2025-2026 ENSO

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, LibertyBell said:

Yes, I read that the influence of enso state on our weather is around 20%.  So it's not huge, but it does matter.

 

Its not a perfect correlation obviously, but I think it matters more than Chuck is implying. Obviously strength matters....weaker events are a wild card.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Can you find me a strong, east-based El Nino that averaged a DM -NAO dating back to 1950? How about a strong, Modoki La Nina??

In the map that I posted earlier this page of anti-Strong El Nino's, you can see there is a -NAO signal... so maybe correct that by moving the cold from the Northeast and Great Lakes to the Upper Midwest... I think going forward it could happen, and it not happening or happening the same is maybe like a +5-10% probability. 

[LibertyBell]

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Its not a perfect correlation obviously, but I think it matters more than Chuck is implying. Obviously strength matters....weaker events are a wild card.

Yes stronger events definitely increase the correlation, I was a little confused by the *if a very strong el nino is very warm then a very strong la nina must be very cold* assertion, because it's a lot more complicated than that, we have to deal with ridge trough patterns, which depend on an interplay of more than one factor even in a very strong event.

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

3 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

look at the 1910s as examples of that, maybe the 1800s too.

We only have global satellite maps from 1948 on, but the US climate division has data way before then, from the 1800s. You can kind of piece together the NAO if you know what it is... does someone have a reliable list of ENSO events 1800s-1948? 

[LibertyBell]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

In the map that I posted earlier this page of anti-Strong El Nino's, you can see there is a -NAO signal... so maybe correct that by moving the cold from the Northeast and Great Lakes to the Upper Midwest... I think going forward it could happen, and it not happening or happening the same is maybe like a +5-10% probability. 

Maybe because of CC or some other factors, the area of extreme cold is becoming much smaller with time?

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, LibertyBell said:

Yes stronger events definitely increase the correlation, I was a little confused by the *if a very strong el nino is very warm then a very strong la nina must be very cold* assertion, because it's a lot more complicated than that, we have to deal with ridge trough patterns, which depend on an interplay of more than one factor even in a very strong event.

 

It comes down to what they are, and what they do. They interact with the Hadley Cell, and North Pacific High. One creates low pressure, the other high pressure. 

[michsnowfreak]

35 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Absolutely agree with the underlined portion.

 

As for the last portion, you keep acting like this is standardized and it is not. The fact of the matter is that the predominate type of snowfall measurtement has moved away from the 6 hour swipe method with the exception of the major airports. The majority of spotters are not clearing and are discouraged from doing so. In March 2018, I had a 31.5" snowfall total discounted by the NWS because it was obtained but the 6 hour clear method...they accepted another report from that same town of 25", which was uncoincidentally was my final depth.

I always use the 6 hour method. However, im curious....why would spotters be discouraged from doing this? I didnt think most of them did it anyway. The 6-hour method is standard at all first order climate sites, but as for spotters, I always looked at them as volunteer weather observers who are volunteering their hobbyist observations; I take most spotter reports with a grain of salt whether its from 1910, 1960, or 2025 lol.

But again, this primarly affects the bigger storms.

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Not to be confused with it correlating with NAO.. big difference. An example: There are 8 Weak La Nina's and 6 have -NAO. You would think that they are connected, but that's actually too low of a sample size. I just use the NAO in this example to provide a divider so that it can be more easily understood what I mean. It's a tough one to overcome believe it or not mentally, but given 100 historical examples, Weak ENSO will look "weak" in the composite, and Strong ENSO will look strong.. however, what they are correlated to (SE ridge or whatever) will be in the same spot in both sample sets, given enough examples. 

The thing is....the strongest El Ninos are east-based....to a somewhat lesser exent, the storngest La Nina are Modoki.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, LibertyBell said:

Maybe because of CC or some other factors, the area of extreme cold is becoming much smaller with time?

I mean the Earth is warming, but it was -32F in Valentine Nebraska a month ago, and it snowed 10" in Florida this year..  I don't think the "cold air is shrinking" is a valid theory besides general earth warming lol. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The thing is....the strongest El Ninos are east-based....to a somewhat lesser exent, the storngest La Nina are Modoki.

So far... I would love in my lifetime to see a strong East-based La Nina. Not impossible, but you are talking about the coldest SSTs occurring off the coast of Peru, and probably like 24c being hit, so such an event is a pretty extreme occurrence. You would need massive trade winds. 

[LibertyBell]

Just now, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I mean the Earth is warming, but it was -32F in Valentine Nebraska a month ago, and it snowed 10" in Florida this year..  I don't think the "cold air is shrinking" is a valid theory besides general earth warming lol. 

It makes  me wonder if it is happening at a slower rate well inland vs on our coasts (obviously Florida is a flaw in that theory lol.)

Other factors could be that a stronger la nina encourages a stronger SE Ridge which would explain why they are not usually very cold.

Something I've noticed with la ninas is that they encourage more huggers/runners (because of the stronger SE Ridge).  But if a la nina happens after an el nino we tend to get more snow.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

In the map that I posted earlier this page of anti-Strong El Nino's, you can see there is a -NAO signal... so maybe correct that by moving the cold from the Northeast and Great Lakes to the Upper Midwest... I think going forward it could happen, and it not happening or happening the same is maybe like a +5-10% probability. 

Ultimately maybe ENSO has very little impact on the NAO...I am open to anything and everything given the great dearth of data that he have to consider, as you correctly point out. However, in the mean time, all we are left to do is discuss the data that we have, and use it to develop hypoethesis. Its like a sports talk show.......if a baseball team starts out 61-20, people are going to call and discuss how great they look with the tacit understanding that perhaps they would end up so dominating after a 162 game sample size. But life goes on and we discuss incomplete data because its all that we have.

Hey, maybe the Yankees blow...we only have 130 years of data!!

[michsnowfreak]

1 minute ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I mean the Earth is warming, but it was -32F in Valentine Nebraska a month ago, and it snowed 10" in Florida this year..  I don't think the "cold air is shrinking" is a valid theory besides general earth warming lol. 

Agree. We have to separate the earth is warming from the winter cold availability. We go below zero and have had more impressive cold shots than we did locally in the 1930s-50s. Three different winters between 2014-19 saw temps get to -13F or colder at Detroit. That low (-13) was not attained once from 1935 til 1963.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

11 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

It makes  me wonder if it is happening at a slower rate well inland vs on our coasts (obviously Florida is a flaw in that theory lol.)

Other factors could be that a stronger la nina encourages a stronger SE Ridge which would explain why they are not usually very cold.

Something I've noticed with la ninas is that they encourage more huggers/runners (because of the stronger SE Ridge).  But if a la nina happens after an el nino we tend to get more snow.

 

I think the west coast and east coast are warming faster than the Midwest.. yes.

Just try to not imagine what you know to be true about strong La Nina's and El Nino's. We are starting from scratch. Here is what they actually do as the Tropical Cell interacts with the Hadley Cell

Downstream from that, when it's High pressure (la nina), you have a trough in the Midwest and sometimes a SE ridge. A low pressure there puts a ridge in the Midwest. If the ENSO events are based further west on the equator, the effected area of the north pacific high shifts west, if the ENSO event is further east, the effected area shifts east.  It's pretty real a yes or no equation.. our # of samples so far are statically not high enough yet to give us clear opposite results in the data yet.. so random variance occurs (wrt ENSO impact). 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Ultimately maybe ENSO has very little impact on the NAO...I am open to anything and everything given the great dearth of data that he have to consider, as you correctly point out. However, in the mean time, all we are left to do is discuss the data that we have, and use it to develop hypoethesis. Its like a sports talk show.......if a baseball team starts out 61-20, people are going to call and discuss how great they look with the tacit understanding that perhaps they would end up so dominating after a 162 game sample size. But life goes on and we discuss incomplete data because its all that we have.

Hey, maybe the Yankees blow...we only have 130 years of data!!

Yeah, I've just run a lot of correlation researches, and I start seeing that areas far away from X point of origin correlate weakly over enough data. That's all. 

Yankees have one of the largest cities, so higher potential revenue.. and baseball has no salary cap so it carries. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah, I've just run a lot of correlation researches, and I start seeing that areas far away from X point of origin correlate weakly over enough data. That's all. 

Yankees have one of the largest cities, so higher potential revenue.. and baseball has no salary cap so it carries. 

Ok, Montreal Canadiens.....you get the point.

[40/70 Benchmark]

14 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

So far... I would love in my lifetime to see a strong East-based La Nina. Not impossible, but you are talking about the coldest SSTs occurring off the coast of Peru, and probably like 24c being hit, so such an event is a pretty extreme occurrence. You would need massive trade winds. 

1955-1956 is probably the closest example.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

1955-1956 is probably the closest example.

Yeah, believe it or not Dec 1955 and Jan 1956 were cold in the eastern 2/3 of US. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

22 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

I always use the 6 hour method. However, im curious....why would spotters be discouraged from doing this? I didnt think most of them did it anyway. The 6-hour method is standard at all first order climate sites, but as for spotters, I always looked at them as volunteer weather observers who are volunteering their hobbyist observations; I take most spotter reports with a grain of salt whether its from 1910, 1960, or 2025 lol.

But again, this primarly affects the bigger storms.

Same here....and I don't know, but they are. measuring settled depth is an entirely different concept...its not "snowfall". Why I now do in large events is report both.....snowfall and settled depth, and the NWS can do with it as they wish.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah, believe it or not Dec 1955 and Jan 1956 were cold in the eastern 2/3 of US. 

They should have been.....east vs west is more imortant than weak vs strong. The reason they look similar is because strength is usually correlated with EMI. IE most Modoki El Nino events are weaker because more modest WWB allowed the anoamlies to remain out west, and the strongest events are east based...presumably due the fact that the prevalence of the WWBs needed to reach that intensity also pushes the greatest anomalies east.

[40/70 Benchmark]

If the strongest El Nino on record were a Modoki, theoretically speaking, I would expect to be colder...2009 is probably the closest example. very strong east-based La Nina would be cold...1955.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

They should have.....east vs west is more imortant than weak vs strong. The reason they look similar is because strenth is usually correlated with EMI. IE most Modoki El Nino events are weaker and the strongest events are east based...presumably due the fact that the prevalence of the WWBs needed to reach that intensity also pushes the greatest anomalies east.

Yeah but it really puts the conversation on track if you understand "20 pennies" is weak, and "100 pennies" is strong. East vs west are like a foreign currency vs a Dollar. But Weak -ENSO is not going to favor cold weather while Strong -ENSO is not. If there is cold, it is because of other things. Weak does not automatically equate to -NAO, it has just so happened to happen that way over the past 50-70 years. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

If the strongest El Nino on record were a Modoki, theoretically speaking, I would expect to be colder...2009 is probably the closest example. very strong east-based La Nina would be cold...1955.

I just don't think we're going to always have -NAO with Modoki El Nino.. I agree that over the dateline, the effect on the Hadley Cell is further west so more +PNA vs North Pacific High. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah but it really puts the conversation on track if you understand "20 pennies" is weak, and "100 pennies" is strong. East vs west are like a foreign currency vs the Dollar. But Weak -ENSO is not going to favor cold weather while Strong -ENSO is not. If there is cold, it is because of other things. Weak does not automatically equate to -NAO, it has just so happened to happen that way over the past 50-70 years. 

I agree with this....however, weak leaves more possibility for -NAO is how I would articulate it. Its more about the strongest events being west based favoring +NAO and flat Aleutian ridging.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I just don't think we're going to always have -NAO with Modoki El Nino.. I agree that over the dateline, the effect on the Hadley Cell is further west so more +PNA vs North Pacific High. 

Depends how strong it is....weaker is more variable. But I think a stronger Modoki like 2009 is always going to have some -NAO.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Depends how strong it is....weaker is more variable. But I think a stronger Modoki like 2009 is always going to have some -NAO.

2009 actually had a strong -QBO so the -NAO/-AO was helped out by the Stratosphere. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

2009 actually had a strong -QBO so the -NAO/-AO was helped out by the Stratosphere. 

I'm not disputing that....there was a confluence of factors that made that season so anomalous for the mid atl. Solar min, too. I don't think the Modoki was meaningless, though...IDK, maybe Modoki is more favored under certain stratospheric conditions...another consideration.

[michsnowfreak]

42 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Same here....and I don't know, but they are. measuring settled depth is an entirely different concept...its not "snowfall". Why I now do in large events is report both.....snowfall and settled depth, and the NWS can do with it as they wish.

Its a shame there isnt more consistence. I think the reason they probably dont have spotters do it is because most cant/wont. Some will, but others wont.

Again, here in a climate of more frequent but less dramatic snowfalls, Ive learned by far that the bigger the snowstorm the bigger the settling. I check the daily areas coop reports so I already know locally who is good and who is not. You can literally tell who actually measures properly and who measures whats on the board at their obs time. I have seen snowfalls that melted the day before actually go in as a trace, and thats ridiculous. 

I know some of the DTX mets and Ive heard from others on this board who know some of their local NWS mets. Seems to me that the consensus is, the first order stations are called/call in for every obs (00z, 06z, 12z, 18z). Detroit and Flint have good observers, Saginaw is a bit more flighty. The NWS office is located in a very rural area far NW of Detroit. I wish they kept the NWS offices at the main first order site! If there is something fishy with a first order sites report, the met will usually question the observer (Ive heard this happens with CLE NWS for the Toledo observer).

I think/assume the general consensus with NWS offices is make sure your first order/main climate sites are coming in with proper/realistic measurments and as for your coops/spotters, just continue to post the "how to measure snow" guidelines on social media and hope for the best 

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Agree. We have to separate the earth is warming from the winter cold availability. We go below zero and have had more impressive cold shots than we did locally in the 1930s-50s. Three different winters between 2014-19 saw temps get to -13F or colder at Detroit. That low (-13) was not attained once from 1935 til 1963.

That's very interesting, we used to have a lot of below zero temperatures right up to the 80s.  Since then it's only been in 1994 and 2016 that it happened and that's it.  We used to average a below zero temperature every other year, now it's like once a decade lol.

 

[LibertyBell]

37 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

2009 actually had a strong -QBO so the -NAO/-AO was helped out by the Stratosphere. 

what made 2010-11 so cold and so snowy in a moderate to strong la nina? we had very strong nao blocking for 2 years (2009-10 and 2010-11), maybe there was a carryover effect (la ninas after el ninos tend to be snowy.)