Meteorological summer 2025-26 produced harsh climate extremes across Australia. Most of the southern half of Australia observed MUCH ABOVE normal anomalous heat. The heat was accompanied by locally very dry climate in parts of Victoria and Northeast New South Wales plus Coastal Southwest Australia. However, summer 2026 will be remembered for prohibitive rainfall centered on the east-central to northeast continent which became enhanced to an all-time-record level during February.

The eastern equatorial East Pacific subsurface is impressively warm and continues to warm, the strongest (warm) signature since Q2/2023. However, at the surface, only the Nino12 region has warmed significantly (+1.23C). The Nino34 region remains slightly cooler than normal (-0.11C) confirming neutral ENSO phase.

The U.S. meteorological spring 2026 precipitation anomaly forecast is wet biased across the Mid-south U.S. and vicinity stretching into parts of the East U.S. Above normal precipitation is (also) projected for the Great Basin. The Climate Impact Company constructed analog (CIC-CA) forecast is similarly wet across the Mid-south U.S. but drier in the Midwest U.S. Both forecasts are drier than normal on the U.S. West Coast.

A comparison of anomaly correlation skill scores of 2-meter temperature forecasts between AI and NON-AI forecast models for North America and Europe yield extremely close results with AI edging NON-AI for both the 6-10-day and 11-15-day timeframes for North America while NON-AI managed to finish slightly ahead of AI in Europe for the 11-15-day period. The review is based on skill scores from the past 30 days.