2026-2027 Super El Nino

[jaxjagman]

2 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Lol No chance that this is going to be another -QBO winter. In other news, consensus on a +IOD forming over the next few months

 

 

 

 

This has been what the JMA has been showing and the folllowing year generally leads back into a NINA the following winter

[jaxjagman]

6 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Agreed and Jax made the correction. But it’s too bad that the monthly updates have stopped. 

Yes,im not sure even MV does maint on his sites anymore,but i still use it,so it could be wrong for sure

[Stormchaserchuck1]

13 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Agreed and Jax made the correction. But it’s too bad that the monthly updates have stopped. 
 
 In other ENSO news, I still find it interesting that this sharp warming is occurring without a sustained or notably strong -SOI. We’ve had only short periods of strong -SOI so far and I see no long ones over the next week or so. Some negatives sure, but..

Even in 23-24 the SOI didn't go very negative... it's been following the PDO in the 2020s where it's leaning positive most of the time

Only 16 months of -SOI since July 2020.  77% +SOI during that time

Everyone was saying early in the year where we can't have a Strong Nino so close to the last Strong Nino since ENSO is at least partially about balance. Check out this RONI streak.. we are evening this out, imo

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, GaWx said:

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.

The tropical forcing tends to focus in areas where the absolute SSTs approach +30C regardless of the departures getting smaller due to climate change. This is one of the reasons that the forcing was so much further west in 2023-2024 and 2015-2016 than in 1997-1998.

But it’s possible that if the RONI remains lower relative to the ONI again like in 2023-2024, we may not get the stronger Aleutian Low development like in earlier El Niños. Same for the trough that usually sets up over the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast which was missing back in 2023-2024. 

Still too early to tell if the troughs will be weaker again like in 2023-2024 allowing more Southeast ridge development than usual. It may be that if the El Niño gets stronger than 2023-2024 in both ONI and RONI, we get more of a traditional stronger Aleutian Low and low in the Southeast.

Plus the warm pool east Japan could influence the jet development leading to weaker troughs also even if the SSTs are outside the 20N to 20S RONI range. 

Then we have the expansion of the subtropical ridges which could also come into play. Remember, we had a weak La Niña in 2025-2026 and the strongest subtropical ridge near the SW U.S. ever from November to March. So these ridges are becoming more dominant than the troughs. 

 

 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Agreed and Jax made the correction. But it’s too bad that the monthly updates have stopped. 
 
 In other ENSO news, I still find it interesting that this sharp warming is occurring without a sustained or notably strong -SOI. We’ve had only short periods of strong -SOI so far and I see no long ones over the next week or so. Some negatives sure, but..

They need to start updating the QBO.....that is going to make forecasting the polar domain more challenging in terms of finding the best analogs if they don't resume at some point this summer. There is more to it than simply east vs west.

10 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Even in 23-24 the SOI didn't go very negative... it's been following the PDO in the 2020s where it's leaning positive most of the time

Only 16 months of -SOI since July 2020.  77% +SOI during that time

Everyone was saying early in the year where we can't have a Strong Nino so close to the last Strong Nino since ENSO is at least partially about balance. Check out this RONI streak.. we are evening this out, imo

Good point. 

I was bringing that up last winter and early on in the spring as an argument against super, but it clearly doesn't matter, at this point. Definitely going at least strong.

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, jaxjagman said:

This has been what the JMA has been showing and the folllowing year generally leads back into a NINA the following winter

Still feel this will end up happening....sorry, @Stormchaserchuck1  Cool ENSO, anyway...we'll have to see about technical La Nina, but I would hedge yes.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Still feel this will end up happening....sorry, @Stormchaserchuck1  Cool ENSO, anyway...we'll have to see about technical La Nina, but I would hedge yes.

So torch east-based super followed by another round of cool enso (which always double dips) being the worst case scenario? Sounds like a warminista's dream, smh

[GaWx]

8 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

The new CFS RONI forecast update is projecting that we at least tie (+2.5C) for the strongest El Niño on the RONI index, which was the 1982-83 super El Niño (also +2.5C). 1982-83 ended up being slightly stronger than 1997-98 on the RONI. The CFS has the traditional ONI peaking higher than the RONI for this event, but not by much….
 

 Thanks, snowman. Indeed, it’s forecasting a 1982-3 redux as of now.
 
 The corresponding latest CFSv2 ONI forecast is at +3.0C, which is maintaining the recent ~0.5C difference between ONI and RONI:

[40/70 Benchmark]

42 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

The new CFS RONI forecast update is projecting that we at least tie (+2.5C) for the strongest El Niño on the RONI index, which was the 1982-83 super El Niño (also +2.5C). 1982-83 ended up being slightly stronger than 1997-98 on the RONI. The CFS has the traditional ONI peaking higher than the RONI for this event, but not by much….
 

I like that we seem to be closing the gap between RONI and ONI....I bet we see more of an Aleutian low/SE ridge response if that is the case. 82-83 had decent NE snowfall even though it was warm in the mean.

[40/70 Benchmark]

39 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So torch east-based super followed by another round of cool enso (which always double dips) being the worst case scenario? Sounds like a warminista's dream, smh

Not necessarily.

[GaWx]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I like that we seem to be closing the gap between RONI and ONI....I bet we see more of an Aleutian low/SE ridge response if that is the case. 82-83 had decent NE snowfall even though it was warm in the mean.

 But this CFS run is still showing a RONI-ONI gap of 0.5C (+2.5 vs +3.0). That narrowing is <0.1 vs the JFM gap of 0.56.

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 But this CFS run is still showing a RONI-ONI gap of 0.5C (+2.5 vs +3.0). That narrowing is <0.1 vs the JFM gap of 0.56.

We'll see what happens. I think 1982-1983 is a best case scenario assuming El Niño gets as powerful as some are suggesting. Looking back at the local climo data....winter was even better than I thought. Three storms over a foot in my area. December/January/March were slightly above normal temps and February slightly below normal. Snow pack peaked at 26" on February 11th....bit more than last year.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I expect to do a pretty deep-dive on the RONI/ONI relationship in my outlook this year because I feel that is going to be even more crucial than modoki index to be perfectly honest. I don't care if the SST pattern looks modokiish if the west Pacific is a hot tub and we can't pop an appreciable Aleutian low.

[Maestrobjwa]

31 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Not necessarily.

I have a Mid-Atl bias--ninas are no good here, so yeah, lol

[GaWx]

16 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

We'll see what happens. I think 1982-1983 is a best case scenario assuming El Niño gets as powerful as some are suggesting. Looking back at the local climo data....winter was even better than I thought. Three storms over a foot in my area. December/January/March were slightly above normal temps and February slightly below normal. Snow pack peaked at 26" on February 11th....bit more than last year.

There was a historic very heavy snowstorm in the SE US on 3/24/1983. ATL got 7.9” of very wet snow, their heaviest snowstorm since Jan of 1940. That even gave Savannah a trace of sleet! ATL also had its snowiest winter (10.3”) since 1939-40 (another El Niño by the way).

[PhiEaglesfan712]

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

There was a historic very heavy snowstorm in the SE US on 3/24/1983. ATL got 7.9” of very wet snow, their heaviest snowstorm since Jan of 1940. That even gave Savannah a trace of sleet! ATL also had its snowiest winter (10.3”) since 1939-40 (another El Niño by the way).

Also, a late widespread freeze/snow event in the Eastern US, as far south as North Carolina on April 19-22:

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

17 minutes ago, GaWx said:

There was a historic very heavy snowstorm in the SE US on 3/24/1983. ATL got 7.9” of very wet snow, their heaviest snowstorm since Jan of 1940. That even gave Savannah a trace of sleet! ATL also had its snowiest winter (10.3”) since 1939-40 (another El Niño by the way).

Yea, I figured there were some southern sliders in there because December and March had very little snowfall up here, despite not being prohibitively warm at all.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, snowman19 said:

Like 1982-83 and 1997-98, I expect this one to be east-based/EP too. I think we end up exceeding the 1982-83 RONI of +2.5C. And I do believe the traditional ONI ends up near +3.0C. Everything is screaming that this is going to be a top 3 super El Niño. As far as snowfall, that’s always the wildcard, especially with super Ninos where we saw the 1983 and 2016 monsters up the coast….

That would be good news IMHO...don't get me wrong, I'm know it will be warmer than average, but like 1982-1983, that scenario would likely entail some bonafide period(s) of winter.

[bluewave]

Pretty impressive to see the upper ocean heat anomalies this week higher than at any point during the 2023-2024 and 2015-2016 events. 
 

 

[GaWx]

On 5/2/2026 at 1:40 PM, GaWx said:

 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:

 

 

My leaning of the weekly relative 3.4 going up from +0.2 in last week’s release to +0.4 in today’s turned out to be what happened for its 4th rise in a row. Nino 1+2 cooled again (by 0.2) to +0.7. Nino 3, like Nino 3.4, rose for the 4th week in a row to +0.5. Nino 4 was unchanged at +0.5. So far, it’s not behaving as if it is headed to strongly E based this autumn. Cansips has been suggesting central to W based with E (1+2 to 3) not as warm as C to W (3.4 to 4), but we’ll see as there’s a long way to go:

Date (avg for wk centered on)………………....1+2………..3………..3.4………..4

 01APR2026         0.8       -0.3       -0.3        0.2
 08APR2026         1.1       -0.1       -0.2        0.3
 15APR2026         1.2        0.2        0.1        0.6
 22APR2026         0.9        0.3        0.2        0.5
 29APR2026         0.7        0.5        0.4        0.5

 ——————-

 The latest SSTa charts suggest a pause, which is long overdue, MAY finally be occurring temporarily:

 

[snowman19]

[so_whats_happening]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Pretty impressive to see the upper ocean heat anomalies this week higher than at any point during the 2023-2024 and 2015-2016 events. 
 

 

I would like to see how this actually translates to surface readout coming up.

[GaWx]

 The April and FMA relative and non-relative have just been released and they suggest the most recently calculated differential is ~0.6C:

1. FMA:

ONI +0.11

RONI -0.48

0.59 diff vs 0.56 diff. JFM

 

2. April alone:

ONI +0.36

RONI -0.24

0.60 diff. vs 0.55 in March

[PhiEaglesfan712]

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.

[GaWx]

34 minutes ago, 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.

The slight lowering from March does though jibe with the slight downward trend of these WCS dailies:

[mitchnick]

Don't know if anyone noticed, but since start of May FWIW, the Cfs2, which had been pretty AN for the winter, has backed down on the warmth quite a bit. Notwithstanding the usual long range Cfs2  caveats, it is, at least, a bit of a nod to the Cansips even if it still has a way to go. Here's a link to the latest 5H and surface temps starting at December.  If you compare December and January to late April runs, you'll see what I mean. February's forecast just started showing up on May 1.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-mon&region=us&pkg=z500a&runtime=2026050406&fh=7

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-mon&region=us&pkg=T2ma&runtime=2026050406&fh=7

[snowman19]

[so_whats_happening]

ONI coming in at 0.1 and MEI showing -0.6

[Stormchaserchuck1]

My guess is we don't see a monster North Pacific low like 82-83 and 97-98, but we'll see. The "negative ENSO background state" appears to still be very strong. 

[snowman19]

My guess is we don't see a monster North Pacific low like 82-83 and 97-98, but we'll see. The "negative ENSO background state" appears to still be very strong.