2026-2027 Super El Nino

[paulm]

We are starting to see guidance latch onto a highly anomalous ridge over Canada going into next weekend, which is a key part of the pattern we saw in May/June 2023 as well. It is plausible wildfire season could start to take off in Canada as a result.

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I know what you mean. 1957 and 1965 were very good here, but they were kind of borderline strong versus super. 

Yikes its pretty much the best ones here are the worst ones there and vice versa.

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 minutes ago, paulm said:

We are starting to see guidance latch onto a highly anomalous ridge over Canada going into next weekend, which is a key part of the pattern we saw in May/June 2023 as well. It is plausible wildfire season could start to take off in Canada as a result.

@bluewaveIs that you?

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Yikes its pretty much the best ones here are the worst ones there and vice versa.

Yea, precipitation is the problem from your area into NNE....temps pretty near equally as correlated to snowfall here...close. Slight hedged towards precip from my area near the NH border and on up.

[mitchnick]

@Stormchaserchuck1

How's the May NAO index off Newoundland looking so far if you don't mind me asking? 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

25 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

@Stormchaserchuck1

How's the May NAO index off Newoundland looking so far if you don't mind me asking? 

The CDC Daily climate composites page hasn't been working so I can't do exact measurements on the data is was based on, but the SSTA on Tropical Tidbits looks about Neutral so far, close to 0.0. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

I'd be careful going extreme on RONI Super Nino snowman19, we are little behind at this time of the year. Only 1991 had a May RONI of +0.5 and become Super but that was the lowest, the average per Super event later in the year was +0.8/yr in May. I think we are around 0.4-0.5, which is last place I think. 

[LakePaste25]

16 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

We are +0.58 on today’s RONI (OISST)

 

The CRW RONI is slightly warmer at +0.65C

Plenty of gas in the tank out in the west pac and Nino 4 regions to go higher too. 

 

[roardog]

2 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

IMO this Nino goes nuclear after this upcoming major WWB/ERW and subsequent (new) DWKW. It think that entire WPAC/Indo warm pool gets sloshed east by the end of this event

Do you think we will flip to a +PDO this year?

[raindancewx]

No PDO flip this year. If you call 1957/1958 spiking positive in the -PDO cycle prior as the same point as 2014/2015, we're around 1968 now. We're within a decade, as it's not exact, but I'd bet the PDO doesn't average positive for Nov-Apr. We're probably in something like 1965-66 El Nino strength at 1968 timing cyclically, which was a big El Nino about a decade from the +PDO flip. I'd expect continuing regression toward 0 and a month or two may poke above it, but Nov-Apr won't be over 0.

AMO on the other hand...might be this year. Atlantic in May is night and day different to 2023.

The colder water by NZ v. 2023 also bodes well for more typical El Nino conditions in the West. Cold/Colder AMO is a decent wet signal and cold signal in winter for a lot of the US.

 

[LakePaste25]

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

18 hours ago, raindancewx said:

 

Decadal research through the 1900s shows that the AMO is correlated to SE ridge/trough patterns.

-AMO ibb.co/bR3LvKW

+AMO ibb.co/KctZCPm

-AMO ibb.co/wKX4YCC

+AMO ibb.co/sFSwm0j

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Pretty interesting what continues to transpire in the North Pacific, despite El Nino

I don't think we'll be getting a follow up-Strong La Nina anytime soon (years), there is an ebb and flow to the Pacific-ENSO pattern. 

[roardog]

31 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Pretty interesting what continues to transpire in the North Pacific, despite El Nino

I don't think we'll be getting a follow up-Strong La Nina anytime soon (years), there is an ebb and flow to the Pacific-ENSO pattern. 

Despite the twitter chatter about the atmosphere/ enso coupling, it sure doesn’t look like it in North America in early June if ensembles are correct. I wouldn’t be surprised if the MEI is still not very Nino. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

8 minutes ago, roardog said:

Despite the twitter chatter about the atmosphere/ enso coupling, it sure doesn’t look like it in North America in early June if ensembles are correct. I wouldn’t be surprised if the MEI is still not very Nino. 

They are just expressing what they think should happen. We continue to be in this mid latitude Hadley Cell expansion phase, despite El Nino.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

This is what 1997 was like.. June is finally getting close with a Canadian ridge now showing up on medium-range models

Edit: You could say May is pretty close

[jaxjagman]

9 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Yep. El Nino standing wave. This upcoming WWB and follow up DWKW is going to be monstrous. And in other news, the models are getting more aggressive with a strong +IOD forming by this fall

 

Wow, look at the WWB animation…

 

We havent seen a typhoon recurve off of Japan in several years,this seems from a decent Kelvin Wave tracking across the IDL,GFS and EURO both show this might happen.The WWB east of the IDL still seems to be kick starting from ERW,plus Kelvin,MJO

 

 

 

 

[bluewave]

On 5/22/2026 at 4:52 PM, LakePaste25 said:

Plenty of gas in the tank out in the west pac and Nino 4 regions to go higher too. 

 

Much stronger WPAC warm pool compared to 1997 at the same time. 
 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

not sure about the resolution of this CPC product, nor therein ...how well it reflects the real physical state out there but this looks like the deeper warm plume's slightly shrinking 

 

[GaWx]

44 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

not sure about the resolution of this CPC product, nor therein ...how well it reflects the real physical state out there but this looks like the deeper warm plume's slightly shrinking 

 

 That’s consistent with this that shows a fairly modest drop over the last few weeks to ~+2.0, which I assume is just temporary before a resumption of the warming: (I believe this is based on the avg for the top 300 meters)

[mitchnick]

On 5/15/2026 at 12:50 PM, bluewave said:

You can see the general outline of the May El Niño 500 mb composite taking shape with alterations probably due to the competing marine heatwaves.

The coming near to record May heatwave forecast for the East next week is much warmer than we typically see with such strong developing El Niños.

Stronger Southeast ridge could be a function of the weaker RONI relative to ONI and more general subtropical ridging adding a more Niña-like flavor to the mix. 

The May Western North America El Niño ridge is located a little further SW than usual with the weaker Baja trough than they typically see. 
 

May 4th to 11th strong Nino ridge in SW Canada and Aleutian low north of Hawaii

Forecast May 18th to 25th

 

 

 

 

Looks like the Euro failed on this warm forecast. 

[MarcmmKU]

On 5/17/2026 at 9:55 PM, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Even that was a -PNA Winter

We haven't had classic Strong Nino since 2016

Very hard to escape -pna now. Was kinda a miracle this last winter was better in that regard.

[MarcmmKU]

On 5/17/2026 at 10:06 PM, michsnowfreak said:

2015-16 had multiple wintry bouts outside the torch December. I feel like for here, a strong (or super) nino is going to have 1 horrendous month and the rest of the time will have multiple chances that make or break how bad (or good) the winter is. Its different in the east coast where it seems going on getting (or not getting) one massive storm will be the story of a strong nino winter. 

For the interior northeast strong nino is almost always bad news. Coast can get a good fraction of their seasonal totals from 1 KU type storm, which are more likely to occur in traditional niños.

[michsnowfreak]

23 minutes ago, MarcmmKU said:

For the interior northeast strong nino is almost always bad news. Coast can get a good fraction of their seasonal totals from 1 KU type storm, which are more likely to occur in traditional niños.

Same here in the Great Lakes- strong ninos usually are bad news. But its all relative. Winters in the Lakes and interior northeast are much harsher than the coast. So winter is more often characterized as a whole versus the coast where one huge storm (or lackthereof) often makes or breaks the winter. So basically, I already know im going to have winter, its just highly likely I'll get less of it than usual. Whereas those along coast from NYC south to the midatlantic wont be surprised in April 2027 if they've just seen a 5" winter with no storms or a 35" winter thanks to a massive storm.  

[MarcmmKU]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Same here in the Great Lakes- strong ninos usually are bad news. But its all relative. Winters in the Lakes and interior northeast are much harsher than the coast. So winter is more often characterized as a whole versus the coast where one huge storm (or lackthereof) often makes or breaks the winter. So basically, I already know im going to have winter, its just highly likely I'll get less of it than usual. Whereas those along coast from NYC south to the midatlantic wont be surprised in April 2027 if they've just seen a 5" winter with no storms or a 35" winter thanks to a massive storm.  

Totally agree. I'm an avid skier and strong ninos make my gut sink. I am praying we don't see a repeat of 2015-2016 in Vermont. Would be a disaster.

[MarcmmKU]

Food for thought is that this nino isn't really coupling well to real time observations in South America. A typical nino response down there is for lots and lots of precip in the central andes in Chile. So far bone dry and anomalously warm for may there, especially in a burgeoning strong nino.

[snowman19]

[snowman19]

“Southern Oscillation Index is the most negative it has been with the current #ElNiño event. The subsurface warmth will continue to surface taking the SOI even more negative in time. This is the ocean/atmospheric coupling that is necessary. This is why it was important to recognize that El Niño impacts (not equal or the same everywhere) were going to occur much sooner than the "fall/winter narrative"

[bluewave]

11 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Looks like the Euro failed on this warm forecast. 

Most of the guidance missed the record 100° heat last week from the long range guidance earlier in the month. Models don’t do very well with extremes beyond the week one and week two forecast periods.

My guess is that the guidance beyond 15 days just reverts to whatever ENSO climo applies to the situation. In this case it was the usually cooler May climo it was forecasting to continue.

So it missed the strong MJO 4-6 pulse which is very warm in the East. This was also why the Euro and other seasonal models missed the warmth in the East for the 2023-2024 super El Niño. They had the stock El Niño composite with a deep trough in the East.

Instead we got the record MJO 4-6 pulse with the more Niña-like January 2024 even with the recent +2.1 ONI in Nino 3.4. So the long range model forecasts were reverting to the typical El Niño 500mb composite. 

Something similar happened in December 2015 with the long range model forecasts missing the record warmth in the East due to the record MJO 5. 

So long range models like to forecast just for whatever the ENSO is and they can’t resolve the MJO activity in the IO to WPAC. The record warm pool there has been resulting in more frequent and stronger MJO 4-7 activity than the old days when the SSTs were significantly cooler there. 
 

 

[GaWx]

The latest weekly BoM, which just extended to Nov for the first time, is forecasting a +2.9C RONI in SON. The record back to 1950 is +2.5C (1982). However, caution on the ultimate strength is advised due to warm bias as it’s been significantly too warm in April and May: