to one of my older discussions. My statement was that in order to get back to colder winters prior to the big  temperature rise in 2015-2016 we would need a major volcanic eruption to cool the climate down for 3-7 years before the cooling aerosol effects wear off.

What this means is that it’s going to be a challenge to get a repeat of 2014-2015 in Boston, 2013-2014 in the Great Lakes, 2009-2010 in the Mid-Atlantic, 1995-1996 in the Mid-Atlantic to Northeast, the top 10 coldest winters which we experienced Nationally during the 1970s , and for North America on the whole in 1993-1994 winter.

It doesn’t mean that we can’t still get colder winters especially on a regional to multi regional basis. Just that they will struggle to match the colder rankings we experienced back in the old days. This winter and last winter are prime examples of this. 

[GaWx]

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are again pretty ugly looking from an E US and especially SE US perspective with a -PNA/BN H5 in SW Canada dominating the weeks after Feb 10th. Also, the -AO and -NAO essentially go away. This -PNA would be a sharp reversal to the opposite of the prior 4 week long beautiful (for the E US) +PNA dominated pattern, which I’ll be able to enjoy for another week. Hoping this -PNA doesn’t last too long and that the model is wrong on it lasting for weeks.

*Edited

[roardog]

8 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are again pretty ugly looking with a -PNA/BN H5 in SW Canada dominating the weeks after Feb 10th. Also, the -AO and -NAO essentially go away. This -PNA would be a sharp reversal to the opposite of the prior 4 week long beautiful +PNA dominated pattern, which we’ll be able to enjoy for another week. Hoping this -PNA doesn’t last too long and that the model is wrong on it lasting for weeks.

If you're looking at it from where you live, I guess it's not great but overall it quickly brings back the -WPO so they'll be a lot of arctic air pressing into the ridge so I would say it actually looks pretty wintry for the country especially as you go north and west. I know that's not good for your area though.

[LakePaste25]

5 minutes ago, roardog said:

If you're looking at it from where you live, I guess it's not great but overall it quickly brings back the -WPO so they'll be a lot of arctic air pressing into the ridge so I would say it actually looks pretty wintry for the country especially as you go north and west. I know that's not good for your area though.

just need to get through that brief poleward jet extension which basically scours out the TPV from central and eastern canada, then we have a better cold air source for storms setting up across the Great Lakes later in the month as the aleutian ridge builds 

[GaWx]

8 minutes ago, roardog said:

If you're looking at it from where you live, I guess it's not great but overall it quickly brings back the -WPO so they'll be a lot of arctic air pressing into the ridge so I would say it actually looks pretty wintry for the country especially as you go north and west. I know that's not good for your area though.

You’re right that I was thinking more from a E US and moreso from a SE US perspective and should have stated that. My bad. I just edited the post. See if you agree more with the new wording.

 For Michigan and all of the E US, it looks mild through ~Feb 20th. After that, when model skill is very low, it’s much more up in the air.