2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[forkyfork]

how many struggling independent ski resorts is this nino going to put out of business? 

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, forkyfork said:

how many struggling independent ski resorts is this nino going to put out of business? 

The Nino is likely going to greatly help some ski resorts this winter.

[GaWx]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

The 0-300m ocean heat content is really off the charts.

The warming related to AGW is itself a factor helping to cause 2026-7 to be so much warmer than these prior Ninos since the globe continues to warm. Without that, although 2026-7 would possibly still be the warmest, it at a minimum wouldn’t be as far above these others. In other words, this graph isn’t a fair way to determine the strength of each of these El Niños, themselves, since AGW gives an advantage to later ones.

[michsnowfreak]

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

The Nino is likely going to greatly help some ski resorts this winter.

Any ski resorts that struggled the last few cold winters in the Great Lakes/Northeast have no business being in business in the first place.

[TriPol]

5 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Mike Masco

THE EARLY WINTER MODEL SIGNALS ARE GETTING VERY INTERESTING...

I know, I know... WAY too early! But we've reached the point in the forecast calendar where I start looking at the broader trends in the CFSv2 to see what type of atmospheric configuration the models are beginning to latch onto.

This is NOT the time to start predicting snowfall totals or declaring the winter warm or cold. Instead, I'm watching three major players at the 500mb and 1000mb levels that could eventually shape how this winter unfolds:

GREENLAND BLOCKING — OR LACK THEREOF

Where does blocking develop, and is it focused west or east of Greenland?

This is one of the biggest variables for the East Coast. A favorable blocking pattern can slow storms near the coast while helping cold Canadian air press south.

This signal often isn't fully realized until we're already entering or exiting a blocking cycle, and its impact will be closely tied to the strength and behavior of the Polar Vortex. This becomes especially important from late December through mid-February.

 THE ALEUTIAN / NORTH PACIFIC PATTERN

I'm watching whether the height field near the Aleutian Islands trends stronger or weaker.

This signal should become much clearer by late November and can have major implications for how much Pacific air floods into the country.

A stronger Pacific influence could overwhelm the northern half of the U.S. with milder-than-normal air — something I'll be watching VERY closely.

THE SUBTROPICAL JET — THE BIG ONE

So far, this has been the most compelling signal and exactly the type of feature you'd expect during an El Niño winter.

You can have all the cold air in the world, but you can't get a snowstorm without moisture.

A juiced-up subtropical jet could provide plenty of storm opportunities this winter. Right now, I think this is the major wildcard for producing some BIG storms, potentially favoring the Ohio Valley into western Pennsylvania, with the strongest signal across the southern U.S.

The million-dollar question for the Northeast:

Can the cold air meet the moisture at the right time? 

That's where Greenland blocking, the Polar Vortex and the Canadian pattern become incredibly important.

Again — this is NOT a winter forecast. It's an early look at the atmospheric players I'm watching as the pieces slowly begin to come together.

Plenty will change between now and December... but the early signals are certainly worth watching. 

If the STJ is amped all we need is a slight collision with the arctic jet and BOOM we have a phased storm which is what provides the most epic blizzards of all time. I think the signal is there for a record setting winter in the NYC area. Please no one weenie tag me.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

The Nino is likely going to greatly help some ski resorts this winter.

Maybe some of the western resorts with base elevations above 8,000’. East coast base elevations are generally 1500-2000’ and will be overwhelmed with pacific warmth during prime snow making in November and December. The vast majority of revenue is MLK weekend and prior. 2015 provides a perfect case study in what happens when December is +10.


.

[Brian5671]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Any ski resorts that struggled the last few cold winters in the Great Lakes/Northeast have no business being in business in the first place.

Our local hills had their best year ever last yr and the year prior was a runner up.    Bad years are baked into their business model.

[Brian5671]

26 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Maybe some of the western resorts with base elevations above 8,000’. East coast base elevations are generally 1500-2000’ and will be overwhelmed with pacific warmth during prime snow making in November and December. The vast majority of revenue is MLK weekend and prior. 2015 provides a perfect case study in what happens when December is +10.


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Colorado should clean up this year after a disastrous year last yr-never saw it so bad there in over 30 years of going.

[LakePaste25]

there’s quite a few ski resorts out west that are below 7k’ and probably won’t do too well either. The higher up ones will def cash in just like the Andes are in Chile. 

[Keith Central PA]

40 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Maybe some of the western resorts with base elevations above 8,000’. East coast base elevations are generally 1500-2000’ and will be overwhelmed with pacific warmth during prime snow making in November and December. The vast majority of revenue is MLK weekend and prior. 2015 provides a perfect case study in what happens when December is +10.


.

I doubt that this December will be +10..thats a once in a lifetime warmth..+3-5 seems more reasonable and in December it can snow especially in New England away from the coast.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

I doubt that this December will be +10..thats a once in a lifetime warmth..+3-5 seems more reasonable and in December it can snow especially in New England away from the coast.

I’m thinking 5-15 above, the upside potential is even higher the 2015. I do think do to the unprecedented level of energy that will be ejected into the subtropical jet there could be some surprises. As others have said it just takes the right timing. But overall the early winter warmth is likely historic if not record breaking.


.

[Newman]

I haven't been active in this thread so apologize if it's already been shared before, but Dr. Jonathan Wall has a great project developed on his website at https://snow.wall.cloud/

You can dive really deep into and compare statistical significance of various teleconnections for a few different snowfall criteria (i.e. trace of snow at 10% or more of stations, 25% of stations measuring 0.1" or more snow, total event coverage or magnitude of snow totals, etc), and all of this broken down by NWS CWAs. But what's neat is you can also break it down further with these various teleconnections during El Nino, neutral, and La Nina.

Here is an example between BOX and PHL CWAs in an El Nino winter for the PNA. The PHL CWA leans towards/favors +PNA for number of qualifying days with at least 25% of stations measuring snow. Meanwhile, BOX weakly leans towards/favors -PNA. The numbers on the maps are all absolute differences between percentages. Of course, the caveat is that there are some outliers in both situations and it's not consistent amongst all measurable snowfall days. In fact (and you can find this on the website) the most statistically significant teleconnection is a -EPO across both CWAs (most significant when selecting "all winters" and not just separating out ENSO):

 

Here is another example but with QBO during El Nino just for shits and giggles. PHL actually leans towards +QBO for number of qualifying days with measurable snow at 25% of eligible stations (I'll have to look into the details of the data here, I wonder if there's some bias from big dogs that formed during +QBO/+ENSO seasons) and eastern BOX leans towards -QBO but western BOX leans towards +QBO. Again, very very important to note this is not gospel and there are outliers that prove snowstorms can happen in either phase of QBO.

Either way, cool website and wanted to share. All of the details should be there on the site. From the site: "This is a descriptive historical phase comparison: each DJF winter is grouped by its mean index phase. Red favors positive phase, blue negative. The shading estimates the station-rate pattern between qualified stations."

[GaWx]

48 minutes ago, Newman said:

I haven't been active in this thread so apologize if it's already been shared before, but Dr. Jonathan Wall has a great project developed on his website at https://snow.wall.cloud/

You can dive really deep into and compare statistical significance of various teleconnections for a few different snowfall criteria (i.e. trace of snow at 10% or more of stations, 25% of stations measuring 0.1" or more snow, total event coverage or magnitude of snow totals, etc), and all of this broken down by NWS CWAs. But what's neat is you can also break it down further with these various teleconnections during El Nino, neutral, and La Nina.

Here is an example between BOX and PHL CWAs in an El Nino winter for the PNA. The PHL CWA leans towards/favors +PNA for number of qualifying days with at least 25% of stations measuring snow in El Nino. Meanwhile, BOX weakly leans towards/favors -PNA. Of course, the caveat is that there are some outliers in both situations and it's not consistent amongst measurable snowfall days. In fact (and you can find this on the website) the most statistically significant teleconnection is a -EPO across both CWAs (most significant when selecting "all winters" and not just separating out ENSO):

 

Here is another example but with QBO during El Nino just for shits and giggles. PHL actually leans towards +QBO for number of qualifying days with measurable snow at 25% of eligible stations (I'll have to look into the details of the data here, I wonder if there's some bias from big dogs that formed during +QBO/+ENSO seasons) and eastern BOX leans towards -QBO but western BOX leans towards +QBO. Again, very very important to note this is not gospel and there are outliers that prove snowstorms can happen in either phase of QBO.

Either way, cool website and wanted to share. All of the details should be there on the site. From the site: "This is a descriptive historical phase comparison: each DJF winter is grouped by its mean index phase. Red favors positive phase, blue negative. The shading estimates the station-rate pattern between qualified stations."

 Thanks for posting that. Regarding the PNA based on analyses I’ve done on snowfall for SE cities like RDU and ATL, a +PNA is the #1 most correlated index to snow in the SE. Since El Niño and +PNA are well correlated, having El Niño on average tends to be good relative to other ENSO for SE snow chances in general.

[bluewave]

 

 

[mitchnick]

On 9/7/2026 at 12:13 PM, GaWx said:

The daily WCS PDO has risen back substantially the last 7 days ending yesterday with it up to -0.9, the highest since way back on July 2nd, vs ~-1.65 one week earlier:

-.83 today

[Ephesians2]

2 hours ago, mitchnick said:

-.83 today

The warm pool definitely isn't as extreme as it was a month ago

[GaWx]

 Here’s the preliminary winter outlook from pro met. Chris Martz:

here is my preliminary thinking. . . As y'all probably know by now because of the endless hysteria in the news cycle, we are in an El Niño, which is just the warm phase of the larger El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This year, the developing El Niño is unusually intense, and it is expected to officially be a “very strong” El Niño by early winter at the latest. This is marked by very warm sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

 The news media and the United Nations have spun this as some sort of crazy event that will “turbocharge” extreme weather all over the globe, but that's not really how it works. Now, normally in the tropical Pacific Ocean, easterly wind stress associated with the Walker Circulation imparted on the sea surface acts to pile warm water near the surface in the western half of the basin; that is, closer to Asia. This pushes the thermocline down towards the west as warm water pools up north of the Maritime Continent and east of the Philippines. But during El Niño, the easterlies weaken or temporarily reverse (westerly wind bursts), which causes that pool of warm water to slosh back east. That's what's happening right now.
 

There are a lot of meteorological factors to consider when it comes to predicting long-range temperatures, precipitation, and storm tracks. But this year, this “very strong” El Niño will play a dominant role I think as it has in years past (e.g., 1982–83, 1997–98, and 2015–16). Those are my top post-1950 analogs, and I added 1972–73 into the mix as it behaved similarly to the others, although it was only a “strong” El Niño at peak intensity. 1827–28 and 1877–78 would have been good analogs too, but we don't have enough climate data from back then to work with.
 

A key feature of “very strong” El Niño events is that wintertime temperatures are particularly mild relative to average. This is pronounced in the Upper Plains / Midwest and Great Lakes / Northeast. Temperatures across the Desert Southwest and Four Corners region, however, typically run below average. The southeast can swing either way, but generally winds up near “average” (and I use scare quotes there because the weather is rarely “average”).
 

 However, these exceptionally mild temperatures do not necessarily persist all winter. In fact, most of this composite is due to “blowtorch” Decembers. And I do expect December to end up 5–10°F above average in the areas you see orange and red contours in the first analog composite map I made below. But the roaring Pacific Jet typically relaxes from mid-January through mid-February, so temperatures will tumble a bit closer to “seasonable.” If this El Niño were weaker, there'd be a good chance of a frigid December in the east. But I doubt that's going to happen.
 

As far as precipitation goes, well, there should be an active subtropical jet stream. So, air parcels moving from west-to-east will tap into Gulf moisture and then be advected northward into the southeast. I expect a lot of rain in the Gulf Coast states (Texas to Florida) and then northward up the east coast into the DMV. Similarly, the western U.S. should expect some major drought relief due to atmospheric river events. After a near-record low snowpack last winter, the ski resorts will be back in business. Elsewhere, it will likely be a bit drier than normal due to persistent high-pressure ridging over the northern flank of the country. Storm tracks are going to favor the southern states.
 

With respect to snowfall, overall, I do expect less of it nationwide outside of high elevation areas simply due to higher-than-average temperatures. But I cannot rule out ONE crippling blizzard in the Mid-Atlantic or in the southeast. It happened in the southeast (Florida, Georgia, and Carolina coastline) in February 1973 and in the lower Mid-Atlantic (Virginia, D.C., Maryland, and southeastern Pennsylvania) in both February 1983 and January 2016. However, it did not happen in 1827–28 or 1877–78 (I checked NOAA NCEI FORT data) or in 1997–98.

So, whether or not we get the “big one” remains up in the air for now. But it will be that one storm that will ultimately determine where the seasonal snowfall will stand (above / below climatology) in the southeast and Mid-Atlantic. If it occurs, many folks will get their seasonal spoonful of snow in one dumping. If it does not occur, it's just going to be a wet winter.

 

 

[mitchnick]

51 minutes ago, Ephesians2 said:

The warm pool definitely isn't as extreme as it was a month ago

And the trend is our friend if you want it to keep rising.

[GaWx]

The CFSv2 progged RONI peak continues to drop steadily with more drops likely:

7/22-31: ASO/OND +3.5

8/9-18: OND +3.45

8/19-28: OND +3.2

 

8/29-9/7: OND +3.0 with most of the blue lines (most recent 8 runs) lower

[bluewave]

The CFS really missed how east based this event has become. The most recent update for this week is a record breaking +4.6 in Nino 1+2. The forecast for early September was only around +3.3. 

 

[EasternLI]

Current WWB verifying a tick stronger vs what models had advertised. Same thing happened with the last one too.