2026-2027 Super El Nino

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, could be related. Same for the El Nino trough in the East which was much weaker in 2015-2016 and 2023-2024.

I also think the much warmer adjacent off equator and subtropical oceans could be warping the response also. Those subtropical seas were so much warmer this winter that the weak La Niña ridge in the Southwest was so much stronger than the 1995-1996 weak La Niña response.

It’s a bit challenging to give a specific value to just how much each individual marine heatwave is contributing. I have also been noticing discussions already taking place about the new RONI index. I went back and reread the paper on RONI and seems like most of the value was with La Ninas where the off equator warmth was masking the La Niña response.

But when it comes to the strongest El Niños they can appear weaker than the past ONI. But as we saw from 2023-2024, the weaker RONI didn’t correspond to a weaker ridge over Canada and the Northern Tier and any less warmth. Plus the global temperature jump was even more impressive than past even stronger ONI higher end El Niños.

But we could make an argument that the weaker RONI and warmer off equator to subtropical SST warmth could have weakened the Aleutian trough and the trough in the East under the big ridge. This could also warp the rainfall response in some way than we normally get with such strong El niños related to the Southern Stream response.

This is why we should probably still use the traditional ONI for the actual El Niño intensity and incorporate the RONI for the finer details like how the Aleutian Low and other troughs are responding.

Yea......look at the absolute value of each to obtain a general idea of how strong the event is, but more importantly, it's the relationship between the RONI and ONI that is indicative of the type of response that ENSO may induce around the hemisphere. The latter is what we really need to understand because knowing how strong said response will be is pretty useless if we have no idea what the response will be.

I suspect we are going to need the RONI to be at least equivalent or greater than the ONI to avoid yet another muted  Aleutian low/se trough couple response. If we have a very strong El Nino with a lagging ONI, as was the case in 2023, then you get a very strong RIDGING response over se Canada and an Aleutian low/se trough that is still meager.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, GaWx said:

Chris,

 For actual El Niño intensity, why would you want to use ONI instead of RONI? Say, for example vs 1991-2020 means, tropical waters worldwide were averaging +2C and ONI was averaging the same, +2C. Per RONI, this would be right at perfect neutral. To me, that makes more sense in determining El Niño strength. The forcing from Nino 3.4 isn’t there when it’s neighboring waters are about the same. There’s no warm tongue when it is warm all around it 

 

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea......look at the absolute value of each to obtain a general idea of how strong the event is, but more importantly, it's the relationship between the RONI and ONI that is indicative of the type of response that ENSO may induce around the hemisphere. The latter is what we really need to understand because knowing how strong said response will be is pretty useless if we have no idea what the response will be.

I suspect we are going to need the RONI to be at least equivalent or greater than the ONI to avoid yet another muted  Aleutian low/se trough couple response. If we have a very strong El Nino with a lagging ONI, as was the case in 2023, then you get a very strong RIDGING response over se Canada and an Aleutian low/se trough that is still meager.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Simply knowing the strength isn't very helpful if you don't know what the response will be....quite the contrary, it can actually be misleading to a forecaster, which is the trap that I fell into in 2023.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Think of the information that be gleaned from ENSO concerning the hemispheric response as a continuum of sorts...of both strength AND type. Climate change is exacerbating the perils of a reductive analysis that considers merely strength of ENSO because the fact of the matter is that the hemispheric response is becoming more nuanced and varied.

[GaWx]

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

 

 

Ray and Chris,

 If Nino 3.4 is at +2C vs 1991-2020 and surrounding tropics are also at +2C vs 1991-2020, there’s no warm El Niño tongue to do its forcing. Thus, it’s essentially neutral rather than super El Niño and officially is neutral for RONI. So, RONI is a better measure for strength of El Niño and La Niña for that matter. Do y’all agree?

@bluewave

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Ray and Chris,

 If Nino 3.4 is at +2C vs 1991-2020 and surrounding tropics are also at +2C vs 1991-2020, there’s no warm El Niño tongue do it’s forcing. Thus, it’s essentially neutral rather than super El Niño. Do, y’all agree?

@bluewave

It's a more neutral north Pacific response, which means other hemispheric players are more influential. In 2023, the most prominent players were a raging +WPO/+NAO/-PDO. This is why I said that the NAO and the state of the extra tropical Pacific will be so crucial this year. I think that fact that 2023 resembled 1997 was largely due to the extreme +WPO both seasons. Dec 1997 actually had some blocking, hence the major SNE snow right before xmas. The PDO was also positive. 1982 was -WPO....my guess is we end up with a better extra tropical patten than 2023.

[MarcmmKU]

I'm assuming the strong + enso event will pretty much guarantee a ratter ski season? Iirc, for northern new england they've never had a strong snow season in a strongly positive enso state.

[snowman19]

+6C subsurface anomalies showing up now

[Stormchaserchuck1]

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

Good example of this winter could look with a strongly +NAO/WPO. I am with you on the NAO, but main question is the WPO...I could see that being a bit more negative.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Good example of this winter could look with a strongly +NAO/WPO. I am with you on the NAO, but main question is the WPO...I could see that being a bit more negative.

I'm big believer in Global SSTA's the year before, May-Nov, being a great indicator for Winter WPO. A big one is the Indian Ocean - Warm SSTAs correlate with +WPO at 0.5 (75% chance of positive) and visa-versa for cold SSTAs, relative to the global mean. 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

3 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

91-92 is my favorite analog right now

91-92 is one of those very rare situations, and I don't think it should be used for anything unless there's a major volcanic eruption, or if you have a hunch there's going to be one.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

91-92 is one of those very rare situations, and I don't think it should be used for anything unless there's a major volcanic eruption, or if you have a hunch there's going to be one.

It's the context in which you use it though: If you were saying it is biased colder because of the 3-year period after the eruption, that would make sense, but another pattern prevailed, opposite of the Pinatubo probability. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I'm big believer in Global SSTA's the year before, May-Nov, being a great indicator for Winter WPO. A big one is the Indian Ocean - Warm SSTAs correlate with +WPO at 0.5 (75% chance of positive) and visa-versa for cold SSTAs, relative to the global mean. 

Yea, it's going to be a bit before we can glean any insight with that.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

It's the context in which you use it though: If you were saying it is biased colder because of the 3-year period after the eruption, that would make sense, but another pattern prevailed, opposite of the Pinatubo probability. 

Yea, good example is the 1991-1992 winter season being a -QBO, which is of course, not a good match to the coming season. However, since you are going +NAO, anyway, it really doesn't matter much.

[bluewave]

21 hours ago, GaWx said:

Ray and Chris,

 If Nino 3.4 is at +2C vs 1991-2020 and surrounding tropics are also at +2C vs 1991-2020, there’s no warm El Niño tongue to do its forcing. Thus, it’s essentially neutral rather than super El Niño and officially is neutral for RONI. So, RONI is a better measure for strength of El Niño and La Niña for that matter. Do y’all agree?

@bluewave

The 2023-2024 event highlighted the weakness of relying on RONI for that super El Niño when the surrounding tropics were so warm since it amplified the warming even more than the ONI value due to dual warming centers in the Pacific.

When the RONI paper came out most of it was focused on the La Nina intensity getting masked by the rising Nino 3.4s while the differential between the WPAC warm pool driving the EWBs suggested the lower RONI than ONI.

So the paper never really focused on higher end El Niño events with dual warming centers lowering the RONI. So the new RONI isn’t really a one size fits all solution or an adequate replacement for ONI with higher end El Niño events. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02971-1

During the 2023-24 El Niño, the July 2023–June 2024 average global mean surface temperature peaked at 1.58 °C above pre-industrial levels, associated with a record 0.36 °C year-over-year rise. Here we use statistical models and a Green’s Function method to explore the causes for this rise. We show that sea surface temperature accounts for ~92% of the interannual warming, highlighting the critical role of El Niño diversity. Unlike typical El Niños, dual tropical Pacific warming centers in 2023-24 and an eastward-extended North Atlantic jet stream synergistically amplified sea surface temperatures across tropical basins, accelerating the pace of global warming. From an energy balance perspective, ocean heat content accumulated during the preceding La Niña and a continuous increase in absorbed shortwave radiation over the ocean drove sea surface temperature rise. Accelerated warming may push the climate system closer to critical tipping points, emphasizing the need for enhanced monitoring, mitigation, and adaptation strategies.

 

[roardog]

7 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The 2023-2024 event highlighted the weakness of relying on RONI for that super El Niño when the surrounding tropics were so warm since it amplified the warming even more than the ONI value due to dual warming centers in the Pacific.

When the RONI paper came out most of it was focused on the La Nina intensity getting masked by the rising Nino 3.4s while the differential between the WPAC warm pool driving the EWBs suggested the lower RONI than ONI.

So the paper never really focused on higher end El Niño events with dual warming centers lowering the RONI. So the new RONI isn’t really a one size fits all solution or an adequate replacement for ONI with higher end El Niño events. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02971-1

During the 2023-24 El Niño, the July 2023–June 2024 average global mean surface temperature peaked at 1.58 °C above pre-industrial levels, associated with a record 0.36 °C year-over-year rise. Here we use statistical models and a Green’s Function method to explore the causes for this rise. We show that sea surface temperature accounts for ~92% of the interannual warming, highlighting the critical role of El Niño diversity. Unlike typical El Niños, dual tropical Pacific warming centers in 2023-24 and an eastward-extended North Atlantic jet stream synergistically amplified sea surface temperatures across tropical basins, accelerating the pace of global warming. From an energy balance perspective, ocean heat content accumulated during the preceding La Niña and a continuous increase in absorbed shortwave radiation over the ocean drove sea surface temperature rise. Accelerated warming may push the climate system closer to critical tipping points, emphasizing the need for enhanced monitoring, mitigation, and adaptation strategies.

 

So what we're really saying here is that a weak to moderate El Nino will act like a La Nina while a strong or Super El Nino will act like a strong or super El Nino with a SE ridge. Sorry Mid Atlantic. lol

[bluewave]

9 minutes ago, roardog said:

So what we're really saying here is that a weak to moderate El Nino will act like a La Nina while a strong or Super El Nino will act like a strong or super El Nino with a SE ridge. Sorry Mid Atlantic. lol

In effect that is what happened with the El Niño in 2018-2019 which had La Niña elements preventing it from fully coupling.

Perhaps if the RONI and ONI can come into closer alignment it could suppress the Southeast ridge more than we saw back in 2023-2024.

But that is really speculative at this point. It looks like we are headed for over +2.0 again on at least ONI and can use this as another test case.

None of the seasonal models back in 2023-2024 were able to correctly forecast the stronger ridge building down into the Mid-Atlantic. As they all had the stock El Niño composite.

[Maestrobjwa]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

In effect that is what happened with the El Niño in 2018-2019 which had La Niña elements preventing it from fully coupling.

Perhaps if the RONI and ONI can come into closer alignment it could suppress the Southeast ridge more than we saw back in 2023-2024.

But that is really speculative at this point. It looks like we are headed for over +2.0 again on at least ONI and can use this as another test case.

None of the seasonal models back in 2023-2024 were able to correctly forecast the stronger ridge building down into the Mid-Atlantic. As they all had the stock El Niño composite.

Wasn't the 18-19 Niño like really weak sauce, though?

[PhiEaglesfan712]

53 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Wasn't the 18-19 Niño like really weak sauce, though?

Yes, it was pretty much a disjointed el nino, which just lingered around in the weak el nino/warm neutral phase until late 2019/early 2020, before eventually going into a solid la nina (which lasted until early 2023) and -PDO (which is still ongoing).

As I pointed out earlier in the New England thread, 2026 is a polar opposite of 2020 (as we are exiting a weak la nina/cold neutral phase and heading towards a strong to super el nino, and maybe transitioning to a +PDO):

 

[snowman19]

[bluewave]

18 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Wasn't the 18-19 Niño like really weak sauce, though?

The Western Pacific warm pool was so overpowering that we got a La Niña pattern instead of the classic weak El Niño. 

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/csi-enso-case-missing-central-pacific-rainfall

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

 

“Very very massive yikes”

Oh no! What are we going to do? Will we survive? Webb is so over the top. Yikes about what?

[snowman19]

4 minutes ago, GaWx said:

“Very very massive yikes”

Oh no! What are we going to do? Will we survive? Webb is so over the top. Yikes about what?

In fairness to Webb, Paul Roundy said yesterday that this upcoming downwelling Kelvin wave is the strongest in history

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

In fairness to Webb, Paul Roundy said yesterday that this upcoming downwelling Kelvin wave is the strongest in history

 Even if the KW were to verify as strongest in history (however long the recorded history of KWs is), why the “Very very massive yikes”? That wording implies to me that that’s worrisome. Why would that be something to get worried about? Are we in trouble? To me this is just more of his being over the top and not professional.

[GaWx]

 The SOI has dropped back down to -11. It may drop further temporarily. However, the models are not suggesting a further sustained drop to the 3 day long -30ish level of April 9-11 in the immediate future. So far, the SOI hasn’t been overly impressively negative for an oncoming very strong Nino vs history.

[SnoSki14]

52 minutes ago, GaWx said:

“Very very massive yikes”

Oh no! What are we going to do? Will we survive? Webb is so over the top. Yikes about what?

The comparison doesn't make sense because waters are so much warmer overall now vs 97. 

You have to consider the anomalies compared to currents sst norms. 

[snowman19]

21 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 The SOI has dropped back down to -11. It may drop further temporarily. However, the models are not suggesting a further sustained drop to the 3 day long -30ish level of April 9-11 in the immediate future. So far, the SOI hasn’t been overly impressive negative for an oncoming very strong Nino vs history.

Yet the very strong WWBs, DWKW’s, TC’s and very impressive, rapid subsurface and surface (especially in region 1+2) warming continues unabated 

[FPizz]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

“Very very massive yikes”

Oh no! What are we going to do? Will we survive? Webb is so over the top. Yikes about what?

He's a click whore that blocks everyone that brings up a different viewpoint.  He can be good when he wants, but very dramatic and always looking for clicks.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

An example of analogs working: 

March +NAO was top 2/900. When rolled forward to May, it is surprisingly cool, and this is the idea being adopted by CPC going forward

Pre El Nino May:

Nice combo of the two: warm in PNW. Cool elsewhere.