2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[BlizzardWx]

1 hour ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

September has weak ENSO correlations, historically. It really picks up in October. 

I suppose that will be the question this fall, when this actually happens. It's probably going to be gradual as baroclinity increases, and my guess would be not much change from now until the back half of September. Could be pretty nasty in my area until then if we stay stuck under the heat dome. 

[Jebman]

3 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

The only noticeable thing is the increase in moisture across my region specifically, still not enough to break the drought fully but working on it. The Caribbean has exceptional shear right now which is pretty typical of Nino (they are also below 30N so more in tune with what I had stated in my last post. There is quite an abundance of shear in that region that even areas of the East Pacific are being affected by this from about southern Mexico to Panama. Here are the 500mb patterns for MJJ leading into the strong to super Nino category based on RONI (since this is what we are using now).

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/roni/

I was reluctant to use 2023-24 since in RONI terms was only a moderate Nino (borderline strong) and comparing it to this year so far. There are some similarities this year to those past years in the southern hemisphere but overall the northern hemisphere seems to be opposite.

Thanks, so_whats_happening !

[PhiEaglesfan712]

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

Here’s the mean of the 9 Decembers preceding these very cold Nino Febs: like night and day! Look familiar?

Some years are missing, like 1995 and 2007. December 1994 and 2006 were very warm (actually the November-January period was near record warm), while February 1995 and 2007 were the outlier cold months.

[EasternLI]

Another curious detail about this year. Decided to look at the AO data for those other strong and super nino's. In the Jun-Jul period it looks like they all average negative for that period. All of them. This year it was positive. Not sure what that ultimately means but thought it was interesting. 

[EasternLI]

Top of the scale WWB on the 00z EPS. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Some years are missing, like 1995 and 2007. December 1994 and 2006 were very warm (actually the November-January period was near record warm), while February 1995 and 2007 were the outlier cold months.

Thank you for adding Feb of 1995 and especially 2007 to the list. Indeed, two more cold Febs and they both had warm Decs! So, the idea continues to be that a warm Dec, which is expected especially up north and especially what @snowman19has emphasized and which El Niño climo favors, has little to no bearing on how cold Feb could be. That imho tells me the best way to look toward this winter, looking at its prospects month to month. Models and analogs are emphasizing the prospect for a big range from warm start to cold end.

[bluewave]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah, this Fall/Winter will be interesting to see if NPH trough develops. It hasn't really happened since 15-16. +SOI correlation was a match the last 2 Summers as well. 

Yeah, October has been a pretty good indication of the Aleutian low strength for the winter since 1997 during super El Niño.

Notice how large an area in the NEPAC during October 1997 was occupied by the Aleutian low. It actually had multiple centers. One area  NW of Hawaii and the other over the EPO and PNA regions.

The Southeast El Niño trough was already beginning to become established also.

That winter went on to have one of the strongest and largest Aleutian low areas of all-time.

In October 2015 and 2023 the Aleutian low was confined to a much smaller space in the NEPAC. Both of theses winters had smaller and more displaced Aleutian low locations than 1997-1998.

This matches the 500 mb ridges becoming stronger and more expansive since 2015-2016 and the troughs becoming weaker relative to earlier years.

 

 

 

[GaWx]

Initial WxBell Nov ‘26- Mar ‘27 forecast looks very reasonable although I’d like to see the month to month so as to see the expected large variability from early to late as I’ve just been posting about:

Temps:

Snowfall: