2026-2027 El Nino

[snowman19]

+6C subsurface anomalies showing up now

[Stormchaserchuck1]

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

Good example of this winter could look with a strongly +NAO/WPO. I am with you on the NAO, but main question is the WPO...I could see that being a bit more negative.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Good example of this winter could look with a strongly +NAO/WPO. I am with you on the NAO, but main question is the WPO...I could see that being a bit more negative.

I'm big believer in Global SSTA's the year before, May-Nov, being a great indicator for Winter WPO. A big one is the Indian Ocean - Warm SSTAs correlate with +WPO at 0.5 (75% chance of positive) and visa-versa for cold SSTAs, relative to the global mean. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

3 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

91-92 is one of those very rare situations, and I don't think it should be used for anything unless there's a major volcanic eruption, or if you have a hunch there's going to be one.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

91-92 is one of those very rare situations, and I don't think it should be used for anything unless there's a major volcanic eruption, or if you have a hunch there's going to be one.

It's the context in which you use it though: If you were saying it is biased colder because of the 3-year period after the eruption, that would make sense, but another pattern prevailed, opposite of the Pinatubo probability. 

[snowman19]

Paul Roundy says this is going to be the strongest DWKW in history
 

 

Very rapid surface warming in the eastern regions (1+2 and 3) has started. +5C anomalies showing up at the surface now 

 

 

 

 

OHC is exploding too, up to +1.90C. This is from a South American meteorologist:

 

 

 

 

 

^Translation:

“04/22/26 Sub-surface thermal structure in the tropical equatorial Pacific.

- Warm Water Volume +1.90C (increase)

- #KelvinWave strengthening++

- #SubsurfaceHeating continues, emerges to the surface along the equatorial Pacific.”

 

 

[snowman19]

In the 2 days since this post, the projected next WWB is gaining strength on the models. It is going to spawn even more TC’s with the associated WWBs in their wake. IMO a super El Niño is getting very close to being a lock
 

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I'm big believer in Global SSTA's the year before, May-Nov, being a great indicator for Winter WPO. A big one is the Indian Ocean - Warm SSTAs correlate with +WPO at 0.5 (75% chance of positive) and visa-versa for cold SSTAs, relative to the global mean. 

Yea, it's going to be a bit before we can glean any insight with that.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

It's the context in which you use it though: If you were saying it is biased colder because of the 3-year period after the eruption, that would make sense, but another pattern prevailed, opposite of the Pinatubo probability. 

Yea, good example is the 1991-1992 winter season being a -QBO, which is of course, not a good match to the coming season. However, since you are going +NAO, anyway, it really doesn't matter much.

[bluewave]

21 hours ago, GaWx said:

Ray and Chris,

 If Nino 3.4 is at +2C vs 1991-2020 and surrounding tropics are also at +2C vs 1991-2020, there’s no warm El Niño tongue to do its forcing. Thus, it’s essentially neutral rather than super El Niño and officially is neutral for RONI. So, RONI is a better measure for strength of El Niño and La Niña for that matter. Do y’all agree?

@bluewave

The 2023-2024 event highlighted the weakness of relying on RONI for that super El Niño when the surrounding tropics were so warm since it amplified the warming even more than the ONI value due to dual warming centers in the Pacific.

When the RONI paper came out most of it was focused on the La Nina intensity getting masked by the rising Nino 3.4s while the differential between the WPAC warm pool driving the EWBs suggested the lower RONI than ONI.

So the paper never really focused on higher end El Niño events with dual warming centers lowering the RONI. So the new RONI isn’t really a one size fits all solution or an adequate replacement for ONI with higher end El Niño events. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02971-1

During the 2023-24 El Niño, the July 2023–June 2024 average global mean surface temperature peaked at 1.58 °C above pre-industrial levels, associated with a record 0.36 °C year-over-year rise. Here we use statistical models and a Green’s Function method to explore the causes for this rise. We show that sea surface temperature accounts for ~92% of the interannual warming, highlighting the critical role of El Niño diversity. Unlike typical El Niños, dual tropical Pacific warming centers in 2023-24 and an eastward-extended North Atlantic jet stream synergistically amplified sea surface temperatures across tropical basins, accelerating the pace of global warming. From an energy balance perspective, ocean heat content accumulated during the preceding La Niña and a continuous increase in absorbed shortwave radiation over the ocean drove sea surface temperature rise. Accelerated warming may push the climate system closer to critical tipping points, emphasizing the need for enhanced monitoring, mitigation, and adaptation strategies.

 

[roardog]

7 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The 2023-2024 event highlighted the weakness of relying on RONI for that super El Niño when the surrounding tropics were so warm since it amplified the warming even more than the ONI value due to dual warming centers in the Pacific.

When the RONI paper came out most of it was focused on the La Nina intensity getting masked by the rising Nino 3.4s while the differential between the WPAC warm pool driving the EWBs suggested the lower RONI than ONI.

So the paper never really focused on higher end El Niño events with dual warming centers lowering the RONI. So the new RONI isn’t really a one size fits all solution or an adequate replacement for ONI with higher end El Niño events. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02971-1

During the 2023-24 El Niño, the July 2023–June 2024 average global mean surface temperature peaked at 1.58 °C above pre-industrial levels, associated with a record 0.36 °C year-over-year rise. Here we use statistical models and a Green’s Function method to explore the causes for this rise. We show that sea surface temperature accounts for ~92% of the interannual warming, highlighting the critical role of El Niño diversity. Unlike typical El Niños, dual tropical Pacific warming centers in 2023-24 and an eastward-extended North Atlantic jet stream synergistically amplified sea surface temperatures across tropical basins, accelerating the pace of global warming. From an energy balance perspective, ocean heat content accumulated during the preceding La Niña and a continuous increase in absorbed shortwave radiation over the ocean drove sea surface temperature rise. Accelerated warming may push the climate system closer to critical tipping points, emphasizing the need for enhanced monitoring, mitigation, and adaptation strategies.

 

So what we're really saying here is that a weak to moderate El Nino will act like a La Nina while a strong or Super El Nino will act like a strong or super El Nino with a SE ridge. Sorry Mid Atlantic. lol

[bluewave]

9 minutes ago, roardog said:

So what we're really saying here is that a weak to moderate El Nino will act like a La Nina while a strong or Super El Nino will act like a strong or super El Nino with a SE ridge. Sorry Mid Atlantic. lol

In effect that is what happened with the El Niño in 2018-2019 which had La Niña elements preventing it from fully coupling.

Perhaps if the RONI and ONI can come into closer alignment it could suppress the Southeast ridge more than we saw back in 2023-2024.

But that is really speculative at this point. It looks like we are headed for over +2.0 again on at least ONI and can use this as another test case.

None of the seasonal models back in 2023-2024 were able to correctly forecast the stronger ridge building down into the Mid-Atlantic. As they all had the stock El Niño composite.

[Maestrobjwa]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

In effect that is what happened with the El Niño in 2018-2019 which had La Niña elements preventing it from fully coupling.

Perhaps if the RONI and ONI can come into closer alignment it could suppress the Southeast ridge more than we saw back in 2023-2024.

But that is really speculative at this point. It looks like we are headed for over +2.0 again on at least ONI and can use this as another test case.

None of the seasonal models back in 2023-2024 were able to correctly forecast the stronger ridge building down into the Mid-Atlantic. As they all had the stock El Niño composite.

Wasn't the 18-19 Niño like really weak sauce, though?

[PhiEaglesfan712]

53 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Wasn't the 18-19 Niño like really weak sauce, though?

Yes, it was pretty much a disjointed el nino, which just lingered around in the weak el nino/warm neutral phase until late 2019/early 2020, before eventually going into a solid la nina (which lasted until early 2023) and -PDO (which is still ongoing).

As I pointed out earlier in the New England thread, 2026 is a polar opposite of 2020 (as we are exiting a weak la nina/cold neutral phase and heading towards a strong to super el nino, and maybe transitioning to a +PDO):

 

[snowman19]

“The downwelling Kelvin Wave over the Central Pacific is now slightly stronger than previous events (1997 and 2015) were at the same approximate longitude. There's also yet another downwelling wave yet to propagate east from the WPAC (driven by the last westerly wind burst). With weak trade winds forecast across the Pacific the next two weeks, there will be nothing to attenuate these Kelvin Waves, so they will continue to propagate east and lead to rapid warming of the Central and East Pacific as we progress into #ElNiño.”