2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[bluewave]

8 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes we can; it's gong to be positive. I'll bet you $500 right now-

There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind. The PDO is another story, as that is much more nebulous. 

 

Just saying it’s going to be positive isn’t much of a stretch. But my examples of 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 both featured positive +PNA patterns.

The magnitude and character of the positive is the question here which is a function of where the main Nino ridge and Aleutian trough complex becomes established.

Plus we have the difference between the CPC PNA and the 500 mb PNA at times. Sometimes we get bootleg +PNA patterns like in January 2023 with a deep trough underneath the Canadian ridge out West which many consider a -PNA.

 

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incredibly impressive sea level anomalies/thermocline:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We may have to be patient before getting something more closely resembling an El Niño pattern across the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

44 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Just saying it’s going to be positive isn’t much of a stretch. But my examples of 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 both featured positive +PNA patterns.

The magnitude and character of the positive is the question here which is a function of where the main Nino ridge and Aleutian trough complex becomes established.

Plus we have the difference between the CPC PNA and the 500 mb PNA at times. Sometimes we get bootleg +PNA patterns like in January 2023 with a deep trough underneath the Canadian ridge out West which many consider a -PNA.

 

We may have to be patient before getting something more closely resembling an El Niño pattern across the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

 

 

Oh, okay....agreed. I thought you were implying that it may literally be negative...no way in hell. I agree that it could be boot leg.

[LakePaste25]

My early thoughts is we see a predominately bootleg +PNA/extended pac jet state in the mean that will occasionally retrograde to a -EPO/+TNH for brief periods. Still need to see where the Hadley cell will set up though. 

[Yanksfan]

With a raging southern jet I think we can all agree on a stormy winter. What are the early thoughts on storm tracks; benchmark vs. inland runners?

[LakePaste25]

1 hour ago, Yanksfan said:

With a raging southern jet I think we can all agree on a stormy winter. What are the early thoughts on storm tracks; benchmark vs. inland runners?

If it’s anything like 97-98 there will be a lot of coastal storms that are mostly rain. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

My early thoughts is we see a predominately bootleg +PNA/extended pac jet state in the mean that will occasionally retrograde to a -EPO/+TNH for brief periods. Still need to see where the Hadley cell will set up though. 

Yes, those are the brief shots of possibly historic cold. Probably January, then wave 1 reflection triggers a flip of the ride to Greenland and the -NAO will be more protracted. See Jan-Feb 1983.

[bluewave]

1997-1998 was a great example of what happens when the STJ overpowers the pattern with too much warmth. NYC only finished with 5.5 inches of snow that season. Many lows running to the Ohio Valley and then tracking very close to the area. I made a composite of the 12 heaviest precipitation days that winter. 
 

12 heaviest precipitation storm days in NYC during DJF 1997-1998 and the storm track progression 

 

 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

1997-1998 was a great example of what happens when the STJ overpowers the pattern with too much warmth. NYC only finished with 5.5 inches of snow that season. Many lows running to the Ohio Valley and then tracking very close to the area. I made a composite of the 12 heaviest precipitation days that winter. 
 

12 heaviest precipitation storm days in NYC during DJF 1997-1998 and the storm track progression 

 

 

And ya think that's primed to happen this time, too? (And was it the same in 72-73?)

[Keith Central PA]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

1997-1998 was a great example of what happens when the STJ overpowers the pattern with too much warmth. NYC only finished with 5.5 inches of snow that season. Many lows running to the Ohio Valley and then tracking very close to the area. I made a composite of the 12 heaviest precipitation days that winter. 
 

12 heaviest precipitation storm days in NYC during DJF 1997-1998 and the storm track progression 

 

 

Actually inland area's like  Harrisburg where I live now,did ok in 97-98..the coast was a disaster 

[snowman19]

8 hours ago, bluewave said:

We may have to be patient before getting something more closely resembling an El Niño pattern across the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
 
 

Back in May, Eric Webb argued that the ++PMM was acting as a defacto +PDO. +PMM or not, my guess is that we see a flip to a weak positive PDO by the end of fall given the historic strength and strong coupling of this El Niño

One thing is for sure, this El Niño looks more and impressively by the day, regions 3.4, 3 and 1+2 are in overdrive, as are the WWBs, subsurface, SOI and DWKWs….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

7 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Oh, okay....agreed. I thought you were implying that it may literally be negative...no way in hell. I agree that it could be boot leg.

I was just mentioning that your analog composite of <-60dm for DJFM is probably too low. I used 6 straight months of -PNA as an example. That doesn't mean I expect the PNA to be negative, just that there are competing forces right now. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

35 minutes ago, Keith Central PA said:

Actually inland area's like  Harrisburg where I live now,did ok in 97-98..the coast was a disaster 

It was my first snowless Winter as a kid. Thankgoodness I didn't know about ENSO yet or I would have really realized the potential that could have been, especially with -NAO January. I think the AO will be more negative this coming Winter, which is good- widespread cold at times. 

[snowman19]

Historic TC season in the PAC inbound thanks to El Niño, and these are just going to keep the WWBs in full swing….

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Subsurface is looking like we're going to pop a +9c soon on TAO/Triton. It's warming currently as the Kelvin wave moves east. That would put us ahead of 1997. 

[snowman19]

50 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Subsurface is looking like we're going to pop a +9c soon on TAO/Triton. It's warming currently as the Kelvin wave moves east. That would put us ahead of 1997. 

I think we see a completely overpowering, historic strength STJ this fall and winter. Raging and very likely stronger than the STJ we saw back in 1997-98….Reasoning: 

1) ++PMM

2) +QBO @EasternLI (Research paper)

3) Record-breaking super El Niño 

The QBO actually flipped negative by the 1997-98 winter, which I believe resulted in the -NAO/-AO blocking bouts. I believe it also helped to tame the STJ a bit, which was obviously on roids anyway, but could have been worse with a +QBO

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Be careful connecting QBO to STJ, as the QBO is a Stratosphere wind oscillation. The correlations with the troposphere run pretty low, AO-correlation being the highest. 

[Wannabehippie]

I know it is a long ways off yet, but do we have enough historical data to tell us that after a super El Nino whether or not we go to the other extreme with a super/very strong La Nina?

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just really pretty muted. If anything the orientation of precip is more La Nina like for +QBO. You are going to get some colors when it's only 64 years, random. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

There's a lot of studies connecting things. Luckily we have data to see if it's backed up or not. I do have to admit, you were right about the +PMM leading to an east-based Nino though. The limited examples said Nino 3.4 based and that has not happened over the last few months. One of those things where there weren't enough samples to make that call and you had to use logic or common sense, the +PMM/Nino 1+2 warm worked pretty well, good job

[LakePaste25]

1 hour ago, Wannabehippie said:

I know it is a long ways off yet, but do we have enough historical data to tell us that after a super El Nino whether or not we go to the other extreme with a super/very strong La Nina?

La Niña or cold neutral is likely after any super Nino because the cold waters in the W pac propagate eastward/promote trades, and a lot of the ocean heat in the tropics is released into the atmosphere. 

[EasternLI]

I think we'll see a pretty darn robust STJ, eventually. Remember there's some resistance in the pacific with the -PDO too. That's a battle royale there IMO but I think the sheer magnitude of this el nino overwhelms it. But it's going to take some time to do that. Aifs-ens would suggest we see it start to fire up a little bit towards mid Aug. Will be interesting to see if that's accurate and if it starts to ramp up more as we move towards autumn. If we see that, I'd feel more confident. 

 

As far as the QBO is concerned. That's an area of ongoing research. Which has been noticed more and more as an important factor in various areas. So it has been gaining more and more interest. Here's some newer work that also included the Pacific jet. The image below is actually a cross section of the jet in late winter. Same conclusion. El nino + WQBO is the combo for the strongest jet. ERA5 data in top row model runs in the rows underneath. 

 

QBOi El Niño–Southern Oscillation experiments: teleconnections of the QBO

https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/6/1419/2025/

 

Quote

In the subtropics, the QBO has a direct influence on the subtropical jet through its secondary circulation. Observational studies have indicated that the QBO can affect the subtropical jet variability, particularly in the Pacific sector (e.g. Garfinkel and Hartmann, 2011a, b). During QBO-W, a horseshoe-shaped zonal wind anomaly forms in the UTLS associated with an equatorward shift of the Asian-Pacific jet (APJ) (Crooks and Gray, 2005; Simpson et al., 2009) This response is evident even near the surface over East Asian (Park et al., 2022; Park and Son, 2022).

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I was just mentioning that your analog composite of <-60dm for DJFM is probably too low. I used 6 straight months of -PNA as an example. That doesn't mean I expect the PNA to be negative, just that there are competing forces right now. 

I understand all of that....and I have tried to explain to you that you are taking that composite far too literally....it's not a forecast composite....it does't even incorporate the extra tropical Pacific.  It's literally just a composite derived from solar, QBO and ENSO data, as that is how I assess the polar fields.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, EasternLI said:

I think we'll see a pretty darn robust STJ, eventually. Remember there's some resistance in the pacific with the -PDO too. That's a battle royale there IMO but I think the sheer magnitude of this el nino overwhelms it. But it's going to take some time to do that. Aifs-ens would suggest we see it start to fire up a little bit towards mid Aug. Will be interesting to see if that's accurate and if it starts to ramp up more as we move towards autumn. If we see that, I'd feel more confident. 

 

As far as the QBO is concerned. That's an area of ongoing research. Which has been noticed more and more as an important factor in various areas. So it has been gaining more and more interest. Here's some newer work that also included the Pacific jet. The image below is actually a cross section of the jet in late winter. Same conclusion. El nino + WQBO is the combo for the strongest jet. ERA5 data in top row model runs in the rows underneath. 

 

QBOi El Niño–Southern Oscillation experiments: teleconnections of the QBO

https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/6/1419/2025/

 

 

QBO is a great forecasting tool....I've been killing it the past couple years integrating the QBO with solar cycle.

[chris21]

16 hours ago, bluewave said:

1997-1998 was a great example of what happens when the STJ overpowers the pattern with too much warmth. NYC only finished with 5.5 inches of snow that season. Many lows running to the Ohio Valley and then tracking very close to the area. I made a composite of the 12 heaviest precipitation days that winter. 
 

12 heaviest precipitation storm days in NYC during DJF 1997-1998 and the storm track progression 

 

 

Interestingly, this was one of the snowiest winters on record for the Southern Appalachians. 

[snowman19]

As expected:

[bluewave]

16 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Back in May, Eric Webb argued that the ++PMM was acting as a defacto +PDO. +PMM or not, my guess is that we see a flip to a weak positive PDO by the end of fall given the historic strength and strong coupling of this El Niño

One thing is for sure, this El Niño looks more and impressively by the day, regions 3.4, 3 and 1+2 are in overdrive, as are the WWBs, subsurface, SOI and DWKWs….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be interesting to know what caused the WWBs to be so much stronger this year than in 2023-2024 and 2015-2016? We noticed the record WWBs developing back in December north of Australia.

These record WWBs are the reason that this is turning into an east based event over the last month. Nino 1+2 has pulled just ahead of 1997-1998 and 3 and 3.4 are significantly ahead of 1997-1998. Nino 4 has been declining this month.

This is going to be a really extreme case study. Since these anomalies would allow the +30 C warm pool to get further east in the ENSO regions than it ever has been before.

 

[George001]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

It would be interesting to know what caused the WWBs to be so much stronger this year than in 2023-2024 and 2015-2016? We noticed the record WWBs developing back in December north of Australia.

These record WWBs are the reason that this is turning into an east based event over the last month. Nino 1+2 has pulled just ahead of 1997-1998 and 3 and 3.4 are significantly ahead of 1997-1998. Nino 4 has been declining this month.

This is going to be a really extreme case study. Since these anomalies would allow the +30 C warm pool to get further east in the ENSO regions than it ever has been before.

 

If the model projections are correct this event will be the strongest in history by a wide margin. In my opinion this could actually make analog forecasting tougher, because even other super Ninos like 2015-2016, 1997-1998, 1982-1983 have a decent chance ending up a full 1C weaker than this event. I’d still use those years because they are the closest matches we have to this one, but this truly is a once in a lifetime Godzilla El Niño. I’m thinking we see almost a more extreme version of those super Nino years (eg even stronger STJ than 97-98), but I’m really not sure what the implications are. What are your thoughts? As a northern skier I’m not too happy about this developing Godzilla nino, but at the same time I’ve always been drawn to extreme weather events, so it will be interesting to keep following this and see how things play out regardless. This one has a good what 5 months left of strengthening and is already above 2C on the dallies for ENSO 3.4, 3C for ENSO 3, and 4C for ENSO 1.2, and the subsurface is much more impressive than even 97-98. So really no ambiguity here, this Nino already is a beast and will continue to break records.

[George001]

On 3/5/2026 at 9:30 PM, GaWx said:

Whew. All signs are increasingly pointing to a significant, if not strong to very strong, El Niño event. I'll have more to say in coming weeks & months, but for now I'll just say that this is increasingly likely to become a major regional-to-global climate driver in 2026-2027.

https://twitter.com/Weather_West/status/2029694752199754045?

 

 

My thoughts on this newest Euro 3.4 prog:

- They’ve generally been getting stronger the last few months.

-This run implies a super Nino peak.

-Keep in mind, however, that this is a prog of ONI, not RONI. RONI currently is ~0.5C lower. So, this implies Aug RONI to be near +2.1 -0.5 = +1.6.

-Keep in mind that the Euro has a warm bias in 3.4 of several tenths. So, a bc prog of RONI would very likely be only in the low +1s range in Sept.

Wow this was back in March, well done.  Interestingly the spring predictability barrier went the other way in that guidance was underestimating the strength of the El Niño. Imo this was a very well predicted event, it tipped its hand early and guidance already was flagging a potential super Nino in late winter/early spring. The biggest events really do tip their hand early, I recall the subsurface began warming as early as February. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight that was a sign of things to come.

[GaWx]

 Going back to when I started following the CFSv2 AAM forecasts in Nov of 2023, the latest release (7/28/26 0Z) easily has THE strongest CFSv2 ensemble forecasted mean AAM of any I’ve ever seen/saved. The mean exceeds +2.5 by day 8 (Aug 5th), +3.0 by day 16 (Aug 13th), and +3.5 by day 20 (Aug 17th)! Although days 1-7 are a little shy of the strongest for week one of the forecast, all of the days day 8 to the end (day 32) are THE earliest periods in the forecast to get that strong of those that I’ve saved. Granted these have a notable +AAM bias starting ~day 15 that rises further with time as I’ve noted a number of times. But regardless, this one is very strong by day 8, which is early enough to be fairly reliable, and this run is as I said the strongest of any run that I’ve seen as a whole, which bodes well for the chance for a very strong +AAM dominating at least through the 1st 1/2 of August:

[Keith Central PA]

17 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

La Niña or cold neutral is likely after any super Nino because the cold waters in the W pac propagate eastward/promote trades, and a lot of the ocean heat in the tropics is released into the atmosphere. 

Most Super Nino's lead to La Nina's the next year..66,73,83,98 and 2016..looks like this one will be no exception.