4.4 standard deviations from the mean?!
To put into perspective how strong this El Niño has the “potential” to be, I plotted it on the Bell Curve/ distribution of all El Nino, La Niña, & neutral months since 1850 (over 2K). The dynamical model ensemble median forecast peak anomaly is 3.3°C in December 2026. Comparing against all Nino (3.4 region) values yields a value of 4.4 sigma for this event, plotted outside the extreme right tail, next to the current record of 2.8C in 2015. Keep in mind this is not the relative index, so it does not account for global warming, and the fact that higher SST anoms are easier to achieve now due to the higher starting baseline.
#elnino 1/ 🧵