2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[mitchnick]

Some WB maps at this post.

 

[GaWx]

OHC is still rising and is now at insanely high levels (>+3), especially for early August! @snowman19

[PhiEaglesfan712]

42 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

I will place a heavy bet that Nino 1+2 will once again, not cool off as we head into next spring. This is why I don’t yet think we swing back to a major La Niña. Cold neutral is once again on the table next year. 

I wouldn't be surprised if we had a carry over el nino, like 87-88, in 27-28. But it's going to end early, and we're going to get a head start to a strong la nina like in 88-89, in 28-29. It will probably be a one-year la nina, but a very strong one. We'll get the 3rd el nino in the early 2030's, like 91-92 (but probably not with a major volcano).

[LakePaste25]

16 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Some WB maps at this post.

 

While I may not agree with the Euro verbatim, it’s a perfect example of how a stronger Nino doesn’t always mean warmer. The August update increased the strength but went cooler. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if we had a carry over el nino, like 87-88, in 27-28. But it's going to end early, and we're going to get a head start to a strong la nina like in 88-89, in 28-29. It will probably be a one-year la nina, but a very strong one. We'll get the 3rd el nino in the early 2030's, like 91-92 (but probably not with a major volcano).

That one may have 2009-2010 like potential as we near solar min and potentially continue to relax the Pacific.

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

While I may not agree with the Euro verbatim, it’s a perfect example of how a stronger Nino doesn’t always mean warmer. The August update increased the strength but went cooler. 

It's probably due to the anti-2023 effect, which demonstrated that weaker doesn't necessarily mean colder. Guidance is probably picking up on the reduced MC competition, thus the less inhibited se CONUS trough expression.

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

While I may not agree with the Euro verbatim, it’s a perfect example of how a stronger Nino doesn’t always mean warmer. The August update increased the strength but went cooler. 

Looks to be defaulting to general El Nino correlations rather than an actual forecast for such an extreme event. We saw a similar forecast back in August 2024. The area to the north is warmer and Southeast cooler.  

 

 

Verification in °C

 

[LakePaste25]

3 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Looks to be defaulting to general El Nino correlations rather than an actual forecast for such an extreme event. We saw a similar forecast back in August 2024. The area to the north is warmer and Southeast cooler.  

 

Makes sense to me. A stronger Nino would theoretically result in a stronger correlation to the canonical pattern that goes with it. That 23-24 map looks like it was showing warmer in both the W and SE compared to now which makes sense. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Looks to be defaulting to general El Nino correlations rather than an actual forecast for such an extreme event. We saw a similar forecast back in August 2024. The area to the north is warmer and Southeast cooler.  

 

 

Verification in °C

 

Right, but was there a trend towards a more defined se trough this late in the game? I feel like that is what is important because call me crazy, but this may just be the year when a correction towards default El Nino may be the correct adjustment.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I think it's important not to automatically dismiss the correction towards default El Nino leading into the strongest El Nino in history.

[bluewave]

10 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

Makes sense to me. A stronger Nino would theoretically result in a stronger correlation to the canonical pattern that goes with it. That 23-24 map looks like it was showing warmer in both the W and SE compared to now which makes sense. 

Super El Niños are significantly warmer than canonical El Niño patterns. None of the seasonal models were warm enough for either 2023-2024 or 2015-2016.

This was probably the case also with whatever guidance they were using for the 1997-1998 winter forecast also.

Correlations can give general ideas of which areas will be typically warmer or relatively cooler, but are not designed to handle extreme events like this one and the magnitudes of both 500 mb ridging and warmth. 

[bluewave]

21 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think it's important not to automatically dismiss the correction towards default El Nino leading into the strongest El Nino in history.

This is an even stronger east based event than 1997-1998 was. The charts below are for what actually verified in C and  F departures for that era.  It was more extreme than general El Niño correlations. 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, bluewave said:

This is an even stronger east based event than 1997-1998 was. The charts below are for what actually verified with °C and ° F for comparison. It was more extreme than general El Niño correlations. 

 

 

I don't agree that it's more east-based than 1997, but that is beside the point.

You are obsessing over the temp anomalies themselves....it will be above average. We get that. The model will be too cold...got it. But why is it trending colder this late in the game is my point.

[ensonerd1233e343]

10 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

"The bi-monthly Multivariate El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index (MEI.v2) is the time series of the leading combined Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) of five different variables (sea level pressure (SLP), sea surface temperature (SST), zonal and meridional components of the surface wind, and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)) over the tropical Pacific basin (30°S-30°N and 100°E-70°W). The EOFs are calculated for 12 overlapping bi-monthly "seasons" (Dec-Jan, Jan-Feb, Feb-Mar,..., Nov-Dec) in order to take into account ENSO's seasonality, and reduce effects of higher frequency intraseasonal variability. During the typical height of ENSO during late Fall/early Winter, the canonical features of atmosphere and ocean anomalies are shown schematically below based on a composite of 11 historical El Niño and La Niña events. Key features of composite positive MEI events (warm, El Niño) include (1) anomalously warm SSTs across the east-central equatorial Pacific, (2) anomalously high SLP over Indonesia and the western tropical Pacific and low SLP over the eastern tropical Pacific, (3) reduction or reversal of tropical Pacific easterly winds (trade winds), (4) suppressed tropical convection (positive OLR) over Indonesia and Western Pacific and enhanced convection (negative OLR) over the central Pacific (Fig. 1a). Key features of composite negative MEI events (cold, La Niña, Fig. 1b) are of mostly opposite phase. For any single El Niño or La Niña situation, the atmospheric articulations may depart from this canonical view."

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

What would this second combined EOF do exactly to help with this metric?

A 'V' component to wind is important just not as functional in the sloshing of waters as the 'U' wind tends to be. Wind and SLP go hand in hand so they should carry the same weight. OLR is covered over a very large area of the equatorial Pacific it literally is measuring the intensity/location of forcing within the atmosphere. WWBs being further east and west is also important into the evolution of an ENSO (El Nino) event.

I completely disagree that OHC should be added, SSTs do just fine. We already have RONI which is just stating the obvious of what is happening in a warming world with warming oceans. The only criticism I would have of MEI is it plays catch up in all events but it often signals when the state has changed properly.

We have been also noticing more lately that each block tropics/subtropics, mid latitudes, and polar regions have not been cohesive with each other. So while the tropics may be humming along in an El Nino the mid latitudes can react very differently and can be destructive to the evolution of ENSO in either state. Just as much as the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere will experience ENSO events differently. This El Nino has been awfully more impactful within the southern hemisphere than so far in the northern hemisphere. This could change but have yet to see those signs show up in the 500mb pattern.

Unfortunately this has not updated for July so I can't do a longer comparison but over the time period of greatest warming and exertion of a changing ENSO state these are the 500mb maps and wind anomalies we have seen between these two events. We seem to be running out of resources for plotting data so we are left with what we can find.

Just because we are having something producing similar numbers in SST anomalies does not mean things will follow the exact same way as a previous event did. Overall this just tells me in the near 30 years that ocean temps have become dramatically warmer globally, to a rather drastic extent. The implications of such we do not fully understand yet or how it will affect these events as we go through time.

Well the second eof i would add would be more reprsenttive of central pacfic el ninos for example in the dec jan eofs the -olr is further east then many central pac ninos and so is the minimum mslp correlation on the mei map l you can also see the sst are more favorable for ep nino. As for v wind no its not as important as u wind in the dynamics of enso sure v wind can be an indirrect enso forcer but it isnt as direct as u wind because u wind triggers the down/upwelling kelvin waves which are critical to enso v wind can do no such thing. In terms of wind and slp going hand in hand thats true so if we got rid of v wind i would say we can count things all the same. As for the wwbs yes they are important but im saying an enso event shouldnt be punished inhertly bc its wwbs were 20 degrees west of typical that could still produce a strong event just more center based then typical for strong events.  As for ohc the reason I was adding it wass because mei is designed to measure how coupled the system is and to me high ohc is part of that coupling as well s ocean sfc currents. 

In terms of mid lattidues I dont really have anything to say on that tbh

[bluewave]

6 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I don't agree that it's more east-based than 1997, but that is beside the point.

You are obsessing over the temp anomalies themselves....it will be above average. We get that. The model will be too cold...got it. But why is it trending colder this late in the game is my point.

A stronger east based event. Not necessarily the exact anomaly distribution. 

What do you mean by trending colder since we are just starting to get into the winter range now from earlier forecasts?

 

[LakePaste25]

I don’t deny that it could verify warmer than what the Euro is showing. The Aleutian Low/SE trough are not as cold in those areas as pre-2000s Ninos, I get it.

 

The point I’m making is due to the fact that it’s record breaking, the odds of seeing a Jan 2024 type pattern (arctic cold dumping from the NW US, a parade of Great Lakes cutters) and Dec 2015 (more cutters) are lower, because if any Nino event is going to shut down the forcing that caused these to happen, it will be this one. 

[TriPol]

1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if we had a carry over el nino, like 87-88, in 27-28. But it's going to end early, and we're going to get a head start to a strong la nina like in 88-89, in 28-29. It will probably be a one-year la nina, but a very strong one. We'll get the 3rd el nino in the early 2030's, like 91-92 (but probably not with a major volcano).

Seems like you got a good grasp on what the future holds! Can you tell me tonight's lottery numbers? Powerball is at $786 million. 

[bluewave]

2 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

I don’t deny that it could verify warmer than what the Euro is showing. The Aleutian Low/SE trough are not as cold in those areas as pre-2000s Ninos, I get it.

 

The point I’m making is due to the fact that it’s record breaking, the odds of seeing a Jan 2024 type pattern (arctic cold dumping from the NW US, a parade of Great Lakes cutters) and Dec 2015 (more cutters) are lower, because if any Nino event is going to shut down the forcing that caused these to happen, it will be this one. 

I see what you are saying since this a much stronger more east based event than 2023-2024. So if any event can have Nino dominant forcing, then this one would be it. 

But we could avoid the IO and MC forcing we had in 2023-2024 and still reach a very warm outcome.

1997-1998 had a much deeper trough in the Southeast than 2023-2024 with more typical Nino dominant forcing. But the portions of the Southeast were warmer in 1997-1998 than in 2023-2024.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

37 minutes ago, bluewave said:

A stronger east based event. Not necessarily the exact anomaly distribution. 

What do you mean by trending colder since we are just starting to get into the winter range now from earlier forecasts?

 

Okay.

The NDJ period trended towards a greater SE trough.

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I see what you are saying since this a much stronger more east based event than 2023-2024. So if any event can have Nino dominant forcing, then this one would be it. 

But we could avoid the IO and MC forcing we had in 2023-2024 and still reach a very warm outcome.

1997-1998 had a much deeper trough in the Southeast than 2023-2024 with more typical Nino dominant forcing. But the portions of the Southeast were warmer in 1997-1998 than in 2023-2024.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, but it is my belief that we will have less MC influence than 2023 and more variability than 1997 due to the magnitude of warmth throughout the basin. That said, we shouldn't have the early season blocking that 1997 did due to the different solar and QBO factors.

[bluewave]

5 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes, but it is my belief that we will have less MC influence than 2023 and more variability than 1997 due to the magnitude of warmth throughout the basin. That said, we shouldn't have the early season blocking that 1997 did due to the different solar and QBO factors.

The variability could also be filtered through the tendency for stronger subtropical to mid-latitude ridging and weaker troughs than we had in 1997-1998. 

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think it's much more for the east coast than your area, but def. get the point.

The east coast is naturally more feast/famine and a much warmer climate to begin with from NYC south. But if the much wetter than avg conditions that all guidance shows for the coast comes to fruition, youd have to imagine the odds of having a good snowstorm or two are quite high. 

[mitchnick]

14 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Okay.

The NDJ period trended towards a greater SE trough.

As did 850 temps in MA and SE.

[Keith Central PA]

52 minutes ago, bluewave said:

A stronger east based event. Not necessarily the exact anomaly distribution. 

What do you mean by trending colder since we are just starting to get into the winter range now from earlier forecasts?

 

Shocked the Euro is not a blowtorch for most of the country this winter..Maybe because of the strength of the Nino, people are expecting 97-98, 15-16.. Super Nino is always warm. Maybe its seeing other factors..will be interesting to see how this nino performs 

[LakePaste25]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

As did 850 temps in MA and SE.

I can also see that it went warmer in Alaska/PNW. So, whenever the jet does retract, it could be modeling periods of -EPO/+TNH rather than an MC forcing induced Aleutian ridge. 

Notice that 850 Aleutian low actually got colder/stronger, not weaker as well. So it could just be forecasting more “all flavors of ENSO” rather than “La Niña like interferences.”

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

I wouldn’t dare predict a snowless winter. There’s no data to back that up. But I would place heavy bets on +3 or higher in terms of temp departures in the mean, locally. 

For your area and mine its literally impossible. For a place like NYC or Philly its POSSIBLE but EXTREMELY unlikely. How winters like 1972-73 or 1997-98 happened are insane to even think about. Even in a terrible pattern, "bad luck" has to be involved too. 

A milder than avg winter is obviously the go-to choice. But in the end, the Nino will be historic, the winter will likely be supbar but not historic. The warmest winter on record for Detroit is 1881-82 with a mean temp 36.9F, which is +8.5F against the current average. The least snowy is 12.9" in 1936-37, which is -32.1" against the current average. In my lifetime theres never been a winter under 20".

Raindance drew a map a bit back that had Detroit at +4F with 31" of snow. Thats honestly not a bad guess at all at this early stage imo.  

[roardog]

There’s nothing wrong with what Snowman posts. It’s just he posts tweets saying basically the same thing by different people multiple times a day and week. It’s a little obnoxious IMO. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

53 minutes ago, TriPol said:

Seems like you got a good grasp on what the future holds! Can you tell me tonight's lottery numbers? Powerball is at $786 million. 

All you have to do is look at the previous robust el ninos. There are only really 2 scenarios that make sense here:

1. carry over el nino, like 1987

2. backlash la nina, like 1972 and 1998.

If the el nino wasn't going to be outlier strength, I would say 2 was a forgone conclusion. But the el nino might be so strong, the carry over solution cannot be ruled out.

I don't know which scenario is going to happen, but it should become obvious by late spring/early summer. For example, by May/June 2010, anyone could see it was pretty clear that a strong la nina was forming.

[michsnowfreak]

18 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

As did 850 temps in MA and SE.

Its not just the Euro. The CANSIPS has been unwavering with a likely too-cold look. And the CFS with its daily changes hasnt gone bonkers with warmth either and has stayed hell bent on a cold most-of-the-country look in Feb-Mar (except the far north, which is a moot point for snow lovers that far north). 

Im not making ANY forecast, Im just saying its not April or May anymore. Its now August, and the same models that ARE showing a record strong El Nino ARE NOT showing a record warm winter. Nor are they getting warmer as we get closer.

If it was the opposite and all models showed it unexpectedly warm, say historic warm (since we already expect a warm look in a strong nino)....the SAME people dismissing these models now would be analyzing them verbatim.

[LakePaste25]

I’m actually not dismissing them anymore. I dismissed the CANSIPs early on because it derived the colder look from Modoki SSTAs in the tropical pacific, and Modoki isn’t happening so I tossed it. But the Euro looks better now *despite being even stronger and more east based*, so now we have to wonder if the a strongly suppressed cell over the W Pacific (due to extreme E based nature) will help. It makes sense to me in theory.