2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[forkyfork]

whatever you need to tell yourself

[40/70 Benchmark]

1997-1998 was more favorable early on because it was unique in the sense that occurred during a strong easterly QBO in conjunction with the low and ascending portion of the solar cycle. This season will undoubtedly be more hostile early on, but probably more favorable later in the season given the westerly QBO/descending solar that is far more common during intense episodes of warm ENSO.

[forkyfork]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm surprised, usually low pressure over SE Canada works out well on the east coast.

my point exactly. the pac jet wouldn't allow for any cold highs where we needed them

[mitchnick]

19 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It's also important not to be too dialectical in our thought process, as it's human instinct to focus on snow/rain as binary events, but the truth is that in all likelihood they often won't be this season. Several 2-5"ers followed by IP and rain still counts towards the seasonal total.

Yep. I said as much in the MA forum the other day. I know how it rolls down here.

[forkyfork]

this event is stronger and further east plus we have 30 years of warming on top of it. come on man

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

my point exactly. the pac jet wouldn't allow for any cold highs where we needed them

More often than not, sure...but as you know, there are shorter-term deviations from the longer term seasonal mean.

On Tuesday December 23rd, 1997 - A snowstorm was forecasted to be fast-moving and produce light snow across New England slowed down and intensified dumping nearly two feet on some parts of the regio

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

this event is stronger and further east plus we have 30 years of warming on top of it. come on man

You're right...I guess Ayer, MA will have to settle for 2"/hr instead of the 6" in 1997...then again, there is more moisture available in the warmer air...

[40/70 Benchmark]

We can all agree 1995-1996 was in incredible winter, but there was a notable deviation from that pattern during the middle portion of January.

[forkyfork]

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

More often than not, sure...but as you know, there are shorter-term deviations from the longer term seasonal mean.

On Tuesday December 23rd, 1997 - A snowstorm was forecasted to be fast-moving and produce light snow across New England slowed down and intensified dumping nearly two feet on some parts of the regio

this event is already stronger than 1997 was in december

[MJO812]

29 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

none of the east coast storms will be cold enough for snow

You need to stop trolling. You were wrong last season when you said we will not see anymore big storms.

[MJO812]

1 minute ago, forkyfork said:

this event is already stronger than 1997 was in december

So not even a flake ?

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

this event is already stronger than 1997 was in december

TBH, it needs to be to have a similar impact given the anecedent state of the Pacific.

[SnoSki14]

1 minute ago, MJO812 said:

You need to stop trolling. You were wrong last season when you said we will not see anymore big storms.

You would need a massive Nino override for it to work out for us. Like a rare CC induced combo that actually produces a snowier outcome. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

You would need a massive Nino override for it to work out for us. Like a rare CC induced combo that actually produces a snowier outcome. 

We all agree it's an uphill battle, but it's the close-minded, bandying about of absolutes in a divisive manner that folks take umbrage to....it's a nuisance at the very least, and a barrier to constructive dialogue at worst.

[roardog]

Forky likes to oversimplify the atmosphere. If it was that simple then why did December 2006 through the first three quarters of January 2007 have a more hostile pattern than the same period in 1997-1998? 2006-2007 was a much, much weaker east based El Niño. 

[Keith Central PA]

41 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

this event is stronger and further east plus we have 30 years of warming on top of it. come on man

Well you can't get negative snow, can you?..It will snow in NYC this winter but it will have temps above normal.It's going to be a warm winter, every Super Nino has.But snow is all timing and luck.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Pretty sure Forky missed the nice season we had last year...honest question @forkyfork, what would you need to see to forecast a decent winter? It was petty obvious to a lot of folks that  the combination of high solar/very strong easterly QBO and modest-eastern biased La Nina would yield a plethora of chances last winter....

I get that the ridges were larger, troughs smaller as compared to similar patterns 50 years ago...not the point-

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, OSUmetstud said:

I don't think NOAA's weekly or monthly OISSTv2 SST RONI data is scaled. It's only existed since 1981 and wouldn't have the 70-year standard deviation that's described in the RONI paper. It's not the ENSO SST database of record. I believe that's why the traditional minus relative difference is larger. The traditional 1991-2020 anomalies are pretty similar. The historical data sets seem to only have about 0.5 °C difference between the two (ECMWF, ERSSTv6, and ERSSTv5). 

September
ECMWF/OSTIA ~2.95 v. ~2.45

NOAA/ERSSTv6 2.58 v. 2.08

NOAA/OISSTv2 2.84 v. 2.06

BOM/ERSSTv5 2.75 v. 2.19

 

BOM GAMSSA (weekly October 3) 3.24 v. 2.83

Cyclonic Wx OISSTv2 (daily October 6)  3.32 v. 2.80

 

Either way, it all boils down to a warmer baseline.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes, I think that it definitely part of it, but some more than others...I think it's also important to view the RONI relative to the ONI, rather than in a vacuum.

A crude, but effective way to distinguish these more recent MC oriented El Nino seasons is to utilize the delta between the RONI, which separates ENSO-related warming from general background warming attributable to climate change, and the ONI. The positive ONI/RONI ratio in the four most recent El Nino seasons, which denotes a RONI lagging the ONI, is indicative of surplus of warmth over the western Pacific relative to the eastern Pacific, which is the very essence of the mechanism that focuses the convection there.

 

Notice how the ONI and RONI are equal in 1997 and the ONI is actually higher in 1986-1987. However, in 2016, the RONI is significantly lower and the spread is even greater in 2023, with a RONI value .6 lower than than the ONI.

            ONI       RONI    RATIO 

2023:   2.1        1.5        0.6

2018    1.1         0.8       0.3

2016    2.8         2.4       0.4

2014   0.8          0.6       0.2

2009   1.6          1.6       0.0

2006   0.9          0.9       0.0

2004   0.7          0.9      -0.2

2002   1.3          1.5      -0.2

1997   2.4          2.4      0.0

1994   1.1          1.4      -0.3

1991   1.7         2.3      -0.6 

1987   1.7         1.6      -0.1

Even the ONI wasn’t able to fully capture the full magnitude of the warming with the 2023-2024 event. 
 

Key Mechanisms and Findings

• Dual Warming Centers: Unlike typical El Niño events that center primarily in the eastern Pacific, the 2023–2024 event featured asynchronous double spatial peaks, combining a central Pacific peak (driven by zonal advective and thermocline feedbacks) with eastern Pacific warming. [1, 2]

• Synergistic Amplification: The dual Pacific warming centers worked together with an eastward-extended North Atlantic jet stream to amplify sea surface temperatures across multiple tropical basins.[1]

• Record Temperature Impact: Sea surface temperature anomalies accounted for roughly 92% of the interannual global warming spike, pushing the July 2023–June 2024 average global mean surface temperature to a record 1.58 °C above pre-industrial levels. [1]

[OSUmetstud]

18 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Either way, it all boils down to a warmer baseline.

I deleted that because the RONI/ONI standard deviations for OISST and ERSSTv6 are very similar which means it must have been scaled despite the differences. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

29 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Pretty sure Forky missed the nice season we had last year...honest question @forkyfork, what would you need to see to forecast a decent winter? It was petty obvious to a lot of folks that  the combination of high solar/very strong easterly QBO and modest-eastern biased La Nina would yield a plethora of chances last winter....

I get that the ridges were larger, troughs smaller as compared to similar patterns 50 years ago...not the point-

I don't mean this to be insulting, either....I have had some brutal forecasts....anyone being honest and transparent has.

[forkyfork]

50 minutes ago, Keith Central PA said:

Well you can't get negative snow, can you?..It will snow in NYC this winter but it will have temps above normal.It's going to be a warm winter, every Super Nino has.But snow is all timing and luck.

nope. no luck. good patterns produce good outcomes and bad patterns produce bad outcomes

[forkyfork]

the west pac warm pool has been building for the past decade and now the entire thing has been ejected to east of the dateline. that has never happened in the observational record

[Keith Central PA]

30 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

nope. no luck. good patterns produce good outcomes and bad patterns produce bad outcomes

You said no snow, but you can get a few inches of snow in a bad pattern. Starting off as snow changing to rain..some sort of clipper ect..from late November till late March it can and will snow