2025-2026 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, LibertyBell said:

yes less snowy and less cold, because we're in a drier cycle now and less snowy too.

But probably better than any other season in this miserable decade.

 

...because its never wise to expect that magnitude of an anomaly...at least on a seasonal level.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

[so_whats_happening]

13 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I didn't intend to imply that I thought it would be that extreme because it certainly will not, however, I can definitely envision a favorable Pacific and relatively unfavorable atlantic next season....along with a meager warm ENSO.

Yea again it just boggles my mind that folks expect an analog year(s) to literally follow to a 'T' month to month, when reality shows it is extremely difficult to have a repeat season even with similar variables that take place. A great example was this past hurricane season even with a dwindling El Nino state and a rather unforgiving upper air pattern over the Atlantic for much of the season we still had average to slightly above average numbers in several categories. In times we had large scale suppression we still managed storm formation and then times with what looked like perfect conditions for storm formation it was quiet as can be.

Just goes to show we do not quite understand every aspect of weather and that is a wonderful thing because it helps to innovate to a better understanding of these processes in the future through further research. I don't ever want to be in the 90-100% accuracy range personally as then weather starts to become boring in my view when predictability is damn near perfect. 

I do appreciate the effort though of people wanting to put out long range forecasts but nothing is ever concrete and I hope we can go further into discussion without too much negativity to help the science.

Anyway yea as for winter a better Pacific does look to be trying to setup Im still unsure about the Atlantic because as we have seen in the past it can flip rather quickly in state. It will be important to watch the severe weather season this year and how things setup going into late spring/early Summer. As for ENSO im in the same department essentially neutral to warm neutral I don't think we touch weak Nino status though.

[GaWx]

9 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said: I don't ever want to be in the 90-100% accuracy range personally as then weather starts to become boring in my view when predictability is damn near perfect.

Very well said! The only thing I’d change is to say 90-100% accuracy is when “wx forecasting” rather than “wx” becomes boring.

[so_whats_happening]

3 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Very well said! The only thing I’d change is to say 90-100% accuracy is when “wx forecasting” rather than “wx” becomes boring.

Fair point

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Yea again it just boggles my mind that folks expect an analog year(s) to literally follow to a 'T' month to month, when reality shows it is extremely difficult to have a repeat season even with similar variables that take place. A great example was this past hurricane season even with a dwindling El Nino state and a rather unforgiving upper air pattern over the Atlantic for much of the season we still had average to slightly above average numbers in several categories. In times we had large scale suppression we still managed storm formation and then times with what looked like perfect conditions for storm formation it was quiet as can be.

Just goes to show we do not quite understand every aspect of weather and that is a wonderful thing because it helps to innovate to a better understanding of these processes in the future through further research. I don't ever want to be in the 90-100% accuracy range personally as then weather starts to become boring in my view when predictability is damn near perfect. 

I do appreciate the effort though of people wanting to put out long range forecasts but nothing is ever concrete and I hope we can go further into discussion without too much negativity to help the science.

Anyway yea as for winter a better Pacific does look to be trying to setup Im still unsure about the Atlantic because as we have seen in the past it can flip rather quickly in state. It will be important to watch the severe weather season this year and how things setup going into late spring/early Summer. As for ENSO im in the same department essentially neutral to warm neutral I don't think we touch weak Nino status though.

Chaos....the atmospheric highly chaotic, which is why you could replicate identical conditions via AI and the season would still evolve at least somewhat differently. This is why I say that it sometimes just comes down to luck whether or not any discrete event works out.....I know some don't like to hear that because they want to operate under this fallacy that everything can be figured out on a calculator, but it simply isn't so. Some are also leery of that explanation because they feel forecasters will use it as an excuse for a failed forecast, but there is an element of luck in weather. At the end of the day, the forecast is still either right or wrong and one needs to take accountability for that....just as in sports...plenty of luck involved there, but there still needs to be a winner and a loser.

[rclab]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Chaos....the atmospheric highly chaotic, which is why you could replicate identical conditions via AI and the season would still evolve at least somewhat differently. This is why I say that it sometimes just comes down to luck whether or not any discrete event works out.....I know some don't like to hear that because they want to operate under this fallacy that everything can be figured out on a calculator, but it simply isn't so. Some are also leery of that explanation because they feel forecasters will use it as an excuse for a failed forecast, but there is an element of luck in weather. At the end of the day, the forecast is still either right or wrong and one needs to take accountability for that....just as in sports...plenty of luck involved there, but there still needs to be a winner and a loser.

‘Chaos’ absolutely agree ….. if the atmosphere evolves with an uncountable number of possibilities and if when several join they move in a direction that leads to a finite number of probabilities, to me that is chaos or to we pedestrians ‘luck’. Thank you and others for your posts. They help me think and combat brain fog for another day. As always ….

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Whether an el nino or la nina develops in 2025-26 depends on whether the WPAC warms (this makes an el nino more likely) or the EPAC cools (this makes a la nina more likely). The JMA is showing an EPAC cooling in the coming months: 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Whether an el nino or la nina develops in 2025-26 depends on whether the WPAC warms (this makes an el nino more likely) or the EPAC cools (this makes a la nina more likely). The JMA is showing an EPAC cooling in the coming months: 

I don't agree with this....

Note that the 1997 intense el Nino event was part of a very potent cool west/warm east Pacific dipole and was representative of a text book warm ENSO configuration:

 

The 2015 el Nino, though biased a bit more to the west, was also part of this larger scale system that featured a very potent Pacific SST gradient from east to west in what was a fully functional warm ENSO.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Obviously a cooler eastern Pacific is indicative of la Nina, but a warmer western Pacific is also representative of a cool ENSO dipole. A cooler western Pacific if often accompanied by El Nino.

[LakePaste25]

All else aside, I prefer a warmer tropical western pacific and weak ENSO. There’s studies that show this combination alone can provide enough forcing for the pattern we saw in 13-14, 14-15, and this past winter. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, LakePaste25 said:

All else aside, I prefer a warmer tropical western pacific and weak ENSO. There’s studies that show this combination alone can provide enough forcing for the pattern we saw in 13-14, 14-15, and this past winter. 

I'll pass on anything resembling this past winter, thanks.

[LibertyBell]

14 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

Yea again it just boggles my mind that folks expect an analog year(s) to literally follow to a 'T' month to month, when reality shows it is extremely difficult to have a repeat season even with similar variables that take place. A great example was this past hurricane season even with a dwindling El Nino state and a rather unforgiving upper air pattern over the Atlantic for much of the season we still had average to slightly above average numbers in several categories. In times we had large scale suppression we still managed storm formation and then times with what looked like perfect conditions for storm formation it was quiet as can be.

Just goes to show we do not quite understand every aspect of weather and that is a wonderful thing because it helps to innovate to a better understanding of these processes in the future through further research. I don't ever want to be in the 90-100% accuracy range personally as then weather starts to become boring in my view when predictability is damn near perfect. 

I do appreciate the effort though of people wanting to put out long range forecasts but nothing is ever concrete and I hope we can go further into discussion without too much negativity to help the science.

Anyway yea as for winter a better Pacific does look to be trying to setup Im still unsure about the Atlantic because as we have seen in the past it can flip rather quickly in state. It will be important to watch the severe weather season this year and how things setup going into late spring/early Summer. As for ENSO im in the same department essentially neutral to warm neutral I don't think we touch weak Nino status though.

The tropical season's large scale suppression during the peak of tropical season echoed the large scale suppression of rainfall and snowfall we have seen since last August.  I think this is a shot across the bow of a switch in the AMO state to its drier state like we had during the 80s.  Many similarities to that decade are now happening.

 

[LibertyBell]

37 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'll pass on anything resembling this past winter, thanks.

Yes, we are results oriented.

 

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Obviously a cooler eastern Pacific is indicative of la Nina, but a warmer western Pacific is also representative of a cool ENSO dipole. A cooler western Pacific if often accompanied by El Nino.

But the downstream effects are different depending on how we achieve that la nina or cool ENSO state, right Ray?

Ditto for el nino or warm ENSO state (in the opposite direction)?

 

[LibertyBell]

4 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Chaos....the atmospheric highly chaotic, which is why you could replicate identical conditions via AI and the season would still evolve at least somewhat differently. This is why I say that it sometimes just comes down to luck whether or not any discrete event works out.....I know some don't like to hear that because they want to operate under this fallacy that everything can be figured out on a calculator, but it simply isn't so. Some are also leery of that explanation because they feel forecasters will use it as an excuse for a failed forecast, but there is an element of luck in weather. At the end of the day, the forecast is still either right or wrong and one needs to take accountability for that....just as in sports...plenty of luck involved there, but there still needs to be a winner and a loser.

They're not identical though, even removing chaos from the equation.  We are in a much different precip cycle than we were in the early 2010s and this (I conjecture) is because the AMO is switching to a drier state and of course the acceleration of the Pac Jet.  If you go back to August and move forward you see that the drier pattern was already established.

 

[LibertyBell]

3 hours ago, rclab said:

‘Chaos’ absolutely agree ….. if the atmosphere evolves with an uncountable number of possibilities and if when several join they move in a direction that leads to a finite number of probabilities, to me that is chaos or to we pedestrians ‘luck’. Thank you and others for your posts. They help me think and combat brain fog for another day. As always ….

Well I don't like the word *luck*, because it implies magic.  I think we can use logic to explain everything.  In this case we're just switching to a much drier cycle (Pac Jet + switching of the AMO) which will continue for the time being.

It has happened before and will happen again.

 

[FPizz]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'll pass on anything resembling this past winter, thanks.

I just want the cold from this season from Dec-Feb.  To have fairly large lakes here in NJ frozen for weeks is something that we haven't had in a while.  It was just too dry overall.  

[40/70 Benchmark]

33 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

They're not identical though, even removing chaos from the equation.  We are in a much different precip cycle than we were in the early 2010s and this (I conjecture) is because the AMO is switching to a drier state and of course the acceleration of the Pac Jet.  If you go back to August and move forward you see that the drier pattern was already established.

 

I didn't say they were identical...I said "you could replicate identical conditions using AI"....it was a hypothetical to illustrate my point.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

Well I don't like the word *luck*, because it implies magic.  I think we can use logic to explain everything.  In this case we're just switching to a much drier cycle (Pac Jet + switching of the AMO) which will continue for the time being.

It has happened before and will happen again.

 

No, it doesn't. It implies chaos or random variability. You can theoretically have a text book perfect pattern identical to past successful analogs and yet still have the storm simply fail to materialize. Perhaps there is some minescule difference that is too minute to be accounted for, which is part of what is accounted for by "chaos".

[40/70 Benchmark]

39 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

But the downstream effects are different depending on how we achieve that la nina or cool ENSO state, right Ray?

Ditto for el nino or warm ENSO state (in the opposite direction)?

 

Generally speaking, the more pronounced warm ENSO will have a more prominent cool west/warm east dipole, and vice versa for cool ENSO. Obviously CC is complicating this a bit, which is part of what led me astray for the 2023-2024 season.

[LibertyBell]

23 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No, it doesn't. It implies chaos or random variability. You can theoretically have a text book perfect pattern identical to past successful analgos and yet still have the storm simply fail to materialize.

How much of a correlation do you think this pattern had to 2013-14, taking into account the faster Pac Jet, AMO switch and CC? I would say not more than 50%, what do you think, Ray?

 

[LibertyBell]

27 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I didn't say they were identical...I said "you could replicate identical conditions using AI"....it was a hypothetical to illustrate my point.

I like that, maybe we can create computer simulations to analog years and add in things that might be different like marine heatwaves in the West Pac, Pac Jet being faster, AMO switch, etc.  

And then see how accurate the simulations would be in terms of temperatures and general storm tracks (not exact snowfall totals of course.)

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

How much of a correlation do you think this pattern had to 2013-14, taking into account the faster Pac Jet, AMO switch and CC? I would say not more than 50%, what do you think, Ray?

 

I think it was one of the stronger analogs.

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I like that, maybe we can create computer simulations to analog years and add in things that might be different like marine heatwaves in the West Pac, Pac Jet being faster, AMO switch, etc.  

And then see how accurate the simulations would be in terms of temperatures and general storm tracks (not exact snowfall totals of course.)

 

TBH, that is what will probably need to happen in order to gain much additional skill in seasonal forecasting.

[michsnowfreak]

On 3/20/2025 at 12:32 PM, FPizz said:

I just want the cold from this season from Dec-Feb.  To have fairly large lakes here in NJ frozen for weeks is something that we haven't had in a while.  It was just too dry overall.  

I agree. Obviously cold & dry isnt my first choice, but id take it over any combination starting with "warm" or "mild" anyday. Jan & Feb were the textbook definition of "winter" here. Everything was frozen and the landscape was white. It was not real exciting for a weather enthusiast, but it was absolutely winter in winter. 

I didnt quote this in the other thread bc I figure we are kinda moving onto early thoughts for next winter, even tho this season may have a few flakes left in it lol. @40/70 Benchmark said "I think we are flipping to -AMO/+PDO, much like the mid to late 70s". I really like this idea. It certainly doesnt mean any location will replicate whatever they had in those seasons, or that no one will get screwed, but the overall trends would likely mean a lot more wintry systems/storms and fun for many. One thing that has always fascinated me throughout the climate period of record is the tendency for very good winters and very blah winters to alternate with each other, both in singular years (good bad good bad) or in clumps (good good bad bad good bad bad good) etc. A majority of wintry climes have had winters that are subpar to their climo for the last several years now, so its inevitable that a change is coming soon. The stretch of great winters a decade ago was not going to last forever, and neither is a stretch of subpar ones. And hopefully the signs start brewing asap. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I agree. Obviously cold & dry isnt my first choice, but id take it over any combination starting with "warm" or "mild" anyday. Jan & Feb were the textbook definition of "winter" here. Everything was frozen and the landscape was white. It was not real exciting for a weather enthusiast, but it was absolutely winter in winter. 

I didnt quote this in the other thread bc I figure we are kinda moving onto early thoughts for next winter, even tho this season may have a few flakes left in it lol. @40/70 Benchmark said "I think we are flipping to -AMO/+PDO, much like the mid to late 70s". I really like this idea. It certainly doesnt mean any location will replicate whatever they had in those seasons, or that no one will get screwed, but the overall trends would likely mean a lot more wintry systems/storms and fun for many. One thing that has always fascinated me throughout the climate period of record is the tendency for very good winters and very blah winters to alternate with each other, both in singular years (good bad good bad) or in clumps (good good bad bad good bad bad good) etc. A majority of wintry climes have had winters that are subpar to their climo for the last several years now, so its inevitable that a change is coming soon. The stretch of great winters a decade ago was not going to last forever, and neither is a stretch of subpar ones. And hopefully the signs start brewing asap. 

It would entail some better times ahead, but I don't mean to imply that there willl be a decade long orgy, either....I expect some more lean season(s) prior to the solar min.

[michsnowfreak]

24 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It would entail some better times ahead, but I don't mean to imply that there willl be a deade long orgy, either....I expect some more lean season(s) prior to the solar min.

Makes sense. Im not expecting a decade long orgy either, but I like the prospects. I am not one who grades a winter soley based on snowfall, I consider all aspects of winter (cold and esp snowcover)...but for those who want JUST snowfall, the biggest worry for non-snowbelt areas of the Lakes is not temps, but a dry winter. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Makes sense. Im not expecting a decade long orgy either, but I like the prospects. I am not one who grades a winter soley based on snowfall, I consider all aspects of winter (cold and esp snowcover)...but for those who want JUST snowfall, the biggest worry for non-snowbelt areas of the Lakes is not temps, but a dry winter. 

Yes, from around I 84 and points north snowfall is more closely correlated with precipitation, but obviously excessive warmth is a detriment to snowfall.

[michsnowfreak]

31 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes, from around I 84 and points north snowfall is more closely correlated with precipitation, but obviously excessive warmth is a detriment to snowfall.

Yup. Every Fall the annual search for blues on temp anomaly maps starts once snow becomes possible in October but that color blue becomes less and less important as we get into winter. Huge difference between some warmer than avg temps vs all out torch. 

It was refreshing how different this was the the last several (I consider it a better winter than '22-23 despite getting 10 more inches of snow then). I'm never one to get too into the whole "drought is a bad sign for winter", but it would be nice if the intense drought in the western half of the country could ease up by this coming Fall.