2026-2027 Strong/Super El Nino

[LakePaste25]

beware of using the MEI. During Super Nino events, it tends to be a weenie index and is biased towards central pacific events. RONI vs. ONI are the bread and butter for this IMO.

[snowman19]

Strong +IOD still projected to form this summer. With the expected major WWB later this month and TC activity in the PAC expected to go into overdrive soon, there is literally nothing to keep this Nino from exploding

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

Strong +IOD still projected to form this summer. With the expected major WWB later this month and TC activity in the PAC expected to go into overdrive soon, there is literally nothing to keep this Nino from exploding

 

 

 

 

 

 They’re not mentioning that the Euro has had a warm bias though it’s lowest for an actual Nino (few ticks on average with a couple almost perfect). May run has almost never verified too cool. They’re probably not aware of this bias. You won’t be less you study the verifications going back aways like I did. Of course even a warm bias doesn’t mean it will definitely verify colder.

[snowman19]

 They’re not mentioning that the Euro has had a warm bias though it’s lowest for an actual Nino (few ticks on average with a couple almost perfect). May run has almost never verified too cool. They’re probably not aware of this bias. You won’t be less you study the verifications going back aways like I did. Of course even a warm bias doesn’t mean it will definitely verify colder.

^ “Worth noting that while the ECMWF has had a high bias in some ENSO forecasts in past springs, so far the forecasts from earlier this spring are verifying quite nicely with the rapid evolution towards +ENSO. In past bust cases (like 2017 and 2022), the warm bias was already evident by May. That doesn't appear to be the case this time around. Doesn't mean the model is perfect, but there's also no evidence of a major bust this time around.”

[roardog]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

 

 

Strong +IOD still projected to form this summer. With the expected major WWB later this month and TC activity in the PAC expected to go into overdrive soon, there is literally nothing to keep this Nino from exploding

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah. I’m not sure it’s showing a +PDO like he says. 

[so_whats_happening]

7 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

beware of using the MEI. During Super Nino events, it tends to be a weenie index and is biased towards central pacific events. RONI vs. ONI are the bread and butter for this IMO.

Im sorry but that is just not true, look at 97/98 as the example right on the money. There is a key thing within the variables it is picking up on that is causing it to be lower versus ONI/RONI. This seemed to have switched up around 09/10 season onward. In fact you could even argue it was pretty darn close for the 15/16 super Nino.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

MEI vs Nino 3.4

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

You know it’s going to be a big event when they have to adjust the scale higher.

 

 

[LakePaste25]

8 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Im sorry but that is just not true, look at 97/98 as the example right on the money. There is a key thing within the variables it is picking up on that is causing it to be lower versus ONI/RONI. This seemed to have switched up around 09/10 season onward. In fact you could even argue it was pretty darn close for the 15/16 super Nino.

Your chart actually shows the flaws of MEI quite well. It’s only looking for one type/configuration of Nino. You can see how it significantly lagged the 2023-2024 Nino because of this. It may very well be true that the MEI will rate higher this time due to the +PMM, but you still have the -PDO working against it.

[snowman19]

[so_whats_happening]

2 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

Your chart actually shows the flaws of MEI quite well. It’s only looking for one type/configuration of Nino. You can see how it significantly lagged the 2023-2024 Nino because of this. It may very well be true that the MEI will rate higher this time due to the +PMM, but you still have the -PDO working against it.

This is not my chart it is through PSL and their data. We can go back and forth till our faces turn blue but with it being a multivariate index it just shows the issues of not having everything align within an ENSO state. Take for instance the 22/23 ENSO state, RONI and ONI were -1.3 and -1 at peak respectively but showed the MEI for that ENSO event categorized strong to borderline super Nina. So was it right in depicting that the atmospheric/oceanic pattern was more La Nina than what was being represented by ONI/RONI? I think it is important to look at all aspects and not lock ourselves into one index or train of thought. As we see Bluewave throwing his theories on how things are progressing globally they may be wrong or right but it is still taken into consideration. 

There will be flaws with every index we have as nothing is concrete but it is more so interesting to see where the index is seeing these issues arise in the different states. We quickly jump on the RONI bandwagon to depict what will happen without knowing the flaws in this index but nitpick others... that just doesn't seem right.

[George001]

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

You know it’s going to be a big event when they have to adjust the scale higher.

 

 

Yep it’s coming. This is clearly an early developing El Niño with extreme subsurface heat, I am fully on board with the super Nino idea. Normally I lean against an extreme event until proven otherwise, but like you said them having to adjust the scales…. Have to wonder if the more aggressive normally warm biased guidance has the right idea this time (eg European). 

[snowman19]

[GaWx]

 Well, well, well…if it isn’t the GFS up to its old tricks again. The 18Z GFS literally gives Tahiti on 5/13 a record low May SLP due to a nearby tiny surface low that gets as low as 1002 mb, highly unusual for May as it’s ~12 mb/0.36” BN. This results in ~1004.5 mb Tahiti pressure on 5/13. How low is this vs May history back to 1992? Well, the record low is 1004.7 (5/10/2002, during another incoming Nino). Second lowest? 1006.1 (5/31/1997, another incoming El Niño). Other very low SLPs there in May were also during incoming El Niño periods: 1007.5 on 5/9/2015 and 1007.8 on 5/19/2009.

 Will the record low May Tahiti SLP verify? Very highly doubtful considering that only the 18Z GFS had it that low with a tiny low almost right on top of Tahiti whereas other models had no low:

18Z GFS: 1002 low very near Tahiti

 

 But other recent GFS runs have also had a tiny low nearby though not as close. The brand new 0Z has the low but it’s not as close nor as strong (1005 instead of 1002). So, its lowest 24 hour averaged Tahiti pressure is only down to 1009 mb (on 5/12).

 I thought it was a good idea to post this because this could cause a couple of very strong -SOIs 5/12-13. Even just down to 1009 at Tahiti like the 0Z GFS has would mean a -35ish 5/12 SOI with near avg Darwin SLPs.

 This reminds me to mention that while Tahiti SLPs have been BN to MBN for most of the last 30 days (common with incoming Nino), there still have been no high pressures at Darwin, which have largely been NN. This is near the opposite of how April of 1997 went. It had 17 days of Darwin SLP of 1012+ vs only one day of that in April of 2026! There are few, if any, 1012+ in sight as of now other than possibly today, which may end up just above 1012 at Darwin.

[snowman19]

[Stormchaserchuck1]

20 hours ago, bluewave said:

You know it’s going to be a big event when they have to adjust the scale higher.

+9F was kind of a weak scale anyway

[snowman19]

@Bluewave @donsutherland1 This is going to cause another massive WWB/DWKW and TC’s. It’s also going to enhance the already strong ocean-atmosphere coupling/Bjerknes feedback. IMO this El Niño surpasses 1972, 1982, 1997 and 2015 both in RONI and traditional ONI….
 

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, George001 said:

Yep it’s coming. This is clearly an early developing El Niño with extreme subsurface heat, I am fully on board with the super Nino idea. Normally I lean against an extreme event until proven otherwise, but like you said them having to adjust the scales…. Have to wonder if the more aggressive normally warm biased guidance has the right idea this time (eg European). 

The 365 day running mean never really went into La Niña in Nino 1+2 following the +2.1 ONI event in 2023-2024. Remember we were talking about the anomalous WWBs and warming there last winter during the La Niña which had the record +PNA for a La Niña which was more Nino-like.

Seems like the unusual WWBs in EPAC during March 2023 with the rapid warming may be part of a different type of ENSO cycle than we have seen before. So this allowed only 3 years to go by before the El Niño emerged again on track for the shortest return period between two consecutive 2.1 or greater ONI events. We also had the record warming in early 2023 ahead of the usual El Niño lag which wasn’t present. 

I know most here are focused on next winter. But we don’t have any analogs for such big global temperature jumps only 3 years apart. It’s a big unknown how the details will unfold in regard to weather extremes. Since 2015-2016 happened 18 years after the last big rise in 1997-1998. The record increase in 2023-2024 was only an 8 year gap. Now we are talking only 3 years. 
 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

11 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Remember we were talking about the anomalous WWBs and warming there last winter during the La Niña which had the record +PNA for a La Niña which was more Nino-like.

For 1 month. December, Feb, March, and April were all -PNA

Quote

I know most here are focused on next winter. But we don’t have any analogs for such big global temperature jumps only 3 years apart. It’s a big unknown how the details will unfold in regard to weather extremes. Since 2015-2016 happened 18 years after the last big rise in 1997-1998. The record increase in 2023-2024 was only an 8 year gap. Now we are talking only 3 years. 

You believe global warming is a main driver of dominant patterns? I think we have more of a background -ENSO/-PDO state so it may not be like some of the classic Strong Nino's but I don't see the relevance in "new global temperature 3 years apart" aside from general warming. 

[bluewave]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

For 1 month. December, Feb, March, and April were all -PNA

You believe global warming is a main driver of dominant patterns? I think we have more of a background -ENSO/-PDO state so it may not be like some of the classic Strong Nino's but I don't see the relevance in "new global temperature 3 years apart" aside from general warming. 

There was a recent paper released on this topic calling it the PCC. But we will probably need the data for this next event included to help develop the new idea. Remember, the climate models missed the sudden rise in temperatures in the spring of 2023. So it’s possible that the current climate modeling technology is developing too slowly to capture the faster changes that have been occurring. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52731-6

Much recent work focused on whether equatorial Pacific cooling over past decades is driven by anthropogenic effects or arises from internally-generated climate variability, like the IPO. A definitive anthropogenic link to the recent trends would allow us to reliably predict a cooler tropical Pacific. As the tropical Pacific is known to be a climatic pacemaker, for (at least) the near-future this would mitigate global warming via ocean heat uptake and low-level cloud feedbacks. Instead, if the cyclic IPO dominates the recent cooling, we may expect a strong warming when it reverses. In support of the first possibility, we have identified an emerging climate change signal in the tropical Pacific across different observational datasets and we call it the PCC. The PCC has distinctive ocean-atmosphere dynamics that differ from those associated with the IPO. We further demonstrate that the recent trends during the satellite era, which have been the focus of significant attention, result from a combination of IPO and PCC. The emerging PCC SST trend pattern features a narrow band of cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific and warming elsewhere. This SST change is linked to thermocline shoaling/SSH decreases in the central-to-eastern Pacific and dipole-like changes in zonal surface wind stress. In contrast, the recurrent IPO-driven SST trend pattern is characterized by a meridionally broader cooling in the eastern Pacific, zonal dipole-like thermocline/SSH changes and an overall strengthening of tropical Pacific zonal wind stress. We have shown that these distinct ocean circulation changes are a response to different wind stress patterns. These oceanic responses account for surface cooling in the eastern Pacific, with the thermocline shoaling playing a dominant role in the PCC cooling and enhanced zonal advective cooling mainly driving the IPO-related cooling.

While basic geophysical fluid dynamics proved sufficient to attribute the observed oceanic changes to surface wind stress, we have not addressed the origins of the wind stress patterns associated with the PCC and the IPO. New research is needed to elucidate the wind changes, but our leading hypothesis is as follows. In response to GHG forcings^39,40 temperature change in the upper troposphere are stronger than at the surface (Fig. S4), increasing atmospheric static stability. Consequently, the initial SST and surface wind response to rising GHGs might not be amplified as efficiently via Bjerknes feedback as is that for the internal modes on interannual to decadal timescales. Given the differences in thermocline and ocean current patterns associated with the PCC and the IPO, the coupled feedbacks related to ocean dynamics are also expected to differ, potentially contributing to distinct climate pattern formations for decadal variability and climate change. Additionally, climate variations outside of the tropical Pacific may influence the tropical Pacific trade winds^{26,27,41,42,43,44}. Further, it has been argued that pronounced decadal-to-multidecadal SST variability in the Atlantic Ocean is also dominated by the response to the same external forcing that the tropical Pacific encounters⁴⁵. Perhaps the co-occurrence of these long-term trends in different regions is not simply a direct response to rising GHGs but is influenced by inter-basin interactions. More work is needed to disentangle causal relationships among the long-term changes in different basins^46,47.

Throughout this paper we have taken for granted the widespread assumption that the IPO is an internal mode of the climate system. However, while we worked to distinguish between the recurrent IPO-related decadal variability and the emerging PCC signal, we are open to the possibility that these two may have become coupled together by anthropogenic forcing. They have much in common: shoaling of the thermocline in the east, enhanced upwelling somewhere in the central-to-eastern equatorial Pacific and an enhanced zonal SST gradient across the equatorial Pacific. It seems reasonable to postulate that if the response to radiative forcing is the emerging PCC pattern seen here, then it could initiate coupled ocean-atmosphere feedbacks that favor a negative IPO state that also has an enhanced SST gradient²⁴. This might explain why the most recent IPO swing has been extreme and robust (Fig. S1b). If so, this suggests that in nature forcing is projecting onto natural modes of variability, while it is not clear whether climate models can reproduce this behavior. A new perspective on how internal variability interacts with the climate change signal will be needed in future studies.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

I know most here are focused on next winter. But we don’t have any analogs for such big global temperature jumps only 3 years apart. It’s a big unknown how the details will unfold in regard to weather extremes. Since 2015-2016 happened 18 years after the last big rise in 1997-1998. The record increase in 2023-2024 was only an 8 year gap. Now we are talking only 3 years. 

91-92 would have probably had a big global temperature jump if not for Pinatubo. It was the 3rd robust el nino in 10 years, and coming off the heels of a temperature jump from the 86-88 el nino.

But my guess is that if Pinatubo never happens, 97-98 still has a temperature jump, but not as drastic. 97-98 not only had the super el nino, but the exiting of a cooling period from a major volcano to enhance its temperature jump.

[snowman19]

The NMME joins the EURO, BOM, CFS

[csnavywx]

6 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

91-92 would have probably had a big global temperature jump if not for Pinatubo. It was the 3rd robust el nino in 10 years, and coming off the heels of a temperature jump from the 86-88 el nino.

But my guess is that if Pinatubo never happens, 97-98 still has a temperature jump, but not as drastic. 97-98 not only had the super el nino, but the exiting of a cooling period from a major volcano to enhance its temperature jump.

It's a nice theory, but there's reason to believe cooling caused by tropical volcanic eruptions actually help weaken trades over the WPac:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171003111101.htm

So it's debatable whether that Nino even happens in the first place, or if it does, to that degree.

[csnavywx]

On 3/23/2026 at 9:39 AM, csnavywx said:

Now that we officially moved to RONI, the funniest possible outcome is a Nino that smashes through 2.0 on RONI anyways.

Still early but hard not to like all of the off-center WWBs pumping warm water volume towards the equator. It's got the potential, especially given how early it got started.

Given how the following month went in pumping all of that WWV eastward and the sheer amount of momentum transfer into the thermocline, I will make the following statement:

Never short sell synoptically obvious events.

[snowman19]

On 5/4/2026 at 10:42 AM, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

April PDO -1.48 (actually lower than March's -1.43 PDO). This is a huge surprise, especially if we're heading towards a super el nino.
1972 (-1.70), 2009 (-2.23), and 2023 (-3.08) are the only strong/super el ninos that had a lower PDO in April. 
1972 and 2023, of course, stayed negative, while 2009 went towards a neutral PDO.

Yep. 1972 was a good example of a -PDO super El Niño. The -PDO is going to have no limiting effect on this developing super El Niño thanks to the extreme ++PMM that’s in place. In fact, it’s not only helping to kill the trades, enhancing the warming, it’s also working to support the development of an east-based/EP event, as per the research I’ve already shared in this thread a couple of pages ago, explaining how a +PMM favors east-based/EP El Niños

 

 

 

 

[michsnowfreak]

10 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

For 1 month. December, Feb, March, and April were all -PNA

You believe global warming is a main driver of dominant patterns? I think we have more of a background -ENSO/-PDO state so it may not be like some of the classic Strong Nino's but I don't see the relevance in "new global temperature 3 years apart" aside from general warming. 

Thats always "relevant" in his posts lol.

Just like the last 2 cold winters we had, global temps wont matter to most next winter, nor will how how strong the nino is. The sensible weather in anyones location is what most of us really care about. So as we get thru summer and towards Fall, it will be interesting to see what you, 40/70 and others who lack a strong bias and have a forecasting background start to think as the winter approaches. 

[jaxjagman]

11 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The NMME joins the EURO, BOM, CFS
 

Typically you see the Atmospheric River get going in a strong NINO on the west coast,so you dont see these SST'S out west.Like the NMME'S shows,Its the same into the GOM more or less downstream

Out into the Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan  has alot  has to do with The Siberian blocking,so there's no guarantee even that that region will be warm or cold in a strong NINO.

 

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4416