El Nino on the way, very high confidence and it’s coming much faster than expected previously!
Thats often good news for the upcoming growing season!
Growing season analogs with El Nino are for favorable weather, even though we're starting the year with widespread drought.
One of the few places with a colder than average ocean on the planet right now is the most important one. The East/Central tropical Pacific that determines La Nina/El Nino. But this is rapidly warming!
These negative temperature departures from average are NOT going to last. The water has already greatly warmed below and that warmer water should be coming to the surface during the rest of 2026. It's just a matter of time! It’s already happening with gusto!!
As a result, all the model take us to El Nino conditions.
Here's the thing to always keep in mind. The ENSO phase measurement/metric (La Nina/El Nino) is a 3 MONTH AVERAGE. This is a LAGGING INDICATOR.
The actual ocean/atmosphere will actually be in El Nino conditions for a couple of months BEFORE the average crosses into the El Nino threshold for NOAA to announce the official beginning of the new El Nino!
It would be like them telling us that Winter is here in January, after the 3 month average in temperatures Nov/Dec/Jan crossed low enough to make it Winter.
The huge weather pattern change here in February 2026 to much warmer because of the Pacific jet stream suddenly taking over (after the cold/dry pattern for previous months from La Nina) is the El Nino's impact already starting from the rapidly warming east/central tropical Pacific.
That doesn't mean the El Nino will take over like flipping a switch. Lingering impacts from the previous pattern could still persist for brief periods as they get weaker and weaker with the key area of the Pacific getting warmer and warmer. Becoming dominant over everything else.
The big thaw! 2-2-26
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/117703/
Get all the comprehensive weather here:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83844/
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A huge pattern change to much milder is coming, especially in the week 2 part of the forecast!
This below has been the weather pattern the past 2 weeks:
La Nina Winters have more amplified, meridional type flow........from north to south and a Greenland Block is more likely during a La Nina, like we have currently.
The pattern we had recently was an AMPLIFIED version of the La Nina signal depicted below.
https://www.hometownforecastservice.com/2020-2021-winter-outlook/
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Below is going to be the NEW pattern in 2 weeks. This is the jet stream at 250 mb which is 34,000+ above the ground, up where the commercial jets fly! Note the big upper level ridge building in the East.
The upper level trough in the East RECENTLY will be replaced with this upper level RIDGE. The steering currents there will be from the south, replacing the flow that had been coming from Siberia, with cross polar flow, thru Canada, then plunging deeply into the United States, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico as depicted on the map above.
https://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/Image.php
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2-17-26: This La Nina has weakened the fastest ever with Pacific water temperatures really warming fast now. We should assume that means El Nino conditions and analogs should be adjusted accordingly. For instance, the current forecast for El Nino by late Summer should be MOVED UP. In fact, considering the lag time issue mentioned above, I would move up the El Nino impact to THIS SPRING with regards to real world, empirical data based weather condition analogs.
Past analogs don't always guarantee the future outcome. They only increase the odds. The complete opposite can happen because of something different, unrelated to the previous main forcing mechanism that caused the analog to happen interferes with or even becomes more dominant.
The same conditions as the analog can happen.................but cause the large scale features to shift/ be deflected by XXX miles from a new force that wasn't there before. That shift, for many locations might completely flip the impact of the El Nino to the opposite impact it had in the analog years.
Yes, it happens all the time and this is long range forecasting that has low skill. However, the United States is close enough to the source region of this main forcing agent/mechanism (east/central tropical Pacific) so the the El Nino impact is pretty direct. As opposed to Europe or Asia.
I'll have some good analogs later today with verbiage to adjust them based on how quickly this El Nino is coming on.
The dry soils currently wide spread are a result of the La Niña from last Summer to last month.
This pattern is DEAD!
The new pattern will feature a rapidly developing El Niño.
I will speculate that the atmosphere could be in early El Niño mode already this Spring, responding quickly to positive temperature anomalies by that time.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Weather May 2022
Soilmoisture anomaly:
These maps sometimes take a day to catch up to incorporate the latest data(the bottom map is only updated once a week).
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Soilmst_Monitoring/US/Soilmst/Soilmst.shtml#
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Updated daily below:
https://mrcc.purdue.edu/cliwatch/watch.htm#curMonths
Support for all MRCC-hosted products and services is currently suspended as of April 17, 2025, due to a lapse in federal funding from the Department of Commerce through NOAA.
NEW LINK:
https://www.drought.gov/current-conditions
Thru February 10, 2026
DROUGHT MONITOR
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Drought expanding this Winter from Southern Plains, northeastward.
7 Day Total precipitation below:
http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.govcdx /qpf/p168i.gif?1530796126
Published August 24, 2023
Since this El Nino is coming on faster than any previous one, we have to assume that the upcoming Summer will be greatly impacted by El Nino.
The images above give us the picture worth 1,000 words.
Odds are elevated this year for favorable growing conditions.
Weather forecaster David Schlotthauer talks possible “super” El Niño heading to the Pacific Ocean this fall; what does that mean for surfers?
https://www.surfer.com/news/super-el-nino-2026-weather-expert-warning
I love this guy's comprehensive analysis and explanations!
This one is 3 weeks old and his temperature forecast for February is busting bad(not nearly warm enough). Regardless he still has some good explanations on how things work and what is probably coming up.
By Author Andrej Flis
I have high confidence (for a longer range forecast) that this rapidly developing El Nino will already be impacting the weather in the US early in the growing season.
https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/
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https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/?enso_tab=enso-sst_table
| Season | La Niña | Neutral | El Niño |
|---|---|---|---|
| FMA | 4 | 96 | 0 |
| MAM | 1 | 90 | 9 |
| AMJ | 0 | 65 | 35 |
| MJJ | 1 | 41 | 58 |
| JJA | 3 | 39 | 58 |
| JAS | 4 | 35 | 61 |
| ASO | 6 | 33 | 61 |
| SON | 9 | 33 | 58 |
| OND | 10 | 30 | 60 |
Note above that the MAJORITY of models(58%) predict an El Nino by May/June/July, which means El Nino will be in place already by Spring and the entire Summer(June/July/August) will feature an El Nino.
This is my forecast right now, in fact, El Nino by AMJ is possible.
Soil moisture is low across large portions of the Cornbelt. The planting season isn't going to really get going until early April. Dry soils/weather early on is good for accelerating/advanced planting. However, this year could feature an elevated threat of beneficial, soil recharging rains that keep producers out of the fields BEFORE the planting season is over.
This is at a distant time frame that has LOW skill and during a transition to the El Nino so so rainfall forecast for this Spring is very low confidence.
Dry soils are a bigger impact on weather forecasts in Summer(when weather systems use some of that moisture and wet soils help suppress temperatures) , especially late Summer. Less impactful in the Spring.
El Nino's tend to reduce Atlantic basin hurricanes because of the increased wind shear.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/impacts-el-nino-and-la-nina-hurricane-season
Extended Range Forecast for North
Atlantic Hurricane Activity in 2026
Issued: 11th December 2025
https://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/docs/TSRATLForecastDecember2026.pdf
https://www.trackthetropics.com/
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