2026-2027 Strong El Nino

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It may be that the SSW in late November set off a chain of events that allowed the Northern Stream to weaken enough by late February for the KU BM event.

This almost reminds me of a dance between the Northern Stream and Southern Stream. When the NS becomes too overpowering it’s like the it keeps stepping on the feet of the STJ suppressing it too much.

When the Northern Stream backs off just enough and allows the STJ to lead, then it opens the door for great Benchmark KU events like in late February. 

 

All ribbing aside, I love the fact that you think outside of the box...I think that is necessary because if the "inner box" conceptualizations were working, we would have gleaned a modicum of skill with the seasonal forecasting arena.

[FPizz]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I haven't see any literature supporting a 2-3 month lag.

23 minutes ago, bluewave said:

You probably won’t find much literature related to the Northern Stream intensity across the NP following SSWs since it’s a bit of a niche topic.

Plus this stronger Northern Stream only emerged since 2018-2019 and might be to short of an interval to gain much interest for research. 
 

 

I'm going to make up stuff too and then say you wont find much (probably because its bunk).

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, FPizz said:

I'm going to make up stuff too and then say you wont find much (probably because its bunk).

Well, everything was initially "bunk", until it wasn't. I have no issue with it, as long the presenter is transparent about it. He admitted it's a pioneer concept, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's incorrect.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I have learned the hard way to not mock alternative viewpoints. I know I teased Chuck about the -PDO following strong El Nino push back, but that was just because the data is supportive of it right now. He could ultimately be right, but we will need to confirm that posthumously...hence my sarcasm.

[bluewave]

34 minutes ago, FPizz said:

I'm going to make up stuff too and then say you wont find much (probably because it’s bunk).

You still haven’t apologized for your fake criticism of my guess that NYC, LGA, and JFK would struggle to reach 50” of snow which I made several years back.

[MarcmmKU]

11 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Hmm while im not as familiar with east coast climate, that seems pretty much impossible to get a total shutout in new England. Shitty compard to climo, yes, but shutout or even close, never. Im in SE Michigan, i turn 43 next week and the least snowy winter Detroit has recorded during my lifetime was 23.4" in 1997-98. 2023-24 was right there at 23.5". Go north in Michigan and snow towns were calling 2023-24 with its 60, 80, 100" a "non-winter". So all of this worry about the worst case scenarios is STILL relative to one's climo. 

Even IF its a strong or super nino, many other factors come into play too. So I can say with 100% confidence that any area north of NYC will not be shutout.

Yeah "shutout" is relative. If Stowe VT gets, say 80" in a winter, that's considered a shutout for them. I would consider 2015-2016 basically a shutout for the new england.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

I think when you look at December 2015 alone, it was an anomalous configuration for a super Nino. The lack of a strong southern stream in the SE US allowed storms to cut, so you had both this bad combo of a pac jet extension to the west coast combined with a Nina-like SE ridge configuration. Compare this to December 1997 where you have a strong southern stream extending all the way across the southern US, which is the more canonical Nino outcome. Just giving 1 example of how we can do better than 15-16. 

 

December 2015 was unique since it was the first time we had a strong MJO 5 with a super El Niño due to the record WPAC warm pool up until that time for such a strong El Niño. 

So those two forces combining created the historic +13 December which was warmer than many Novembers were around NYC.

Luckily, a great blocking pattern emerged leading to the historic snow event around NYC in late January. Plus NYC had their first below 0° reading since 1994 on Valentine’s Day.

We had continuation of this much stronger WPAC warm pool theme for the 2023-2024 event. But more spread out winter warmth across the season than one month being some much warmer than the others like in 2015-2016.

No great blocking pattern in 2023-2024 so the seasonal snowfall was a disappointment for many. 

 https://phys.org/news/2021-04-distinctive-mjo-super-el-nino.html#:~:text=Observations show that the western,MJO-related convection was enhanced.

Observations show that the western Pacific MJO activity was strongly suppressed during the peak phase of the 1982/83 and 1997/98 super El Niño events. However, during the crest of the 2015/16 super El Niño event, western Pacific MJO-related convection was enhanced.

When compared to the previous super El Niño events, the warm SST anomaly, or change from average, of the 2015/16 El Niño was located more westward than during the other two extreme seasons. Additionally, no significant cold SST anomaly was detected in the western Pacific. Accordingly, the moisture and air temperature tended to increase in the central-western Pacific during the winter of 2015/16 unlike the previous super El Niño events.