2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[Jebman]

I am so happy about this super nino. It is going to be amusing watching so many torrential storms pile up water in the southeastern US this autumn, winter and in Spring 2027!

[BuffaloWeather]

12 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I just feel like discord is much more difficult to follow.....it's just rapid faire posts that just scroll into oblivion. I prefer the pages on the forum.

It has to be organized properly. Once you learn how to use it, it’s much more efficient and can look back at old threads just as easy. 

[BlizzardWx]

MJO has certainly been hugging the 6-7-8-1 this summer. If that carries into the winter it'd be a nice change to continuous 4-5-6. 

[Mercurial]

On 6/27/2026 at 1:08 PM, GaWx said:

I’m wondering if W Yellowstone Gateway, which is at 6,666 ft, could get some snow:

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING 
TO NOON MDT MONDAY... 

* WHAT...PERIODS OF WET SNOW EXPECTED. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS UP TO 
4 INCHES ABOVE 6500 FEET

INCLUDING THE CITIES OF BIG SKY, WEST YELLOWSTONE, TARGHEE PASS, 
AND RAYNOLDS PASS 
942 AM MDT SAT JUN 27 2026

TONIGHT 
COLDER. RAIN SHOWERS AND CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN 
THE EVENING, THEN RAIN SHOWERS AND SNOW SHOWERS AFTER MIDNIGHT. 
SNOW ACCUMULATION UP TO 4 INCHES. LOWS 31 TO 37.

IF W Yell. Gate can somehow get any measurable SN late tonight, it would be a new record latest in season meas. on record by 20 days! They’ve had no meas. June 9th-Sep 14th although records go back only to 2007. But even just a T would be notable as they’ve had only 2 Ts June 28th-Sep 4th since 2007:

Records:

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=tfx
 

https://grizzlyrv.com/what-is-the-elevation-of-west-yellowstone/

Sorry to grave dig but just saw this.  We only received a few sleet pellets from this event, but in June of last year (June 22, 2025) we received about half an inch of snow that the local recording station appears to measured as a Trace.  Typically we get snowflakes most Junes and Septembers, although it often doesn't stick.  

[EasternLI]

This current WWB looking pretty impressive. This isn't even the anomalies, these are the actual zonal winds. 

[bluewave]

19 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

The main difference with 77-78 and modern El Niño events, is that the 77-78 warmth was confined to the upper midwest. Departures in NYC, DC, and Boston were not that impressive.  In fact, NYC in Jan 1878 had a mean temperature below 30 degrees. 

Modern El Niño events, the upper midwest ridge is not only displaced eastward, but it’s likely more expansive, so places like NYC see major positive departures such as what occurred in December 2015. 

 

All the really big events share the warmth across the Northern tier states. But the exact location of the warmest departures from month to month and season to season varies from the Upper Plains into the Northeast.

The record ridge with the 1877-1878 event parked just north of Minnesota. So the departures up in Canada may have been even higher than MSP.

The big story in the East that winter was the lowest snowfall that we have records for at some stations during the 1800s. While it was cold enough to snow in general, the storm track got suppressed by the ridge in December so it was a dry month.

In January and February the storm track in NYC was too warm for much snow and the big storms were mostly rain. So NYC finished only 8.1” that winter when the average from the 1840s into the 1870s was close to 40” in that much colder climate.

So the actual variations within the larger theme this winter will emerge from month to month. 

At this point we know the strength of the event in the Pacific is the strongest that we have experienced in 150 years. There are currently +10 departures showing up beneath the surface. With the event already producing departures at the surface far ahead of anything that we have experienced in August. Record WWBs are continuing this week.

 

 

[michsnowfreak]

9 hours ago, Jebman said:

I am so happy about this super nino. It is going to be amusing watching so many torrential storms pile up water in the southeastern US this autumn, winter and in Spring 2027!

This is an interesting take Jeb! I know you love your snow, but many snow lovers take a hard pass on winter rain. 

[csnavywx]

 

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

All the really big events share the warmth across the Northern tier states. But the exact location of the warmest departures from month to month and season to season varies from the Upper Plains into the Northeast.

The record ridge with the 1877-1878 event parked just north of Minnesota. So the departures up in Canada may have been even higher than MSP.

The big story in the East that winter was the lowest snowfall that we have records for at some stations during the 1800s. While it was cold enough to snow in general, the storm track got suppressed by the ridge in December so it was a dry month.

In January and February the storm track in NYC was too warm for much snow and the big storms were mostly rain. So NYC finished only 8.1” that winter when the average from the 1840s into the 1870s was close to 40” in that much colder climate.

So the actual variations within the larger theme this winter will emerge from month to month. 

At this point we know the strength of the event in the Pacific is the strongest that we have experienced in 150 years. There are currently +10 departures showing up beneath the surface. With the event already producing departures at the surface far ahead of anything that we have experienced in August. Record WWBs are continuing this week.

 

I'll add on a bit here and say that the Arctic is much warmer now than in these events (especially post-2007). Quality of source region air is not going to be the same. If 1877-78 and the Great Nino of 1788-93 had trouble getting it to work, I'm not sure the baseline expectation here should be much different. The sample size here for these extreme Ninos is tiny ofc, so it is unlikely we have sampled the extent of the distribution but if these events (and the 1600s Nino) are any indication, we should probably not discount how fat the right (warm) tail is here.

[mitchnick]

25 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

This is an interesting take Jeb! I know you love your snow, but many snow lovers take a hard pass on winter rain. 

He's in south Texas and has been real dry lately. Different perspective from his former residence in N Virginia. 

[mitchnick]

Lots of warming to go on the Cfs2 850 anomalies, but it looks like the beginning of the end come early November.  

[LakePaste25]

59 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

This is an interesting take Jeb! I know you love your snow, but many snow lovers take a hard pass on winter rain. 

I’m similar. While i enjoy snow the most, I do like a good great lakes cutter bomb with high winds. I also enjoy severe storms in the summer. 

[michsnowfreak]

25 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

I’m similar. While i enjoy snow the most, I do like a good great lakes cutter bomb with high winds. I also enjoy severe storms in the summer. 

I love a good summer storm (as long as it doesn't knock down trees lol). But in winter I couldn't care less about rain. Id rather miss an entire storm than get rain. The previous 2 winters had hardly any rain (especially in Jan/Feb). I suspect this winter sees more rain and wet snow than the last 2 combined. The last two years were almost all powder. Which i love, I just like to switch it up a bit.

[GaWx]

 CFSv2 10 day run mean is still not backing off of a cold Feb in a large portion of the US, especially corridor from SE US to C Plains where most areas are a whopping 5-7.5F BN though I’d prefer Alaska and NW Canada be AN:

 

  Compare this to the same for Feb of 2024 from about the same 10 day mean in Aug of 2023:

 

[so_whats_happening]

20 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

TAO/TRITON has reached +10c in the subsurface! First time I think this has ever happened (someone correct me if I'm wrong). That's +18f. Wonder if we'll reach +20F. 

It did in 1997 just a few weeks earlier this go around.

I don't yet know why but feel this will peak earlier than expected.

[mitchnick]

32 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 CFSv2 10 day run mean is still not backing off of a cold Feb in a large portion of the US, especially corridor from SE US to C Plains where most areas are a whopping 5-7.5F BN though I’d prefer Alaska and NW Canada be AN:

 

  Compare this to the same for Feb of 2024 from about the same 10 day mean in Aug of 2023:

 

Still rising slowly.

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Still rising slowly.

Thanks, Mitch. It has risen >1 in just 14 days!

[jaxjagman]

PDO is gonna fluctuate by the tropical PAC,strong WWB along with Rossbly Waves its gonna get quite active in the PAC the next few weels.Last thing is wanna see is another typhoon hitting East China,which seemingly might happen again

[Typhoon Tip]

On 8/16/2026 at 1:15 AM, BlizzardWx said:

MJO has certainly been hugging the 6-7-8-1 this summer. If that carries into the winter it'd be a nice change to continuous 4-5-6. 

OH I love this product.   heh.  I've been in my internal monologue for years literally saying the density of the frequency has been ..etc..etc.   Weird.  It's actually called phase density.  

Different topic:  I find it interesting that it's been biased on the left side like that, and it happens to predate the ENSO by some.   I'm wondering if the WWB flux/anomaly quotient is constructively interfering there a bit.  In which case, the phasing may actually not reflect as much pure MJO momentum as it does an environmental resonance.   

I've often stated in the past that the MJO isn't a pattern drive.  It's a pattern augmenter.  If the wave is in constructive interference the phase diagram balloons ... depending on the basal hemispheric mode/wave numbers at the time the MJO is attempting to emerge out of the Marine continent. In the much broader perspective, when in phase the dispersion into the mid latitudes is in sync with the Pacific orientation that sends N/A into a NW conveyor.

To get a sense of if the positive(negative) interference scheme, I look at a combination of the Asia circulation mode together with the WPO index (outlook and recent biases). A -WPO phases constructively with 7-8-1-2 MJO ... then transmitted across the wave train of the Pacific sends a +PNA. I would call such a hemisphere harmonically interfering (constructive).  Since the warm ENSO mode significantly correlates with this, that adds. Contrasting, if the MJO is 3-4-5-6, that is a destructive interference (technically a loss of constructive due to geometric placement around the equatorial girdle). But in this latter circumstance ... it is less than clear if the MJO will even factor as the Asia/-WPO can quite obviously at times overwhelm/suppress - it's presence is still there but it's rendered meaningless if the former is dictating policy.  This is how constructive vs destructive interfering manifests on the pattern. 

I've often fantasized about a phase diagram that isn't the scalar wave propagation coherency, but is the Constructive vs Destructive interference. There are times when a robust wave propagation seems not to correlate so well with the N arc of the Pac --> western N/A.  The pattern disconnect times may show some proportionality to C or D.

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, GaWx said:

 CFSv2 10 day run mean is still not backing off of a cold Feb in a large portion of the US, especially corridor from SE US to C Plains where most areas are a whopping 5-7.5F BN though I’d prefer Alaska and NW Canada be AN:

 

  Compare this to the same for Feb of 2024 from about the same 10 day mean in Aug of 2023:

 

That looks like a much more active east past pattern this year.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 8/16/2026 at 1:15 AM, BlizzardWx said:

MJO has certainly been hugging the 6-7-8-1 this summer. If that carries into the winter it'd be a nice change to continuous 4-5-6. 

Wow, that satellitewx.com site is incredible.....

[Jebman]

13 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

This is an interesting take Jeb! I know you love your snow, but many snow lovers take a hard pass on winter rain. 

Well, I now live in a rather dry part of the country, near Austin, TX. I have been down here since Aug 26, 2018. It's been 8 years. I am REALLY looking forward to any extra rain that the record Nino can give us, and I KNOW that the Southeastern US is gonna get waterworlded BAD by this enso event. DMV Region, too.

I think that there will be a few times this winter when extreme moisture in the DC region will meet up with Arctic air and they could see some new snow records get set.

You live in the DC area, might want to stock up on food, beer, hundreds of your favorite IPA's, salt, shovels and snowblowers.

Just in case.....

[bluewave]

On 8/15/2026 at 12:51 PM, Keith Central PA said:

No doubt its going to be warmer than normal but those temperature departures are ridiculous. Just remember the warmest winter we had was 01-02 and that was neutral enso..Who really knows?

Yeah, we aren’t going to know the exact location of the warmest winter departures until each month gets underway. 

+10 months have been fairly common during super El Niño events since 1997-1998. Areas adjacent to the +10s also had very high temperature departures. Regions with the most overlapping high departures across multiple months finished the warmest for DJF.

But since all seasonal models default to general climatology due to long range forecast uncertainty, none of the months were forecast ahead of time to my knowledge.

The most common locations have been from the Upper Plains and Midwest across to the East. 

December 2015 was the most extreme for the aerial coverage and magnitude of the 10+ area. As early as November 22, 2015, the EPS weeklies were showing just moderately above average temperatures across the Northern Tier for December. So the long range models gave no indication of what occurred. 

 

+10 months super El Niño months since 1997-1998

Dec 1997 Upper Plains to Upper Midwest

Jan 1998 Upper Plains to East

Feb 1998 Upper Plains to East

Dec 2015 Much of East

Feb 2016 Upper Plains

Mar 2016 Upper Midwest

Dec 2023 Upper Midwest

Feb 2024 Upper Midwest

[Typhoon Tip]

On more of a personal note ... if this ensuing "winter" isn't going to deliver - which frankly, having a CC as a launch pad upon which a warm ENSO of this ilk is sky rocketing off of, heh ... ah - good luck.  Sounds like a warm synergistic massacre..  Not helping that we've had this upstream active solar disk fire hosing the 150 thru 1 kPa depths over the Pole for the last year.  Anyway, I just would rather not have any of it because 4 months on mud as a season, in the dark, is some kind of middle earth dystopian shit.

I'm not saying I don't have appreciation ( and hope ) for fantastic winter patterns and consequence.  But having a passion and fascination for winter weather events, quite necessarily needs to be fed winter events; it does not include the dreaded 42 F winter.

The problem is, it takes a denier at this point to not sense the growing dearth of decent winters. Or at least it seems that way. A stab at an objective opinion here ..., let's see:  CC + history-making warm ENSO --> plausible synergistic emergence between those not necessarily meaning cold (duh) + solar-cleansed stratosphere + this ...

...occurring under a lowering boreal heights?

Explosive potential.  Absolutely!  That unfortunately does not include a cold or cryo-profile, necessarily.

By and large, the last impressive winter, IMHO, goes all the way back to 2014-2015... and it wasn't actually the whole winter. And, it didn't really involve the larger community?   Mainly a SNE/CNE affair.  We just had 3 1/2 weeks of utter carnage in those sub-forum regions during February 2015; so overwhelming ... the constituency of these regions think that winter was phenomenal. I think that 3 1/2 weeks was a "planetary storm" - a concept pushed forth by a theoretical Met back in the last Century but damn! that was a great argument for his conjecture. Not sure that was a whole winter, though.  I guess in fairness, getting 150 to 300% of normal whole season's snow, amid lung aching cold ... probably should qualify the whole winter?  

I don't need all that.  Just give us a steady diet of nickle and dime storms that add appeal as an active winter pattern.  There'll be potential to do more along the way.  Maybe one will blockbuster.  Otherwise, if I were god, I would make it 60 F with frequent runs at 70, in some sort of freak show scary warm time of it, so that I can continue with outdoor activities and just deal with 16 hours of darkness days.   Also, I would look up all my enemies and afflict them with a kitchen renovation project - having been suffering this fuckin thing going on weeks now ... I've seriously gazed out at sunsets while deeply reconsidering life choices.  

[Eskimo Joe]

21 hours ago, GaWx said:

 CFSv2 10 day run mean is still not backing off of a cold Feb in a large portion of the US, especially corridor from SE US to C Plains where most areas are a whopping 5-7.5F BN though I’d prefer Alaska and NW Canada be AN:

Compare this to the same for Feb of 2024 from about the same 10 day mean in Aug of 2023:

 

Same. Seems like we need Above Normal in Alaska for central and especially eastern CONUS to get Below Normal.

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Same. Seems like we need Above Normal in Alaska for central and especially eastern CONUS to get Below Normal.

Maybe due to monster GOA Low.

[GaWx]

Latest 10 day/40 run CFSv2 mean for Feb:

[40/70 Benchmark]

It's just about impossible to get a really warm AK in an El Nino this powerful.

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Maybe due to monster GOA Low.

Bad guess!

There's no 500mb map on this site, but 700mb will be close enough at this point.

[40/70 Benchmark]

24 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Bad guess!

There's no 500mb map on this site, but 700mb will be close enough at this point.

[40/70 Benchmark]

That ridge displaced a bit to the NW of the intense-El Nino composite due to a favorable extra tropical Pacific in conjunction with some high latitude blocking. It's similar to the strong composite.