Wed 22 Apr 2026 "El Nino on the way...multiple rain chances coming to the Mid-Atlantic next 10 days"

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hi, AccuWeather.com meteorologist Paul Dorian here on Wednesday morning, April the 22nd.

[00:00:07]First I want to go through the latest on El Nino, certainly a developing El Nino in the tropical Pacific Ocean. We emphasize that as a very important factor for the tropical outlook uh a few weeks ago that posting is out there at AccuWeather.com right under the climate info page. All indications are we will have a at least a moderate El Nino event potentially a strong El Nino event as well. We'll take a look at the latest sea surface temperatures and then towards the end of the video discussion we'll talk about some up upcoming opportunities for rain in the Mid-Atlantic region. This is welcome news because it's been very very dry overall in the Mid-Atlantic region as well as many other parts of the nation, but increasingly uh change to the pattern here will allow for more more rain opportunities, it appears, over the next couple of weeks in the Mid-Atlantic region. For now, let me just revisit here the different regions that uh meteorologists label in the tropical Pacific Ocean to kind of monitor the ENSO or the El Nino Southern Oscillation, be it El Nino which is warmer than normal water temperatures or La Nina. First of all, we have Nino 4, then 3.4, then 3, and then right off the west coast of South America what we call Nino 1 + 2. And I just wanted to show that up front here because we'll go through right now the changes in temperature in all these regions of the tropical Pacific.

[00:01:47]And take a look here, this is Nino 4 region, that far western part of the tropical Pacific Ocean. And we're looking at the water temperatures here going back several weeks, really all the way back to the beginning of the year.

[00:02:02]This is back in January. Look at this trend here over the last month or month and a half or so, straight up.

[00:02:10]Definitely indicating El Nino is getting underway and right now in this particular region of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Now, we'll quickly take a look at some of the other regions.

[00:02:22]Here's region 3.4, same kind of a pattern here in the last few weeks, a a shooting up of the water temperatures here to above normal levels. This black line here represents neutral or normal levels here, and over the last few weeks it has just burst up to above normal in this particular case, plus 0.6° above the normal for this time of year.

[00:02:48]We'll go a little bit different, a little bit farther to the east here.

[00:02:52]This is region 3, same sort of a pattern the last several weeks temperature jumping from neutral to well above normal, and finally just off the South America west coast here, we have it's been quite a bit above normal for the past couple of months here, but in the last few weeks it too is climbing more rapidly here. So, all four sectors here of the tropical Pacific Ocean show a rapid increase in water temperatures over the last few weeks.

[00:03:26]Now, here's another index I'd like to take a look at relative to the ENSO or the El Nino Southern Oscillation. It is known as the Southern Oscillation Index and the meteorological center in Australia really monitors this closely on a daily basis. And when you see the SOI in negative territory, that is usually correlated with El Nino conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This particular teleconnection index it takes into account the pressure levels of two different areas in the southern hemisphere, one near Tahiti and one near Darwin. And when it's negative, especially deeply negative, especially for a sustained period of time, that is generally associated with warmer than normal water temperatures in the tropical Pacific.

[00:04:15]You can see we we had a quite a stretch here of negative numbers here. Then there was kind of a change, a brief return to positive territory, but just in the last few days now we have dropped back into negative territory. I suspect I expect that this will probably drop sharply into further and further negative territory over the next few days. Again, we're getting kind of a burst here of temperatures at the surface level in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and this will likely become increasingly negative, another sign of an oncoming El Nino event.

[00:04:55]Now, if all that's not enough to convince you that El Nino is coming, this is a look at the beneath the surface in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

[00:05:05]We're looking at water temperature anomalies and envision this as being the surface. This is the surface, and then all the way down below the surface, all the way down to 450 m, we actually record, observe the water temperatures using deep sea buoys out in the Pacific Ocean, and this loop runs for the past couple of months up until April 18th. And just take a look at this, it's just beneath the surface here. This is way way above normal water temperatures bubbling up to the top. We talked about this in our tropical outlook, and that's where this particular loop of images can be found. Just go to climate info at AccuWeather.com and check out the 2026 tropical outlook. We looked at this several weeks ago, and the same story here, just beneath the surface, some very very warm, way above normal water temperatures bubbling up to the top, again giving us confirmation that indeed a a strong El Nino is on the way here, at least moderate to strong El Nino on the way. And we'll have to monitor as potential to be a very strong at more than 2° above normal here.

[00:06:30]But this is the very latest, and just beneath the surface, again this being the surface here, we're talking about maybe 100 m below the surface, you have some extremely warm relative to normal water temperatures out across the central Pacific Ocean.

[00:06:46]Well, let's shift gears a little bit and take a look at the 0Z run of the GFS.

[00:06:51]Specifically, I want to focus in on the Mid-Atlantic region where a quite a change is coming, it appears. We've been very dry over the past several weeks and really over the past several months in the Mid-Atlantic region. That's not the only dry uh point in the nation here. There've been several regions like the southeastern states, for example, that have been very dry in the past few months here, but we have one weak system producing some occasional showers today in the Mid-Atlantic region. Just kind of want to walk through here to look at all these opportunities coming here. This is towards the latter part of the week and then into the upcoming weekend. Here we go on Saturday, we have a stronger low pressure area that will throw some uh showers and even maybe even a period of steadier rain into the Mid-Atlantic region here. It spreads all the way into the DC metro area. Here we are on midday on Saturday, and it'll be a cool day, certainly cooler than Thursday and Friday in the Mid-Atlantic region, well below normal temperatures on Saturday with that occasional rain. Now, let's move forward. That intensifies into a fairly strong low pressure area off the coast by the time we get to Sunday. But then take a look here in next week, we have another strong low pressure area heading towards the eastern states. This is Tuesday morning with a lot of rain out across the Midwest and spreading into the Mid-Atlantic region, Tuesday Tuesday night time frame, potential heavy rain, soaking rain with that particular system. Again, talking about Tuesday or so of next week. And that continues into the day on Wednesday.

[00:08:40]Ends up it's a strong low pressure area just off the Mid-Atlantic coastline. If only this were January, this would be quite an interesting scenario.

[00:08:48]Nonetheless, it's interesting in the sense that we have a soaking rain event on the table for the Mid-Atlantic region next Tuesday into Wednesday. All good news, by the way, because it's been very dry. And then we'll go a little bit farther in time. This system kind of slides up along the eastern seaboard here and produces soaking rain all the way up through New England later next week.

[00:09:12]Talk of Wednesday Thursday time frame.

[00:09:15]Just quickly want to go beyond that because yet another opportunity for rain by Saturday, May 2nd. This is now into the early part of May. Cool pattern setting up. You can see this high pressure off to the north here, but an increasing amount of chances for rain for places like the Mid-Atlantic region, and that will include the northeastern states as well. Several opportunities over, let's say, the next 10 days or so, all good news.

[00:09:45]So, that's a wrap for this video discussion. Again, all indications are El Nino is imminent out across the tropical Pacific Ocean. In fact, temperatures now in all of those regions we closely monitor are above normal for this time of the year and that will only increase in intensity over the next several weeks and again a big impact on the tropical season by that El Nino that forms in the tropical Pacific Ocean. It lasts all the way through the fall and perhaps into the winter of 2026-2027.

[00:10:22]More on that over the months to come.

[00:10:25]That's it for now for Arcticweather.com this has been meteorologist Todd Orion.