2026-2027 Record-breaking El Nino

[michsnowfreak]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

People think Super Nino means warm too automatically. The NAO/AO play a role, and if you map N. Pacific 500mb anomalies historically with Super Nino's you will see a N. Pacific trough placement in the cold season where it is usually doesn't extend a 2nd wave ridge so far east. 

Some assume theres some linear connection with the strength of nino and how warm it will be and simply ignore everything else. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Some assume theres some linear connection with the strength of nino and how warm it will be and simply ignore everything else. 

Yeah, the real connection is with global temperatures. A huge trough over the North Pacific is necessarily Winter disaster for the east coast. 

[GaWx]

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 

 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.

 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

[bluewave]

6 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Chris, my point is that the summer of 1991 didn’t follow the pattern of the mean of the other 5 as it was net warmer than normal in the E 1/2 of the Conus vs it being colder than normal for the other 5 years averaged out:

 

 

The summer of 1991 only had a weak El Niño in progress as opposed the strongest on record this summer. July did have some similarity to the composite.

But sometimes weaker El Niño summers in the past had more heat than the stronger developing ones. This was the case in 2002 also.

So it has been common in the past for weaker El Niños to have less influence in the midlatitudes than during developing super El Niños like 2023, 2015, 1997, 1982, and 1972 which had the more typical cooler summers. 

The big story this summer is how out of phase the mid-latitudes and tropics are for the magnitude of this event.

 

 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The summer of 1991 only had a weak El Niño in progress as opposed the strongest on record this summer. July did have some similarity to the composite.

But sometimes weaker El Niño summers in the past had more heat than the stronger developing ones. This was the case in 2002 also.

So it has been common in the past for weaker El Niños to have less influence in the midlatitudes than during developing super El Niños like 2023, 2015, 1997, 1982, and 1972 which had the more typical cooler summers. 

The big story this summer is how out of phase the mid-latitudes and tropics are for the magnitude of this event.

 

 

 Here’s another unusual one: the summer of ‘87 was similarly hot in the E 1/2 of the U.S. overall and El Niño wasn’t just weak as it was moderate to strong that summer:

[GaWx]

OHC is at a new high on this graph:

[bluewave]

21 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Here’s another unusual one: the summer of ‘87 was similarly hot in the E 1/2 of the U.S. overall and El Niño wasn’t just weak as it was moderate to strong that summer:

That was still a cooler summer by recent standards. 

 

June-August 1987

71.77°F

-0.54°F

 

[GaWx]

6 minutes ago, bluewave said:

That was still a cooler summer by recent standards. 

 

 

June-August 1987

71.77°F

-0.54°F

 

But the summer of 1987 was hot based on the climo centered on the period it was within as I posted. Why are you comparing it to more recent (hotter) climo that makes it not seem as hot? Also, the hottest was in the E 1/2 of the US regardless of what climo you use.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Yeah, I thought we were talking about ENSO. 1987 is a really good find, as that was one of the most El Nino Summers on record, JJA ONI was +1.5c, all time record for JJA is +1.6c

[bluewave]

24 minutes ago, GaWx said:

But the summer of 1987 was hot based on the climo centered on the period it was within as I posted. Why are you comparing it to more recent (hotter) climo that makes it not seem as hot? Also, the hottest was in the E 1/2 of the US regardless of what climo you use.

It wasn’t even a hot summer for the cooler 1980s era. The warmest 1980s summer was 1988 and the 2nd warmest 1980. This current July is close to the warmest July on record. So there really isn’t a comparison to the summer of 1987. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

+9c has popped in the subsurface on TAO/Triton for the first time of this event! It's warming pretty rapidly too, we may see a +10c in a couple of days. That's +18F, so if the water is usually 62F, it's now 80F.

[mitchnick]

31 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It wasn’t even a hot summer for the cooler 1980s era. The warmest 1980s summer was 1988 and the 2nd warmest 1980. This current July is close to the warmest July on record. So there really isn’t a comparison to the summer of 1987. 

I thought the discussion was regarding El Niño summers. What relevance does throwing La Nada or Niñas into the mix have? Subtle deflect however.

[bluewave]

11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I thought the discussion was regarding El Niño summers. What relevance does throwing La Nada or Niñas into the mix have? Subtle deflect however.

Deflect from what? 1987 had a summer pattern that was a reasonable match for El Nino expectations.This summer is completely different. 
 

 

 

[GaWx]

19 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Deflect from what? 1987 had a summer pattern that was a reasonable match for El Nino expectations.This summer is completely different. 
 

 

 

1. Why are you using 1991-2020 for climo for a 1987 summer? That diminishes the above normal H5 in the E US on your 1st map.

2. The highest height anomalies/warmest temp annomalies are in the E US, regardless. How is that El Ninoish?

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 
 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.
 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

The CANSIPS is playing catch up to the CFS and the EURO. It’s very likely not done strengthening this event even further, it was way too weak to start out with and very good call with its “Modoki bias”. I agree that it’s not done adjusting this to an east-based event either. The CFS just got even stronger with the traditional ONI and RONI. The EURO is guaranteed to get stronger as well, with its new update on 8/5

 

 

 

@LakePaste25

 

 

[EasternLI]

I would also like to see a recurving typhoon or two as @so_whats_happening  very astutely brought up. That's another thing I'm keeping my eye's on. I feel like we will, sooner or later. Unfortunately nothing much on the radar for that currently. There's only this dubious TC that forms on the heels of typhoon Dolphin. All models show this system too, this is the euro below. Some want to recurve it, some don't. If it did, I might think of it as a baby step. I'm thinking the autumn could bring better chances though. 

 

[cmillzz]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

1. Why are you using 1991-2020 for climo for a 1987 summer? That diminishes the above normal H5 in the E US on your 1st map.

2. The highest height anomalies/warmest temp annomalies are in the E US, regardless. How is that El Ninoish?

The negative height anomalies near the Gulf of Alaska, together with the core of the strongest negative height anomalies over northeastern Canada, look reasonably Nino-like to me. Summer ENSO teleconnections are much weaker and noisier than in winter, so I wouldn't expect a textbook composite. Given that, the broad pattern still seems fairly consistent with a mature El Nino.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Closing in on +4c in Nino 1+2

[EasternLI]

Let's do a comparison as things stand currently wrt SST's. Here's this year followed by the other strong/super el nino's going back to 82-83. Below is this year currently, followed by the others in reverse chronological order. Obviously, the globe is getting warmer over time. Naturally, sst's would follow suit. Is anyone disputing that fact anymore? I don't really see anyone doing that but not the point of this post. One can clearly see things warming over time. 

 

I've been floating around on these boards for a very long time now. There used to be discussions from very wise mets in the enso threads of yore on how actual sst's should be viewed and pondered. Not only the anomalies. So I'm posting the actual sst's as comparison. Looking at it this way, 97-98 and 87-88 stick out to me a little more so than the others. Again, not because of the actual readings compared to each other. Rather, the positioning of the warm pool biased east. 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 

 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.

 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

No one thought it was right with a straight Modoki in the seasonal mean.

[GaWx]

22 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No one thought it was right with a straight Modoki in the seasonal mean.

The maps I was basing my post on were from weathermodels.com and were using 1991-2020 for base climo.

 But since I posted that, the WxBell Aug 1st version came out. It uses 1981-2010 for climo. WB had the warmest anomalies centered in Nov near 180 for the April-June 1st runs and significantly further E (near 160W) for the July 1st run. WB (using 1981-2010 base) has its Aug 1st Nov warmest centered near 150W, which is C based/basinwide and not E based like weathermodels.com’s (1991-2020 base) 130W. So, the WB 1981-2010 base version also moved E, but not nearly as far as the weathermodels 1991-2020 base version, which has it all the way E to 130W (pretty E based):

WB 7/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~160W

WB 8/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~150W

 

[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, GaWx said:

The maps I was basing my post on were from weathermodels.com and were using 1991-2020 for base climo.

 But since I posted that, the WxBell Aug 1st version came out. It uses 1981-2010 for climo. WB had the warmest anomalies centered in Nov near 180 for the April-June 1st runs and significantly further E (near 160W) for the July 1st run. It has its Aug 1st Nov warmest centered near 150W, which is C based/basinwide and not E based like weathermodels.com’s 130W. So, the WB 1981-2010 base version also moved E, but not nearly as far as the weathermodels 1991-2020 base version, which has it all the way E to 130W (pretty E based):

WB 7/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~160W

WB 8/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~150W

 

It's bad enough current SSTA vary from different products/sources, now we have models prog depictions following along. No wonder there's rarely agreement on forecasts...or on this Board! Lol

[40/70 Benchmark]

38 minutes ago, GaWx said:

The maps I was basing my post on were from weathermodels.com and were using 1991-2020 for base climo.

 But since I posted that, the WxBell Aug 1st version came out. It uses 1981-2010 for climo. WB had the warmest anomalies centered in Nov near 180 for the April-June 1st runs and significantly further E (near 160W) for the July 1st run. WB (using 1981-2010 base) has its Aug 1st Nov warmest centered near 150W, which is C based/basinwide and not E based like weathermodels.com’s (1991-2020 base) 130W. So, the WB 1981-2010 base version also moved E, but not nearly as far as the weathermodels 1991-2020 base version, which has it all the way E to 130W (pretty E based):

WB 7/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~160W

WB 8/1/26 SSTa run for Nov (1981-2010 base) centered ~150W

 

I think these changes are entirely immaterial with the degree of warmth throughout ENSO.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Why does the CANSIPS have the El Nino continue to be centered so far west? That's not the way it's developing or is now. +6c in Nino 3.4 is pretty extreme. Nino 1+2 is currently twice as high as Nino 3.4. 

[so_whats_happening]

8 hours ago, GaWx said:

OHC is at a new high on this graph:

Now it will be interesting to see what happens from here. Looking back at 1997-98 we see there was a double peak for 180-100W OHC. 2015 we also saw this and 2023 again both years did have overall less OHC than 97 and this current year but both had a double peak, 1982 did not just had one continuous upward movement. My own thoughts would suggest maybe a September peak in OHC then a quick decline as we head into winter. The only problem with this is the lack of - anomalies in the WPAC subsurface we have yet to really see develop compared to other years with a similar temp profile. So as 180-100W may die out the overall 130E-80W and even just 160E-80W still stay relatively warm with those stronger negative anomalies not showing up leading to a more basin wide setup as we get to winter. Just thoughts floating around as we typically see the Nino events die west to east from an OHC stand point.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

YR    MON   130E-80W   160E-80W   180W-100W

1997    1      .54       .49        .56
1997    2      .84       .85       1.00
1997    3     1.09      1.26       1.17
1997    4     1.49      1.87       2.17
1997    5     1.38      1.82       2.01
1997    6     1.55      2.01       2.25
1997    7     1.34      1.77       1.83
1997    8     1.07      1.50       1.79
1997    9     1.25      1.85       2.38
1997   10     1.35      2.05       2.56
1997   11     1.19      1.94       2.30
1997   12      .56      1.15       1.02
1998    1     -.24       .16        .00
1998    2     -.66      -.35       -.38

It is like if 1997 and 2015 had a baby. Shame we are not getting the western edge of TAO as those buoys are being worked on.

[so_whats_happening]

On 7/30/2026 at 10:57 PM, so_whats_happening said:

Yea this one will be fascinating to watch unfold. The atmospheric pattern still resembles that of a La Nina/ -PDO mode in the northern hemisphere for sure. 

Even with the tropical activity in the WPAC this year (which is great to see) we haven't seen many recurving typhoons sinlaku was the closest to still being a typhoon while recurving. Most of the storms have still been tracking west which doesn't bode well for the PDO to flip, maybe we see that change as we get into fall.

I would like to add more context I guess, it is nice to see some actual recurves still taking place even in a weakened state of a storm the energy injection is still important. I do wonder though if this means yet again an overall weaker Aleutian low potential for winter, time will tell of course.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

4 hours ago, EasternLI said:

Looking at it this way, 97-98 and 87-88 stick out to me a little more so than the others. Again, not because of the actual readings compared to each other. Rather, the positioning of the warm pool biased east. 

Interesting to note that each of these events were immediately followed by a strong la nina (1998-2000 and 88-89).

[snowman19]

+12C subsurface anomalies are coming
 

And the WWBs just keep pushing that 30C isotherm further and further east of the dateline. Great forecast by the EURO months ago showing the record far east warm pool
 

 

[bluewave]

13 hours ago, GaWx said:

1. Why are you using 1991-2020 for climo for a 1987 summer? That diminishes the above normal H5 in the E US on your 1st map.

2. The highest height anomalies/warmest temp annomalies are in the E US, regardless. How is that El Ninoish?

2026 is near the warmest July on record in my first post using 1991-2020 climate normals at +2.5 since that is the base period Brian used. The departure would be even higher if an older base period was used.

My 2nd post uses 1971-2000 climo and even that cooler one shows that 1987 wasn’t a warm summer for the CONUs even during the 1980s. Notice the warmest summer of that decade was 1988 which came in the summer after the El Niño and not before. So this El Niño is getting off to a much warmer start than usual. 

It’s El Ninoish since it matches most of the pattern for an El Niño summer from the Pacific across to the Atlantic. Every spot isn’t going to be a 100% match. But most of the area from the Pacific to the Atlantic is a reasonable 500 mb match whatever the base period is used for an El Niño summer.

A hallmark of a developing very strong El Niño pattern during the summer is higher 500mb heights further north and lower heights underneath from the Pacific to the Atlantic. This summer the pattern is reversed which lead to all the record warmth across the CONUS.

The record ridge north of Hawaii this month is the reason that the PDO had the steep drop in July. This is not the 500 mb pattern that we have typically had during any El Niños which were on their way to super status. So this event is in a league of its own in numerous ways. 
 

 

[EasternLI]

5 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

I would like to add more context I guess, it is nice to see some actual recurves still taking place even in a weakened state of a storm the energy injection is still important. I do wonder though if this means yet again an overall weaker Aleutian low potential for winter, time will tell of course.

That is the PDO battle royale in a nutshell. As a -PDO plus +ENSO can yield a weaker Aleutian low than you would otherwise expect to see. Yet, PDO variability and transitions has links to the strength of the Aleutian low too. So it's fascinating watching a +enso of this caliber coming up against the deeply entrenched -PDO state. Since Aleutian low strength has ties to +enso strength also. Does one or the other win out? Or is it more of a blend between the two? I lean towards a record el nino taking an upper hand at some point. I feel like this event has some potential to flip us out of that long term -PDO state too or at least begin to. Who knows, but it's really interesting to watch.