GaWx

Even throwing in the towel just based on ENSO, alone, would seem to be awfully bold.

I know it is hard to accept because of Fay’s tenacity, but the 0Z UKMET actually dropped her coming back to being a TC. Poor Fay

The CPC has 1972-3 peaking at +2.0 in its most up to date RONI table linked just below. Since RONI is the official way of classifying (and has been since Feb), that’s the current CPC official peak for 1972-3 rather than +1.8: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/roni/ More on the transition of CPC from ONI to RONI for official classification of ENSO (this was released in Feb 2026): https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/roni/announcement.php From the link above: “The Climate Prediction Center is making the shift to use the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) to better designate past events and predict future ENSO.” ——————— The table at the link below, which is to the most up to date ONI, has 1972-3 peaking at +1.8. But ONI hasn’t been the official way for CPC to classify since Feb. At the top it says this: This page will continue to be updated by the 5th of each month, but per NWS Public Information Statement 26-05, the Relative Oceanic Niño index (RONI) is used for official monitoring and prediction of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/oni/v6/ @Maestrobjwa

This like another map I saw this morning shows that I’d get within just the next few days at least as much as I got in all of pretty dry Sept., which was ~2.55”. So, I hope it verifies pretty closely for MBY. In reality due to the showery nature of some of this producing isolated heavy amounts, I realize there will likely be significant variations in totals within pretty short distances though.

I agree with most that a record strong RONI is likely at this point. But NOAA is ~0.4 cooler than this fwiw (low +2s). So, it very likely won’t get nearly as warm as some models, like the BoA (still way up near +3.8) are showing. Regardless, the strongest anomalies are going to continue to be in 1+2 and 3. This is now the most E based on record by a good margin over 1997, and that’s looking to continue down the road.

1. Technically FYI, “super” is not an official category for NOAA. I think they call those with RONI max of +2.0+ “very strong” or something similar. But here we including myself usually call them “super”. 2. 72-3 barely qualifies as “super” or “very strong” per the RONI table: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso/roni/

17.4 (1983) Going back all the way to 1851, only 3 had lower ACE than 1983 and all of them could have been higher in reality due to being way before the satellite era: 1914, 1925, 1907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulated_cyclone_energy

I ended up getting only ~2.55” of rainfall in Sept, which is well below the longterm average of >4.5”. The upcoming progged significant rainfall in early Oct here would be most welcomed!

Tulsa, OK, was 84.3 F in Sep ‘26, which was in addition to being 10.1 warmer than the longterm Sep mean: - 2.4 warmer than its 2nd warmest Sep - 1.4 warmer than its longterm mean for July - warmer than 69% of Julys, 74% of Augusts, and 98% of Junes on record (records back to 1905) @donsutherland1

Follow-up: As expected based on the model consensus having significantly warmer 2m maps on Sep 30th vs Sep 29th at 80N+, the DMI warmed notably yesterday (>1C) vs Sep 29th as it rose to the blue line (mean for 1958-2002). It should warm further tomorrow:

12Z UKMET: Fay starts off deceased but she gets revived once again (on Friday) and like 2 runs ago later becomes a TS: NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 60 HOURS FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 60 : 27.3N 60.5W LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 0000UTC 03.10.2026 60 27.3N 60.5W 1014 27 1200UTC 03.10.2026 72 29.3N 60.6W 1013 28 0000UTC 04.10.2026 84 31.8N 60.1W 1012 30 1200UTC 04.10.2026 96 34.0N 58.9W 1012 30 0000UTC 05.10.2026 108 35.6N 57.1W 1011 29 1200UTC 05.10.2026 120 37.5N 55.3W 1009 30 0000UTC 06.10.2026 132 40.2N 53.3W 1004 33 1200UTC 06.10.2026 144 44.7N 49.2W 996 41 0000UTC 07.10.2026 156 51.2N 44.3W 992 43 1200UTC 07.10.2026 168 CEASED TRACKING @jconsor

As I said, I’ve been following model initializations of 2m at 80+ N. They were colder than climo most of late May-early Aug. Check out those of the Euro for yesterday: clearly solidly BN vs 1981-2010 for 80N+ on Sep 29th (associated with a storm)(they were also quite cold going back to Sep 23rd by the way), which may actually be cold enough to support the ~2C colder than the 1958-2002 mean shown on the newest DMI graph: Here’s the Euro forecast for Oct 2nd, which shows notable warming as the storm moves S into Siberia. This is why I’m expecting warming on the DMI graphs by then: @so_whats_happening@OSUmetstud

Due to the timing of the upgrade, I’m also quite suspicious that this Euro 5/12/26 upgrade MAY have contributed to the colder 2026 vs previous summers. So, I do see what you’re saying. Thats why I went to that other forum and spent a couple of hours to see if anyone pointed to that. But nobody did in those hundreds of posts from very knowledgeable folks, including very experienced pro-mets. If this Euro upgrade is really a contributor or possibly even the main cause, don’t you think at least one person there would have mentioned that? That’s why I’d prefer to keep an open mind until there’s decent agreement among the met. community. Do you see anything wrong with that? You may be right and you’d then deserve major kudos, but I’d first Iike to see some consensus. But even if you’re right, can’t 2026 still be a cold outlier but to a lesser extent?

Because the plot he posted was for May-Aug, I’ll analyze that period. Looking at the image below, May-Aug averaged ~1.3C, not ~2C, below the much older 1958-2002 climo: May was ~-2C, June was ~-2C, July was ~-1C, and Aug was ~-0.1C. This means ~-1.3C for the avg of May-Aug rather than -2C. However, I do realize that -1.3C vs 1958-2002 would be a good bit more negative vs 1991-2020….perhaps as much as ~-3C?? So, that would be colder than what that 925 mb anomaly map suggests for 80N+, which I roughly estimate to be -1.25C: However, that image is for 925 mb, not 2m. Isn’t it possible that the 2m anom was colder than the 925 mb anom?

Yaakov, So, the Energizer Bunny may really come back for a 3rd time? Holy cow! Here’s the 0Z UKMET, which suggests that: 0Z UKMET actually has it as a non-TC tomorrow: GLOBAL MODEL DATA TIME 0000UTC 30.09.2026 TROPICAL DEPRESSION FAY ANALYSED POSITION : 23.4N 48.7W ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL062026 LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 0000UTC 30.09.2026 0 23.4N 48.7W 1013 21 1200UTC 30.09.2026 12 23.3N 50.8W 1014 22 0000UTC 01.10.2026 24 CEASED TRACKING When I first saw this part of the 0Z textual output, I thought that even the UKMET had finally given up on it. But as I looked further down to look at other TCs, what did I see? Fay came back 36 hours later! NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 60 HOURS FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 60 : 25.4N 58.6W LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 1200UTC 02.10.2026 60 25.4N 58.6W 1015 25 0000UTC 03.10.2026 72 26.8N 59.6W 1014 27 1200UTC 03.10.2026 84 28.3N 60.5W 1014 26 0000UTC 04.10.2026 96 30.3N 60.5W 1014 26 1200UTC 04.10.2026 108 32.2N 59.4W 1014 27 0000UTC 05.10.2026 120 33.6N 58.4W 1013 26 1200UTC 05.10.2026 132 34.6N 56.7W 1011 25 0000UTC 06.10.2026 144 35.4N 55.1W 1009 24 1200UTC 06.10.2026 156 CEASED TRACKING