2026-2027 El Nino

[TheClimateChanger]

2 minutes ago, FPizz said:

it is the accuracy of the record keeping from back then.  It isn't a lie, but most likely not accurate.  It could have even been more snow, but I'd question it no matter what.

Looks like good, sound records to me. The snowfall and liquid equivalents make sense.

[snowman19]

Big signal for a strong +IOD development this summer, which will constructively interfere with El Niño

[LakePaste25]

I imagine summer in the east will be on the milder, wetter, and more humid side 

[snowman19]

If (IF) this is correct, that is insane for a 13 models/637 member ensemble mean for September, at +2.2C, since the El Niño will still be strengthening at that point. They normally peak in November or December….
 

[GaWx]

21 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

If (IF) this is correct, that is insane for a 13 models/637 member ensemble mean for September, at +2.2C, since the El Niño will still be strengthening at that point. They normally peak in November or December….
 

UKMET has been one of the better models in recent years. It’s going ~+2.05 for Sep ONI and would likely rise a few more tenths from there. Then take off ~0.5 to convert to RONI. So, ~+1.5-1.6 C RONI in Sept and rising per UKMET.

 Euro ONI is just over +2.2 in Sept and rising, but it has tended to verify too warm although not as much warm bias verified on average in actual El Niños.

 This all suggests to me a mid to high grade strong RONI peak as of now. I’ll continue to update.

[mitchnick]

7 hours ago, snowman19 said:

1982-83 was an east-based super El Niño and we had the megalopolis blizzard. That said, I do agree with you that if we do go super, which is looking increasingly likely, it’s going to be a mild winter 

Mid Atlantic (DCA up to PHL at least) had a decent 6"+ storm in December, 1982 that was supposed to stay south in VA. Great Sunday night surprise as I remember it well. When I asked JB about it when he was still at Accuwx, he said he was jumping up and down saying it would come north but other forecasters overruled him.

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, FPizz said:

2020's here, like 30 miles away from Newark, is 29.2.  2010s I was 35.9, so Newark did better.  They have had some bad luck this decade with snow cutoffs.  1840s-60s is mostly nonsense.  

Those were the nyc totals i posted btw, bc newark didnt start til the 1930s. I figured nyc was very close. 

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

What motive would they have to lie about how much snow fell? Newark is not the same climate as Detroit. It could have been colder and drier in Detroit than present.

I didnt say they lied. I was questioning the snowfall since NYC records began in 1869 and never averaged close to 40" (other then 2010s).

However, I did not see this Newark list. When I clicked "Newark Area" it started in 1930. Usually "area" is the most comprehensive data set for an area. But in this case its not. 

Not sure where this old data suddenly came from, but I consider any old data pre-1870 to be fascinating because of it's rarity. Indeed that does avg low 40s. Very interesting and would wonder how accurate it is. Newark 1850-1870 average is near idential to present-day Detroit average snowfall, but Newark 1850-1870 DJF still averaged 2.2F warmer and over 4" wetter in winter than present-day Detroit. I wish we had those records for here (there are some sparse observations/journals, but not enough accuracy for a complete record).

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Lack of understanding what ENSO is if it's constantly pointed out that Weak-Moderate is better than Strong+. I'm not talking about its orientation changing. It's funny how a few analogs can make people prisoner of expectation. 

Logic test: What's a super La Nina like? 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 hours ago, bluewave said:

Upper ocean heat is getting off to a record start for March. So the model forecasts of an ONI getting above +2.0° would make sense if the El Niño continues on a similar trajectory into June past the spring forecast barrier.

This could be the first ONIs above 2.0° only 3 years apart which could have major ramifications for the global climate well beyond what happens next winter. Since we never had this rapid a global temperature increase over such a short period.

With  the big temperature jump in 2023-2024 the CONUS has had the #1 warmest winter in 2023-2024 and the #2 warmest winter in 2025-2026. Plus all the record warm winters following the 2015-2016 El Niño.

 

What I find interesting about the global average temperature, is that it has gone exponential, when mostly La Nina's have occurred since 1998. 

Per RONI, 5 of the last 6 years (20-26) have been La Nina.  Per RONI, 7 of the last 10 years (16-26) have been La Nina.  Per RONI, 11 of the last 19 years (07-26) have been La Nina.   Per RONI, 15 of the last 28 years (98-26) have been La Nina. That's >50% La Nina since 1998. 

More than 50% of years have been La Nina since 1998. Had it been 33-33-33, global average temperature would have been higher over that time! The quick re-hit of Strong El Nino this year is going to push us back closer to the long term Neutral ENSO mark. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

4 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

I imagine summer in the east will be on the milder, wetter, and more humid side 

Pre-El Nino Summers have a pretty good correlation at being below average, especially around the Great Lakes

[TheClimateChanger]

41 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Pre-El Nino Summers have a pretty good correlation at being below average, especially around the Great Lakes

Are we sure these correlations apply in this new regime? If we look at April 1997, it was 5th coldest on record, but this year seems destined for back to back record warm months. The NBM numbers would bring us up to about +5.5F (1991-2020 climo) by the 18th/19th timeframe, whereas the current record is +3.4 in 2006.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

8 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Yeah, that’s what I have. I find it amazing that there were none for the 68 winters between 1888-9 and 1957-8. I wonder whether or not this is random, especially considering there were 7 over the subsequent 68 winters 1957-8 through 2024-5!

Same thing with the strong la ninas. 1916-17 was the only one in the first 100+ years post-1850. (Coincidentally, 1917 was the year when global average temperature hit a minimum.) Since then, we've had strong la ninas in 1955-56, 1973-74, 1975-76, 1988-89, 1998-2000, 2007-08, and 2010-11.

[TheClimateChanger]

I'm sure the observer in Toronto was lying about how much snow used to fall as well.

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Are we sure these correlations apply in this new regime? If we look at April 1997, it was 5th coldest on record, but this year seems destined for back to back record warm months. The NBM numbers would bring us up to about +5.5F (1991-2020 climo) by the 18th/19th timeframe, whereas the current record is +3.4 in 2006.

This winter was much colder in the Great Lakes than 1996-97.

[michsnowfreak]

20 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I'm sure the observer in Toronto was lying about how much snow used to fall as well.

Its funny youre being your usual smart ass self when I made one comment on an alleged newark dataset i didnt know existed and had never seen. Its funnier though that you always ridicule snow amounts from notorious low snow decades like the 1930s or 1950s when the weather bureau was well established and records detailed "there must be something wrong with how they measured". But a random snowy dataset with minimal info pops up from the 1850s and its gospel, no questions asked.

[TheClimateChanger]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Its funny youre being your usual smart ass self when I made one comment on an alleged newark dataset i didnt know existed and had never seen. Its funnier though that you always ridicule snow amounts from notorious low snow decades like the 1930s or 1950s when the weather bureau was well established and records detailed "there must be something wrong with how they measured". But a random snowy dataset with minimal info pops up from the 1850s and its gospel, no questions asked.

Hmm, maybe because the old measurements are biased low? 

Snowfall measurement: a flaky history | NCAR & UCAR News

[TheClimateChanger]

14 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

This winter was much colder in the Great Lakes than 1996-97.

Best spring in the history of America. 

[snowman19]

Huge SOI crash continuing, strongly negative. -30’s for the last 3 days. 30 day average is negative and continuing to fall

[MJO812]

9 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Huge SOI crash continuing, strongly negative. -30’s for the last 3 days. 30 day average is negative and continuing to fall

-33.53

[PhiEaglesfan712]

13 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Logic test: What's a super La Nina like? 

There's only been one: 1916-17 (and this was part of a triple la nina, which began in 1915-16 and ended in 1917-18). That was when global temperatures were at a minimum in the post-Industrial Revolution era. Of course, 1916-17 and 1917-18 are some of the coldest CONUS winters on record, and I believe the super la nina had a hand in it.

The closest we've come since then were in 1973-74 and 1988-89, and both immediately followed robust el ninos (the super el nino of 1972-73 and double el nino of 1986-88, respectively). Classic cases of "sometimes the strongest el ninos are followed by the strongest la ninas". I feel like if we get a strong/super el nino, this time around it's going to be followed by a strong la nina, like in 1973, 1988, 1998, and 2010.

[michsnowfreak]

9 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Best spring in the history of America. 

I know you have a lot of pent up troll posting to do from us having a cold winter, but honestly this is a perfect example of why one year is never a perfect match. 1996-97 here had an average winter and a cold spring. 2025-26 had a cold winter and a so far warm spring. 

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

There's only been one: 1916-17 (and this was part of a triple la nina, which began in 1915-16 and ended in 1917-18). That was when global temperatures were at a minimum in the post-Industrial Revolution era. Of course, 1916-17 and 1917-18 are some of the coldest CONUS winters on record, and I believe the super la nina had a hand in it.

The closest we've come since then were in 1973-74 and 1988-89, and both immediately followed robust el ninos (the super el nino of 1972-73 and double el nino of 1986-88, respectively). Classic cases of "sometimes the strongest el ninos are followed by the strongest la ninas". I feel like if we get a strong/super el nino, this time around it's going to be followed by a strong la nina, like in 1973, 1988, 1998, and 2010.

1916-17, 1917-18, & 1919-20 were very cold winters and 1918-19 & 1920-21 very mild here.

Of particular extreme was 1917-18 & 1918-19. The cold 1917-18 was extremely impressive and it likely ranks as one of the conus coldest winters on record (I concentrate on local & regional weather, not the entire conus, so idk the ranking). Then 1918-19 was a mild, snowless winter with a huge influenza pandemic. Newspapers at the time attributed the unusually warm winter weather to helping fuel "The Grippe". 

[donsutherland1]

22 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I didnt say they lied. I was questioning the snowfall since NYC records began in 1869 and never averaged close to 40" (other then 2010s).

However, I did not see this Newark list. When I clicked "Newark Area" it started in 1930. Usually "area" is the most comprehensive data set for an area. But in this case its not. 

Not sure where this old data suddenly came from, but I consider any old data pre-1870 to be fascinating because of it's rarity. Indeed that does avg low 40s. Very interesting and would wonder how accurate it is. Newark 1850-1870 average is near idential to present-day Detroit average snowfall, but Newark 1850-1870 DJF still averaged 2.2F warmer and over 4" wetter in winter than present-day Detroit. I wish we had those records for here (there are some sparse observations/journals, but not enough accuracy for a complete record).

The Newark list is can be found using Newark Airport. I am not sure why it wasn’t added to the Newark area option.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

18 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Are we sure these correlations apply in this new regime? If we look at April 1997, it was 5th coldest on record, but this year seems destined for back to back record warm months. The NBM numbers would bring us up to about +5.5F (1991-2020 climo) by the 18th/19th timeframe, whereas the current record is +3.4 in 2006.

Yeah, the linear correlation composites use plus and minus analogs. If -NAO is now -0.3 and +NAO is now +0.7 that's still +0.5. Patterns don't change with something like Strong ENSO, you just have to take the total warming into accout. 

El Nino hasn't developed yet. This April pattern is actually pretty -PNA

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

@bluewave Holy ++PMM

[e pluribus unum]

On 4/10/2026 at 4:19 PM, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Same thing with the strong la ninas. 1916-17 was the only one in the first 100+ years post-1850. (Coincidentally, 1917 was the year when global average temperature hit a minimum.) Since then, we've had strong la ninas in 1955-56, 1973-74, 1975-76, 1988-89, 1998-2000, 2007-08, and 2010-11.

1889-90 and 1892-93 both appeared to be very strong La Ninas, as well as 1909-10. 

The 1893 Nina was possibly the strongest on record. 

https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei.ext/table.ext.html

[mitchnick]

Seems strange to me that the western equarltorial Pacific has cooled over the last 7 days west of the dateline. Any ideas? The wwb is to last around 10 days per Cfs2 starting around the 17th. But I expected it to be warming west of the dateline. The cooling is on 2 different maps, though more apparenton one than the other.

[bluewave]

On 4/10/2026 at 9:27 AM, michsnowfreak said:

Anythings possible but highly doubt the accuracy of that Newark snowfall in the low 40s over a 30-year period. That is a Detroit average. Detroits average snowfall has remained remarkably steady since records began in the 1870s in the low 40s with spikes to mid 40s (late 1800s, 1970s-80s, 2000s-10s) and a surprising 3-4 decade dip to the 30s mid-20th century (1930s-60s).

There was a great weather observer living in Newark back in those days. The NJ climate office added all the data to the climate record recently. The beauty of these records is that it matches other overlapping accounts from that era. The average snowfall during that era was 44.0” with a DJF average temperature of 30.4°.

While this winter was the coldest and snowiest at Newark and other stations in over a decade, the temperatures were still warmer than  30 year average for that era. The snowfall this winter was a little higher than the 30 year mean for that era.

Plus they measured snowfall less frequently in the old days compared to today. So the actual seasonal totals could have been around 15 to 20 percent higher if they used the current snowfall measurement techniques. 

https://news.ucar.edu/14009/snowfall-measurement-flaky-history

Monthly a seasonal Total Snowfall for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Mean	0.1	0.8	9.4	12.1	12.6	7.3	1.8	44.0
1872-1873	0.0	4.0	25.1	14.1	23.3	2.2	3.0	71.7
1871-1872	0.0	T	8.5	2.0	5.0	8.5	T	24.0
1870-1871	0.0	T	5.0	16.0	16.1	1.3	2.0	40.4
1869-1870	T	T	8.1	1.8	8.5	11.0	3.0	32.4
1868-1869	T	0.0	9.5	11.0	12.0	5.0	0.6	38.1
1867-1868	0.0	T	15.5	23.8	14.0	15.0	7.0	75.3
1866-1867	0.0	T	7.0	23.5	15.5	17.5	T	63.5
1865-1866	0.0	0.0	13.1	11.8	8.0	1.5	T	34.4
1864-1865	0.0	0.3	26.0	10.5	12.5	T	0.0	49.3
1863-1864	0.0	T	4.3	7.0	1.0	7.0	T	19.3
1862-1863	0.0	6.5	8.0	10.0	13.0	10.9	1.8	50.2
1861-1862	0.0	1.0	1.0	12.0	25.5	4.6	6.0	50.1
1860-1861	0.0	T	7.0	20.6	1.3	17.0	2.0	47.9
1859-1860	3.0	0.0	5.1	11.3	25.0	2.5	T	46.9
1858-1859	0.0	5.5	6.5	12.3	15.8	6.0	T	46.1
1857-1858	0.0	T	4.5	1.8	10.5	10.5	T	27.3
1856-1857	0.0	0.5	4.3	28.1	2.1	17.0	0.0	52.0
1855-1856	0.0	T	9.0	32.8	5.0	11.0	0.0	57.8
1854-1855	0.0	T	8.0	18.5	16.0	2.5	T	45.0
1853-1854	0.0	M	14.5	15.0	23.5	2.8	13.5	69.3
1852-1853	0.0	T	T	15.5	2.3	7.0	T	24.8
1851-1852	0.0	2.0	7.0	20.0	14.0	16.0	4.3	63.3
1850-1851	0.0	0.0	6.0	2.5	3.5	10.5	2.0	24.5
1849-1850	0.0	0.0	11.0	3.0	T	9.0	8.0	31.0
1848-1849	0.0	1.3	24.0	T	13.0	6.0	0.0	44.3
1847-1848	0.0	T	6.0	T	8.0	5.0	T	19.0
1846-1847	0.0	1.5	12.0	10.0	21.0	4.3	0.5	49.3
1845-1846	0.0	T	8.5	16.5	28.0	T	T	53.0
1844-1845	0.0	0.5	6.5	5.5	20.5	5.5	T	38.5
1843-1844	0.0	1.3	9.5	5.5	13.5	1.8	0.0	31.6

Monthly Mean Avg Temperature for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ December to February 
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Mean	31.9	28.8	30.4	30.4
1872-1873	24.7	25.1	27.4	25.7
1871-1872	28.4	29.3	29.7	29.1
1870-1871	33.6	26.5	28.6	29.6
1869-1870	32.9	35.8	30.7	33.1
1868-1869	28.2	32.8	33.3	31.4
1867-1868	26.7	26.3	21.7	24.9
1866-1867	30.7	22.9	36.4	30.0
1865-1866	35.2	25.2	29.9	30.1
1864-1865	31.9	22.8	29.2	28.0
1863-1864	31.4	29.5	32.6	31.2
1862-1863	32.7	32.9	31.4	32.3
1861-1862	33.6	27.6	30.0	30.4
1860-1861	28.8	27.8	34.2	30.3
1859-1860	29.3	29.9	28.9	29.4
1858-1859	32.7	29.6	32.6	31.6
1857-1858	37.0	36.0	26.4	33.1
1856-1857	29.8	19.0	35.7	28.2
1855-1856	33.6	21.4	24.0	26.3
1854-1855	28.8	32.3	25.8	29.0
1853-1854	32.8	28.8	30.6	30.7
1852-1853	39.7	30.5	34.9	35.0
1851-1852	27.2	25.5	31.5	28.1
1850-1851	33.8	33.3	36.9	34.7
1849-1850	33.1	34.4	35.1	34.2
1848-1849	39.9	25.8	24.9	30.2
1847-1848	36.3	32.8	30.5	33.2
1846-1847	31.5	30.4	29.7	30.5
1845-1846	27.6	30.2	27.1	28.3
1844-1845	33.0	33.2	31.3	32.5
1843-1844	33.4	25.1	31.3	29.9