2025 ENSO/Winter Speculation

[UnitedWx]

3 hours ago, Snowcrazed71 said:

I couldn't agree more. He has the same exact words that he uses. He hypes things up so much that I just shake my head. It's nuts how much he believes what he's saying, and what's worse, he has a lot of followers and subscribers I totally believe what's coming out of his mouth. Pure bull crap.

It's because unfortunately there are some who think that if they're posting something like that, they must know something... My best friend does this every year "but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about" LOL

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 10/1/2025 at 6:55 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

DJF hardly below normal from around the N shore of Boston points NE into Maine screams late-blooming Miller B/SWFE, to me.

 

 

On 10/1/2025 at 6:56 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Even more pronounced for JFM:

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Same page as raindance....when I see phase 7 December composite all I can think of is Dec 2007, although that month didn't spend much time in that phase in a literal sense.

@dendrite@dryslot

[Typhoon Tip]

On 9/30/2025 at 10:50 AM, UnitedWx said:

It's because unfortunately there are some who think that if they're posting something like that, they must know something... My best friend does this every year "but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about" LOL

It's a dumbing down of population, one that then became subjected to enormous data; and a negative feedback of the former preconditioning, they suffer bad processing and "unconstrained interpretation" of the daily tsunamis of "humanity's honesty".  They were first made less incapable of categorical management ( mentally...), so then reality looks like an unmanageable unhinged cloud of threats to them.  It's really become sociological crisis in society.

All dimensions.    Decision making and judgements failing to screen through very good, if at all, objective analytics, seeds frenetic states, paranoia, good old fashioned fear. There's also a goodly amount of moral degradation because the illustration that same information drowning is painted in, is almost always dystopian and mimicry of selfishness - why is anyone willing to bend over society, when society looks like it's "bending them over".  And then ...asking them to judge characters and vote?  - good luck

It's why "populism" is making a comeback. Populism gives rise to dictatorships - or prone to that occurrence throughout history, by the way. 

It's not just America either.  It's what technology is doing to humanity in a great evolutionary experiment our species has embarked upon.   It started with the Industrial Revolution, and has really gotten uncontrolled - particularly spanning the last 30 years of technology acceleration. Folks may not be able to articulate and/or quantify in sophistication/understanding, but damn well can intuit and abstractly sense .. But this latter form of awareness lends to uncertainty. Uncertainty = fear at group capacity.  --> contractions and pull away from progressive ideologies, seeking "safe traditions" - which unfortunately ... are on the wrong side of history, because those same traditions also got us into a state of climate crisis...  

It's not gonna end well, folks.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Who needs snow when the demise of society is imminent-

[FPizz]

35 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's a dumbing down of population, one that then became subjected to enormous data and "unconstrained interpretation" ( last 20 years...).  They were first made less incapable of categorical management ( mentally...), then it looks unmanageable to them in what's really become sociological crisis in society. 

All dimensions.    Decision making and judgements failing to screen through very good, if at all, objective analytics, is actually causing frenetic disruption, paranoia, good old fashioned fear. 

It's why "populism" is making a comeback. Populism gives rise to dictatorships - or prone to that occurrence throughout history, by the way. 

It's not just America either.  It's what technology is doing to humanity in a great evolutionary experiment our species has embarked upon.   It started with the Industrial Revolution, and has really gotten uncontrolled - particularly spanning the last 30 years of technology acceleration. Folks may not be able to articulate and/or quantify in sophistication/understanding, but damn well can intuit and abstractly sense .. But this latter form of awareness lends to uncertainty. Uncertainty = fear at group capacity.  --> contractions and pull away from progressive ideologies, seeking "safe traditions" - which unfortunately ... are on the wrong side of history, because those same traditions also got us into a state of climate crisis...  

It's not gonna end well, folks.

Well people believed the farmers almanac, squirrels hiding nuts, etc. before the internet, so this whole post loses whatever you were going for

[Typhoon Tip]

1 minute ago, FPizz said:

Well people believed the farmers almanac, squirrels hiding nuts, etc. before the internet, so this whole post loses whatever you were going for

So ...what exactly was I going for   LOL

 

[UnitedWx]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's a dumbing down of population, one that then became subjected to enormous data and "unconstrained interpretation" ( last 20 years...).  They were first made less incapable of categorical management ( mentally...), then it looks unmanageable to them in what's really become sociological crisis in society. 

All dimensions.    Decision making and judgements failing to screen through very good, if at all, objective analytics, is actually causing frenetic disruption, paranoia, good old fashioned fear. 

It's why "populism" is making a comeback. Populism gives rise to dictatorships - or prone to that occurrence throughout history, by the way. 

It's not just America either.  It's what technology is doing to humanity in a great evolutionary experiment our species has embarked upon.   It started with the Industrial Revolution, and has really gotten uncontrolled - particularly spanning the last 30 years of technology acceleration. Folks may not be able to articulate and/or quantify in sophistication/understanding, but damn well can intuit and abstractly sense .. But this latter form of awareness lends to uncertainty. Uncertainty = fear at group capacity.  --> contractions and pull away from progressive ideologies, seeking "safe traditions" - which unfortunately ... are on the wrong side of history, because those same traditions also got us into a state of climate crisis...  

It's not gonna end well, folks.

I was speaking with an old friend in Germany recently. He said it's become so bad there that some are being arrested simply for posting their own opinion on social media platforms, she says it reminds her of what they studied about 1930s Germany. This isn't a political "side" issue at all, it's a societal issue and it's... spooky

[Typhoon Tip]

Sorry, Ray ... wasn't intending to derail your winter thread.  LOL 

seriously tho.   

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/1/2025 at 7:07 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

 

 

Wow, this would be an unusual La Nina to be that dry in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions. Maybe not as unusual for the east coast, but certainly strange to see so much below normal precipitation anomalies [especially given climatological trends].

[UnitedWx]

25 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Sorry, Ray ... wasn't intending to derail your winter thread.  LOL 

seriously tho.   

I was thinking that myself, pre season form haha. And as always Ray, thanks for all the effort you put in here.

[40/70 Benchmark]

16 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Wow, this would be an unusual La Nina to be that dry in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions. Maybe not as unusual for the east coast, but certainly strange to see so much below normal precipitation anomalies [especially given climatological trends].

Yea, I don't buy it being that dry...just commenting on the output.

[weatherwiz]

45 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Wow, this would be an unusual La Nina to be that dry in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions. Maybe not as unusual for the east coast, but certainly strange to see so much below normal precipitation anomalies [especially given climatological trends].

We're barely going to be in a La Nina, if we even officially get there. ENSO will probably have little influence on the overall regime. 

[weatherwiz]

Won't be able to put anything of great depth or detail together for the winter, but my thinking right now is that it is going to be a above average temperature regime for much of the country and could be on the drier side, except maybe the West and we'll see an overall theme of de-amplifying systems trucking across the country with another raging jet the culprit. 

[MJO812]

39 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Won't be able to put anything of great depth or detail together for the winter, but my thinking right now is that it is going to be a above average temperature regime for much of the country and could be on the drier side, except maybe the West and we'll see an overall theme of de-amplifying systems trucking across the country with another raging jet the culprit. 

Wow way different than most outlooks

Hope you are wrong 

[WxWatcher007]

I recognize that this is not a real contribution, but I would sign for this. 

 

[weatherwiz]

16 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Wow way different than most outlooks

Hope you are wrong 

Well like I said, I won't have time to do in-depth digging or analysis, but regardless, 90% of "seasonal" outlooks always find some way to make it cold/snow in the East. 

Anyways, regardless of whether we end up in La Nina (by ONI definition) or neutral negative, much of the Pacific remains a heat pump. Now, I know things may change some in this department as we move towards the northern hemisphere winter solstice but the IPWP and WPWP remain expansive, which has been a theme for the last several years. 

In the case of the IPWP, when combined with the -PDO regime, is going to yield a stronger gradient across the North Pacific as we move deeper through the cooler season (lower pressure over the IPWP and higher pressure in the north Pacific) which will contribute to a very fast jet stream yielding zonal flow into the U.S. 

I'm fearful this is a recipe for strong MJO activity when convection enters phases 5-7 and we all know what that means.

The WPHP is going to continue the theme of intense southern ridging and this could be even amped a bit by a weak La Nina or negative neutral ENSO and will aid in faster jet stream winds across the country. 

But of course you have wildcards such as stratosphere, QBO, etc. But when the PAC is a dominant player in this regard...it doesn't usually bode well for us.

[MJO812]

I was just listening to the radio and they were talking about winter and they said  that this might be the worst winter in a long time for the NYC area in regards to alot of snow and cold.

[Typhoon Tip]

10 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

I was just listening to the radio and they were talking about winter and they said  that this might be the worst winter in a long time for the NYC area in regards to alot of snow and cold.

No chance their just parroting what's meme-popularized in the razor sharp cutting scientific insight and intuitively gifted social mediasphere, either, huh

[cleetussnow]

12 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

I was just listening to the radio and they were talking about winter and they said  that this might be the worst winter in a long time for the NYC area in regards to alot of snow and cold.

Bullshit

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

We're barely going to be in a La Nina, if we even officially get there. ENSO will probably have little influence on the overall regime. 

Stop focusing on on ONI. RONI and MEI will border on moderate.

[40/70 Benchmark]

15 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

Well like I said, I won't have time to do in-depth digging or analysis, but regardless, 90% of "seasonal" outlooks always find some way to make it cold/snow in the East. 

Anyways, regardless of whether we end up in La Nina (by ONI definition) or neutral negative, much of the Pacific remains a heat pump. Now, I know things may change some in this department as we move towards the northern hemisphere winter solstice but the IPWP and WPWP remain expansive, which has been a theme for the last several years. 

In the case of the IPWP, when combined with the -PDO regime, is going to yield a stronger gradient across the North Pacific as we move deeper through the cooler season (lower pressure over the IPWP and higher pressure in the north Pacific) which will contribute to a very fast jet stream yielding zonal flow into the U.S. 

I'm fearful this is a recipe for strong MJO activity when convection enters phases 5-7 and we all know what that means.

The WPHP is going to continue the theme of intense southern ridging and this could be even amped a bit by a weak La Nina or negative neutral ENSO and will aid in faster jet stream winds across the country. 

But of course you have wildcards such as stratosphere, QBO, etc. But when the PAC is a dominant player in this regard...it doesn't usually bode well for us.

Right...this is what the MEI and RONI better convey. 

I agree the west PAC issue must be considered ...only thing that is keeping me measured. That said, I view that as more of a cap and don't expect this season to be bad.

[DarkSharkWX]

17 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

In the case of the IPWP, when combined with the -PDO regime, is going to yield a stronger gradient across the North Pacific as we move deeper through the cooler season (lower pressure over the IPWP and higher pressure in the north Pacific) which will contribute to a very fast jet stream yielding zonal flow into the U.S. 

I'm fearful this is a recipe for strong MJO activity when convection enters phases 5-7 and we all know what that means.

The WPHP is going to continue the theme of intense southern ridging and this could be even amped a bit by a weak La Nina or negative neutral ENSO and will aid in faster jet stream winds across the country. 

But of course you have wildcards such as stratosphere, QBO, etc. But when the PAC is a dominant player in this regard...it doesn't usually bode well for us.

isnt this normal/expected (for the IPWP) in +TNH cluster winters?

although you are certainly right with the warmest waters being between 140-160E, -QBO increases instability in the UTLS which should fuel more active/stronger convection on the equator, but since the Nina is east-based/not very strong, theoretically, MJO propogation should be able to make it into more favorable phases at times
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/36/3/JCLI-D-22-0010.1.xml

[weatherwiz]

11 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Stop focusing on on ONI. RONI and MEI will border on moderate.

I've tended to shy away from ONI alone and incorporate for SOI/MEI/RONI/ENS-ONI but with that I am a bit uncertain as to how much we really develop into La Nina but even with a Nina, I am unsure how "Nina like" the atmosphere will truly be. 

21 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

isnt this normal/expected (for the IPWP) in +TNH cluster winters?

although you are certainly right with the warmest waters being between 140-160E, -QBO increases instability in the UTLS which should fuel more active/stronger convection on the equator, but since the Nina is east-based/not very strong, theoretically, MJO propogation should be able to make it into more favorable phases at times
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/36/3/JCLI-D-22-0010.1.xml

Thanks for linking that paper, gave a quick breeze through but need to read it in full later. 

I certainly could see periods where MJO activity is favorable or more favorable for us, but the question is, how favorable? If/when we get MJO activity into the favorable phases, how strong will the MJO signal be and how much weight will it have?

But I really want to see how the hemisphere evolves through the remainder of this month and first half of November. 

[DarkSharkWX]

15 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Thanks for linking that paper, gave a quick breeze through but need to read it in full later. 

I certainly could see periods where MJO activity is favorable or more favorable for us, but the question is, how favorable? If/when we get MJO activity into the favorable phases, how strong will the MJO signal be and how much weight will it have?

But I really want to see how the hemisphere evolves through the remainder of this month and first half of November. 

it will probably depend where the center of the IPWP ultimately ends up(east is more poleward ridging, west would be more towards an Aleutian ridge) as well as how strong the Nina gets/how much it develops. So far the cold pool in the subsurface has been surfacing with easterlies which is leading to the Nina getting pretty established, but it is still ep in origin. the IPWP has great backing from the subsurface, all the way to the dateline too, so that would likely put a cap on its development closer to the dateline 

[Typhoon Tip]

What does 'RONI will be moderate', mean.

RONI is inherently an ONI minus a spatial limitation because the ENSO band is being increasingly isolated by the HC expansion, but also just because the oceanic basins are blazin' away anyway - it's really all fucked up.

So a "moderate" RONI implies a decent amount of muting effect?   I guess.   

If we really understand what that means both conceptually and wrt the practical mechanics, the ENSO scalar numbers may rise and fall below a wider and wider gap of threshold/boundary.  In other (hypothetical example range) words, we'd going need to observe an ENSO sigma be > +1.5, or < -1.5, to really correlate to the general circulation modes of the mid latitude.  Otherwise, it only looks at times like it is correlating, but interceding random variances then break correlation, which denies the assumption of a truly coupled state.

My own present intuitive feel for this ( ...seeing as that's worth so much shit, lol ) is that we are not going to see an ENSO breach whatever the lower bound is.   That said, the non-warm ENSO is a kind of false La Nina, where the winds behave like a cold phase but it's not really in that mode - good luck parsing out how much in either case. 

Isn't CC so much fun

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

39 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

What does 'RONI will be moderate', mean.

RONI is inherently an ONI minus a spatial limitation because the ENSO band is being increasingly isolated by the HC expansion, but also just because the oceanic basins are blazin' away anyway - it's really all fucked up.

So a "moderate" RONI implies a decent amount of muting effect?   I guess.   

If we really understand what that means both conceptually and wrt the practical mechanics, the ENSO scalar numbers may rise and fall below a wider and wider gap of threshold/boundary.  In other (hypothetical example range) words, we'd going need to observe an ENSO sigma be > +1.5, or < -1.5, to really correlate to the general circulation modes of the mid latitude.  Otherwise, it only looks at times like it is correlating, but interceding random variances then break correlation, which denies the assumption of a truly coupled state.

My own present intuitive feel for this ( ...seeing as that's worth so much shit, lol ) is that we are not going to see an ENSO breach whatever the lower bound is.   That said, the non-warm ENSO is a kind of false La Nina, where the winds behave like a cold phase but it's not really in that mode - good luck parsing out how much in either case. 

Isn't CC so much fun

 

A moderate RONI implies a pattern that appears to be correalting to a degree comensurate with said strength...regardless of whether or not the La Nina is coupled. All I care about in a seasonal outlook. The RONI doesn't measure the how well La Nina is coupled...MEI does that.

[weatherwiz]

26 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

it will probably depend where the center of the IPWP ultimately ends up(east is more poleward ridging, west would be more towards an Aleutian ridge) as well as how strong the Nina gets/how much it develops. So far the cold pool in the subsurface has been surfacing with easterlies which is leading to the Nina getting pretty established, but it is still ep in origin. the IPWP has great backing from the subsurface, all the way to the dateline too, so that would likely put a cap on its development closer to the dateline 

I think it is extremely difficult right now to have an idea of what influences La Nina will have. There has been a markedly big shift in the hemispheric regime during La Nina events over the past few decades. With La Nina you always at least had some degree of troughing in North America, whether that be into Canada that would extend into the northern latitudes of the U.S. or into the PAC NW...but this signal has been almost absent mins 2010-2011 and 2021-2022 basically since the 80's.