2026-2027 El Nino

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, roardog said:

It’s not just 2023 though. Didn’t Nino years like 1976(or was it 1977) and 2002 do the same? I know 2002 had April heat and a very cool May. Obviously those years didn’t end up being strong Nino. I think it’s more of just a “Nino thing” regardless of eventual strength.

Yes, we have had numerous 90°+ events in the Northeast during developing El Niños in April. But the 500mb forecast most closely matches 2023 with a shift to strong blocking. Makes sense since this one is coupling with the atmosphere and is much stronger early on like 2023.
 

 

[LakePaste25]

Can really see how things start to diverge in terms of position of the warmest SSTa’s after December. With Nino 1+2 warmth (east-based), Jan and Feb are also warm. With Nino 3.4, the correlation starts to break in Feb. With Nino 4 (central to west pacific), it actually correlated to a cold Feb. So while December is universally expected to be mild regardless, whether we get a backloaded winter or near wall to wall torch is based on whether the anomalies are focused on the Eastern Pacific vs Central.

 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

 

 

 Based on the above maps for Jan, I’m going to consider renting a place in Anniston, AL, just for that month. 

[roardog]

I see the SOI has gone strongly positive in the last couple of days. I don’t know how long that’ll last though.

[snowman19]

Subsurface anomalies over +5C showing up:

[GaWx]

42 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Subsurface anomalies over +5C showing up:
 

The 5+ is centered pretty far west (140-160 W, which is west central 3.4. Hoping that’s a sign that El Niño will be center to west based like Cansips suggests and not east based like NMME shows.

[so_whats_happening]

Well this was quite the surprise to see

https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/

Feb/Mar MEI at -1, responses were starting to show in March but I will be curious if Mar/Apr will start to move toward neutral at least. While oceanic response seems to be there atmospherically something is off.

[snowman19]

15 minutes ago, GaWx said:

The 5+ is centered pretty far west (140-160 W, which is west central 3.4. Hoping that’s a sign that El Niño will be center to west based like Cansips suggests and not east based like NMME shows.

The KW is about to emerge on the South American coast. The models are showing it developing as an east-based/East Pacific event. Then we will have to see if it stays east-based or becomes basin-wide:

 

 

 

Research shows that +PMM El Nino’s strongly support east-based events. We have a very strong (record strong actually) +PMM this year:

“A positive Pacific Meridional Mode (+PMM) acts as a crucial driver for developing eastern Pacific (EP) El Niño events, particularly by facilitating wind-evaporation-SST (WES) feedback that warms the subtropical Northeast Pacific and promotes westerly wind anomalies at the equator. This interaction commonly triggers EP-type El Niño, characterized by peak warming in the eastern Pacific, as opposed to the Central Pacific (CP) type.”

^Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv8621#:~:text=Other%20climate%20modes%20further%20complicate,and%20NPO%2C%20on%20ENSO%20evolution.

+PMM: