2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[Stormchaserchuck1]

8 minutes ago, EasternLI said:

Yeah. Feel the same way. Especially as we get into the SON period. Certainly will be interesting to watch unfold. This is such an impressive chart. In the context of every other el nino event. Minus 10 is bonkers on the VP 200 charts for a 30 day mean of obs. 

How significant is the PDO though if the El Nino does not couple with N. Pacific this Fall? 

[EasternLI]

Just now, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

How significant is the PDO though if the El Nino does not couple with N. Pacific this Fall? 

Significant IMO. Really interesting year with that. I just feel like the magnitude of this event prevails through the autumn. Certainly interesting to see what happens!

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

PNA has been negative 6 straight months, and Aug looks to come in around 0.0. I wouldn't assume classic El Nino N. Pacific pattern this Winter. I researched it once and Weak ENSO had 40dm, Mod ENSO 70dm, Strong ENSO 100dm, Super ENSO 120dm. I think we are ~40dm this Winter. 

I went with a preliminary .35 to .65 for DJFM mean PNA, and -.02 to .27 PDO. I feel comfortable with that.

[40/70 Benchmark]

You can never get a 500mb forecast composite to look perfect, though....especially considering CC because you have to use analog years to construct them. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

I'm not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but we're experiencing a very rapid upwelling of cold water in the western Pacific Ocean, which is literally pushing the warm Kelvin wave onto the South American continent. As a result, the warm water in the east is sinking deeper. This is why we are in for a strong la nina in 2027-28 or 2028-29 (depending on how quickly the current el nino dissipates) - like in 1998-2000, which immediately followed the 1997-98 el nino.

As you can see, the strong la nina years of 1998-99 and 1999-2000 (which correspond to the dark blue strips in 1998 and 1999) was the result of the last upwelling. Also, our last strong la nina was in 2010-11 (which corresponds to the dark blue strip in 2010). If we don't have a strong la nina following this el nino event, it will be the longest gap between strong la ninas since prior to the 1955-56 event.

[GaWx]

 The NOAA weekly SSTa’s have been ~unchanged the last 2 weeks in all Nino regions except there has been 0.3 of cooling in Nino 4. This Nino 4 cooling jibes well with this OISST Nino 4 graph:

 

 They kept 3.4 at +1.8, which continues to be ~0.4 cooler than what this OISST has been suggesting:

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

56 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I'm not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but we're experiencing a very rapid upwelling of cold water in the western Pacific Ocean, which is literally pushing the warm Kelvin wave onto the South American continent. As a result, the warm water in the east is sinking deeper. This is why we are in for a strong la nina in 2027-28 or 2028-29 (depending on how quickly the current el nino dissipates) - like in 1998-2000, which immediately followed the 1997-98 el nino.

As you can see, the strong la nina years of 1998-99 and 1999-2000 (which correspond to the dark blue strips in 1998 and 1999) was the result of the last upwelling. Also, our last strong la nina was in 2010-11 (which corresponds to the dark blue strip in 2010). If we don't have a strong la nina following this el nino event, it will be the longest gap between strong la ninas since prior to the 1955-56 event.

Once we get past cool ENSO episode, it's lights-out for the multidecadal Pac cold phase.

[GaWx]

 Check out how much cooler is August on the BoM RONI vs 2 weeks earlier:

Two weeks ago Aug was +2.6 and Aug had been +2.6 to +2.7 on EVERY weekly run going all the way back to the early June run!

Last and this week Aug cooled substantially to only +2.15!

 

 I've been following this carefully every BoM run since April 11th. EVERY month May through Aug has ended up ~0.4 cooler and Apr ended up 0.6 cooler than what the BoM had been stubbornly predicting for weeks on end early month and before for each of these nearby months without fail! 
 

 This tells me with good confidence that Sep won’t end up even close to the +3.0 to +3.1 that it has been progging on EVERY run for Sep back to the June 13th run. (This is the same kind of strong warm bias that it had for the ‘23 Nino.) Thus I’m predicting that Sept will end up no warmer than +2.7 and it may end up as cool as only +2.4.

 What does this portend for the Nov peak? The BoM has been progging an ~+3.5 Nov peak since the July 25th run. So, it appears it likely has finally about peaked in its progs. Therefore, based on Apr-Aug BoM runs, I’m now predicting that the actual monthly RONI peak (in or near Nov) will only be ~+3.0 with a trimonthly peak only ~+2.8. That +2.8 trimonthly would still be a record warm RONI going back to 1950 beating 1982’s +2.4. So, it would still be historic for sure. But it wouldn’t be nearly as warm as the ~+3.3-3.5 trimonthly RONI peak of many runs of various models.

  Edit: OISST charts are telling us that this El Niño hasn’t been warming nearly as rapidly in August as had been progged by model consensus. Remember those record rapid 30 day warmings in Aug on the model consensus that I’ve posted about many times? That simply ain’t happening folks. The ground truth doesn’t lie. Does this look like rapid warming in Aug? It looks more like rather ordinary modest paced warming at best to me:

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

I am at 2.4-2.6 RONI and 2.7 to 2.9 ONI peak as now.

[GaWx]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I am at 2.8-3.0 RONI and 3.4 to 3.4 ONI peak as now.

Thanks, Ray. Are these for trimonthly peaks or monthly peaks?

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Thanks, Ray. Are these for trimonthly peaks or monthly peaks?

Tri.

[LakePaste25]

Climate dashboard is still going with a +3.3 RONI peak. This would be a daily peak and not trimonthly.

 

[GaWx]

10 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

Climate dashboard is still going with a +3.3 RONI peak. This would be a daily peak and not trimonthly.

 

 A daily peak of +3.3 on OISST seems reasonable to me as it would be consistent with a monthly peak of +3.0 and a trimonthly peak of +2.8. The dailies could even peak near +3.5 for that matter and still be consistent based on the volatility of the dailies.

[LakePaste25]

3 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 A daily peak of +3.3 on OISST seems reasonable to me as it would be consistent with a monthly peak of +3.0 and a trimonthly peak of +2.8. The dailies could even peak near +3.5 for that matter and still be consistent based on the volatility of the dailies.

Yes. For record keeping purposes I will use absolute ONI however since that is always consistent with the 30 year mean, and RONI is too inconsistent in how it’s calculated between agencies and organizations. For atmospheric coupling purposes I will use RONI. 23-24 and 26-27 will likely get adjusted downward anyway until they become centered on their 30 year climate period. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

Yes. For record keeping purposes I will use absolute ONI however since that is always consistent with the 30 year mean, and RONI is too inconsistent in how it’s calculated between agencies and organizations. For atmospheric coupling purposes I will use RONI. 23-24 and 26-27 will likely get adjusted downward anyway until they become centered on their 30 year climate period. 

I like the MEI for coupling...I use the RONI more to gage how much MC influence there may be as a result of SST thermal distribution, but kind of related...

[PhiEaglesfan712]

I was in the spa on Friday night, and my sister asked me why the spa doesn't stay consistently hot. It was at that moment that my understanding of the el nino/la nina cycle truly clicked.

My answer was that it requires an extra amount of energy to maintain that heat. The same way that it requires extra heat to maintain an el nino. It was at that point that I realized why an el nino doesn't last, and ENSO neutrals/la ninas are more natural, lasting states.

Then, she said that at hotels (where spas are maintained at continuous heat), there is a warning that you should not stay more than 15 minutes. It was at that point that I realized that if the earth was in a continuous el nino state, it would not really be habitable. (Like you'd have to leave the continuous warm spa after 15 minutes, you'd have to leave continuous earth to cool off after a certain period of time.)

[GaWx]

 Based on model consensus suggesting higher than normal pressures at Tahiti likely dominating the 7 days or so, I don’t think the consistently strong -SOI dailies will return at least until early Sept. We could even have some +SOI dailies til then.

[LibertyBell]

13 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I was in the spa on Friday night, and my sister asked me why the spa doesn't stay consistently hot. It was at that moment that my understanding of the el nino/la nina cycle truly clicked.

My answer was that it requires an extra amount of energy to maintain that heat. The same way that it requires extra heat to maintain an el nino. It was at that point that I realized why an el nino doesn't last, and ENSO neutrals/la ninas are more natural, lasting states.

Then, she said that at hotels (where spas are maintained at continuous heat), there is a warning that you should not stay more than 15 minutes. It was at that point that I realized that if the earth was in a continuous el nino state, it would not really be habitable. (Like you'd have to leave the continuous warm spa after 15 minutes, you'd have to leave continuous earth to cool off after a certain period of time.)

I dislike el ninos too our most interesting weather happens during la Nina's so if there was a way to modify the climate the first thing I would look at are a network of underwater devices that would prevent super el ninos from happening.

I also agree with you that la nina is the natural state and a big one is coming in the next 1 to 2 years and very likely a very hot and dry summer like 1966, 1983, 1999 and 2010 had. I look forward to it.

[Maestrobjwa]

15 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I dislike el ninos too our most interesting weather happens during la Nina's so if there was a way to modify the climate the first thing I would look at are a network of underwater devices that would prevent super el ninos from happening.

I also agree with you that la nina is the natural state and a big one is coming in the next 1 to 2 years and very likely a very hot and dry summer like 1966, 1983, 1999 and 2010 had. I look forward to it.

I'm the opposite; I love ninos live in central MD and our best snow chances are in niños--and a lingering nina state is bad news for us as we get screwed out of the goods most of the time, lol Which is why those in our region are hoping we can get something out this one (before la nina reigns supreme again for two years!)

[LibertyBell]

17 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I'm the opposite; I love ninos live in central MD and our best snow chances are in niños--and a lingering nina state is bad news for us as we get screwed out of the goods most of the time, lol Which is why those in our region are hoping we can get something out this one (before la nina reigns supreme again for two years!)

I used to think so too I'm just a little north of you in the Poconos in actuality we need both el ninos and la ninas we just don't want either to get too strong. Our best summers and winters come in the transition years from el nino to la nina think 1995-96 and 2010-11. So the transition period between el nino and la nina might be the most exciting time both for summer and winter weather.

[GaWx]

 The very warm NW Pacific continues to drive a solid -PDO. It would be nice if that would diminish in intensity and allow a PDO increase. Strong El Niño forcing tends to favor a +PDO looking well back in history. Actually from 1877-8 through 1957-8, all 11 strong ones had a +PDO DJF. However, 1965-6 and 1972-3 were neutral. Then the 4 strong ones 1982-3 through 1997-8 went back to +PDO followed by a neutral 2009-10. 2015-6 went back to +PDO followed by 2023-4 being the first on record with a -PDO and a strong one at that! 

Being that August of 2026 will end up most likely 2nd strongest pre strong Nino Aug -PDO with even a slight chance at the strongest -PDO pre-strong Nino Aug, the chances of a +PDO this winter are low. Hopefully it would rise to neutral PDO and we don’t get the 2nd strong Nino winter -PDO in a row.

Full tally for 20 strong El Niño events since 1877-8:
-16 (80%) +PDO 
- 3 (15%) neutral PDO
- 1 (5%) -PDO

PDO data:
 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/v6/index/ersst.v6.pdo.dat

[mitchnick]

6 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Check out how much cooler is August on the BoM RONI vs 2 weeks earlier:

Two weeks ago Aug was +2.6 and Aug had been +2.6 to +2.7 on EVERY weekly run going all the way back to the early June run!

Last and this week Aug cooled substantially to only +2.15!

 

 I've been following this carefully every BoM run since April 11th. EVERY month May through Aug has ended up ~0.4 cooler and Apr ended up 0.6 cooler than what the BoM had been stubbornly predicting for weeks on end early month and before for each of these nearby months without fail! 
 

 This tells me with good confidence that Sep won’t end up even close to the +3.0 to +3.1 that it has been progging on EVERY run for Sep back to the June 13th run. (This is the same kind of strong warm bias that it had for the ‘23 Nino.) Thus I’m predicting that Sept will end up no warmer than +2.7 and it may end up as cool as only +2.4.

 What does this portend for the Nov peak? The BoM has been progging an ~+3.5 Nov peak since the July 25th run. So, it appears it likely has finally about peaked in its progs. Therefore, based on Apr-Aug BoM runs, I’m now predicting that the actual monthly RONI peak (in or near Nov) will only be ~+3.0 with a trimonthly peak only ~+2.8. That +2.8 trimonthly would still be a record warm RONI going back to 1950 beating 1982’s +2.4. So, it would still be historic for sure. But it wouldn’t be nearly as warm as the ~+3.3-3.5 trimonthly RONI peak of many runs of various models.

  Edit: OISST charts are telling us that this El Niño hasn’t been warming nearly as rapidly in August as had been progged by model consensus. Remember those record rapid 30 day warmings in Aug on the model consensus that I’ve posted about many times? That simply ain’t happening folks. The ground truth doesn’t lie. Does this look like rapid warming in Aug? It looks more like rather ordinary modest paced warming at best to me:

 

 

Cfs2 has been advertising a drop in the anomalies for about 8 days too, give or take, fwiw, before a resumption of warming and November peak.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

4 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The very warm NW Pacific continues to drive a solid -PDO. It would be nice if that would diminish in intensity and allow a PDO increase. Strong El Niño forcing tends to favor a +PDO looking well back in history. Actually from 1877-8 through 1957-8, all 11 strong ones had a +PDO DJF. However, 1965-6 and 1972-3 were neutral. Then the 4 strong ones 1982-3 through 1997-8 went back to +PDO followed by a neutral 2009-10. 2015-6 went back to +PDO followed by 2023-4 being the first on record with a -PDO and a strong one at that! 

Being that August of 2026 will end up most likely 2nd strongest pre strong Nino Aug -PDO with even a slight chance at the strongest -PDO pre-strong Nino Aug, the chances of a +PDO this winter are low. Hopefully it would rise to neutral PDO and we don’t get the 2nd strong Nino winter -PDO in a row.

Full tally for 20 strong El Niño events since 1877-8:
-16 (80%) +PDO 
- 3 (15%) neutral PDO
- 1 (5%) -PDO

PDO data:
 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/v6/index/ersst.v6.pdo.dat

That 2023 is the anomaly is particularly interesting. Definitely a new pattern, these times. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

5 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

Climate dashboard is still going with a +3.3 RONI peak. This would be a daily peak and not trimonthly.

 

Imagine if that purple, late-blooming one that peaks near 5C verifies.

[michsnowfreak]

4 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I'm the opposite; I love ninos live in central MD and our best snow chances are in niños--and a lingering nina state is bad news for us as we get screwed out of the goods most of the time, lol Which is why those in our region are hoping we can get something out this one (before la nina reigns supreme again for two years!)

Different regions definitely prefer different ENSO's. For here its NO contest - La Nina all day, any day.

Strong El Nino is typically the worst ENSO state you want to see here in winter. We still get multiple rounds of snow/winter in strong Ninos, just usually less of it than normal. For the midatlantic where it's more of a feast/famine climate, the history of large snowstorms in El Nino vs La Nina makes it easy to see why you guys prefer Nino. 

[GaWx]

9 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Cfs2 has been advertising a drop in the anomalies for about 8 days too, give or take, fwiw, before a resumption of warming and November peak.

Thanks for pointing this out, Mitch. Very interesting for sure!

 Check this excellent video from met. Travis Roberts just out a few hours ago. Within it, he talks about the initial flattening out (RONI, the top of your 2 graphs) that wasn’t there before, the same thing you pointed out!

 Also, check out how flat Aug has been on CDAS since the 5th! I mean that’s almost flat as a pancake type flat. Keep in mind that several models had forecasted a record breaking warming for just one month (for any month) of ~1C in August!

 

 

[so_whats_happening]

There may be some gas left in the tank with this Nino. There is a possibility of ONI anomaly reaching near 3C if we can maintain this heat into the Oct-Dec timeframe, that will be quite the test for the next 2-3 months. Im not so sure we get much past 2.5C with RONI but will have to wait and see how the cold pool develops more. We have a nice +10 anomaly showing up and the 30C contour seems to be stopped at just west of 150W currently and some thermocline changes trying to show up toward the tale end of the gif. This is probably the bounce back after the KW in mid to late July and enhancement of trades again as we get into the first two weeks of September.

This has been fascinating to watch that even this pronounced of an ENSO event has not produced much in the way of +IOD yet and helped in switching over to a +PDO state even for a short amount of time.

I think the most impressive thing thus far has been how quickly this built up the temps and not necessarily the temps themselves. This will be documented as one of the fastest growing ENSO events we have seen with those record WWB's we saw early on. Now the question comes does this as some models try to produce even more strengthening or do we continue to see stagnation and then a decline. 

A lot of answers will show up in the next month.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 8/23/2026 at 8:47 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Early work on the Extra tropical Pacific is done.

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2026/08/preliminary-assessment-of-extratropical.html

@Stormchaserchuck1How does this composite look now? I tweaked by subtracting the 1941-1970 climo period to wash out a lot of the lower heights and accentuate the positive anomalies in an effort to better capture the changing climate.

[Great Snow 1717]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/08/24/ocean-just-broke-temperature-record-that-may-have-stood-millennia/