2026-2027 Strong El Nino

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

Not a huge lag between ONI and RONI at the moment (roughly 0.3C):

 

That is what we want to see to avoid the dreaded cool-ENSO-like se ridge during the coming season IMHO.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

May usually has a pretty strong pattern correlation in El Nino

[michsnowfreak]

A bit of snow is falling tonight. This is the 5th year since 2016 to see May snow. Chuck called a cool May 2 months ago.

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

Pretty impressive for Nino 3.4 SSTs to be approaching 29C in early May. This is near the record for so early in the El Niño development. The 30C warm pool is fairly expansive near the Dateline.

 

 

[snowman19]

Pretty impressive for Nino 3.4 SSTs to be approaching 29C in early May. This is near the record for so early in the El Niño development. The 30C warm pool is fairly expansive near the Dateline.


 
 

[bluewave]

28 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

 

 

The all-time Nino 3.4 C record was 29.8C set in November 2015. It will be interesting to see the new Euro forecast in a few days. As the middle of its ensemble mean forecast was fairly close with the 2015-2016 event. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/

18NOV2015     23.8 2.0     28.0 2.9     29.8 3.0     30.3 1.7

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/151/meteorology/2015-2016-el-nino-and-beyond

The 2015/16 El Niño broke warming records in the central Pacific, represented by the NINO3.4 and NINO4 indices. At its peak in November 2015, the NINO3.4 SST anomaly reached 3.0°C, breaking the previous record of 2.8°C set in January 1983. In the NINO4 region, large positive anomalies are hard to achieve because average conditions are already warm. In 2015, the anomaly reached 1.7°C, a substantial increase of 0.4°C on the previous record, set in 2009. SST analyses become less precise going back in time, but the size of the anomalies in NINO4 and NINO3.4 means we are fairly confident that these are record values for the whole of the observational period back to 1860. By contrast, in the eastern Pacific (monitored by indices for the NINO3 and NINO1+2 regions) the El Niño remained below the level of the 1982/83 and 1997/98 events. It must be borne in mind that the anomaly records depend on the reference climate, which in this case is a 30-year climate (1981–2010).

 

[snowman19]

The all-time Nino 3.4 C record was 29.8C set in November 2015. It will be interesting to see the new Euro forecast in a few days. As the middle of its ensemble mean forecast was fairly close with the 2015-2016 event. 
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/
18NOV2015     23.8 2.0     28.0 2.9     29.8 3.0     30.3 1.7
https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/151/meteorology/2015-2016-el-nino-and-beyond
The 2015/16 El Niño broke warming records in the central Pacific, represented by the NINO3.4 and NINO4 indices. At its peak in November 2015, the NINO3.4 SST anomaly reached 3.0°C, breaking the previous record of 2.8°C set in January 1983. In the NINO4 region, large positive anomalies are hard to achieve because average conditions are already warm. In 2015, the anomaly reached 1.7°C, a substantial increase of 0.4°C on the previous record, set in 2009. SST analyses become less precise going back in time, but the size of the anomalies in NINO4 and NINO3.4 means we are fairly confident that these are record values for the whole of the observational period back to 1860. By contrast, in the eastern Pacific (monitored by indices for the NINO3 and NINO1+2 regions) the El Niño remained below the level of the 1982/83 and 1997/98 events. It must be borne in mind that the anomaly records depend on the reference climate, which in this case is a 30-year climate (1981–2010).

 

Once this record DWKW surfaces on the coast of South America, the eastern regions (1+2 and 3) are going to take off for the races. And there is nothing to attenuate it. I think it becomes very east-based over the next month. As per research, the extreme +PMM strongly supports an East Pacific/east-based El Niño. I think we part ways with 2015 in that respect soon.

[bluewave]

26 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Once this record DWKW surfaces on the coast of South America, the eastern regions (1+2 and 3) are going to take off for the races. And there is nothing to attenuate it. I think it becomes very east-based over the next month. As per research, the extreme +PMM strongly supports an East Pacific/east-based El Niño. I think we part ways with 2015 in that respect soon.

 

 

 

 

My guess is that the ultimate peak we see in the fall will probably be influenced by how much WWB follow up we get. The recent models back off a bit for early May. They now forecast the next larger one by mid to late May. Could make the difference between a peak in the 2.0 to 2.4 range vs 2.5+. 
 

New run

Old run

 

[MarcmmKU]

18 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Strong Ninos are still generally the worst-case scenario for winter here, but again, we still get winter. Ironically, the strong Nino you guys would pick out of the big guns would probably be 1982-83, and that was the worst one here. Each still has different patterns, some big storms, and often decent spells of winter....its just the mean over the whole season is subpar relative to climate. 

The east is more feast/famine. The Great Lakes always save us to an extent. Even in the worst case scenarios we get plenty of mood flake days to feel like winter.

Detroit and Boston average near identical seasonal snowfall. In the past 50 years....both places averaged 44". Yet, look at the top and bottom 5 in those 50 years at each location.

Detroit			  Boston
20.0” – 1982-83	    9.3” – 2011-12	
23.4” – 1997-98	    9.8” – 2023-24
23.5” – 2023-24	   12.4” – 2022-23
23.7” – 1999-00	   12.7” – 1979-80
24.1” – 2003-04	   14.9” – 1994-95

94.9” – 2013-14   110.6” – 2014-15
74.0” – 1981-82   107.6” – 1995-96
71.7” – 2007-08	   96.3” – 1993-94
69.1” – 2010-11	   86.6” – 2004-05
65.7” – 2008-09	   85.1” – 1977-78

 

Our variance is certainly very high.... Always makes the winter forecast a nail biter if you like snow lol

[roardog]

On 4/27/2026 at 8:32 AM, snowman19 said:

Yea, the only year with an OHC this warm, this early is 1997. And we have yet another WWB waiting in the wings for May courtesy of the MJO propagation back to the PAC and a protected parade of TC’s….
 

 The latest MJO plots don't really look like this is happening. Some of the GEFS members are actually taking into the maritime continent now.

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

The all-time Nino 3.4 C record was 29.8C set in November 2015. It will be interesting to see the new Euro forecast in a few days. As the middle of its ensemble mean forecast was fairly close with the 2015-2016 event. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/

18NOV2015     23.8 2.0     28.0 2.9     29.8 3.0     30.3 1.7

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/151/meteorology/2015-2016-el-nino-and-beyond

The 2015/16 El Niño broke warming records in the central Pacific, represented by the NINO3.4 and NINO4 indices. At its peak in November 2015, the NINO3.4 SST anomaly reached 3.0°C, breaking the previous record of 2.8°C set in January 1983. In the NINO4 region, large positive anomalies are hard to achieve because average conditions are already warm. In 2015, the anomaly reached 1.7°C, a substantial increase of 0.4°C on the previous record, set in 2009. SST analyses become less precise going back in time, but the size of the anomalies in NINO4 and NINO3.4 means we are fairly confident that these are record values for the whole of the observational period back to 1860. By contrast, in the eastern Pacific (monitored by indices for the NINO3 and NINO1+2 regions) the El Niño remained below the level of the 1982/83 and 1997/98 events. It must be borne in mind that the anomaly records depend on the reference climate, which in this case is a 30-year climate (1981–2010).

 

Thanks, Chris

 To remind all of the obvious, 2026 has the advantage of the warmest merely due to GW, which of course should be taken into account when comparing the strength of the upcoming Nino to others. How much has it warmed since 2015? 1997? 1982? Haven’t oceans warmed at least  ~0.5C since ‘82? The GW component of the tropical oceans should essentially be taken out when comparing strengths of ENSO, which is what RONI does. Even after taking this into account though, 2026 is in contention for the strongest Nino on record.

 This is also the case for OHC comparisons.

[snowman19]

 The latest MJO plots don't really look like this is happening. Some of the GEFS members are actually taking into the maritime continent now.

Incorrect

[roardog]

2 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Incorrect

 

 

 

 

Meh. We'll see. I've seen plenty of mjo forecasts for a month or more into the future fail miserably. I was talking about the next couple of weeks originally anyway.

[snowman19]

1 minute ago, roardog said:

Meh. We'll see. I've seen plenty of mjo forecasts for a month or more into the future fail miserably. I was talking about the next couple of weeks originally anyway.

This latest MJO forecast propagation we just saw was actually stellar weeks in advance. Spot on actually

[GaWx]

 We could debate the GW component of OHC when comparing to past Nino events. But regardless, the current 5 month rate of warming of 180-100W OHC is the fastest on record (2.69) back to ‘79:

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

 So, the avg. steepness of the rise in this graph since Nov is a record for a 5 mo. period:

[snowman19]

Wow….

[GaWx]

 Based on OISST, Monday’s weekly RONI equivalent for this week averaged out should be warmer than the +0.2 of last week. I’m leaning to +0.4 but +0.5 is possible. Today’s RONI equivalent is ~+0.5-+0.6: