2026-2027 Super El Nino

[Tallis Rockwell]

22 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Very low, less than 0.001%. Our strongest el ninos (namely 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16) ended up between 2.5-3C. 5C is way off the charts.

Even though I know it's unlikely., the fact that I even see this a possibility is scary.

[TriPol]

8 hours ago, Keith Central PA said:

How do we know that a 5.0 would act differently than a 2.5?.. more flooding in California?..All Super el nino's have done is give warm weather through most of the country for the winter and more rains in the southwest. Somehow that doesn't seem like a big deal, or maybe I'm missing something. This has really been hyped by social media.

Before posting that here, maybe you should have asked Chat GPT this question. Catastrophic doesn't even come close to the amount of damage 5.0C could cause. 

[Tallis Rockwell]

2 minutes ago, TriPol said:

Before posting that here, maybe you should have asked Chat GPT this question. Catastrophic doesn't even come close to the amount of damage 5.0C could cause. 

F em clankers

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, Tallis Rockwell said:

What are the chances this goes to 5 C? not an expert on this...

 I just researched it. CMCC is an Italian climate model. I can’t find verification data, but +5.3C monthly peak isn’t going to happen on a RONI basis and almost certainly not even per ONI.
 
 If there had been other models near that, I might have given it a little more consideration. But with it 1.4C warmer than the 2nd warmest on that list and with that 2nd warmest, itself, already forecasting >1C warmer than the current record warmest, I find it hard to consider it even remotely possible.

[GaWx]

On 7/10/2026 at 11:18 AM, GaWx said:

 
Thanks, Adam. So, Long Paddock after ~a week finally came back to updating its daily SOIs. This is what I earlier posted about this:

 In doing so, it also retroactively changed some dailies prior to July 3rd. What’s most interesting is that those changes changed what had been 2 small positives to negatives: June 18th/19th changed from +4/+1 to -4/-4. Based on the original June 18th release of +4, a 37 day -SOI streak had apparently ended June 18th. However, with these changes, it didn’t and thus we’re in a very long -SOI streak that’s now at a whopping 62 days and is still going strong!

 How does this compare to the longest back to 1991?

-100 days in 1998

-72 days in 1997

-66 days in 2015

-65 days in 2023

-62 days and counting 2026

Looking at model SLP forecasts, I see a near certainty that the current -SOI streak will make it to 67+ days. That would then make it the 3rd longest -SOI streak on record (back to 1991). Will it make it past 72 days? That’s too far out to predict with confidence right now. But that appears to have a decent chance as of now.

[roardog]

6 hours ago, GaWx said:

Looking at model SLP forecasts, I see a near certainty that the current -SOI streak will make it to 67+ days. That would then make it the 3rd longest -SOI streak on record (back to 1991). Will it make it past 72 days? That’s too far out to predict with confidence right now. But that appears to have a decent chance as of now.

There are a lot of metrics that are very impressive with this event. It’s also equally impressive how non Nino like the pattern over North America has been along with how strongly negative the PDO continues to be. A lot of interesting stuff happening right now for people like us to watch and discuss. 

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, roardog said:

There are a lot of metrics that are very impressive with this event. It’s also equally impressive how non Nino like the pattern over North America has been along with how strongly negative the PDO continues to be. A lot of interesting stuff happening right now for people like us to watch and discuss. 

This is one of the most extreme July divergences between the tropical forcing and midlatitude patterns.

The tropics are clearly in El Niño mode as we can see from the forcing and -SOI with very strong shear over the Caribbean.

But the pattern driving the record heat and 500 mb ridges across CONUS is classic -PDO.  Notice how the strong -PDO ridge north of Hawaii leads to the classic July -PDO SST pattern. It also boosts the +AMO.

 

Strong July -PDO composites 

 

 

[snowman19]

 

 

 

 

 

“We are witnessing in the field today the process I described at the beginning of May: as the ITCZ’s active core settles over the Pacific, the convective envelope strengthened in phases 6–7 of the MJO is fueling successive westerly wind burst pulses in the Western–Central Pacific. This injection of westerly momentum weakens the trade winds, carries equatorial Kelvin waves eastward, and deepens the thermocline in the east, thereby accelerating surface warming. Thus, the strong temperature excess that begins in the coastal/eastern Pacific spreads into the basin along Niño 3–3.4; as the Walker circulation breaks down, the Bjerknes feedback kicks in. In short, the atmosphere is no longer merely responding to the warm ocean—it is amplifying it: the coastal-origin, east-central weighted hybrid pattern is advancing step by step toward the Super El Niño threshold. Additionally, since El Niño modulates +tropical forcings during this period, it carries a distinct signature in mid-latitude response composites.”

https://x.com/atmoslabwx/status/2075960267096100992?s=46&t=NChJQK9_PUjA1K7D2SMojw