2025-2026 ENSO

[GaWx]

Posted by JB a few hours ago:

Northeast likely Never Pulls out of BN pattern

Opinions?

[PositiveEPOEnjoyer]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Recent Aprils have been cool more often than not. Looking back at La Nina Aprils, its a very wide variety of results, everything from near-record cold to near-record warm, although the colder ones outweighed the warm ones.

CFS seasonal has a cold April. Euro seasonal has average. Cansips has cold in NE and avg to slightly mild midwest.

Now, Im still waiting to hear what what we are basing a torch April on? I mean, torch implies at least what, top-10 warmth? 

They really haven't though. 2024 featured the 6th warmest April on record at Detroit, and your last "cold" April was in 2022. Even then, it was a mere 2 degrees below average, so nothing to write home about. I haven't said anything about how April will shape up this year as I have no idea what will happen (way too early), but if we're basing forecasts on how our recent weather months shaped up (which isn't entirely correct to do), I'd def lean warmer than average. Also still waiting to see how this supposed PV split will shake up the pattern. Cold may favor the West instead (assuming it even does happen).

[PositiveEPOEnjoyer]

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Posted by JB a few hours ago:

Northeast likely Never Pulls out of BN pattern

Opinions?

Come on, you're smart enough to know better surely.

[GaWx]

37 minutes ago, PositiveEPOEnjoyer said:

Come on, you're smart enough to know better surely.

 Good point! I’m just trying to generate discussion. I know he’s always been very strongly cold-biased (due to a combo of his being a cold weenie plus cold’s much better for business/traffic/likes) and I’ve never been shy about saying so, but sometimes he ends up right. Could this be one of those times?

 Of course, I’m responding to a person who proudly prefers warmth based on nearly all of your recent posts and username. Nothing wrong with that, of course and you have company here and especially elsewhere. Different strokes for different folks!  

[PhiEaglesfan712]

31 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Posted by JB a few hours ago:

Northeast likely Never Pulls out of BN pattern

Opinions?

When you start to see people posting headlines like this, then you know to expect the opposite is most likely to happen. It's like when people on Accuweather were commenting in the beginning of March 2015 that April and May 2015 were going to be even colder. The opposite ended up happening, with May 2015 being record warm (or very close to it) in many places in the Eastern US.

[snowman19]

@GaWx Could you please share the Euro Seasonal for March if you have it? I keep seeing people crying on twitter that it’s a “torch” but I have yet to see a single image. Just wondering if it’s actually as bad as they are saying? 

[GaWx]

44 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

@GaWx Could you please share the Euro Seasonal for March if you have it? I keep seeing people crying on twitter that it’s a “torch” but I have yet to see a single image. Just wondering if it’s actually as bad as they are saying? 

 Tweets are often exaggerations as we know. The new Euro for March is still mainly warmer than normal but no torch as it’s mainly only slightly AN since it’s cooler than the forecast from a month ago:

Last month’s Euro for March:

 

Today’s Euro for March: not as mild with only ~1F AN NE, 2 AN DC, Chicago, Detroit, and RDU, and 2-2.5 AN ATL/MEM for example:

 

April also came in cooler than it had last month.

 I am wary, however, about WxBell Euro 2m temp anomalies having a cold bias due to their algos. So, you probably have to add at least 1F to what I said to adjust for that bias. So, more like at least 2F AN NE and at least 3-3.5 AN in the other cities I listed. So, again not as warm as last month’s forecast and not really a torch, but still fairly mild especially after the bias correction. I can’t find March by itself at the ecmwf site, itself, unfortunately.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

3 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Tweets are often exaggerations as we know. The new Euro for March is still mainly warmer than normal but mainly only slightly as it is cooler than the forecast from a month ago:

Last month’s Euro for March:

 

Today’s Euro for March: not as mild with only ~1F AN NE, 2 AN DC, Chicago, Detroit, and RDU, and 2-2.5 AN ATL/MEM for example:

 

April also came in cooler than it had last month.

 I am wary, however, about WxBell 2m temp anomalies having a cold bias due to their algos. So, you probably have to add at least 1F to what I said to adjust for that bias. So, more like 2F AN NE and 3-3.5 AN in the other cities I listed. can’t find March by itself at the ecmwf site, itself, unfortunately.

 

It looks like they fixed whatever always led to a big negative departure over Lake Superior.

[cny rider]

2 hours ago, vegan_edible said:

i actually went to college in savannah (scad) and no one has experienced hell until you walk through downtown savannah at 2pm on a july day. like walking through sludge. beautiful town though, lived right on gaston st for the last 2 years i lived there. i miss it sometimes... until i remember the humidity

I'm a lifelong northerner, on a work trip years ago I made the mistake of walking out of my hotel onto the street in New Orleans in June.

It felt like being punched in the face, hard. I could barely breathe.

 

[GaWx]

14 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

It looks like they fixed whatever always led to a big negative departure over Lake Superior.

It’s the WxBell CFS, not their Euro, that has those weird issues. WxBell Euro just has a straight 2m cold bias. And you must have meant a S. Lake Michigan - departure (not Superior, which actually typically has the opposite, a relative + departure in the E portion) just as this CFS has:

[A-L-E-K]

ready 4 spring

[PhiEaglesfan712]

41 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Tweets are often exaggerations as we know. The new Euro for March is still mainly warmer than normal but no torch as it’s mainly only slightly AN since it’s cooler than the forecast from a month ago:

Last month’s Euro for March:

 

Today’s Euro for March: not as mild with only ~1F AN NE, 2 AN DC, Chicago, Detroit, and RDU, and 2-2.5 AN ATL/MEM for example:

 

April also came in cooler than it had last month.

 I am wary, however, about WxBell Euro 2m temp anomalies having a cold bias due to their algos. So, you probably have to add at least 1F to what I said to adjust for that bias. So, more like at least 2F AN NE and at least 3-3.5 AN in the other cities I listed. So, again not as warm as last month’s forecast and not really a torch, but still fairly mild especially after the bias correction. I can’t find March by itself at the ecmwf site, itself, unfortunately.

 

Here's the April 2015 temperature anomoly: 

This map doesn't look much different than those March 2026 Euro maps.

[MJO812]

Weeklies for last week of February into March look stormy and cold 

[LakePaste25]

16 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Weeklies for last week of February into March look stormy and cold 

 

8 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

I highlighted a colder risk for the last third of february this morning and gave reasons…low-medium confidence for now. I’m also a little too regionally biased/focused with this because even if the blocking pattern breaks down and a cutter pattern develops, i tend to be in a better spot being 300-400 miles west of I-95 in the eastern great lakes. 

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Weeklies for last week of February into March look stormy and cold 

Anthony,

 It’s important to be aware that the WxBell Euro EW 2m maps have a notable 2m temp cold bias as I’ve posted about repeatedly. I have an easy way to show this by posting the in-house Euro weeklies maps covering the same period and comparing to this WB map.

Examples:

 -The Rockies and west coast are a very cold -3F to -10F for 2/21-3/22 on your map. What?!?
 
 -Chicago/OH Valley are -2F, Asheville is -3F, Detroit is -4F, DC/Richmond are -3F, ATL/CLT are -1F.

 -Now check out ECMWF’s in-house maps for the truth: no BN on any maps covering the same period for the locations I listed

2/23-3/1:

 

3/2-8:

 

3/9-15:

 

3/16-22:

 So based on the truth, the Rockies and much of the West should be a bit AN instead of well BN. So, that means they’re mainly 5F to 10F too cold on WB!

 The E cities I listed should be NN in Chic, Det, Ohio Valley, DC, Richmond, and +1F in ATL/CLT/ASH. So, that means these locations are 2-4F too cold on WB.

 WxBell has NYC at -4F. The truth is that they should be -1F. So, NYC is 3F too cold on WB.

@donsutherland1this remains a problem

[michsnowfreak]

6 hours ago, PositiveEPOEnjoyer said:

They really haven't though. 2024 featured the 6th warmest April on record at Detroit, and your last "cold" April was in 2022. Even then, it was a mere 2 degrees below average, so nothing to write home about. I haven't said anything about how April will shape up this year as I have no idea what will happen (way too early), but if we're basing forecasts on how our recent weather months shaped up (which isn't entirely correct to do), I'd def lean warmer than average. Also still waiting to see how this supposed PV split will shake up the pattern. Cold may favor the West instead (assuming it even does happen).

April is one of my least favorite months (Apr and Aug). I was recalling recent April snowfalls and frigid Opening Days moreso than the monthly temp departure. A closer look shows that in the last 10 Aprils, 4 were colder than avg, 1 avg, 5 warmer than avg. 

But regardless my stance remains. Calling for a torch month 2 months out with no basis other than a gut feeling is automatically wrong. I wouldn't have even responded if someone said "id lean warm for April". But torch? Ill wait and see.

[LakePaste25]

41 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Anthony,

 It’s important to be aware that the WxBell Euro EW 2m maps have a notable 2m temp cold bias as I’ve posted about repeatedly. I have an easy way to show this by posting the in-house ECMWF weeklies covering the same period and comparing to this WxBell map.
 

Examples:

 -The Rockies and west coast are a very cold -3F to -10F for 2/21-3/22 on your map. What?!?
 
 -Chicago/OH Valley are -2F, Asheville is -3F, Detroit is -4F, DC/Richmond are -3F, ATL/CLT are -1F.

 - Now check out the ECMWF’s in-house maps for the truth: no BN on any of the maps covering the same period for the locations I listed

2/23-3/1:

 

3/2-8:

 

3/9-15:

 

3/16-22:

 So based on the truth, the Rockies and much of the West should be a bit AN instead of well BN. So, that means they’re mainly 5F to 10F too cold on WxBell!

 The E cities I listed should be NN in Chic, Det, Ohio Valley, DC, Richmond,  and ~+1F in ATL/CLT/ASH. So, that means that these locations are 2-4F too cold on WxBell.

 WxBell has NYC at -4F. The truth is that they should be ~-1F. So, NYC is 3F too cold on WxBell.

@donsutherland1this remains a problem

I believe the ECMWF native site is still using 1981-2010 climate normals, while the wxbell site is using the warmer 1991-2020 normals. The actual 2m temps should be the same, but the newer 1991-2020 normals will appear colder because the baseline is warmer, which is what we should expect in a warmer climate. 

Raw 2m temps are produced by the models themselves. It’s up to what dataset you want to use for the anomalies. 

[TheClimateChanger]

52 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

I believe the ECMWF native site is still using 1981-2010 climate normals, while the wxbell site is using the warmer 1991-2020 normals. The actual 2m temps should be the same, but the newer 1991-2020 normals will appear colder because the baseline is warmer, which is what we should expect in a warmer climate. 

Raw 2m temps are produced by the models themselves. It’s up to what dataset you want to use for the anomalies. 

Shouldn't be that dramatic of a discrepancy though... the 1991-2020 normals are generally ~0.5F, maybe 1F warmer, than the 1981-2010 normals for most places. After all, they share 20 years.

[TheClimateChanger]

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

It’s the WxBell CFS, not their Euro, that has those weird issues. WxBell Euro just has a straight 2m cold bias. And you must have meant a S. Lake Michigan - departure (not Superior, which actually typically has the opposite, a relative + departure in the E portion) just as this CFS has:

Yeah, now that I think about it... I think it's there CDAS or whatever that shows the past anomalies that always seems to show an anomalously cooler area over Lake Superior. But that might be a problem with the lake temperature dataset.

[MJO812]

[LakePaste25]

9 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Who said there was going to be a torch in Feb? Seems like a straw man. 

[LakePaste25]

34 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Shouldn't be that dramatic of a discrepancy though... the 1991-2020 normals are generally ~0.5F, maybe 1F warmer, than the 1981-2010 normals for most places. After all, they share 20 years.

Happy to dig deeper into this. I always thought actual 2m temps were universal vs. the differing anomaly datasets. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

I believe the ECMWF native site is still using 1981-2010 climate normals, while the wxbell site is using the warmer 1991-2020 normals. The actual 2m temps should be the same, but the newer 1991-2020 normals will appear colder because the baseline is warmer, which is what we should expect in a warmer climate. 

Raw 2m temps are produced by the models themselves. It’s up to what dataset you want to use for the anomalies. 

 There’s no indication that the Euro native site is using 1981-2010 for its climo base. Is it possible you’re mixing up Tropical Tidbits with the Euro native base? TT does use 1981-2010 as that’s what’s shown on many of their maps. Regarding the Euro native site itself, it refers to the last 20 years for its climo base. So, that means a base of 2006-2025 for the in-house Euro maps. Compared to the 1991-2020 base of WxBell, that means the climo base for the native Euro maps is actually warmer than rather than colder than WB. So, if the only difference between WB and native Euro were the climo base and WB didn’t have algorithm issues, then the WB anomaly maps would actually be a little warmer rather than colder than the native Euro maps. So, that means that the WB cold bias is actually even worse rather than better when considering climo base differences!

 So, there really is a big problem with WB Euro maps. Thus, if anything, WB Euro Weekly NYC 2m anomalies on that map are >3F too cold…perhaps closer to 4F too cold! And don’t forget that out west, that WB map is 5-10F too cold before considering climo base differences based on what I just showed! @MJO812@donsutherland1

[LakePaste25]

33 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 There’s no indication that the Euro native site is using 1981-2010 for its climo base. Is it possible you’re mixing up Tropical Tidbits with the Euro native base? TT does use 1981-2010 as that’s what’s shown on many of their maps. Regarding the Euro native site itself, it refers to the last 20 years for its climo base. So, that means a base of 2006-2025 for the in-house Euro maps. Compared to the 1991-2020 base of WxBell, that means the climo base for the native Euro maps is actually warmer than rather than colder than WB. So, if the only difference between WB and native Euro were the climo base and WB didn’t have algorithm issues, then the WB anomaly maps would actually be a little warmer rather than colder than the native Euro maps. So, that means that the WB cold bias is actually even worse rather than better when considering climo base differences!

 So, there really is a big problem with WB Euro maps. Thus, if anything, WB Euro Weekly NYC 2m anomalies on that map are >3F too cold…perhaps closer to 4F too cold! And don’t forget that out west, that WB map is 5-10F too cold before considering climo base differences based on what I just showed! @MJO812@donsutherland1

All 2m temp forecasts are the same though. It’s just how the anomalies are interpreted. 

Would agree that EPS are running slightly cold of GEFS/GEPS suites. 

[so_whats_happening]

12 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

The law of averages says a warm month has to happen at some point. The Eastern US hasn't had an above average month since September, and a near normal month since November.

With the exception of 2013-14 (and even that had a warm May and June), all of the big cold years produced torch months at some point in the spring. 2010 (from March-September), 2011 (from April-July), and 2015 (in May). Even last year, March produced a Top 10 warmest month, and 2018 had the anomolously warm February, as well as a Top 10 warmest May.

By using that same logic the law of averages would assume we would have extensive cooler than average year(s) coming up too since we have been an endless year after year warm regime.

[GaWx]

33 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

All 2m temp forecasts are the same though. It’s just how the anomalies are interpreted. 

Would agree that EPS are running slightly cold of GEFS/GEPS suites. 

 I hate to see such large discrepancies in anomalies when comparing sources. It’s not comforting to say the least.

 Maybe they are and I have no evidence to the contrary at least right now, but how do you know for sure that the 2m temp forecasts themselves between Euro native and WB are the same?