2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[Stormchaserchuck1]

-42.37 SOI today. 

4th consecutive day <-30

September is -23 to date. 

[EasternLI]

6 hours ago, bncho said:

 

Yeah, while not impressive at all that's still nice to see. Models were hinting that something like that was possible last week and it is coming to fruition. Aside from them traversing through the warm pool east of Japan. They can also be a catalyst to invigorate an Aleutian low. Not saying this one is any of that but in general. We want to see that. So let's see if we can get anything else to do that moving forward. And maybe we can in early October if that trough in east asia is real because the tropical activity probably will be.

[GaWx]

Recent 3 day mean CFS’ have cut way back on the degree of cold in Feb:

9/16-18

Compare that to this from 8/7-9:

[mitchnick]

2 hours ago, GaWx said:

Recent 3 day mean CFS’ have cut way back on the degree of cold in Feb:

9/16-18

Compare that to this from 8/7-9:

2 reasons not to worry. First, the Cfs2 site has remained steady with temps it's been advertising for JFM. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/htmls/usT2me3Mon.html

Second reason, the October Cansips comes out in only 11 days! Lol 

[michsnowfreak]

30 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

2 reasons not to worry. First, the Cfs2 site has remained steady with temps it's been advertising for JFM. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/htmls/usT2me3Mon.html

Second reason, the October Cansips comes out in only 11 days! Lol 

On the satellite wx page that was posted a while back, you can see the daily CFS run and the 10-run average. As youd expect, it changes wildly every day.

[GaWx]

53 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

2 reasons not to worry. First, the Cfs2 site has remained steady with temps it's been advertising for JFM. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/htmls/usT2me3Mon.html

Second reason, the October Cansips comes out in only 11 days! Lol 

Also, the TT maps use colder 1984-2009 climo instead of the CFS site’s 1991-2020.

The TT 3 day (12 run) avg does jump around more than the CFS site 10 day (40 run) avg. Regardless, I haven’t seen any 3 day avg Feb recently nearly as cold as those record cold Febs that were on some Aug 3 day means in the SE to S Plains. Then again, that degree of cold was hardly believable especially that far out. They were dreamable for me but not believable. I’ll keep following the trends of both the TT 3 day means and the CFS site 10 day means.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

On the satellite wx page that was posted a while back, you can see the daily CFS run and the 10-run average. As youd expect, it changes wildly every day.

Pretty sure that very cold run isn't happening.

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

On the satellite wx page that was posted a while back, you can see the daily CFS run and the 10-run average. As youd expect, it changes wildly every day.

The main CFS site actually has 40 run averages (10 days x 4 runs/day).

[LakePaste25]

Right now I’m leaning towards a fairly torchy winter with *maybe* 1 salvageable month on the back side where it’s just slightly above normal. Can’t really ignore that every analog that was supposed to give us below normal temps has busted warm thus far into mid september, and there’s no signs of October being cooler than normal yet. 

[LakePaste25]

Much of this winter warmth will likely be driven by overnight lows IMO due to the active pattern. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

Much of this winter warmth will likely be driven by overnight lows IMO due to the active pattern. 

CC is a nutshell...yes, the days are obviously warming, but it's more pronounced at night.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I can't find an analog that has forcing as expansive throughout the tropical Pacific during the month of December as this year is forecast.....1983 looks like a good match for January, as it begins to erode a bit on the eastern flank...the image below is reflective of VP on the color scheme, with the contour representing precip rate to really hone in on the best forcing.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I can't find a match to this, though.

1997 is closest....

[40/70 Benchmark]

Going on strictly VP, nothing compares.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2016 looks okay for Feb....

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

Much of this winter warmth will likely be driven by overnight lows IMO due to the active pattern. 

El ninos are usually even more overcast than usual in our already overcast winter climate. That automatically keeps lows up. Though I still expect a subzero night or two.

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

The main CFS site actually has 40 run averages (10 days x 4 runs/day).

Have a link to the actual main site?

[LakePaste25]

21 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

CC is a nutshell...yes, the days are obviously warming, but it's more pronounced at night.

Yeah for record highs in the winter at least, the classic way to do that around here is a Great Lakes Cutter tracking north and west of here. rainy/wet snow/slop mix coastals without cold air are more of a warm overnight low type of deal, and those are what I expect. December 2015 was the weird one because we actually did get lows going well NW despite being a super El Niño. 

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Have a link to the actual main site?

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/CFSv2seasonal.shtml

[jaxjagman]

11 hours ago, EasternLI said:

 

Yeah, while not impressive at all that's still nice to see. Models were hinting that something like that was possible last week and it is coming to fruition. Aside from them traversing through the warm pool east of Japan. They can also be a catalyst to invigorate an Aleutian low. Not saying this one is any of that but in general. We want to see that. So let's see if we can get anything else to do that moving forward. And maybe we can in early October if that trough in east asia is real because the tropical activity probably will be.

Yeah we are seeing a phoon finally going to recurve but seemingly all its doing is warming especially into Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan ,these waters should be cold and not warm,maybe baby steps not very impressive,maybe this could change as the storm moves off of Japan,but still it was nice to see this for a change

[EasternLI]

[Ephesians2]

The Eternal Nina of 2016-2026 continues. 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

PDO > ENSO somehow. I would have never guessed it. 

[LakePaste25]

Ah yes. The famous -PDO of September 2015 that was actually positive. 

 

[GaWx]

The AAM went over +4 as expected yesterday (9/19) per the image below, an extremely rare/historic event. The last time it was this high may very well have been in early Feb of 1998. It appears that it will likely stay >+4 into Sept 21st:

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

Ah yes. The famous -PDO of September 2015 that was actually positive. 

 

The models are Oct 4th. The difference between the two times (9-23/30 and 10/4) is actually the most drastic difference of the whole year lol. Oct 1 ENSO correlation goes up like 2x. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

35 minutes ago, GaWx said:

The AAM went over +4 as expected yesterday (9/19) per the image below, an extremely rare/historic event. The last time it was this high may very well have been in early Feb of 1998. It appears that it will likely stay >+4 into Sept 21st:

 

I'm just going to say, with most of the +AAM coming from the equator this is not as much of an anomaly as it would seem, it being the strongest El Nino on record. An equilateral AAM index would probably be +8. 

[bluewave]

On 9/18/2026 at 8:36 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Completely agree, which is why my preliminary assessment of the extra tropical Pacific holds it near neutral.

It got a mention in the recent CPC discussion. Like we have been discussing, could result in weaker low pressure centers with this El Niño. Would fit the recent pattern of overpowering ridges with smaller areas of low pressure. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/fxus05.html

There are two factors that make the current 
situation unique. The first factor is the presence of a fairly strong, 
negatively phased Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), with the August PDO index 
value of -1.11 . The "Big Three" historical El Niño's since 1950 include the 
warm events of 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16, all of which occurred when the 
PDO phase was positive, leading to constructive interference. This time, 
however, the PDO phase is negative and may dampen the typical impacts of a 
strong El Niño in certain areas. The second factor involves the large region 
of warmer-than-normal SSTs that is typically present in the Gulf of Alaska 
during strong El Niños. The current situation shows a significant westward 
shift in these warmer SSTs, which may allow for slightly cooler water to 
influence portions of the U.S. West coast. In addition, even with the 
possibility of one or more cold air outbreaks across the northwestern quarter 
of the Lower 48 states, it is unlikely that this will have much of an impact on 
the average temperature for a 90-day season.