2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[mitchnick]

Interesting how despite the 1+2 positive anomalies, the actual temperature of 1+2 continues to drop.

[bluewave]

The most east based super El Niño event on record for this time of year.

 

 

[forkyfork]

51 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Interesting how despite the 1+2 positive anomalies, the actual temperature of 1+2 continues to drop.

how can you people not know how el nino works after being on a weather board for over a decade

[OSUmetstud]

I believe the weekly nino 3.4 sst data by the cpc does not apply the scaling factor that's used in the monthly/trimonthly offical nino 3.4 data. The scaling factor for August is 1.16/1.17 per the RONI paper. So the monthly RONI Nino 3.4 data for August should be in the neighborhood of ~2.2C as opposed to ~1.8C. Its at the very least a different data set. 

[BlizzardWx]

2 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Interesting how despite the 1+2 positive anomalies, the actual temperature of 1+2 continues to drop.

That's just climo for that part of the world August-September. It's always cooling this time of year, but just less so than typical this year. 

[GaWx]

 August overall was a notable bust for Nino 3.4 as several models had had a steep anomaly warming of a record breaking ~1C from July to Aug whereas the last 4 weeks have overall been net ~flat meaning a warming from July to August of only ~0.5C. Thus, the progged Nov peaks have recently been dropping on the CFS: 

[Terpeast]

I’ve been thinking given how east based this super nino is so far, how will the marine heat wave off japan influence or interfere with the aleutian/GOA low?

will upstream N Pac ridging further amplify the GOA low, pushing it further east and flooding the conus with mild air and cutting off cold air for everyone. 

Or might it destructively interfere with the aleutian/goa low, weakening it relative to what its strength should be with this nino’s strength - possibly pulling it west.

Maybe both at different points in this winter?

[EasternLI]

Yeah this pesky ridge east of Japan still being pesky. Not really any signs yet of it going away for the foreseeable future as of now. Interestingly, that seems to be a hallmark of a negative PDO during Sept. Meanwhile, the el nino during Sept would have you believe it should have some resistance or begin to fade away. That's a curious feature. Will be interesting to continue watching that. Want that to go away so we can get a recurving typhoon or two. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I've been getting warmer indicators on the Winter than a month ago. 

Will have to find a site that does SSTA for the whole May-Sept period

I expected that and explicitly predicted that your index would neutralize when I did my polar post in  latter July. 

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, BlizzardWx said:

That's just climo for that part of the world August-September. It's always cooling this time of year, but just less so than typical this year. 

Yes, I  understand. But I found it interesting because Enso 4 anomalies and SST are both cooling, Enso 3 and 3.4 anomalies and SST are both warming, while 4 temps are cooling while anomalies are warming. 

[forkyfork]

2 hours ago, GaWx said:

 August overall was a notable bust for Nino 3.4 as several models had had a steep anomaly warming of a record breaking ~1C from July to Aug whereas the last 4 weeks have overall been net ~flat meaning a warming from July to August of only ~0.5C. Thus, the progged Nov peaks have recently been dropping on the CFS: 

the highest august value minus the lowest july value is over 1c

[GaWx]

8 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

the highest august value minus the lowest july value is over 1c

I’m talking about models that had avg for Aug minus avg for July ~1C. It’s looking more like just 0.5C.

[jaxjagman]

Its still a unique NINO and will probably carry its own anologs into winter.The DMI or Indian ocean diphole if you wanna call it doesnt even rank this around a top ten event per JMA Mean while a couple its ensemble members seems to join camp show now this might be the strongest ever,duuno

This seemingly shows no break down into the Walker Circulation with the trades coming off Africa and not South America,in which the few few days should probably  kick off the Sahara dust.

Gernerally the IOD falls into fall just as well does the PDO but the PDO can fluctuate into winter

[OSUmetstud]

Mid point on the multi systems and the ecmwf plumes for rino 3.4 in August is about 2.2 C. I think the official noaa value should be fairly close to that number. That's an approximate warming of between 0.7 and 0.8C month over month. The funny thing in all this is some of this possible first month that nino doesnt beat nearly all forecasts thing is because the greatest surface and subsurface anomaly is located east of Nino 3.4. Thats not evidence of weakness. 

[michsnowfreak]

On 8/28/2026 at 4:08 PM, FPizz said:

No one was comparing to the colder 70s, or 95/96 winter, etc. for that matter. He always points to the year(s) that are out of the ordinary and acts like thats what happened all the time.  What you just stated was perfect.  Compared to the previous years, it was colder, which is a fact, end of story. Not historic but for some areas like here in NJ, memorable for the numerous days of total snowcover due to it being colder and much snowier than average, which isnt that common. No one was saying it was a top 10 cold winter or anything of the sort.  It's like we arent allowed to say that it felt cold or it offends him.  

Perfectly stated. Ive noticed its very common with some to make winters of yesterday seem harsher than they were, winters of today seem less harsh than they are, and use all-time severe winters as baseline for "typical" cold. Its funny to see so much pushback by some in admitting last winter was cold. Mind you, this a winter expected to be very mild by these same folks. Since it was cold, all we hear is "it was record warm in the west" "this used to be the norm" (it did not) "it was colder in the 1970s" (who said it wasnt?) etc etc etc

[George001]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Perfectly stated. Ive noticed its very common with some to make winters of yesterday seem harsher than they were, winters of today seem less harsh than they are, and use all-time severe winters as baseline for "typical" cold. Its funny to see so much pushback by some in admitting last winter was cold. Mind you, this a winter expected to be very mild by these same folks. Since it was cold, all we hear is "it was record warm in the west" "this used to be the norm" (it did not) "it was colder in the 1970s" (who said it wasnt?) etc etc etc

I agree with them that recent winters have been mostly underwhelming, but disagree with the downplaying of last winter. Climate change is real, it’s happening, and I tend to align with the people who are arguing that it’s playing a significant role in the past decade being mostly underwhelming. That being said,  I was very happy with last winter. I’m also very skeptical of the idea that last winter was supposed to be historic like 95-96 or 14-15 or 10-11 and CC robbed us.

The reason last winter was not quite as good as those winters is it was too dry for record breaking snows, I’d be more inclined to blame CC if it was too warm with multiple benchmark storms being say 35-36 and rain. The long term trend with CC is warm and wet, and last winter was drier than average. I do think there were several winters this past decade where I suspect CC boned my area some, but do not think last winter is a good example of that. If anything, a redux of last winter in say the 1970s climate may have been worse because it may have just been colder and drier rather than snowier. The longwave pattern simply was less favorable than those record breaking winters for east coast cyclogenesis. I’m just glad things came together well enough to give me the best winter since 14-15 in my area. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Like I have been saying, you need to take that "SevereweatherEurpe" or whatever it is with a grain of salt....I picked apart his arguments for a neg NAO season in my July blog, as his stuff is full of half-truths. He doesn't lie, but he cherry picks data and doesn't tell you the whole story. Funny how it doesn't look as favorable for an NAO winter now a month later.

[raindancewx]

Southern South America has been seeing a cold winter (their winter is our Summer). That's fairly normal for an El Nino "expected effect". The Southern Hemisphere +PDO is sort of there, warm ring around a cold tongue. Areas expected to be warm in El Nino have been running +10F or more in winter - good preview for our winter in the northern US I'd expect.

 

 

[raindancewx]

August SOI is traditionally a much stronger signal for a warm Northern US December than Nino 3/3.4/4. Month looks like it will finish among the lowest ever SOI readings for August. Vast area of Southern Canada/Northern US favored warm at a strong correlation already. For whatever reason, the August SOI is more predictive for Dec temps than the Sept SOI as well.

[ensonerd1233e343]

13 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Interesting how despite the 1+2 positive anomalies, the actual temperature of 1+2 continues to drop.

Yea look at a climo map the drop in northen summer is really stark largely due to increased fetch of se trades as itcz moves n althouh there is some other thing going on here some clouds that form im not sure 

[GaWx]

 Today’s release for last week averaged out has a notable rise in 1+2:

19AUG2026         3.2        2.5        1.8        0.0
 26AUG2026         3.5        2.6        1.8        0.1

 

To compare, here’s 1997:

27AUG1997         3.3        2.6        1.9        0.4

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/rel_wksst9120.txt

[bluewave]

19 hours ago, EasternLI said:

Yeah this pesky ridge east of Japan still being pesky. Not really any signs yet of it going away for the foreseeable future as of now. Interestingly, that seems to be a hallmark of a negative PDO during Sept. Meanwhile, the el nino during Sept would have you believe it should have some resistance or begin to fade away. That's a curious feature. Will be interesting to continue watching that. Want that to go away so we can get a recurving typhoon or two. 

More evidence that the ridge is operating independently of ENSO as we have seen this summer regardless of ONI, RONI, MEI, and SOI. 
 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz4647

Marine heatwaves in the Northwestern Pacific (NWP) have become increasingly frequent and persistent, yet the mechanisms enabling their multiseasonal duration remain poorly understood. Through observational analyses and climate model experiments, we demonstrate that NWP marine heatwaves are primarily driven by a quasistationary wavenumber 5 circumglobal wave (CGW) pattern that operates independently of El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The CGW modulates surface heat fluxes during summer, triggering a self-reinforcing feedback loop where NWP warming intensifies the CGW pattern, amplifying and prolonging heatwaves across extended warm seasons. Additionally, CGW-driven summer warming in the northern North Atlantic persists into winter through oceanic thermal inertia, exciting a great-circle wave pattern that propagates back to the NWP, sustaining heatwaves through cold seasons. This interplay between atmospheric waves and trans-basin interactions enables multiyear marine heatwave events. Analysis of observational data and climate model simulations reveals a strengthening CGW influence in recent decades, indicating more frequent and prolonged NWP marine heatwaves under ongoing global warming.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, raindancewx said:

August SOI is traditionally a much stronger signal for a warm Northern US December than Nino 3/3.4/4. Month looks like it will finish among the lowest ever SOI readings for August. Vast area of Southern Canada/Northern US favored warm at a strong correlation already. For whatever reason, the August SOI is more predictive for Dec temps than the Sept SOI as well.

Interesting...didn't know that. Confirms what I had already suspected about this December. Maybe that is why El Nino Decembers are usually warm....not so much about El Nino itself, but some of the intervals of -SOI that goes along with it...though, I guess it really doesn't matter.

[raindancewx]

August SOI is approximately in the top ten most negative for the last 100 years. Finished at -14. These are the -10 SOI or lower Augusts, rolled forward to December.

The -12 to -16 SOI Augusts, 1953, 1987, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2006 produce the same result.

Aug SOI is pretty strong as an indicator for February too. Very strong correlations for a cold SE/warm NW as you'd expect with any ENSO correlation.

[donsutherland1]

On 8/30/2026 at 8:06 AM, mitchnick said:

Interesting how despite the 1+2 positive anomalies, the actual temperature of 1+2 continues to drop.

It's winter in the southern hemisphere. The latest weekly value for Region 1+2 is +4.2°C, its highest weekly value, so far.

[GaWx]

26 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

It's winter in the southern hemisphere. The latest weekly value for Region 1+2 is +4.2°C, its highest weekly value, so far.

 Thanks, Don.

 Just to clarify for the readers in general, in case there’s confusion since I posted about Region 1+2 just four posts above Don’s, the +4.2 C Don posted for 1+2 is based on the traditional anomaly using 30 year base climo. The +3.5 I posted is based on taking into account warming overall mean worldwide tropical ocean temperatures to determine its anomaly. This is essentially a Region 1+2 version of Region 3.4’s RONI (called “relative”), which NOAA has decided to make official even though they continue to also update the traditional versions:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/rel_wksst9120.txt