2026-2027 Strong/Super El Nino

[40/70 Benchmark]

16 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

Pac jet came in stronger than expected in Feb 2024, which pushed the jet exit region well onshore over the western US. One of the few times we got true Nino forcing, we got too much of it. 

Yea, what could go wrong, went wrong that season.

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, what could go wrong, went wrong that season.

Yeah, a super El Niño can actually be warmer than expected when overlapping with Niña-like influences.

First, the westward lean to the forcing back to MJO 7 probably helped drop the Nino-ridge further south than is typical for El Niño in February.

Then the big ridge east of Japan and the strong +WPO along with the EPAC Nino forcing carved out a trough just off the West Coast leading to the -PDO.  

So the Nino trough typically in the Mid-Atlantic was suppressed out toward Bermuda.

Also note the Aleutian Low splitting with a piece over the Bering and just off the West Coast.

The one bright spot that month was the record STJ streak near DC and narrow snow band into Central NJ. But it was too narrowly focused to extend much beyond the localized geographic region.