2026-2027 Strong/Super El Nino

[michsnowfreak]

23 minutes ago, MarcmmKU said:

For the interior northeast strong nino is almost always bad news. Coast can get a good fraction of their seasonal totals from 1 KU type storm, which are more likely to occur in traditional niños.

Same here in the Great Lakes- strong ninos usually are bad news. But its all relative. Winters in the Lakes and interior northeast are much harsher than the coast. So winter is more often characterized as a whole versus the coast where one huge storm (or lackthereof) often makes or breaks the winter. So basically, I already know im going to have winter, its just highly likely I'll get less of it than usual. Whereas those along coast from NYC south to the midatlantic wont be surprised in April 2027 if they've just seen a 5" winter with no storms or a 35" winter thanks to a massive storm.  

[MarcmmKU]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Same here in the Great Lakes- strong ninos usually are bad news. But its all relative. Winters in the Lakes and interior northeast are much harsher than the coast. So winter is more often characterized as a whole versus the coast where one huge storm (or lackthereof) often makes or breaks the winter. So basically, I already know im going to have winter, its just highly likely I'll get less of it than usual. Whereas those along coast from NYC south to the midatlantic wont be surprised in April 2027 if they've just seen a 5" winter with no storms or a 35" winter thanks to a massive storm.  

Totally agree. I'm an avid skier and strong ninos make my gut sink. I am praying we don't see a repeat of 2015-2016 in Vermont. Would be a disaster.

[MarcmmKU]

Food for thought is that this nino isn't really coupling well to real time observations in South America. A typical nino response down there is for lots and lots of precip in the central andes in Chile. So far bone dry and anomalously warm for may there, especially in a burgeoning strong nino.

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

“Southern Oscillation Index is the most negative it has been with the current #ElNiño event. The subsurface warmth will continue to surface taking the SOI even more negative in time. This is the ocean/atmospheric coupling that is necessary. This is why it was important to recognize that El Niño impacts (not equal or the same everywhere) were going to occur much sooner than the "fall/winter narrative"

[bluewave]

11 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Looks like the Euro failed on this warm forecast. 

Most of the guidance missed the record 100° heat last week from the long range guidance earlier in the month. Models don’t do very well with extremes beyond the week one and week two forecast periods.

My guess is that the guidance beyond 15 days just reverts to whatever ENSO climo applies to the situation. In this case it was the usually cooler May climo it was forecasting to continue.

So it missed the strong MJO 4-6 pulse which is very warm in the East. This was also why the Euro and other seasonal models missed the warmth in the East for the 2023-2024 super El Niño. They had the stock El Niño composite with a deep trough in the East.

Instead we got the record MJO 4-6 pulse with the more Niña-like January 2024 even with the recent +2.1 ONI in Nino 3.4. So the long range model forecasts were reverting to the typical El Niño 500mb composite. 

Something similar happened in December 2015 with the long range model forecasts missing the record warmth in the East due to the record MJO 5. 

So long range models like to forecast just for whatever the ENSO is and they can’t resolve the MJO activity in the IO to WPAC. The record warm pool there has been resulting in more frequent and stronger MJO 4-7 activity than the old days when the SSTs were significantly cooler there. 
 

 

[GaWx]

The latest weekly BoM, which just extended to Nov for the first time, is forecasting a +2.9C RONI in SON. The record back to 1950 is +2.5C (1982). However, caution on the ultimate strength is advised due to warm bias as it’s been significantly too warm in April and May:

 

[GaWx]

More on the BoM warm bias: We remember how bad it was in 2023. But also: only 2 weeks ago, it had ~+1.15C for May (see image below) vs the latest’s only ~+0.55C in the image I posted in the previous post! It’s been doing this for 2 months and that’s the kind of thing it kept doing in 2023. We’re still likely headed for a super-Nino, but very likely not as warm as the RONI based ~+3.0C 3 month average super-super Nino the BoM is showing. It could easily be 0.5C too warm based on April/May and based on it being ~0.75C too warm based on forecasts from around this point in 2023:

[snowman19]

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Good run of -SOI.. we could make a run at most negative 2-month period (Apr-May '26) since 2016

25 May 2026	1011.06	1012.85	-25.41	-12.61	-3.54
24 May 2026	1010.19	1012.80	-31.69	-12.71	-3.18
23 May 2026	1011.70	1012.55	-18.21	-12.02	-2.76
22 May 2026	1012.15	1013.20	-19.74	-11.50	-2.49
21 May 2026	1010.85	1013.05	-28.55

[snowman19]

1 hour ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Good run of -SOI.. we could make a run at most negative 2-month period (Apr-May) since 2016

25 May 2026	1011.06	1012.85	-25.41	-12.61	-3.54
24 May 2026	1010.19	1012.80	-31.69	-12.71	-3.18
23 May 2026	1011.70	1012.55	-18.21	-12.02	-2.76
22 May 2026	1012.15	1013.20	-19.74	-11.50	-2.49
21 May 2026	1010.85	1013.05	-28.55

Massive +AAM spike coming and an El Nino standing wave is developing. It’s absolutely coupling (ocean-atmosphere) and coupling strongly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Per Paul Roundy we are about to pull ahead of 1997

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just not really seeing the corresponding pressure patterns in the North and South Pacific so far, in the mid latitudes. 

1997 and 1982: notice how -SLP stretched in the Hadley Cell from 180E to 360E

[snowman19]

5 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Just not really seeing the corresponding pressure patterns in the North and South Pacific so far, in the mid latitudes. 

1997 and 1982: notice how -SLP stretched in the Hadley Cell from 180E to 360E

How do you explain the +AAM, -SOI, convective standing wave, WWBs/westerlies, raging STJ? Those are all blatant Nino atmospheric coupling responses

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Why do you think the PNA and Southern Hemisphere High pressure is not responding so far? The same thing happened in 23-24. There's definitely an El Nino building in many aspects, but it's not propagating to the northern and southern latitudes as much as past examples, thus far, not a global dominating event.  The +AAM should produce more of a northern latitude favorable H5 pattern, let's see what happens there in the next few weeks.