Winter 2026-2027 Speculation

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Use of sensible weather analogs will pose a unique challenge this year given the rapid state of flux throughout the hemisphere....you can't take them at face value. -EPO predominated Winter 2018-2019, so given that this season should have a +EPO, flipping the anomalies may provide some value. Coolest se, warmest high plains.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

I will probably have much grinding of teeth, with regards to precipitation type, between mby and the hills around me but I think a decent N & W of RT2 winter is inbound. 

[stadiumwave]

On 9/8/2026 at 7:43 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Why isn't it H5? 200mb is somewhat less helpful.

That would be a question for Paul. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Sept. EURO seasonal has DJF snowfall about 9" below average inside of rt 128, and 6" below average outside. I have no issue with that forecast. Western New England is 4-5" below.

[40/70 Benchmark]

[40/70 Benchmark]

Makes sense to me...entirely reasonable.

[MJO812]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Not bad at all for down here 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Not bad at all for down here 

It's easy to look at the color scheme and want to take a plunge off of the Tobin, but it's not bad at all and fits with the more fruitful super El Nino scenarios.

[MJO812]

10 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It's easy to look at the color scheme and want to take a plunge off of the Tobin, but it's not bad at all and fits with the more fruitful super El Nino scenarios.

 Congrats DC?

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, MJO812 said:

 Congrats DC?

Congrats Apps and OHRV.

[40/70 Benchmark]

EURO seems to favor the interior for January, kind of like 1987 and 2003, and then a coastal track for February...the type that @dryslothates, which gets shunted eastward by a block, as the Canadian ridge intensifies and presses.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I kind of feel dirty for saying this, but December doesn't look awful on the EURO....it starts that ridge up by HB, near where the basin-wide composite has it, before it slides ESE and presses as the season evolves. January looks the most hostile IMHO, especially for the coast.

Pretty damn near climo snowfall...almost looks like the Feb storm track.

[MJO812]

32 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Congrats Apps and OHRV.

True

El ninos are better the further south you go . I wouldnt be shocked if they do well especially if blocking develops. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

The GOA low doesn't hug the coast as much as I would expect with an El Nino that east-based.....I wonder if the residual cool ENSO/MC residue is helping us a bit on the EURO. Consider how the forcing got tugged into the MC in 2023, even though the it appeared as though it should be in the Modoki region on the VP composite....almost looks like here, it's acting more like a basin-wide event even though it looks textbook east-based. Maybe the benefit of an unprecedented push eastward to get that warm pool displaced a bit. Still def. -PDO tendencies with the warmth east of Japan, etc...

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The GOA low doesn't hug the coast as much as I would expect with an El Nino that east-based.....I wonder if the residual cool ENSO/MC residue is helping us a bit on the EURO. Consider how the forcing got tugged into the MC in 2023, even though the it appeared as though it should be in the Modoki region on the VP composite....almost looks like here, it's acting more like a basin-wide event even though it looks textbook east-based. Maybe the benefit of an unprecedented push eastward to get that warm pool displaced a bit. Still def. -PDO tendencies with the warmth east of Japan, etc...

@Typhoon Tipand I were speculating about this as a potential "unicorn" scenario...

[40/70 Benchmark]

That is an east-based El Nino with a basin-wide expression across the hemisphere on the EURO...no doubt. I think those expecting a season completely devoid of winter weather on the east coast are going to be in for a surprise if that model is correct.

[40/70 Benchmark]

What is also interesting is that the EURO has trended stronger with the Canadian ridge centered near the east shore of HB, as the it adjusts to the unprecedented magnitude of El Nino, but the position of that Aleutian low remains dead-nuts on that of the August run. IOW, it hasn't trended into any more of an east-based configuration. This isn't what I would expect to see if you are looking for a season 6-month long fall.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Sept. EURO seasonal has DJF snowfall about 9" below average inside of rt 128, and 6" below average outside. I have no issue with that forecast. Western New England is 4-5" below.

 

One aspect that lurks that I'd be careful to mention is that single event results tend to exceed QPF at an observably increasing frequency over recent decades ...  I feel this needs to be a bullet point in seasonal forecasting summaries.  Don't linger on it per se.  Just a mention is needed.

this is already papered/correlated to increased ambient WV in the overall machinery of the planet.  There appears to be a synergistic phenomenology - handsome words to say that when we are raining or snowing or sleeting or hailing or whatever, when doing so through higher WV mass, favors "positive busts"

The models seem to be physically challenged in this area, too - although I don't mean to claim that is true.  Just that I keep seeing real events where 30" of rain in 24 hours falls and models might have had an "eye-popping" foot of rain as it is.  Heh, it is almost as though eye-popping is a warming that there a GOATie uh oh'er a-comin'

I was just thinking that in a year that may be a shitty wet warm one, a single snower could be something truly short duration historic.  Like shock and awe given that scale/degree of ENSO plausibly feeding two sources of WV+: the ENSO itself, together with the ambient argument.  That's like synergy, then synergizing yet further, in a single event that happened to roll a 7 cold enough airmass at the right time.  A couple of storms like this and we have an average snow year ...when the real story ends up being the flooding next March. LOL

63" of blue snow at ORH and National Guard only reserved for Science Fiction, right?

I mean that's rhetoric for fun there... but think back to December 23 1997.  The day before that happened, the then 'ETA' ( grandfather to the soon-to-be made extinct blood lined NAM) model had something like .6" of total QPF at Logan, in a sounding that was -3 at 800, 0 and 900, and +2 mid way up the Pru' tower altitude.   Very little or no QPF at ALB, which was colder... 

Now, the forecast was probably in error anyway.  It was 1-3" of transparent glop for the Worcester Hills, to raining a cat paw or two down town Boston... I Emailed Harvey and thought that was too wet. I was not right enough! 

Because 20" of snow later, an amount that fell in 5 hours, pretty much herald in the era of choke snow deposition rates... I had seen and heard of 3 and even an unimaginable 4" in a single hour though rarely.   Not a 7, book-ended by a couple of 5s!  These types of events have been occurring world over, too.  Rain or snow, with increasing frequency since the late 1990s.   That ENSO that year ... mm seems like a climo revolving door sometimes to me.

[SnowGoose69]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

That is an east-based El Nino with a basin-wide expression across the hemisphere on the EURO...no doubt. I think those expecting a season completely devoid of winter weather on the east coast are going to be in for a surprise if that model is correct.

The only thing I am sure of is it will probably act much closer to 82-83/97-98 than it will 15-16 and 23-24, those last 2 just had numerous oddities that more resembled La Ninas, there is probably no chance that is happening this time, especially since the last 2 winters showed signs of moving away from that pattern we had been seeing for the previous 5-6 winters.  

[WxWatcher007]

10 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The only thing I am sure of is it will probably act much closer to 82-83/97-98 than it will 15-16 and 23-24, those last 2 just had numerous oddities that more resembled La Ninas, there is probably no chance that is happening this time, especially since the last 2 winters showed signs of moving away from that pattern we had been seeing for the previous 5-6 winters.  

Are there temp and snowfall maps for 82-83/97-98? Well, I know the temp maps are out there.

[40/70 Benchmark]

50 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The only thing I am sure of is it will probably act much closer to 82-83/97-98 than it will 15-16 and 23-24, those last 2 just had numerous oddities that more resembled La Ninas, there is probably no chance that is happening this time, especially since the last 2 winters showed signs of moving away from that pattern we had been seeing for the previous 5-6 winters.  

Not to that degree, no...that is why I am wondering if adds more Modoki influence versus MC influence relative to the east-based-super composite.

[FXWX]

3 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

One aspect that lurks that I'd be careful to mention is that single event results tend to exceed QPF at an observably increasing frequency over recent decades ...  I feel this needs to be a bullet point in seasonal forecasting summaries.  Don't linger on it per se.  Just a mention is needed.

this is already papered/correlated to increased ambient WV in the overall machinery of the planet.  There appears to be a synergistic phenomenology - handsome words to say that when we are raining or snowing or sleeting or hailing or whatever, when doing so through higher WV mass, favors "positive busts"

The models seem to be physically challenged in this area, too - although I don't mean to claim that is true.  Just that I keep seeing real events where 30" of rain in 24 hours falls and models might have had an "eye-popping" foot of rain as it is.  Heh, it is almost as though eye-popping is a warming that there a GOATie uh oh'er a-comin'

I was just thinking that in a year that may be a shitty wet warm one, a single snower could be something truly short duration historic.  Like shock and awe given that scale/degree of ENSO plausibly feeding two sources of WV+: the ENSO itself, together with the ambient argument.  That's like synergy, then synergizing yet further, in a single event that happened to roll a 7 cold enough airmass at the right time.  A couple of storms like this and we have an average snow year ...when the real story ends up being the flooding next March. LOL

63" of blue snow at ORH and National Guard only reserved for Science Fiction, right?

I mean that's rhetoric for fun there... but think back to December 23 1997.  The day before that happened, the then 'ETA' ( grandfather to the soon-to-be made extinct blood lined NAM) model had something like .6" of total QPF at Logan, in a sounding that was -3 at 800, 0 and 900, and +2 mid way up the Pru' tower altitude.   Very little or no QPF at ALB, which was colder... 

Now, the forecast was probably in error anyway.  It was 1-3" of transparent glop for the Worcester Hills, to raining a cat paw or two down town Boston... I Emailed Harvey and thought that was too wet. I was not right enough! 

Because 20" of snow later, an amount that fell in 5 hours, pretty much herald in the era of choke snow deposition rates... I had seen and heard of 3 and even an unimaginable 4" in a single hour though rarely.   Not a 7, book-ended by a couple of 5s!  These types of events have been occurring world over, too.  Rain or snow, with increasing frequency since the late 1990s.   That ENSO that year ... mm seems like a climo revolving door sometimes to me.

Agree John... It's not something that can be easily incorporated into the winter forecast, but given climate trends and an increasing frequency of excessive precipitation events, it certainly deserves a bolded footnote!