2026-2027 Super El Nino

[bluewave]

On 7/21/2026 at 9:14 AM, mitchnick said:

Without going into a competing long response, I  frankly just don't care about a warming planet. There's nothing I  can do about it aside from having a well insulated home (which I have since I receive the highest rating from my local energy provider for houses my size) and driving a fuel efficient vehicle. It is not, nor has it ever been, on my list of life's concerns at all. I care about weather imby and judge that weather from current conditions and progs. How those conditions got there, I don't care.

 

16 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Oh, the "not me, it's you" defense. Lol

If you call trying to get to the bottom line of a post/position an attack, I  can't help you. But the bottom line is, you haven't denied my synopsis of your post/position because it's accurate. Which is fine. You can take whatever position you want. But clarity matters, that's all.

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

29 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Many forecasts are for warmth but they are just going by enso. Many other factors to consider. 

Yeah, I will always point out that the coldest winter CONUS in the 21st century was during a strong la nina. Strong/super el ninos generally mean warmth, but not always.

It's too early to tell whether this upcoming winter is going to be warm, but if the models are still showing a cold signal in September, then people need to accept that it will probably be colder (and possibly snowier) winter.

[snowman19]

25 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Yeah, I will always point out that the coldest winter CONUS in the 21st century was during a strong la nina. Strong/super el ninos generally mean warmth, but not always.

It's too early to tell whether this upcoming winter is going to be warm, but if the models are still showing a cold signal in September, then people need to accept that it will probably be colder (and possibly snowier) winter.

Which super El Niños were cold winters (Dec-Mar)? 72-73: warm,  82-83: warm, 97-98: warm, 15-16: warm

*PHL-NYC-BOS corridor. Strong doesn’t count*

[GaWx]

9 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Which super El Niños were cold winters (Dec-Mar)? 72-73: warm,  82-83: warm, 97-98: warm, 15-16: warm

I assume you’re referring specifically to the NE US as the first 3 winters weren’t warm in the SE. They were pretty close to normal there.

[snowman19]

22 minutes ago, GaWx said:

I assume you’re referring specifically to the NE US as the first 3 weren’t warm in the SE. They were pretty close to normal there.

He’s from Philly, so yes. I would love for him to let us know which super El Niño winters (Dec-Mar) since 1970 were cold in the PHL-NYC-BOS corridor. Strong doesn’t count. I’ll wait….   @PhiEaglesfan712

[bluewave]

20 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Which super El Niños were cold winters (Dec-Mar)? 72-73: warm,  82-83: warm, 97-98: warm, 15-16: warm

Yeah, there weren’t any cold winters in the East with super El Niños relative to the climatology at the time. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MJO812]

35 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Yeah, I will always point out that the coldest winter CONUS in the 21st century was during a strong la nina. Strong/super el ninos generally mean warmth, but not always.

It's too early to tell whether this upcoming winter is going to be warm, but if the models are still showing a cold signal in September, then people need to accept that it will probably be colder (and possibly snowier) winter.

September is also early. Check back in November.

[MJO812]

24 minutes ago, GaWx said:

I assume you’re referring specifically to the NE US as the first 3 winters weren’t warm in the SE. They were pretty close to normal there.

This will not be a cold winter ( definitely the first half )  we have to see how fast the EL nino weakens.

[GaWx]

28 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, there weren’t any cold winters in the East with super El Niños relative to the climatology at the time. 
 

 

 Chris,

 The following is a better way to look at how 1997-8 did:

using the more appropriate/well centered climo base of 1981-2010 instead of 1961-90, which is earlier than 1997-8. Using the earlier, colder 1961-90 makes 1997-8 anomalies ~1F warmer than they actually were in many areas as you know vs the available best centered climo of 1981-2010: still mild in NE but not as mild and SE NN:

[George001]

8 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

This will not be a cold winter ( definitely the first half )  we have to see how fast the EL nino weakens.

Yeah it will be warm. The question is more the magnitude of the warmth as that will make a big difference in terms of how much of the precip is wet vs white. There is a big difference between say +2 AN and +5-6 AN. 

[Terpeast]

I think it’s almost a given that the east coast winter will not be a cold one. For the MA, I’m thinking 2-4 AN vs 1991-2010 climo, warmer north and a bit cooler south.

STJ will be very active, launching one storm after another across the south. If we can time even marginal cold air with one of them, we could score big. Most of them will probably be rainstorms.

[GaWx]

14 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

This will not be a cold winter ( definitely the first half )  we have to see how fast the EL nino weakens.

 I assume you’re referring to the NE US. Regarding the US as a whole, nothing is even close to a certainty, especially this far out. Even the NE is far from certain though cold there is admittedly quite unlikely. And the SE actually had a downright cold super-Nino winter: 1957-8.

[bluewave]

25 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Chris,

 The following is a better way to look at how 1997-8 did:

using the more appropriate/well centered climo base of 1981-2010 instead of 1961-90, which is earlier than 1997-8. Using the earlier, colder 1961-90 makes 1997-8 anomalies ~1F warmer than they actually were in many areas as you know vs the available best centered climo of 1981-2010: still mild in NE but not as mild and SE NN:

The climatology period for the 1997-1998 super El Nino was 1961-1990. They don’t have 1941-1970 climatology maps on that site for 1972-1973. There also isn’t an 1951-1980 option for 1982-1983. So I used the closest time period that they offered at the site. 

[GaWx]

23 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The climatology period for the 1997-1998 super El Nino was 1961-1990. They don’t have 1941-1970 climatology maps on that site for 1972-1973. There also isn’t an 1951-1980 option for 1982-1983. So I used the closest time period that they offered at the site.

 I fully realize that the 30 year climo period available during 1997-8, just like at the time for any winter, always has to end prior to that winter for obvious reasons. There’s no choice.
 
 But once one gets further into the future, a more appropriate 30 year period to use as a basis for the analysis of anomalies for any winter is imho the 30 years most centered on that winter. Otherwise, in a warming climate using a 30 year period that’s prior to that winter is always going to bias that winter to look warmer than it really was vs the best centered 30 year climo.

 So, I strongly disagree with you on this and I’ll leave it at that. I don’t expect for you to agree with my thinking here. That’s fine as there’s nothing wrong with that. These are solid debates, which I enjoy, rather than them being arguments/throwing cheap shots.

[bluewave]

28 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 I fully realize that the 30 year climo period available during 1997-8, just like at the time for any winter, always has to end prior to that winter for obvious reasons. There’s no choice.
 
 But once one gets further into the future, a more appropriate 30 year period to use as a basis for the analysis of anomalies for any winter is imho the 30 years most centered on that winter. Otherwise, in a warming climate using a 30 year period that’s prior to that winter is always going to bias that winter to look warmer than it really was vs the best centered 30 year climo.

 So, I strongly disagree with you on this and I’ll leave it at that. We disagree and I don’t expect for you to agree with my thinking on this. That’s fine as there’s nothing wrong with that. These are solid debates, which I enjoy, rather than them being arguments/throwing cheap shots.

I am not sure there is need strong disagreement between us since the climate period keeps updating every 10 years. So each super El Niño at the time was based on the most recent prior 30 year period ending at the start of each new decade.

I just checked the 30 year climatology from 1941-1970 in NYC and it didn’t change during 1961-1990 for the winters.

Ultimately, it’s the rankings based on the entire climatology period which are the closest to reality.

They probably should just have left the departures fixed at 1951-1980 which was our last stable temperature period before the warming accelerated.

But since model forecasts use departures based on 1991-2020 this decade, we use them. I include rankings as often as possible since updating every 10 years in a rapidly warming climate masks the increase by normalizing the new much higher temperatures.

So an average temperature month during the 2020s would have been would have been a warm month based on older more fixed climatology. 

[annunciated]

Looks to me we will have another WWB in a week or so. The ECMWF suite, AIFS especially, has been pretty consistent on this signal for a few days now.

[GaWx]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

They probably should just have left the departures fixed at 1951-1980 which was our last stable temperature period before the warming accelerated.

I strongly disagree. 1951-80 has not been relevant base climo for anomalies for a very long time. Normals are supposed to reflect the most up to date available climo. We’re obviously in a notably warmer climate than that of 1951-80. That earlier colder climate is no longer relevant for determining normals.

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

How can anyone take the seasonal models at face value for the winter which is 4-6 months away when the May forecast for this June and July only 1-2 months out had such significant errors? 

This is another example of the models not having much skill beyond the 15 day period.

Notice how the ridges in the mid-latitudes verified much stronger leading to the strong -PDO +AMO pattern. 

The forecasts were going for a general Nino 3.4 correlation which didn’t work out. So it looks like the models are just defaulting to Nino 3.4 climatology for June and July.

Back in 2023-2024 the winter forecasts also defaulted to general Nino 3.4 correlations with the ridges verifying much stronger and the troughs weaker. 

 

Forecasts from around May 1st

June Forecasts

June correlation for Nino 3.4

 

 

June verification

July forecasts 

July correlation Nino 3.4

July verification

 

Where is the July verification composite from, the JMA site?

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Yeah, I will always point out that the coldest winter CONUS in the 21st century was during a strong la nina. Strong/super el ninos generally mean warmth, but not always.

It's too early to tell whether this upcoming winter is going to be warm, but if the models are still showing a cold signal in September, then people need to accept that it will probably be colder (and possibly snowier) winter.

No...it's not. It will be above average.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

Perhaps you lack understanding of my posts and the weather patterns in general is related to your stated disinterest beyond your backyard.

Maybe if you broaden out your horizons a bit to encompass the greater climate system your frustration will begin to decline.

I know you like the CanSIPS since you post it all the time. So you get triggered when people point out that it’s not a very good model.
 

 

CANSIPS actually did well last season, but I agree it's too biased towards the Modoki end of the spectrum this year....alomng with the JMA, IMHO.

[michsnowfreak]

43 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I am not sure there is need strong disagreement between us since the climate period keeps updating every 10 years. So each super El Niño at the time was based on the most recent prior 30 year period ending at the start of each new decade.

I just checked the 30 year climatology from 1941-1970 in NYC and it didn’t change during 1961-1990 for the winters.

Ultimately, it’s the rankings based on the entire climatology period which are the closest to reality.

They probably should just have left the departures fixed at 1951-1980 which was our last stable temperature period before the warming accelerated.

But since model forecasts use departures based on 1991-2020 this decade, we use them. I include rankings as often as possible since updating every 10 years in a rapidly warming climate masks the increase by normalizing the new much higher temperatures.

So an average temperature month during the 2020s would have been would have been a warm month based on older more fixed climatology. 

1951-80 stable? By stable you mean coldest because it had the abnormally cold 1960s and especially 1970s? The 1950s were way warmer than the 1970s, so i dont see how that's "stable". 

How about we just use 1931-60 normals.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

1951-80 stable? By stable you mean coldest because it had the abnormally cold 1960s and especially 1970s? The 1950s were way warmer than the 1970s, so i dont see how that's "stable". 

How about we just use 1931-60 normals.

I think he means "stable" within the context of the modern GW trend.

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, George001 said:

Yeah it will be warm. The question is more the magnitude of the warmth as that will make a big difference in terms of how much of the precip is wet vs white. There is a big difference between say +2 AN and +5-6 AN. 

People always focus on a total anamoly too much as well, warm or cold. Do you know how long a winter season is and how many fronts, systems, etc will be occurring during the season? Even if someone nailed a forecast seasonal anamoly, theres no way to tell whats going to happen with the actual weather. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No...it's not. It will be above average.

I'd say favored, but not a guarantee. There have been cold/snowy winters in robust el ninos. 2009-10 finishing as the coldest winter CONUS so far in the 21st century is one example. Also, 1957-58 was a historically cold and snowy winter in many places in the Eastern US.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I'd say favored, but not a guarantee. There have been cold/snowy winters in robust el ninos. 2009-10 finishing as the coldest winter CONUS so far in the 21st century is one example. Also, 1957-58 was a historically cold and snowy winter in many places in the Eastern US.

2009 was a pure Modoki season and was much weaker in magnitude. 1957 was basin-wide, but it was focused pretty far west and was barely a super-event. Forget 2009, but I guess 1957 is about as cold as one could expect, which was around normal.