2026-2027 Super El Nino

[bluewave]

22 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The hot summer of 1991 was an exception.

July 1991 actually had a cooler El Niño-like -0.52 pattern across the CONUS compared to the record warmth this July at +2.4.

July 1991

73.87°F

-0.52°F

Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social

· 1d

It's going to be a close call, but it now appears more likely than not that July 2026 will be the warmest month on record in the Contiguous U.S. As of today, we are essentially tied with July 1936 and July 2012.

 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

I truly would laugh so hard if we end up getting a solid winter out of this event just so I can stop seeing the repetitive posts on here.

I wouldn't because I think it will be solid.

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, TheDreamTraveler said:

The 2015-2016 winter was absurdly unremarkable except for that monster blizzard. I almost got my entire seasons worth of snow just from that one storm alone. Otherwise it barely snowed at all.

The arctic outbreak INVO VD Day was pretty remarkable.

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

July 1991 actually had a cooler El Niño-like -0.52 pattern across the CONUS compared to the record warmth this July at +2.4.

July 1991

73.87°F

-0.52°F

Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social

· 1d

It's going to be a close call, but it now appears more likely than not that July 2026 will be the warmest month on record in the Contiguous U.S. As of today, we are essentially tied with July 1936 and July 2012.

 

 

 

 Chris, my point is that the summer of 1991 didn’t follow the pattern of the mean of the other 5 as it was net warmer than normal in the E 1/2 of the Conus vs it being colder than normal for the other 5 years averaged out:

 

 

[George001]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I wouldn't because I think it will be solid.

I buy that for the mid atlantic but even up here? I’m concerned it will be too warm for sustained winter and we aren’t going to get the nickle and dime events we normally get.

[LakePaste25]

CANSIPS now getting close to a +4C ONI peak…

 

[GaWx]

 1. The July SOI comes in way down at -26.8,  by far the lowest July SOI on record. The only lower ones during met. summer were the -27.7 in June of 1905 and the -27.0 in June of 1896, both incoming El Niños.

2. This brings us to 82 straight days of -SOI. Going back to when records are readily available (since 1991), this is second only to the 100 days of 1998! It’s too early to tell whether or not the current streak will reach 100 days.

[LakePaste25]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I wouldn't because I think it will be solid.

 

20 minutes ago, George001 said:

I buy that for the mid atlantic but even up here? I’m concerned it will be too warm for sustained winter and we aren’t going to get the nickle and dime events we normally get.

97-98 was not half bad for the Great Lakes/SNE if i remember correctly. December ‘97 was decent here while it was a total shutout in 2015. 

[SnoSki14]

4 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

People forget that our coldest winter CONUS in the 21st century happened during a strong el nino.

The 23/24 Nino was supposed to be very favorable for snows but it ended up being one the warmest/least snowiest. 

ENSO is still just one factor 

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Chris, my point is that the summer of 1991 didn’t follow the pattern of the mean of the other 5 as it was net warmer than normal in the E 1/2 of the Conus vs it being colder than normal for the other 5 years averaged out:

 

 

My sister was born July 18, 1991. I was 8 years old and I remember how brutally hot and humid it was. My mom always talks about how it was so hot when she was born.

[GaWx]

 Darwin’s pressure has averaged 1015+ mb, a high pressure for there, for 22 straight days! That’s a new record (back to 1991) that breaks the old record of 20 days that was set during another developing super Nino, July of 2015. I’m expecting that streak to finally end tomorrow.

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, LakePaste25 said:

 

97-98 was not half bad for the Great Lakes/SNE if i remember correctly. December ‘97 was decent here while it was a total shutout in 2015. 

97-98 wasnt the disaster here that it was on the east coast, but it was one of the last strong Ninos Id pick, only '82-83 was worse. Interesting about '97-98 is that it was front-loaded and Feb was a shutout. mid Nov to mid Dec was actually decent. So was the 2nd half of Jan. Everything else sucked.

Shittiest strong Ninos locally: 1982-83, 1997-98, 2023-24

Best strong Ninos locally: 1877-78, 1972-73, 2015-16

At Detroit, the least snowy strong Nino is 1982-83 with 20.0" and the snowiest 45.0" in 1972-73.

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

My sister was born July 18, 1991. I was 8 years old and I remember how brutally hot and humid it was. My mom always talks about how it was so hot when she was born.

Out of the dozens of (pre) El Niño summers, 1991 was the 2nd hottest at Detroit on record with only the pre late developing weak Nino summer of 2018 hotter! The 3rd hottest Nino summer was 2002, which preceded a very snowy and cold winter that was one of the coldest and snowiest moderate or stronger El Niño winters there as you know.

[mitchnick]

52 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

My sister was born July 18, 1991. I was 8 years old and I remember how brutally hot and humid it was. My mom always talks about how it was so hot when she was born.

It was. My daughter was born in August of 91'. My wife remembers it in more detail than me! Lol

[michsnowfreak]

15 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

People think Super Nino means warm too automatically. The NAO/AO play a role, and if you map N. Pacific 500mb anomalies historically with Super Nino's you will see a N. Pacific trough placement in the cold season where it is usually doesn't extend a 2nd wave ridge so far east. 

Some assume theres some linear connection with the strength of nino and how warm it will be and simply ignore everything else. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Some assume theres some linear connection with the strength of nino and how warm it will be and simply ignore everything else. 

Yeah, the real connection is with global temperatures. A huge trough over the North Pacific is necessarily Winter disaster for the east coast. 

[GaWx]

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 

 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.

 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

[bluewave]

6 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Chris, my point is that the summer of 1991 didn’t follow the pattern of the mean of the other 5 as it was net warmer than normal in the E 1/2 of the Conus vs it being colder than normal for the other 5 years averaged out:

 

 

The summer of 1991 only had a weak El Niño in progress as opposed the strongest on record this summer. July did have some similarity to the composite.

But sometimes weaker El Niño summers in the past had more heat than the stronger developing ones. This was the case in 2002 also.

So it has been common in the past for weaker El Niños to have less influence in the midlatitudes than during developing super El Niños like 2023, 2015, 1997, 1982, and 1972 which had the more typical cooler summers. 

The big story this summer is how out of phase the mid-latitudes and tropics are for the magnitude of this event.

 

 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

The summer of 1991 only had a weak El Niño in progress as opposed the strongest on record this summer. July did have some similarity to the composite.

But sometimes weaker El Niño summers in the past had more heat than the stronger developing ones. This was the case in 2002 also.

So it has been common in the past for weaker El Niños to have less influence in the midlatitudes than during developing super El Niños like 2023, 2015, 1997, 1982, and 1972 which had the more typical cooler summers. 

The big story this summer is how out of phase the mid-latitudes and tropics are for the magnitude of this event.

 

 

 Here’s another unusual one: the summer of ‘87 was similarly hot in the E 1/2 of the U.S. overall and El Niño wasn’t just weak as it was moderate to strong that summer:

[GaWx]

OHC is at a new high on this graph:

[bluewave]

21 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Here’s another unusual one: the summer of ‘87 was similarly hot in the E 1/2 of the U.S. overall and El Niño wasn’t just weak as it was moderate to strong that summer:

That was still a cooler summer by recent standards. 

 

June-August 1987

71.77°F

-0.54°F

 

[GaWx]

6 minutes ago, bluewave said:

That was still a cooler summer by recent standards. 

 

 

June-August 1987

71.77°F

-0.54°F

 

But the summer of 1987 was hot based on the climo centered on the period it was within as I posted. Why are you comparing it to more recent (hotter) climo that makes it not seem as hot? Also, the hottest was in the E 1/2 of the US regardless of what climo you use.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Yeah, I thought we were talking about ENSO. 1987 is a really good find, as that was one of the most El Nino Summers on record, JJA ONI was +1.5c, all time record for JJA is +1.6c

[bluewave]

24 minutes ago, GaWx said:

But the summer of 1987 was hot based on the climo centered on the period it was within as I posted. Why are you comparing it to more recent (hotter) climo that makes it not seem as hot? Also, the hottest was in the E 1/2 of the US regardless of what climo you use.

It wasn’t even a hot summer for the cooler 1980s era. The warmest 1980s summer was 1988 and the 2nd warmest 1980. This current July is close to the warmest July on record. So there really isn’t a comparison to the summer of 1987. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

+9c has popped in the subsurface on TAO/Triton for the first time of this event! It's warming pretty rapidly too, we may see a +10c in a couple of days. That's +18F, so if the water is usually 62F, it's now 80F.

[mitchnick]

31 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It wasn’t even a hot summer for the cooler 1980s era. The warmest 1980s summer was 1988 and the 2nd warmest 1980. This current July is close to the warmest July on record. So there really isn’t a comparison to the summer of 1987. 

I thought the discussion was regarding El Niño summers. What relevance does throwing La Nada or Niñas into the mix have? Subtle deflect however.

[bluewave]

11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I thought the discussion was regarding El Niño summers. What relevance does throwing La Nada or Niñas into the mix have? Subtle deflect however.

Deflect from what? 1987 had a summer pattern that was a reasonable match for El Nino expectations.This summer is completely different. 
 

 

 

[GaWx]

19 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Deflect from what? 1987 had a summer pattern that was a reasonable match for El Nino expectations.This summer is completely different. 
 

 

 

1. Why are you using 1991-2020 for climo for a 1987 summer? That diminishes the above normal H5 in the E US on your 1st map.

2. The highest height anomalies/warmest temp annomalies are in the E US, regardless. How is that El Ninoish?

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 
 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.
 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

The CANSIPS is playing catch up to the CFS and the EURO. It’s very likely not done strengthening this event even further, it was way too weak to start out with and very good call with its “Modoki bias”. I agree that it’s not done adjusting this to an east-based event either. The CFS just got even stronger with the traditional ONI and RONI. The EURO is guaranteed to get stronger as well, with its new update on 8/5

 

 

 

@LakePaste25

 

 

[EasternLI]

I would also like to see a recurving typhoon or two as @so_whats_happening  very astutely brought up. That's another thing I'm keeping my eye's on. I feel like we will, sooner or later. Unfortunately nothing much on the radar for that currently. There's only this dubious TC that forms on the heels of typhoon Dolphin. All models show this system too, this is the euro below. Some want to recurve it, some don't. If it did, I might think of it as a baby step. I'm thinking the autumn could bring better chances though.