iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by @webberweather.bsky.social

Alex Boreham @cyclonicwx.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

New ENSO plot! There's now a scatterplot comparing Niño 3.4 (or RONI) to the ENSO Longitude Index. Good way to tell how east- or west-based it is! So far given an ELI slightly more east than 1997 with similar RONI, it would imply that 2026 is similarly or even more east-based

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

This El Niño event is making the last few strong ones (2015-16 & 2023-24) look like mere child's play. Only 1997-98 holds a candle to this one in the modern era.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Weekly avg WAFz & OLRa also show a clear wave source emanating from the NE Pacific where SSTs are record warm & fueling convection anomalies. This dynamical connection is not unlike the findings of some studies of the 2021 Pacific NW heatwave, including this one: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The fingerprints of El Nino with a subseasonal boost from the MJO/BSISO & GLAAM are all over this highly anomalous wave pattern

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Even utilizing the Relative Oceanic Nino Index (RONI), the NINO 3.4 region SSTa this year are only being rivaled by the 1997-98 "El Niño of the Century". Our developing "Super" El Niño has exhibited the most remarkable build-up of SSTa since the beginning of the year in the entire satellite era.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Also want to note, that this year marks the first time we've ever crossed the 29C mark during the northern summer (JJA) in the NINO 3.4 region.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I've updated the Ensemble Oceanic Nino Index (ENS ONI) Apr-May-Jun (AMJ) ENS ONI value of +0.97C was the 9th highest in AMJ since 1850, indicative of a strong El Niño via ranks The latest monthly ENS ONI value of +1.45C is the highest on record for June www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oce...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

The low frequency state already is deviating rather significantly from a typical La Nina. The transition period between La Nina & El Nino onset often comes with more frequent -EPO/+TNH, especially in mid-late winter

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Westerly wind anomalies deep into the Indo-Pacific during the fall before El Niño play a *very* underrated role in preconditioning/charging the Warm Pool over the West Pac The build-up of the West Pac Warm Pool provides the “fuel” for El Niño to grow later in the yr This yr is a classic example👇

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

How do our low-level zonal wind anomalies over the Indo-Pacific the past few months compare to the onset years of every El Niño since 1950? Almost a perfect match overall. The westerly low-level wind anomalies deep in the Warm Pool are doing a lot of damage already to our current La Nina state

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

The mean Indo-Pacific Warm Pool last month looks similar to what preceded the 1982, 1997, 2006, 2014, & 2018 El Ninos The Warm Pool is plenty strong enough for El Niño later this year Note that 30C SSTs are centered ~160E & extend to nearly the dateline below the equator

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Euro weekly 7-day avg precip anomaly fcst for mid Jan (left) vs correlation b/t the CPC’s EP/NH index & OLRa (right) Note the Eq. Rossby Wave ~150-160E in the Eq. Pacific in both images, where 2 anomalous centers of convective heating straddle the equator. That’s usually how you get -EPO in winter

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

A lot of the +U is off-equatorial so it’s definitely somewhat a function of box size. However, those off-equatorial westerlies are important too for charging the Warm Pool and forcing a +PMM

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Rather unsurprisingly, the easterly trade winds are MIA relatively speaking as this -NPO pattern strengthens its grip on the North Pacific

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

NDJF N Pacific SLPa 1 year before El Nino (left) vs the Euro weekly forecast thru early Jan (right) This year has a classic negative N Pacific Oscillation (-NPO) pattern that often precedes El Nino events in the following calendar year See Vimont et al (2003): journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

The ongoing MJO event in the West Pacific has led to a *gigantic* build-up of westerly momentum in the tropical troposphere, w/ GLAAM anomalies approaching 3 sigma! Very El Nino-like

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

TAO buoy subsurface animation for this past month Notice the thermocline is quickly deepening and the subsurface anomalies are beginning to advance eastward over the West-Central Equatorial Pacific.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

We likely won't realize the true scope of the ocean response to this MJO event until early Jan or so, but early signs already point to a pretty big ocean response, even before the WWB event in the West-Central Pacific has occurred La Niña is living on borrowed time in the grand scheme of things

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

I definitely need to take better care of myself and get more regular exercise and eat healthier. Those things would also certainly help

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

It really depends on how far the eastern edge of the warm pool is zonally advected towards the central pacific the next few months whether the +TNH is associated with less -PNA or more +PNA late winter. The current configuration is very favorable to +TNH tho

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

The thermocline in the West-Central Eq. Pacific is already responding to the Westerly Wind Burst event & -IOD collapse that occurred earlier this month in association w/ the MJO. A downwelling Kelvin Wave is forming over the West Pacific & will help eventually destroy La Nina in a few months or so.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

That sounds somewhat similar to me though I may have some other compounding factors like pain medication and perhaps some sort of underlying condition (high blood pressure ?). But anxiety during this whole ordeal definitely made it worse.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Had to check myself into the ER last night with some nasty heart palpitations, felt like I was having a heart attack. 😣 Results came back negative fortunately & I feel better this morning w/ the occasional palpitation still Hopefully when I see the cardiologist they can diagnose the issue 🙏

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

It’s so hard to get things to work out in the Desert Lowlands of southern NM & El Paso, even if the longwave pattern is there for a good snow event. Oth, the pattern is close enough on some guidance to where it‘s legitimately possible (albeit rather unlikely) that they do.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

The GEFS and Euro AIFS ensembles trying to give me some hope for snow in early December. Surely, this must be a trap.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

The low-level westerly wind burst in the pacific is what’s really driving the MJO into the Western Hemisphere (phase 8) in Dec (left) That to me is a very telling of how hard the atmosphere is pushing the ocean away from La Niña & possibly towards an El Niño state this coming spring or summer

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

A stronger PV is a better downward reflector of upward propagating wave energy. I do expect the PV to strengthen later in Jan or Feb given the east qbo/high solar combo

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

The warmest water on the entire planet is sitting ~160E in the Equatorial Pacific & a prolonged Westerly Wind Burst event is about to occur here This will trigger a downwelling oceanic kelvin wave that should destroy La Niña ~3 months from now & begin moving the ocean towards El Niño conditions

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

We might be in a La Niña at the moment, but the tropical troposphere already looks very El Niño-like with a huge build-up of deep-layer westerly wind anomalies In the grand scheme of things, El Nino is likely knocking on the door 🚪

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

For all my S2S junkies out there, here’s another invaluable tool to add to your arsenal: An annual archive of polar cap geopotential height anomalies going back to 1940 using ERA-5 & a 30-year sliding climatology 👀 hebweather.net/prod/gph_arc...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Cool study came out earlier this yr looking at the dynamical origins of the extreme 2023 Heatwave in the Desert SW They concluded that the warm Tropical Atlantic was the primary culprit The partial regression analysis (left) & AGCM forcing (right) are pretty telling www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Yes for the most part. I’m interested to see how ENSO evolves going into the next year, esp given what happened after this in 1982.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

I still can’t get over how similar this year’s zonal wind anomalies in the tropics are to 1981

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

This increase in tropical westerly momentum favors an equatorward shift in the Pacific Jet Stream, which leads to an increase chance of high-latitude North Pacific blocking (-EPO), consistent with current model forecasts & Winters et al (2019) journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Quietly while La Niña persists, the tropical upper troposphere is becoming very El Niño-like A large build-up of westerly momentum (+U) in the tropics is being supplanted by a West Pac MJO orbit & repeated bouts of positive E Asia Mtn Torque (+EAMT) fluxing/squeezing +U equatorward

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

I think we see things transition sometime late in January or early February. Oth, this year is mostly following the Nina script to a T thus far

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

The global tropics zonal wind anomalies this year are evolving very similarly to late 1981, which of course preceded a “Super” El Niño event in 1982 Note how this yr & 1981 have a big & slow westerly wind burst over the Indian Ocean & Maritime Continent in Oct-Nov that moved into the Pacific in Dec

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

As you might expect from the very strong -IOD event strengthening La Nina’s footprint globally, this October’s observed pattern has deviated very little from the last 30 years worth of La Ninas over N America

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Even when you look at November, this year really isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary for a La Niña

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

The latest Euro weekly forecast thru mid-December is almost exactly what you’d expect for typical a La Niña December over the last 30 years: A faster-than-usual start to winter over the East-Central US with plenty of high-latitude blocking

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

We will likely have a much heavier +PNA look over the conus this year in December

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

thanks ant 😃! I found the east qbo/solar max tendency for strong late winter/early spring +NAM to be weird at first, but It‘s indeed very real. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

-IOD collapse leading to El Niño is something we’ve seen as recently as 2023 The timing of this yr’s WWBs in the IO are well ahead of schedule vs 2023 & this year’s -IOD is of course more extreme w/ greater warm water volume. Another strong Nino could be in the cards if things evolve properly

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

La Niña is living on borrowed time. The extreme -IOD we're currently seeing (right) is about to collapse because the warm water in the Equatorial Indian Ocean will get flushed into the tropical West Pac at depth over the next month in this MJO event's westerly wind burst (left)

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Not really. Extratropical SSTs are mostly a lagged response to lower frequency forcing from the atmosphere at interannual scales.

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webberweather.bsky.social @webberweather.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

This favors slower MJO events which have stronger & more consistent extratropical teleconnections as Yadav et al (2024), Yadav & Straus (2017) & Tseng et al (2020) have argued agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal... journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

The Role of the Stratosphere in Teleconnections Arising From Fast and Slow MJO Episodes

Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) episodes that propagate slowly from Phase 3 to Phase 6 exhibit significantly stronger anomalies in the stratosphere than fast episodes Heat flux anomalies in the l...

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