El Nino Forecast Surges - Is It Finally Getting Real?

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]The El Nino forecast surges. Is it finally getting real? I am Mark Sponsler and welcome to the Storm Surf video surf forecast for the week starting Sunday, May 24th.

[00:00:16]Storm surf, waves, weather, buoys, alimmetry, snow, temperatures, El Nino, weather analysis. Essential data for outdoor people all the time. No hype.

[00:00:35]>> If you're here for the El Nino forecast, go to about halfway through the video.

[00:00:39]Use the chapter function down below.

[00:00:41]That's where all the that detail starts.

[00:00:43]If you enjoy the video, give us a thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. Click the Storm Surf icon down in the lower right hand corner of your screen. If you have a comment or question, write it up down below. We'd be happy to respond. And if you'd like to make a small contribution to the cause, you may hit the super thanks button down below. The heart with the dollar sign in it. With that, I'd like to thank the folks that donated last week. Christopher Tolbert, DL Man, B Nadine, Evolution Moto, E Slate, Tim Casten, Coach Nate, Ian Perez, and our big contributor for the week, Jake Marlo. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. Your contributions help keep this channel going. And with that, let's get to work. We're going to start by looking at significant wave heights around the planet. And as you can see, we have a pretty p active pattern going on, mainly in the Pacific. First off, a little bit of a gale, remnants of a previous gale, actually 22 generating 22t seas uh west of the British Columbia, but a new gale developing with nearly 30 foot seas at least approaching the date line and forecast to build from there. down south a gale with 32 foot seas 31 maybe 32 foot seas southeast of New Zealand. This has is generating swell that is propagating off to the northeast. In the North Atlantic the fading remnants of low pressure not doing a whole lot maybe producing 15t seas or something. In the South Atlantic a gale with 28T seas pushing off to the northeast targeting South Africa.

[00:02:17]Another smaller gale with about 24 25 foot seas due south of South Africa. And then in the Indian Ocean, another gale with 24 to 25 foot seas lifting off to the northeast targeting Indonesia and Western Australia. So for the most part, everywhere has activity and swell is in the water, thank goodness. But before we get into all that, let's take a look at current conditions. We're going to use the buoys. Starting up north off the Pacific Northwest there, the intersection of the Oregon and Washington border. There is a buoy, the Columbia River Bar buoy, 46029.

[00:02:53]With it, we are looking at all the energy that is hitting that buoy just a bit off the coast all the way up from 30.3 second period. Very long long period energetic swell 0.0 feet the whole way down to 5-second period. Just pure wind chop and there's half a foot of energy there. The big uh story, if you will, is a bit of a bump in swell in about the 12 to 13 second period range.

[00:03:17]You see here it uh we also pure swell is also comprised of energy on either side or the shoulders of that peak. We use an algorithm to sort it all out. And we calculate primary swell at 3.5 ft at 13.6 seconds from 285° making surf 4.8 ft on the face at your standard beach break. It would be more at breaks with swell enhancing bethimemetry. Secondary swell 2.6 feet at 10.4 seconds from 295 degrees putting another 2.7 ft. So I'll call it thighhive energy in the mix. Down to northern California using the point ray is buoy buoy number 029 there just north of ocean beach San Francisco. Same sort of profile here. Swell energy longer period. This coming from the north dine region generated a few days ago. We see 1.7 1.6 ft of energy in the 15 to 16 second period range. Then some 8-second period windswell in the mix. Primary swell 2.6 ft at 16 seconds from 301° making surf at 4.1 ft. And then the secondary swell 3.4t 4 ft 9.1 seconds from 313° putting waist high windswell in the mix as well down to San Diego the pointl south buoying buoy 191 a much more muted profile given the channel islands sort of tampering down whatever north swell's coming through you don't see a whole lot happening here generalized energy in the 13 to 15 second period range that is southern hemi swell energy in fact primary swell 1.5 ft at 13.8 seconds from 204° putting surf in at 2.3 ft or thigh high, but it's bigger at top spots. And secondary swell 1.2 ft, 11.6 seconds from 209°. That's just sort of the algorithm filling in the gaps. 1.4 ft. And then user requested that we go switch from the north shore of au of Aahu to the southshore. So sure, we'll do that. Uh the lenai buoy 239 there.

[00:05:25]It's well facing south on the southshore there protected from wind swell. We see a bit of a bump out here in the 13se secondond range. Primary swell 1.4 ft at 15.2 seconds from 182° and secondary swell 1.2 ft at 11.4 seconds from 184°.

[00:05:45]Either way, it's all in about the twoft range. I'll call that twoft Hawaiian. So waist to chest high maybe. So we're going to do a look back. Look back in time. I'm the Hindcast for one week starting in the North Pacific. These are the significant wave heights starting Sunday, May 17th, the time of the last video. Again, these videos are typically done on Sundays.

[00:06:05]Not a whole lot happening until we got into here we go, Wednesday, 20th May.

[00:06:10]Gale developed with 29.6 ft seas right there. The highest seas over this entire domain pushing off to the east. That is the swell that is now hitting California and Oregon. And you can almost see the swell front right there approaching the coast. Now there was another gale that started developing on the date line.

[00:06:29]We're into Sunday the 24th of May. So there's current time was seized 32.9 ft and a secondary gale off the Pacific Northwest was seized to 22 feet. When we get to the forecast, this all gets pretty interesting. But right now we're just looking at what has happened over the past week to the South Pacific. Not a whole lot really was happening. There was this gale here. Maybe we got no there there's pieces of energy that developed there is some SW I mean it's not anything significant but is produced consistent like this 13 to 14 second period background energy that is not the main event here and this also uh this was on Friday uh was that 28 29 foot seas pretty much all aimed off to the east no real swell expected from that but then things started getting very interesting Starting Friday, May 22nd, south of New Zealand, seas building from 29 to 30 ft to 32 feet to 34t.

[00:07:31]And I think that's about it. 35.3 ft southeast of New Zealand on Saturday the 23rd of May. About a week later, swell should arrive in Hawaii and about 8 to nine days into Southern California and Northern California. again 35 ft seas later Saturday even into early Sunday here we are Sunday morning I think there Nope there's no more frames this is it so this is 31.6 six feet.

[00:08:00]This is fading out, but there is more behind it. The beginning of a pattern, thank goodness. Over to the North Atlantic on Sunday, the 17th of May.

[00:08:09]Yes, a gale with 23 foot seas develop pushing off to the east, targeting Europe again. That's probably good for 13 second swell that is already long come and gone. Another system tried to spin up after that, never really did it.

[00:08:25]Yet another system south of Greenland on Friday into Saturday, the 23rd of May, produced 20 foot seas aimed off to the east and a bunch of 18 ft seas, 17 to 18 ft seas behind that. There we are at current time. So I'll say 10 or 11 second period windswell is on the way towards Ireland, Scotland, and other exposed breaks in that area to the South Atlantic. Here we go. Sunday, 17th of May, a week ago. little bit of energy pushed under uh South America producing 26 foot seas but not aimed well off to the northeast at South Africa. So targeting mainly the east coast of South America. Then after that not a whole lot. A bit of a gale with 20 maybe 22 foot seas aimed off to the east. You see a swell front here trying to push towards Africa. Uh rebuilt 28T seas early this morning, Sunday the 24th of May. secondary or small energy should be radiating north and another system developing here. We'll just go to the current time 28 foot sea 29.3 foot seas a bit of away from South Africa but definitely some swell potential there and then to the Indian Ocean uh on Sunday the 17th of May. Kind of a quiet pattern. Little bit of a gale tried to organize here, probably producing 13 second period swell pushing northeast on Thursday the 21st of May. And then a stronger system on Friday with 31 ft seas building to 32 feet. That was about it. This was late Friday, early Saturday the 23rd of May. Continuing. So you can see a bit of a one two swell front pushing north. And here we are. Current time energy ridable, but nothing off the charts. So, now we're going to do a deep dive into the Pacific. Yes, I'm still focusing on the North Pacific because there is one last gale that is the strongest gale between the North and the South. We're going to start deep dive looking at jetream level winds. These winds up about 30,000 ft help support the formation of gales when they form, help direct their track. We're looking for a trough like this, a dip in the jet to the south that helps create a counterclockwise flow of down at the ocean surface. Counterclockwise rotating winds in the northern hemisphere are the hallmark of low pressure. And of course, low pressure, if it's strong enough, generates winds. Those winds get uh impart energy to the ocean surface, get traction on it, generating those seas.

[00:10:59]seas as they radiate away from the fetch area. The lesser period elements decay away exposing swell and swell and hit your beach like Hawaii there in California there produces surf. So we do have a trough. There's also a secondary trough up here in the northern Gulf of Alaska. Both supportive of gale development. This is on Sunday. We get into Monday. You see winds building to 140 knots. The stronger the winds here in this quadrant of the trough, the stronger the northwest winds in the resulting gale targeting swell presumably at the Pacific Northwest in California. Also though most of the winds are over in the east side of this trough, there is enough energy and enough momentum from the west to likely do something here. We continue on. You see the trough. It's actually a full-on backdoor trough pushing down the California coast into Tuesday. Hard to believe. And the other trough here in the Gulf of or the over the date line starts fading out, but not completely.

[00:11:59]Continues off to the east. And look at this. Now you have a full uh I guess you'd call it a cut off low here. One stream of the jet here, the second stream here, but full cut off flow over northern California and what the northwestern Nevada. So something to look for there, especially in the high country. And then some sort of activity uh continuing through the Gulf of Alaska. This is into Wednesday and Thursday. You see that? So pretty energetic par pattern still that cut off low. That's pretty impressive for this time of year. And then we get into Friday, it almost looks like another trough forecast behind that. This is kind of what you'd expect for a normal springtime pattern, maybe even a little bit amplified for the time of year. And I'm not going to speculate as to why, though. Some of you can probably guess.

[00:12:52]Um, the jet looking rather good even 180 hours out in the northern hemi in what is going to be June 1st. That doesn't happen that often. So, uh, that is semi good sign longterm. Then here you go on Sunday, surface level pressure, surface level winds, full-on gale with 35 to 40 to almost a little tiny area of 45 knot winds in the northern Gulf today with another gale basically doing the same thing with near 45 knot winds over the northern day or not the northern just the regular dine region. There you go.

[00:13:32]It lifts north building Sunday night. 45 knot west winds. This gale with 40 knot winds aimed directly down the California and Oregon coast. That continues into Monday. So we get into Tuesday, things start fading out. Then here you come.

[00:13:46]Here comes high pressure. See the gradient building along the California coast. We'll get into that a little bit more in the local wind forecast. Push it out beyond. Also notice tropical activity off the Philippines. Pretty good. Will it curve off to the northwest? Way too or northeast way too early to know, but it's sort of at 180 hours out. Almost looks like it. We've already had one that has done it this early in the in the season. Very, very rare. Maybe a second. I don't know. I don't trust a model a week out. So, we'll have to wait and see. But all in all, a pretty active pattern for the North Pacific. What are the effects of those winds on the ocean surface? for the North Pacific. Yes, South Pacific is coming right up. So, do not despair. I will get there. 22 23 foot seas off the Pacific Northwest currently. And then the datine gale with 32 foot seas forecast building. Here you go. This is why I've kind of focused on the North Pacific. Monday morning 5 a.m.

[00:14:47]local California time. seas building to 41 feet over the date line aimed off to the east with another gale with 26 foot seas pushing down the Oregon and California coast for this time of year that is rare. The models have been consistently suggesting if not anything upgrading as we get closer within 24 hours of this happening now. So, this seems like a reasonable guess from the models continuing through the day Monday. Still, oh, let's see. Did we get a higher seas? There we go. 20 22 24 26 27 foot seas. That's good for 15 second period swell if that seems at all remotely possible. And then the two fading out. The first gale pushing down the California coast, probably devolving into just windswell with the second gale with 22. Oh, we got it here. 25.4 ft Tuesday evening the 26th of May pushing into the northern Gulf. Then after that all it fades out. You can see the tropical system over here pushing off to the northnorwest supposedly with 40 foot seas. These models always grossly overhype um what's happening inside of the tropical system. So I'm not taking any of this too much to heart, but notice let's just go back the last few frames here. It's kind of pushing northwest and then you watch it start to move north. Oops. Whoops. And almost the last frame almost recurve off to the northeast. So potentially something interesting happening off of Japan. And now finally to the southern Pacific Ocean. The first gale fading current time. You saw it there. That fades out as we get into Monday. But another gale develops directly behind it on the 25th.

[00:16:36]Monday the 25th with 31 foot seas, 31 foot seas building to 32 and then uh holding right about there. Now notice there's some sort of a gale over here, but it's well east of the California swell window, but targeting Chile and Peru, too. One with 27 foot seas, another one with 36, actually I thought I saw 38 foot seas. There you go. And we'll go another frame or two. And then a third system develops under New Zealand on Wednesday the 27th of Maine.

[00:17:07]This one even looking a little bit bigger and broader. 35 ft seas lifting reasonably well off to the northeast.

[00:17:16]All these you can see swell energy there, swell energy there, swell energy there pushing north towards Hawaii and the US west coast. Secondary energy all crashing to the southeast. No, you will get nothing from that. And then we go out 180 hours, maybe another something trying to develop well southeast of New Zealand off the Rosai shelf. But again, that's a week out. Not believable, but something to keep our eyes on. It is that time of the year. So, it looks like the southern hemi is finally going to wake up in earnest to the North Atlantic. Now, one would not expect a whole lot given that it's kind of summer, that we're kind of transitioning from L' Nia, which typically favors the Atlantic, to something other than L' Nia. I can't even say the word yet because it's not even officially that though it seems like it, you know what I'm talking about. It's going to develop regardless. So, a generalized gale pattern in the North Atlantic with 18 foot seas, not really targeting anywhere, but you can see some sort of I'll call it windswell pushing into Ireland as we get a week out. That'd be Sunday and where are we? 168 180 hours and maybe some more behind that. So, this the North Atlantic completely not dead yet, but definitely simmering down.

[00:18:38]The South Atlantic current time 28 to 31 foot seas 32 feet let's call it targeting South Africa that's on Monday secondary energy building with 28T seas also targeting South Africa you see the SW front hitting as we talk this would be like Wednesday sort of time frame probably nothing huge but definitely longer period and ridable another system strong due south of Africa now the swell vectors all aimed off to the east. Don't know how much energy is really going to migrate up to South Africa. Seize to 41 ft. Another system out here southwest of South Africa. Again, it's falling to the south, but because these are closer, so 600 nautical miles for 10 degrees north and south. So about roughly 600, let's say maybe 700 nautical miles away.

[00:19:32]you'll get more directional spreading and probably more energy than you would at some other places. And that was the end of our forecast there. And then to the Indian Ocean, a gale producing 24 maybe 25 foot seas lifting off to the north. You see the swell front here definitely targeting all of Indonesia, Western Australia. Not anything, you know, 13 or 14 second period swell.

[00:19:54]Another tiny little system with 33 foot seas forecast on Wednesday into Thursday that fades out beyond. Oh, but secondary energy redeveloping just off of southwestern Australia on Saturday the 30th of May with what was that 20 22 24 maybe 26 ft se oh building to 30 ft. Oh wow. And very close to the coast. So, that is not so much a surf event, but a coastal battering event. Coastal battering ram. Uh, if you live in this area, keep your eyes on that. That might be if you have property there, you probably want to think about uh at least paying attention to get some uh property mitigation uh activity poised. Local wind forecast for California, Southern California there. There's Point Conception, Monterey Bay there, San Francisco Bay under the tag. And there is Cape Menoscino and the Oregon California border. Oregon there. Uh on Sunday, we'll just go to light current.

[00:20:55]I'm light basically southwesterly wind regime a couple of knots. Trades pretty strong for the Hawaiian Islands, 15 to 20 knots. So we get into Monday, the low off of the Pacific Northwest gets closer to the coast though. a light wind regime out of the northwest for California.

[00:21:11]Trades 20 knots for the Hawaiian Islands. Tuesday, here comes the low. We know it's kind of circulating. At some point, it's going to be circulating over here. But you see the beginnings of high pressure here, low pressure here. Uh a gradient sets up, a tightening of the isobars and the difference between the high and the low. uh 25 knot northwest winds, but along the coast, 15 knots early and pretty much not getting bad till the afternoon. Then it's 20 knots for the most part along the coast.

[00:21:41]Trades 15 plus knots for the Hawaiian Islands. Wednesday, northwest winds continue at 20 knots. More upwelling likely, though, fortunately, most of this seems to be focused from San Francisco northward and not south there.

[00:21:54]Uh trades, what I say, 15 knots for the Hawaiian Islands. Thursday, the gradient fades out quickly. A light wind regime for California. Trades still 15 knots for the Hawaiian Islands. Friday, building high pressure. You see it trying to reach towards the coast.

[00:22:10]Northwest winds 10 knots, maybe 15 knots Friday. Then finally, a gradient starts building Friday night. Trades 15 knots for the Hawaiian Islands. Saturday, full-on gradient in effect. 20 to 25 knot northwest winds for all of California. North Point Conception.

[00:22:26]Trades lighten up for the Hawaiian Islands. 10 to 15 knots. And then on Sunday, the gradient continues. So, whatever sweller is just going to be a blown out mess. It'll make its own windswell, but kind of junky. Trades 10 plus knots for the Hawaiian Islands. The precipitation forecast focused on California going, "It's the end of May.

[00:22:47]What are we doing even talking about it?" Well, the models are teasing with this low, so we have to at least look at it. Cold front pushing down Northern California. This would be Monday night, Tuesday morning kind of breaking up. You see snow in the Cascades. I mean, I don't think there's going to be a major snow event and almost reaching Tahoe Tuesday night. Not I'm not sure that there's going to be any This even shows rain into Baja. And you see this is from the low pressure that's starting to circulate here basically right over Tahoe. It looks like snow, flurries probably in the Sierra. Maybe some showers along the coast. This is on Wednesday. There you go. A full-on theoretical snow event for Tahoe and the Sierra Wednesday night into Thursday morning and maybe drizzle along the coast. That'd be the best bet. But my my thoughts Oh, and even snow down to the Mammoth area on Thursday night. And then I think high pressure comes in and that all breaks up. There you go. And that's probably it. I mean, and will that even happen? Who knows? But uh it's a tease on the models worth keeping your eye on.

[00:24:00]And since we went that far, we might as well go another inch or two. Yes. Snow forecast theoretically 6 in on the 27th and the 28th of May. That's basically on Wednesday during the day into Wednesday night. Let's go take a look at Mammoth.

[00:24:15]And there you go. Mammoth with nearly a foot. I'll give that 11 in again on the 27th, so Wednesday night. Yeah, and maybe a little bit more on Thursday.

[00:24:25]Let's go look at freezer levels real quick. This is for Palisades Tahoe, formerly Valley. This is the base of Palisades Tahoe here. The black line, the blue line's the summit up at the top of the Palisades. Red, if there was precipitation, is all above freezing temperatures. Sleet is the gray. Where the gray and the white meet is the 32 freeze. 32° freeze line. 28° is above in the blue. You can see freezing down to the base on Wednesday morning, even below down to 5,500 ft. Warming up during the day and then hanging around low to mid mountain as we get into uh Wednesday or or Thursday, something like that, and then much higher beyond that.

[00:25:10]But if this happens and you can see here's the the preip lines up somewhere with this window right around in here.

[00:25:18]So it is entirely possible certainly on the upper mountain there could be snow.

[00:25:23]Will it be six inches? No, that's probably too much. But couple inches of snow up high. Uh or palisades last day is today so they will be closed. But backcountry, if you're willing to hike, there could be a little dusting of something fun up high. Okay, quick look at surf forecast for a couple locations. Columbia River there, uh, uh, intersection of Oregon and Washington border. Surfightes up to 16 ft theoretically on Tuesday. That from that local gale off the coast and that is entirely realistic. Probably pretty windy though. This suggests actually white light winds. And then another pulse of swell. This is date line swell coming in on Thursday in the 10 to 11t range. So swell for sure pure swell heights 11 ft at 14 seconds on Monday night into Tuesday and then back to 7 1/2 ft at 15 to 16 seconds on Thursday.

[00:26:20]So all in all and that Thursday swell actually the wind's not horribly bad either. So something to keep your eye on. Northern California not fairing so well. Much winds. You can see it as we get into that Tuesday. Whoops. Where we go? Tuesday, Wednesday time frame, but you see winds out of the northwest 20 knots or so the whole way Tuesday, Wednesday into Thursday. Theoretically surf heights, it's a mixture of wind swell and swell. But theoretically, there could actually be 10-ft surf buried in here somewhere on Wednesday.

[00:26:49]And then next swell comes in in the 6ft range sort of thing. But then yet more northwest winds up into the 30 knot range. So not particularly enticing.

[00:26:59]Here you go. What do we got? 15-second period energy. It says 2 feet, but I know it's going to be bigger than that for sure. Um, probably like 7 6 feet at 15 seconds, something like that. Then our other swell, 4 1/2 ft at 15 seconds from the date line. So, something to ride if you can find a protected break.

[00:27:18]San Diego will be quite shadowed. This is a very north angled swell from the first system pushing down the coast. It says 3 and 1/2t surf and maybe so. Um, hard to say. And then the deline energy, well that will be shadowed. Not as bad, but surf in the 2 1/2 ft range. Let's see if we can pick out the swell here.

[00:27:36]2.2 at 14 15 seconds sort of thing. Oh, that's southern hemi background energy.

[00:27:42]That's all it's seeing. It's not even Oh, the it's not even picking up the northwest swell. And then more background energy 2 feet at 14 second continuing pretty much the whole way through the work week. So something to ride and you don't have to deal with the winds and the storm further uh like further north of Point Conception. And our final stop on the tour, southshore of Aahu. A whole lot of just small background swell in the two to 2 and 1/2t range. You see trades just nuking.

[00:28:10]Then we get into Saturday and Sunday, the arrival of the first southern hemisell with surfs in the 4 and 1/2t range. That would be Hawaiian too. So you do your equivalent uh translation of that depending on the break. Uh surf heights or swell heights 1.7 at 12 13 seconds Monday 1.4 at 13 on Tuesday. You get the general idea consistently. Let's say 1.9 ft at 13 seconds through the week. Then real swell starts building 2.6 feet at 17 seconds. That would be even late Friday night and then all day Saturday, all day Sunday. It looks like finally southern hemis swell is coming to Hawaii and also bound in for California two days behind that. For those of you here for the El Nino forecast, you have reached the right place. Now it is time for the long-term outlook. We're going to f fake focus on the two major weather oscillations that affect uh the production of swell long-term and or El Nino. That is the MJO, the Madden Julian oscillation and ENSO, the El Nino southern oscillation.

[00:29:21]We will dig into all the details and then do a a sort of a summary at the end wrapping up where we currently sit and what the pluses and minuses are on the develop uh potential for development of El Nino. We will start discussing the MJO the Madden Julian oscillation. The Madden Julian oscillation is key to the development of El Nino. If you do not understand what the MJO is and and what its purpose is, then it's really hard to understand what El Nino is doing. The MJO, there are two phases to it. The active phase and the inactive phase.

[00:29:58]Active phase typically is is on one side of the planet, inactive phase on the other. They rotate around the planet continuously going west to east. One on one side, one on the other. The active phase is like a low pressure system taking warm moist air lifting it aloft.

[00:30:14]That warm moist air feeds the jetream. A stronger jetream is more pumps more or that warm moist air pumps more energy into the jetream making the jetream stronger and a stronger jetream from a surf perspective is great for feeding the development of gales andor storms out in the ocean open ocean that make surf. The inactive phase of the MJO is the exact opposite. It is high pressure falling air, dry air. That dry air steals energy from the jetream, making the jetream weak and insupportive of gale development. Now, if you didn't look at the previous section of the video, we discussed the jetream pattern in the North Pacific. And amazingly, it is really strong for this time of year.

[00:31:00]Not totally for like wintertime, but for this time of year, quite strong. And the suspicion is that the active phase of the MJO is setting up in the west Pacific that is feeding energy to the jetream helping to produce swell and storms both in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere. So we look for signs of the active phase of the MJO in on data from the TAO data buoy array. First first let's talk active phase of the MJO because it is a low pressure system and trades because they trade winds because they are generated by high pressure system. Well, when the active phase of the MJO is over the Pacific, specifically the equatorial Pacific, it dampens trade winds. If high pressure makes trades but there's low pressure circulating over the uh equator from west to east, trade winds will be weaker than normal. Okay. Conversely, if the inactive phase of the MJO is controlled, then the exact opposite happens. Trade winds are stronger than normal. So, we look at this data from the TAO buoy, a series of buoys strung across the equator from the East Pacific to the West Pacific. And we're looking at the arrows here. These are indicative of trade winds out of the east. The longer the arrow, the stronger the trade. So, moderately strong trade winds in the east, fading to moderate over the central Pacific, moderate over the date line, and then almost collapsing in the West Pacific. That suggests perhaps the active phase of the MJO over here. And again, you need the active phase of the MJO to start kicking off and feeding the development of El Nino. But it is not the actual wind speeds that matter. It is the anomaly difference from normal for this time of year. You see trade winds pretty much dead over there north and south but from an east west component. There's no east west component of the trade. So they're completely neutral in the east Pacific.

[00:32:54]And look at this actually reversing over the central Pacific. Kind of mixed here over the date line. Again, weak west over the Kelvin wave generation area, the West Pacific. Oh yeah, by the way, date line is right there. West Pacific there. This is the equator. That's New Guinea there. So you get this is a cross-section of the entire equatorial Pacific. So you can just look at this and see what trade winds are doing and they generally are weaker than normal suggesting that perhaps the active phase of the MJO is developing. What have the trade winds been doing for the past 5 days? We can look at this uh vector wind anomalies. All right, this is for the whole planet. So, South America, Central America, New Guinea, there zero is the equator. Date line is right there, the reds. And we only care about five degrees north and south of the equator.

[00:33:47]That's where all the action is. That's where the MJO is. That's where El Nino is. That is the genesis of everything of all the hype that the that a lot of YouTubers are pushing lately. We're trying to not do the hype thing. We're trying to get hard data and make an honest analytical assessment of what is happening in the Pacific in regards to El Nino. All right. So, so we see east anomalies. This was on the 18th of May.

[00:34:16]Over in the off of Ecuador in the far west Pacific, I mean really no westerly anomalies. See the arrows here, the reds and oranges. That's what we want to see here in the Pacific. They're all in the Indian Ocean. We go out to May 19th.

[00:34:29]Just the faintest sign of westerly anomalies trying to develop on the 20th, the 21st, but on the 22nd, so what's that two days ago? A building westerly pattern suggesting the active phase of the MJO is somewhere here in the maritime continent, Indian Ocean, and maybe pushing off to the east. Again, westerly anomalies help to fuel the development of El Nino. We've already had three westerly wind bursts so far in the past since December and we're looking for another. A typical El Nino has about 8 to nine active phases of the MJO producing westerly wind bursts that take warm water that's here like in the maritime continent, dump it off the coast here and then start pushing it off to the west. Also, if trades collapse, typically trades will lower surface height here in the East Pacific and take the balance of warm water and pile it all up here. But when the trades start collapsing, just the entire ocean surface starts sloshing off to the east directly on the equator. And typically because the trades pile up warm water here in the West Pacific, it's a giant slosh of warm water pushing off to the east. that is happening now. We'll get into that in a minute. Outgoing longwave radiation forecasts ORL going out two weeks. This is another uh clue of to what the MJO is doing. If you have if the active phase of the MJO is a low pressure system taking warm moist air, lifting it off. That warm moist air eventually will k hit cold air in the upper atmosphere and condense forming more clouds than normal. Inactive phase does the opposite. falling dry air, you'll have more sunlight reflecting off the ocean surface. Blue is more clouds than normal. Orang is less clouds than normal. Active phase of the MJO, inactive phase of the MJO. And here we go. Equator right there. South America, Central America, New Guinea. Date line right there. We have blue. We have uh less sunlight reflecting off the ocean surface than normal. So, one can assume active phase of the MJO per the statistic model. building some and pushing east 5 days from now, holding 10 days from now, kind of falling apart a little bit two weeks from now with the inactive phase pushing into the West Pacific. According to the statistic model, the dynamic model suggests active active active weak active, but with no inactive phase building in behind it. So you see the difference uh two weeks out between there and there. Regardless, it looks like some form of the active phase is starting to develop. This is good news for El Nino phase diagrams for those same two models. This tracks where the active phases and how strong it is.

[00:37:21]So the active phase, how do you read the chart? Active phase moves from the in Indian Ocean west east to the maritime continent to the West Pacific to the East Pacific under the United States across the Atlantic over to Africa and back round and round again. You can see here back in April where it was. The further the active phase is away from the circle, the stronger it is. So the heavy dot here is where the current active phase is as of the 23rd. So very weak bordering on the maritime continent getting ready to move into the West Pacific with one, two, three forecast members from the statistic model putting the active phase probably somewhere in the Atlantic 2 weeks from now. According to the statistic model, the dynamic model, the GFS model suggests the active phase building to modest strength uh one, two, three, four, five days from now kind of thing and then crashing into the West Pacific and uh I don't think that it's it's going to move off. It looks like it wants to hang in this area. Let's keep going. So, what is the forecast for the next two weeks from the GFS model? All right, this is the standard American midterm model used for pretty much everything. This is the zone of wind anomalies for the entire planet.

[00:38:39]Blues easterly anomalies, yellow's westerly anomalies. West westerly anomalies again associated with the active phase of the MJ.

[00:38:48]All right, so here is today. This is for the whole planet though. So the date line runs right up the middle. Far west Pacific starts at 125 east. So right about there. So you can see this looks like there were easterly anomalies the whole way through pretty much late April and half of May inactive phase of the MJO. And then here we go. Western anomalies started building in the far west Pacific about the 18th of May and then our forecast building filling the West Pacific if not the whole Kelvin wave generation area. the area from roughly the date line on west uh the whole way through until about June 2nd then collapsing with easterly anomalies though westerly anomalies hold in the west Pacific. This does not look impressive at all. This looks like your most weakest of weak active phase of the MJO and that is a bit of a disappointment. But let's go look at another model. We go to the CFS model.

[00:39:52]This is Noah's equivalent of the GFS, but for long-term outlooks going out month, two, three months. I know it seems hard to believe that any model could do that, but they do. And they actually do a reasonably good job as long as you don't pick on the fine details. All right. And this one actually shows the MJO, the black contour solid. So again, date line runs right up the middle of the chart. Far far west Pacific starts at 125 east. The solid contours are the active phase of the MJO. So this this area right in here and the reds are westerly anomalies. We see we had the active phase of the MJO interacting with an equatorial ropby wave in March into early April. This produced just a massive westerly wind burst sent piles of warm water sloshing to the east across the uh equator. This has produced massive Kelvin wave three which is just now starting to erupt over off of Ecuador. We're going to get into the details of that. Then we see these faint dotted contours. This is the inactive phase of the MJO, but very incoherent, very not organized at all.

[00:41:01]And for the most part, as of today, it looks like it's passing east of the Kelvin wave generation area. And if anything, here we go again. Westerly anomalies are already building forecast to build strong barely in the Kelvin wave generation area uh starting let's say 3 days from now but with a good amount of westerly anomalies behind that then there's this kind of weird mixed inactive active pattern but it looks like the active phase for the most part taking over for the next one two three four weeks filling the Kelvin wave generation area with westerly anomalies if we are to get a super El Nino, you need strong solid active phases of the MJIO getting traction on the ocean surface, producing westerly anomalies to take every drop of warm water there is and to rele the ocean or to twist the ocean surface height so that it is at least not high in the west and more uniform from west to east. But the net effect of that is warm water pushes from the west Pacific to the east Pacific.

[00:42:14]That is what El Nino is all about. And when I said in the title, the El Nino forecast surges, well, the CFS model, the long-term version, I mean, just in the past day or two, has pretty much gone back to where it was a month or two ago where it was just screaming hair on fire, major El Nino developing. So, the past couple of weeks of videos, I've been kind of poo pooing all this because this model collapsed. And again, one day of screaming model does not mean anything because we could get up on Monday and look at this data. It could all be something else. But for right now, it is screaming. And this is exactly what you'd want to see if a super El Nino were to develop. All right. So, past performance is down here. The forecast is up here. We're looking at zonal wind anomalies and the date line. In fact, we can do it right there. 180 west runs right up the middle of the chart. Far west Pacific starts at 125 east here. So, you see there was uh one. So, this was the second active phase of the MJO in January. There's another one like in November, December that produced a small Kelvin wave. This produced another Kelvin wave. A ball of warm water. That movement of warm water from west to east across the Pacific.

[00:43:32]Here was the massive westerly wind burst that produced the massive Kelvin wave that's erupting off of Ecuador now. It takes three months. So roughly three months from somewhere in here. So that's March to April to May to June. So mid June, this thing should be erupting in earnest. We're going to get into looking at all the details of that in a minute.

[00:43:53]So here was then east anomalies, a current inactive phase. And these, you know, they they cycle back and forth.

[00:44:00]And now here is the beginning what looks like the active phase of the MJO with westerly anomalies a week from now building to strong status and all and building strong maybe just three days from now but mostly east of the Kelvin wave generation area and then strong and super strong the whole way through the rest of the model one 3 months now if this happens that absolutely if this verifies that would be hair on fire.

[00:44:28]This is a huge big deal. But those of you that follow this channel know we saw this exact same thing forecasted what was it like two two and a half months ago and then we got into the spring unpredictability barrier and it all just like vaporized. Yeah, we got a good little pulse here and then we just literally got nothing. So, do I believe any of this? No. But the fact that the model has all of a sudden kind of reacquired some magic signal and says I'm rethinking this and I think maybe my hair is on fire. Well, that's a good sign, I think, if you're into a strong El Nino. All right, let's overlay the MJO here. All right, here we go. There the dotted contour. That's our inactive phase. It's pushing. You can see basically Oh, where's the date line?

[00:45:17]Right there. So, it's basically east of the date line. And we are currently going into a one, two, three, four uh contour active phase of the MJO. And then that hangs on the date line into June. Inactive phase building behind it.

[00:45:32]But the contrast between the two basically sets up like a pressure gradient and you get westerly anomalies and that continues at some point. Then pressure lowers over the Pacific. That is the hallmark of El Nino is it is dropping pressure over the Pacific.

[00:45:51]Lower than normal pressure in the Pacific, higher than normal pressure over the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

[00:45:57]Whereas where we have been for the past two years is in L'inia where the low pressure pattern is over the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean and high pressure is over the Pacific. If you want rain, storms, jetream, all that, you got to have low pressure. All right. So anyway, let's overlay the uh lowass filter here.

[00:46:18]All right, the dotted contour here is the high-pressure bias. You can see last in yeah this past winter high pressure was over the date line. You see it this is all verified. It is moving out. It is like just somewhere south of California right now. This is just on the equator.

[00:46:36]And you see a broad area of low pressure now aggressively pushing into the uh towards the date line should be there literally in like 5 days that sort of thing. But the other thing this version of the model is is showing that we have not seen before is five contours.

[00:46:57]Normally it's been hanging about three one two three contours. Sometimes a fourth contour shows up and now today a fifth suggesting exceptionally strong low pressure over the date line as we get into August which is exactly what you'd want to see if a super El Nino was building. Now do I believe it? One day of this on the charts means absolutely nothing again. So, uh, take this with a very huge grain of salt, but it is at least pushing for the moment in the right direction. Subsurface water temperatures, we've talked about these things called Kelvin waves. We've talked about the sea surface high dropping.

[00:47:38]We've talked about balls of warm water or basically a lot more than a ball, a huge area of warm water slloshing from west to east across the equator. This is what this data is showing us. The TAO buoy array, a series of buoys strung across the equator. These are the anchor lines on the buoys. These X's are sensors on those anchor lines. Those sensors help collect data and tell us what the balance of water temperatures are down in the ocean surface where a Kelvin wave would exist. Now, this data didn't exist. There's been like officially in my book, there's been two super El Nino, 82 and 97. Theoretically, there was one in two 2015, but from its actual impact on the ocean surface and weatherwise, it didn't make the grade.

[00:48:29]All right, but this looking pretty good for the moment. And after we get deeper into this, I'll show you why. But for right now, we are looking at warm water in the West Pacific. Yeah, part of the arrays out of here. And warm water, you can't tell it, but it's building here.

[00:48:46]All right, the 30°ree is them, I don't know where it was last week, but I think it was like at 176, now moving to like 174 west. The 29°ree is 29° centigrade. Uh, inching off to the east at about 153 west. The 28 degree is now this is interesting. It was the whole way over here, but I think with this recent bout, the past four weeks of like, you know, kind of not L' N, but not El Nino either, it has backtracked to about 123 west. But the 24°ree is that really is what matters. The depth of the warm water here. So down to what is that 50?

[00:49:31]I'll call that 62 meters down. That's 100 meters. That's 200 meters. So we're talking way down there.

[00:49:38]300 ft down in the ocean. A thick area of warmer than normal water in the East Pacific. But rather than looking at this, let's look at the anomalies, the difference from normal for this time of year. Again, these temperatures are centigrade. We see 6 to almost 7°ree temperature above normal. Multiply that times 1.8. I'm going to just say 10, maybe 11° Fahrenheit above normal.

[00:50:03]sitting just off the coast of Ecuador in this chart and pushing off to the east.

[00:50:08]This is the ball of warm water from Kelvin wave or westerly wind burst number three back in uh March and April that produced westerly anomalies here in the West Pacific took warm water pushed it to depth. It takes about 3 months to make its way across the Pacific and it is now poised if not erupting along Ecuador. So this is what you look for in a Kelvin wave or on a chart. This is a clear example of a massive Kelvin wave.

[00:50:38]How does it compare to 97? We'll talk about that in just a little bit. Let's keep diving diving into what is happening right now. Now here is the same data. It's in motion and it's enhanced by satellite data. So this will start here. You go warm water back in March building. Here's the development of your Kelvin wave in early March. I mean, April into May. And here is at one or at 80 West Ecuador is right here. You see it just starting to leech to the surface right now, but far warmer water is poised beneath the ocean surface.

[00:51:12]Here's where all the warmth is, like 6 to 7° above normal. Not to the surface yet, but at some point, Momentum is just going to push it and squeeze it right up to the surface uh off of Ecuador. And that is really what gets you your El Nino. Warming surface waters in the East Pacific. If you have warming surface waters, if they're hotter hot enough, they start evaporating. When they start evaporating, the o the atmosphere starts lifting. And that is a definite change than what's normally off of Ecuador, which is cooler than normal water, falling air, and high pressure. you start getting evaporation, lifting air, cloud condensation and that changes the whole pressure pattern across the entire Pacific. That is the hallmark of El Nino. And this is the first major step in the development of El Nino. I'm not saying that we are in El Nino right now, but we are at the place where El Nino is poised to develop in the ocean and then in the atmosphere. Here's the satellite data we talked about earlier. It's just measuring the height of the ocean, the sphere of the ocean. I think they actually call it the geo geoid.

[00:52:25]All right. This is the equator right here. This is the date line right here.

[00:52:29]This is Chile, South America. Chile, Peru, Ecuador, the Gopagos there, Hawaii. There's Hawaii up here. Oh, and here's uh New Guinea right here. All right. So this is you take strip away the waves, the wind waves, the tide and is the sphere of the ocean higher or lower than normal? Why does that matter?

[00:52:49]Well, you have warm water at depth. Warm water expands. When it does that, it'll create a bump on the ocean surface. Cold water at depth contracts and you end up with a divot on the ocean surface. This is centimeter anomalies. These are not temperatures. This is the height of the ocean. The variation from normal for this time of year. plus 0 + 5 cm 10 15 and then 15 20 25 30 cm above normal. So you can clearly see a Kelvin wave has hit Ecuador and is migrating up the coast north and south along South America up into Central America. That's from two previous Kelvin waves. Number three poised to impact or if not impacting right now. But this is all subsurface.

[00:53:35]This is an inference of what is going on 100 and 200 m down in the ocean surface across the entire equatorial Pacific.

[00:53:46]The ramifications of that manifest themselves on the ocean surface and then the what happens on the ocean surface affects the atmosphere above that. And when they get coupled, when the ocean and the atmosphere are in step and both go, yes, something weird's going on here. There's way much more heat over here in the East Pacific. And then clouds start forming and it starts raining over in this area. Then the jetream changes. Then the Walker circulation changes. And then you get what is known as El Nino. But the ocean and the atmosphere must be coupled. We are nowhere near that just yet. Here is the one-year trend. West Pacific here, East Pacific here. Uh this is ocean heat anomalies not at the surface but sort of down a little bit. So here is last July cold colder than normal water in the east Pacific. This is our weak lania one two three cold water Kelvin waves erupting off of Ecuador. Then we get down into oh where was this? December of last year, we had or even November, we had a the MJO active phase of the MJO produced westerly anomalies produced one weak Kelvin wave, but it made it the whole way across the Pacific. A stronger one in January, and there's the Kelvin wave that pushed the whole way across the Pacific, erupted off of Ecuador in early part of March. Then the massive active phase of the MJO in I'll call it late February all of March into early april produced Kelvin wave number three and you see it right here theoretically impacting Ecuador starting in the beginning of May with probably two months two and a half months of warm water behind it still set yet to erupt.

[00:55:40]So a large reservoir and the balance of warm water. This is also kind of suggesting that warm water isn't so much over here, it's over here. Does it need to be here to if there are more active phases of the MJO to put build more warm water into this region? Maybe. Or momentum alone might carry it. There there's some other more detailed physical process that are going on here, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. All right. So, what's going on at the ocean surface? That's really where the rubber meets the road. You can't change the atmosphere if the ocean surface hasn't changed. And clearly, it is starting to change again. And all that matters is here's the equator. 5° north and south the equator. You can see warmer than normal water. This is sea surface temperature anomalies.

[00:56:30]Difference from normal for this time of year erupting along Peru, Ecuador, out to the Gopagos. Really strong there.

[00:56:38]less strong but out to 120 west. The official El Nino monitoring region starts here at 120 west goes out to 170 west. So it's this box right here. So all this eruption here is just sort of like the the forerunners of what is to come. This warm water will erupt. The trade winds, they might be weaker than normal, but they're still blowing.

[00:57:02]They'll take that warm water and start dragging it out here across the Pacific.

[00:57:07]And then that'll set up clouds over this entire area upward drifting air dropping pressure lower. We already know there's a low pressure bias sitting right here over the equator and that changes the Walker circulation and then you're fully into El Nino mode. Even the more conservative alternate sea surface temperature anomaly difference, they compute it using a different formula, but the short of it is it's showing basically the same thing. cooking warm waters off of Peru, Ecuador to the Galopagos, drifting the whole way across the Pacific, filling the Nino 3.4 region, the official El Nino monitoring region. Now, this is a 7-day trend. If water if the Kelvin if Kelvin wave number three was erupting off of Ecuador and sea surface temperatures were warming, you'd expect to see it here.

[00:57:58]And we see these weak little pockets of yellow and barely red. And we actually see kind of dropping temperatures here off of the Galopagos and nothing really else. I mean, this is not screaming El Nino. It's not even screaming Kelvin wave number three erupting, at least not yet. It's kind of a very subdued kind of pattern, but again, I think this is a hair bit deceiving. Now, here's the 15-day sea surface temperature anomaly change, and it's showing a little bit stronger sign of warming here off of uh Peru, but nothing like just like in your face glaring red, at least not yet. So, here is the sea surface temperature index, the sea surface temperatures in the Nino 1.2 region, the area right there along Peru and Ecuador. Latest value plus 1.799.

[00:58:52]So, uh, 1 degree in 800,000 of a degree, like 1 and 3/4 of a degree above normal.

[00:58:59]That doesn't seem like a whole lot, but it has been steadily rising, but it is not racing off the chart either. And then in the official El Nino monitoring region, the Nino 3.4 region, again, out there on the equator south of California out to about the date line today, values 638,000 of a degree above normal. So let's be clear, neutral is half a degree above to half a degree below. So according to this, and this is uncorrected data, it says sea surface temperatures are 138,000 of a degree above normal and they've been, you know, up to 2/10 of a degree or 3/10en of a degree above normal for one, two, three weeks, let's say. That is not El Nino. That is just well something's going on there. Maybe we should keep our eye on it, but you know, no big deal.

[00:59:52]So, we talked about the ocean and the atmosphere need to be coupled. This can give us some clues. There is pressure dropping in the Pacific. We look at the southern oscillation index, the difference in pressure between Darwin, basically over the maritime continent, and Tahiti in the central Indian Ocean.

[01:00:11]If pressure is lower in Tahiti, the index goes negative. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[01:00:14]What's this? Minus 31.69.

[01:00:17]That is very negative. One day does not mean a whole lot though. But we go back day negative. - 27 - 23 -14 -15 - 28. Over the past month, this has been consistently negative, suggesting at least the active phase of the MJO is is hanging over the Pacific and pressure is lowering. We look at the 30-day average -12.71.

[01:00:45]Where were we a month ago? - 9.08. Okay.

[01:00:49]So, this guy is a good indicator of the active inactive phase of the MJO. You need more active phases of the MJO. If you want to get to El Nino, this is trending in the right direction. The 90-day average is your El Nino Lenin indicator. Minus 3.18. That's like no big deal at all. Where were we a month ago? Plus 4. Okay. So, it says pressure is falling. Let's look at this on a graph. Here's your 30-day running average of the SOI graphed out. You can clear see this clearer as can be. Some massive drop in pressure is happening.

[01:01:25]Neutral is plus 7 to minus 7. We're off into the weak El Nino stage only for a couple of weeks now. But from an atmospheric perspective, it seems like something is definitely happened in the atmosphere. is trying to sort of go along with what is happening in the ocean. Very early stages though. All right. Sea surface temperature forecast from the official in the official El Nino monitoring region from the CFS version 2 model. Again, half a degree above to half a degree below is neutral.

[01:02:01]Half a degree to one degree is weak El Nino. One to one and a half is a moderate El Nino. One and a half to two is strong. two to two and a half is super El Nino. This uncorrected suggests temperatures rising to 3.55 degrees in like the November December time frame. But again, this does not account for the fact that the oceans planets are warming. So let's go look at a corrected version. Now this version says, all right, temperatures rise into 2.95° in November. still super El Nino, as super El Nino as you can get. And that would be for like a single reading or for like a week. The threemon they call it a seasonal average still puts this at somewhere around 2.7. So that's October, November, December, somewhere around 2.7°.

[01:02:57]That would beat the El Nino of 97 and the El Nino of 82 if it verifies. And that's a lot of ifs. A lot of things have to happen. Let's go dig one step lower. So here is the consensus model.

[01:03:10]It just updated. This is of all El Nino models. There are dynamic models. You can see in you see the the lines there and the statistic models and the average for each. Now there's been funding issues at IR the site that produces this. Um they are looking for help. If you can help uh contribute to their cause that would be great. uh because of that I can't get no we can no longer get to the actual values of all these different models but we can look at the average get a general idea the green is the statistic model and it has temperatures going to 1 8 above normal which is strong El Nino the dynamic models suggest temperatures going to 2 maybe 2.25 25 which would be like slightly under what um the 82 and 97 El Nino were. The consensus is right there. That is at 1 point I'll say right at 2°. So borderline strong but not quite super El Nino status. So just another perspective from a whole bunch of other Mallet models. You see some way up here in the stratosphere.

[01:04:28]Oh, there uh and you see others down far lower. So, just an alternate opinion.

[01:04:36]All right, so let's go look at some real data. So, here is actual sea surface temperature anomaly data as of May 23rd.

[01:04:45]In fact, we can go back here. You can sort of watch the evolution. I'm going back in time backwards and then I'll scroll the other way. But you see none of the dark reds basically started showing up. uh on May 1st right here.

[01:05:00]That would be the four degree anomaly.

[01:05:03]And I'll just put this into motion. You can watch it evolve there along the coast. Looking solid, not over the top, but certainly not anything that is I think that was it right there. Yep, that was it. Okay. So, that's our current state. Now, let's go look at what happened in 97.

[01:05:24]So in 97 the first dark reds showed up boom right there April 25th. This year's event it's the first dark red showed up on May 1st. So we're talking five or six days difference. And then we'll just put this into motion. You can see it looks very similar to what has happened so far. And we'll roll this out to let's see where do we go? Somewhere right around there. Now here's where things diverge on May 15th. Here was the beginning of the dark reds. Now again this is running what do we say five to six days ahead. So theoretically according to that in fact maybe I can just do it right here. There we go.

[01:06:15]There is May 23rd, 2026.

[01:06:20]That should have happened theoretically right about today, but it hasn't happened yet. The first little sign of a dark red patch, which looks very much like that, which I would say we're tracking pretty close. We're about a week behind what happened in 97 so far. And then subsurfacewise, well, that's a whole different story.

[01:06:48]Here is what is currently going on in the 2026 El Nino. Here is our Kelvin wave. This is the Kelvin wave erupting that is getting us um here we go. I'll just pull that in. These warm temperatures erupting along the coast right here. Now, let's go look at what 97 looked like for roughly the same time frame. So this is let's see monthly data. So it's a whole month. You can't get it down to the day unfortunately, but you get a general idea. Here is what we had in 97. Here is our actual water temperatures or average. And then here is your Kelvin wave. Now let's see if we can discern a little difference here.

[01:07:31]Well, this is six. This is six. But today there's almost seven in there.

[01:07:38]This is six. But then what's even more interesting, I'm just going to co Oh, we can do it this way. Sure. Um, out here to the west in 97, notice the cooler waters and the zero degree is here. And there is much warmer water to the west here in 2023 as compared to 97.

[01:08:01]And also notice here in 2023 30° centigrade actual water temperatures where in 97 we only had 29° is differences. So warmer. Now again the planet planet's oceans are warmer. So that might explain some of this difference. But even with that, it sort of suggests that maybe we are actually at the same place as compared to 97 for right now. The real teller is again, why did I harp so much on MJO and Westerly an Omnies? The real uh kicker or teller is going to be are we going to get another active phase of the MJO that's going to take more warm water and push it east and create more Kelvin waves and build that warm pool off of Ecuador. I'm looking at the GFS model forecast for westerly anomalies in the West Pacific as of today and it looks me not very impressive at all. But if I go to the CFS model, well, this looks way stronger. And if I go to the 3month CFS model, even stronger still. So, is the GFS model correct or is the CFS model correct? That is the milliondoll question.

[01:09:35]All right. So for right now, we're in a situation where we have gales in the North Pacific, gals forecast in the South Pacific, a stronger than normal looking jetream over the North Pacific.

[01:09:48]We haven't even looked at the southern hemi, but one can assume that's doing pretty well as well. We have a massive Kelvin wave that is starting to erupt off of Ecuador. We have sea surface temperature anomalies along the coast of Ecuador, Peru, and the Gopagos that are basically 7 days tracking 7 days behind almost lock step to what happened in 97.

[01:10:14]And we have two models that are suggesting different outcomes longer term. that is um a weak westerly wind pattern over the west Pacific per the GFS model and a raging westerly wind non-nomaly pattern from the CFS model and the CFS model and all these other long-term models are screaming super El Nino. Does the GFS model know something that these other models don't? I don't have the answer to that. Though I tend to believe the GFS model is a little bit more accurate in the short term than the CFS model and that maybe the CFS model a day or two or three from now is going to retract some of its uh positioning. That said, warm waters are building. The jetream is looking good. So, there's kind of a mixed bag going on. We're at a race to see whether the ocean and the atmosphere can couple and whether the Walker circulation can change if we want to get something into super El Nino status. I mean, the other interesting thing kind of is, hey, we might even have some snow in the Sierra and maybe some showers and I'll say Northern California north of the Golden Gate.

[01:11:30]That would be interesting. Now, the key on all this is the spring unpredictability barrier. The models can they have a horrible time trying to figure out what's going to go on 3, six, nine months from now in the window from March 1st to June 1st. All right. The thing is we are one week in counting away from getting out of the spring unpredictability barrier. And at that point in time, the models theoretically could stabilize on an outcome. And by the the models, I'm talking the CFS and all the long-term kind of models, though they all have been in agreement and have not wavered. If anything, have only gotten stronger as we've been working our way through the spring unpredictability barrier. That is a check in the box that says the momentum of the models and what they're sensing is push is moving to stronger probabilities of a super El Nino, not the reverse where they're backing off and showing more uncertainty. If anything, they are only becoming more clustered around a super El Nino outcome. Now June 1st is not a magic date but come June 15th the end of June early part of July by then I would say our certainty on on this outcome will be a lot higher during the 2015 El Nino supposed super El Nino it was like going great guns just like this and then we got into June and it's like where are our westerly anomalies where are active phases of the MJO and the southern oscillation index just kind of bonked and we got into July and even August and it just like you could see it literally evaporating. Sure, we got some El Nino as we get, you know, I'll call it a strong El Nino as we got into uh September, October time frame, but it never materialized with all the hype that it had early on. So, you wonder why I might be a little bit hesitant, a little bit skeptical, because I've been burned on this road before. And the models are not the holy grail. They are a prediction. Until you have actual winds blowing on the ocean surface, and I use that from a surf perspective, but the same holds true for Kelvin wave development. Until you have westerly anomalies nuking and a westerly wind burst nuking over the equator in the far west Pacific, it's all just a fantasy in the memory of some computer off in some data center somewhere and it doesn't mean anything. Do not bet a penny on it.

[01:14:08]But we're almost out of the spring unpredictability bearer and things are kind of looking better. So I guess we'll just have to see. What are your thoughts? write them up down below. I'd love to hear what you're seeing. Maybe you see something I don't. All right, other than that, that's the end of our video for this week. Thanks for hanging for the extra time. Give us a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed. Uh, hit the storm surf icon down in the lower right hand corner of your screen to subscribe.

[01:14:34]Comments, questions, welcome. And always, if you'd like to make a small donation to help the cause you may, hit the super thanks button down below, the heart with the dollar sign in it. With that, we are done for this week. We will do it again. Same time, same channel next week on Sunday. We will see you then.

[01:15:18]Heat.

[01:15:21]Heat.