2026-2027 Strong/Super El Nino

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

Since 1980, +QBO/El Nino (regardless of strength) Decembers are an extremely strong tendency for warmth. I believe there have been 6 +QBO/Nino Decembers in the last 46 years and every one of them were warm if I’m not mistaken

I also have 6 +QBO/Nino Decembers since 1980:

1982, 1987, 1994, 2006, 2015, 2018

I’m counting the barely positive QBOs of 1997 and 2004 as neutral QBO. Otherwise there’d be 8.

 The only one of the 6 that wasn’t warm in the E US was 2018, which was NN to slightly AN in the E US. So, it appears to be a pretty good correlation although the sample size is pretty small.

Aside: Today’s SOI was the most negative so far this year at -34.80.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Models continue building a Strong Aleutian ridge in the long range

[LakePaste25]

37 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I use it now along with the climate reanalyzer for composites

We can see why many have been noticing that despite the record developing El Niño, the sensible weather is more Niña-like. Record 100° heat a few weeks ago and the 90s reloading in a few days is probably reflecting the westward lean of the Nino forcing.

The cooler days in between are probably more of a Nino-like influence with the recent snows in the New England higher elevations.

 

I think this is manifesting as a weakened mid latitude cell via destructive interference. The westward leaning convection results in downstream mid latitude trough, which then results in subsidence downstream of the trough. Where the subsidence is occurring, it competes with where we expect a mid latitude trough from Nino influenced convection over the equator. So the end result is generally a weakened aleutian low as it must compete from subsidence caused by upstream troughing. 

The long range GEFS starts to bring these troughs closer together, more of what we’d expect in a Nino with a broad mid latitude cell extending east of the dateline.  

 

[snowman19]

Very good job by the modeling of predicting this big WWB well in advance just like they did back in April:

 

 

 

[so_whats_happening]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The current pattern is showing the competing influences. The typical June +PNA El Nino ridge is getting displaced further east than is usual near the Great Lakes. This is the position that we usually see this time of year with a La Niña or -PDO pattern.

Probably related to the El Niño forcing shifted west closer to the WPAC +30 C warm pool and the -PDO. This would be a very warm pattern in the winter like we saw in 23-24 with the Nino ridge pressing further east than usual.

If the trough can return mid month closer to the Great Lakes, then probably it would reflect the Nino forcing shifting east of the Dateline at that time. So a periodic back and forth between WPAC to Central and EPAC forcing.

 

 

Any thoughts to why we still seem to be crashing hard in Phase 7 to COD/weak 8 for MJO? We saw this in 23/24 as well.

[donsutherland1]

1 hour ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

There were allot of coastal storms and resulting erosion that winter. I was working on a research project tracking erosion at the time. Snow wise in the north east it was a lack of cold air that produced the negative result not the storm track.


.

Yes. Precipitation wasn't the problem. The region was flooded with too much warmth. It will be interesting to see how things unfold with the upcoming super El Niño.

[LakePaste25]

16 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Any thoughts to why we still seem to be crashing hard in Phase 7 to COD/weak 8 for MJO? We saw this in 23/24 as well.

The EPS in particular seems to have a westward lean on the OLR map, which would push the RMM mean into the COD. I see less of a signal of this on the GEFS.  

[LakePaste25]

 

[snowman19]

[GaWx]

Here we go folks. June 2nd was the 2nd day in a row of a steep warming in 3.4 (another 0.09) (RONI up to ~+0.7C). That makes it a two day warming total of 0.18C! It hasn’t warmed at this rate since way back in mid-April. A notable but delayed warming after the start of a long and strong -SOI period is common and was in addition to model hints why I said on Monday before this two day rise to expect after the prior 15 day pause next week’s weekly 3.4 update to be a few ticks warmer:

 

[chris21]

On 6/2/2026 at 8:29 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'll bet if we did 1997 over again, it would work out somewhat better for my area.

97-98 was a massive winter for my area in the southern Appalachians (100 inches plus) which shows the potential such an ENSO outcome could produce.

[GaWx]

 The model progs are suggesting a shot at a 1017 mb Darwin SLP on June 7th. If that occurs, it would easily become the new highest Darwin SLP that early in the year based on records back to 1992. The current record highest that early in the year is 4/22/2023’s 1016.2 mb. If it reaches 1017, it would become the earliest 1017 on record by ~15 days!

[snowman19]

[PhiEaglesfan712]

May 2026 PDO: -1.76

MAM 2026 ONI: +0.5

MAM 2026 RONI: -0.1

Eric Webb finally updated his page: https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

He considers 2025-26 to be a weak la nina, and 2024-25 to be a 'maybe weak la nina' (borderline cold neutral/weak la nina), and lowered the strength of 2011-12, 2021-22, and 2022-23 to weak la nina (had previously been considered moderate), and upgraded 1892-93 to a strong la nina.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

May 2026 PDO: -1.76

MAM 2026 ONI: +0.5

MAM 2026 RONI: -0.1

Eric Webb finally updated his page: https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

He considers 2025-26 to be a weak la nina, and 2024-25 to be a 'maybe weak la nina' (borderline cold neutral/weak la nina), and lowered the strength of 2011-12, 2021-22, and 2022-23 to weak la nina (had previously been considered moderate), and upgraded 1892-93 to a strong la nina.

My El Niño intensity composites are pretty similar to his...few differences....notably, I consider 1972 as merely strong and 2009 as moderate.

[TriPol]

16 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Models continue building a Strong Aleutian ridge in the long range

Save it for October!

[snowman19]

Latest SOI: -35.29

In other news, this El Niño has become severely east-based. There are confirmed, historic anomalies of +7.2C off the coast of Peru in region 1+2, which is a new all time record, surpassing both 1997 and 1982. And as @Gawx predicted, very rapid warming of the SSTs in region 3.4, OISST ONI: +1.2C, RONI: +0.73C. With this major WWB ongoing, it would not surprise me if we are into a high-end moderate/strong Nino (RONI/ONI) by the end of this month

[bluewave]

21 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Any thoughts to why we still seem to be crashing hard in Phase 7 to COD/weak 8 for MJO? We saw this in 23/24 as well.

MJO 7 is the bridge between the super El Niño and the WPAC warm pool. So we get an extended +30C warm pool from the IO over to MJO 7 and Nino 4. It’s even possible that the 30C warm pool could expand closer to Nino 3.4 by later in the fall. Plus the +30C warm pool associated with the record +PMM to the north of Nino 1+2.

We began to see MJO 4-6 activity for the first time with a super El Niño in December 2015. As the warm pool expanded by the 2023-2024 super El Niño into the IO, we had record MJO 3-7 activity with a super El Niño. Multiple papers have bee published on this more active MJO from the IO into the WPAC. Previous events had seen the MJO go quiet in these passes during super El Niños through the 1997-1998 event. 

They even released a paper calling it dual forcing back in 2023-2024 due to how large the warm pool had grown.  All this extended oceanic heat that was released jumped the global baseline higher than the models forecast. So getting another baseline temperature jump only 3 years later will be a first for our modern climate. 
 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Latest SOI: -35.29

In other news, this El Niño has become severely east-based. There are confirmed, historic anomalies of +7.2C off the coast of Peru in region 1+2, which is a new all time record, surpassing both 1997 and 1982. And as @Gawx predicted, very rapid warming of the SSTs in region 3.4, OISST ONI: +1.2C, RONI: +0.73C. With this major WWB ongoing, it would not surprise me if we are into a high-end moderate/strong Nino (RONI/ONI) by the end of this month

Yea, I don't even think it's worth sweating those details....usually when it gets this powerful, it's safe to just concede warmth on par with an east-based event. But there are other factors that could foster the development of a favorable stretch(es), especially later in the season.

[snowman19]

39 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I don't even think it's worth sweating those details....usually when it gets this powerful, it's safe to just concede warmth on par with an east-based event. But there are other factors that could foster the development of a favorable stretch(es), especially later in the season.

IMO, this one is a lock for a top 3 super El Niño event, possibly even surpassing the last 4 super events. I also agree with Paul Roundy and Ben Noll that it stays east-based like 1997, but like you said, the east-based structure may not end up being important 

[LakePaste25]

56 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I don't even think it's worth sweating those details....usually when it gets this powerful, it's safe to just concede warmth on par with an east-based event. But there are other factors that could foster the development of a favorable stretch(es), especially later in the season.

Yeah I don’t expect a wall to wall pac jet extension the entire season, otherwise LAX might end up underwater.

Looking at 97-98 here, there were a couple of 5-7 day wintery stretches in december, january maybe 1 week tops, and a couple more stretches in Feb and a couple more in March. Jan was the least snowiest at 9.5” while December had close to 30”. Feb/March 15-20” each. Below normal season but obviously not 0 or even top 10 lowest. 

[LakePaste25]

The issue I do have with 97-98 is a lot of these wintery stretches were so marginal with 30-35 degree days. Factor in 2-3 decades of warming and you get the idea. 

[michsnowfreak]

17 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

The issue I do have with 97-98 is a lot of these wintery stretches were so marginal with 30-35 degree days. Factor in 2-3 decades of warming and you get the idea. 

But its not apples for apples. The sensible weather will not follow the same exact script. For instance, both 2015-16 & 2023-25 had more severe cold shots than 1997-98. Indeed 1997-98 was a very murky, gray winter so the lows were insane warm even during the colder stretches. Also, 1990s winters here were warmer than both 2000s and 2010s winters. Same at Buffalo (assuming thats near you).  

[FPizz]

12 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

But its not apples for apples. The sensible weather will not follow the same exact script. For instance, both 2015-16 & 2023-25 had more severe cold shots than 1997-98. Indeed 1997-98 was a very murky, gray winter so the lows were insane warm even during the colder stretches. Also, 1990s winters here were warmer than both 2000s and 2010s winters. Same at Buffalo (assuming thats near you).  

I think he is fairly close to Erie PA.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

IMO, this one is a lock for a top 3 super El Niño event, possibly even surpassing the last 4 super events. I also agree with Paul Roundy and Ben Noll that it stays east-based like 1997, but like you said, the east-based structure may not end up being important 

Yea, it's going to be warm in the mean. The question is will we have some respites from the jet...my early hunch is that we will.

[mitchnick]

13 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, it's going to be warm in the mean. The question is will we have some respites from the jet...my early hunch is that we will.

Fwliw, Cfs2 is entertaining for February and March. December on the last run verbatim ain't so bad either for the Mid Atlantic, but dry up near you. The beauty of the Cfs2 is that it changes 4x/day, so everybody has a good run at some point of the day. Lol

Starting in December. 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-mon&region=us&pkg=z500a&runtime=2026060400&fh=6

[LakePaste25]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Fwliw, Cfs2 is entertaining for February and March. December on the last run verbatim ain't so bad either for the Mid Atlantic, but dry up near you. The beauty of the Cfs2 is that it changes 4x/day, so everybody has a good run at some point of the day. Lol

Starting in December. 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-mon&region=us&pkg=z500a&runtime=2026060400&fh=6

Those blues in the South do not necessarily equate to winter-like cold that would be supportive of snow outside of the appalachians. The blues are also there because it’s very stormy with the strong extended pacific jet feeding into the active southern stream. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Fwliw, Cfs2 is entertaining for February and March. December on the last run verbatim ain't so bad either for the Mid Atlantic, but dry up near you. The beauty of the Cfs2 is that it changes 4x/day, so everybody has a good run at some point of the day. Lol

Starting in December. 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-mon&region=us&pkg=z500a&runtime=2026060400&fh=6

I feel like we could see some patterns set up that resemble the CANSIPS output..maybe even the entire month of January or February, but not the seasonal mean.

[snowman19]

1 minute ago, LakePaste25 said:

Those blues in the South do not necessarily equate to winter-like cold that would be supportive of snow outside of the appalachians. The blues are also there because it’s very stormy with the strong extended pacific jet feeding into the active southern stream. 

Yea, that’s not cold. Solar irradiance from the roaring STJ