2026-2027 Super El Nino

[Stormchaserchuck1]

^Nice cold pool SE of New Foundland developing. Warming in the Davis Strait too and south of Greenland. There is SSTA correlation there May-Sept with following Winter NAO, that's pretty high. The current SSTA setup would favor more -NAO conditions in the Winter. Let's see if it holds going forward. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, roardog said:

So does a Modoki just have to have lower anomalies in 3 and 1+2 than in 3.4 and 4 or does 1+2 need to be negative? I feel like that’s the same scenario just opposite. 

Lower anomalies in 3/1+2 than 3.4/4. The bigger/smaller the differential, the stronger/weaker the Modoki.

[snowman19]

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 hours ago, snowman19 said:

As a weather enthusiast, I’m actually looking forward to seeing a true east-based super El Niño in action this winter. I was too young to remember 1997-98. Should be fun to watch 

Do you really like cold and snow? Sometimes I feel like your screenname is a sadistic manifestation of deep-seeded self-loathing.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, raindancewx said:

On the May update, the Euro had Nino 4 getting to 2-2.5C above the 30-year mean in December. That's a huge body of water, and far less volatile than the more eastern areas of the Tropical Pacific.

The correlation isn't super strong - but with a very extreme reading, of say 30.5C+ or warmer - never achieved on record - you have to assume we get close to the long-term trend.

Your 29.5C+ Decembers are 1994, 2006 (both just under but over 29.4), 2009, 2015, 2018, 2023. Basically dead on to the correlation. Also consistent with Decembers following my hottest 10 Marches of the past 100 years. I'd go 2-4 degrees warmer in the warmer areas and 1-2 degrees colder in the white areas based on the extremity forecast for December.

 

 

Jives with my early thoughts of a very warm December for the NE on par with 2006, 2015 and 2023...essentially a super/east-based composite. 

Looks like an early +WPO that maybe flips later in the season.

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Where's El Nino in the N Pacific? 

Gonna touch upon this in my June blog in a few weeks....I feel like it's better to focus more on factors like this since it's pretty obvious where we are headed intensity wise, which makes the modoki value pretty moot.

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

^Nice cold pool SE of New Foundland developing. Warming in the Davis Strait too and south of Greenland. There is SSTA correlation there May-Sept with following Winter NAO, that's pretty high. The current SSTA setup would favor more -NAO conditions in the Winter. Let's see if it holds going forward. 

It's like your teaming having a lead in the top of the 2nd inning.

[bluewave]

9 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

As Bluewave states over and over, ad infinitum, the warm pool east of Japan is certainly still playing a role in how things progress and even much of the South Pacific is still very warm. In some ways we are starting to see some dual warm regions take place which is fascinating to see. You have competing factors still at play in the subtropics and mid latitudes that certainly will affect the outcome of this event. It still amazes me even with the warming of the central and EPAC tropical waters that MJO just halts at 7 and pushes to COD.

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.

 

 

[snowman19]

27 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Jives with my early thoughts of a very warm December for the NE on par with 2006, 2015 and 2023...essentially a super/east-based composite. 

Looks like an early +WPO that maybe flips later in the season.

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

[donsutherland1]

12 hours ago, FPizz said:

What was the total precip that winter in central park?  I remember the crappy winter snow wise (5.5" total here) but cant remember if it was wet too.  

15.28" (8th highest).

[40/70 Benchmark]

19 minutes 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.

 

 

JMA site is awesome, but my primary complaint about it is the inability to run composites.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

15.28" (8th highest).

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.


.

[bluewave]

42 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

JMA site is awesome, but my primary complaint about it is the inability to run composites.

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.

 

[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