During January, a subsurface warm Kelvin Wave shifted across the equatorial East Pacific recently reaching the northwest coast of South America. The Nino12 region off the northwest coast of South America warmed 1.1C during the past 30 days. The majority of global SSTA forecast models are forecasting El Nino onset during northern hemisphere spring. The onset of that ENSO change has occurred and may have contributed to the sensible weather pattern change across North America as mid-February approaches.

The observed heating degree days (HDD) in Cleveland during JAN-26 is 1335, much colder than the 30-year (1123) and 10-year (1082) normal. The JAN-26 cold is slightly colder than JAN-25 (1277) and JAN-22 (1273). The JAN-26 observation is 1 HDD colder than the “polar vortex winter” of JAN-14 (1334).

The U.S. Drought Monitor reveals widespread dry-to-drought conditions across the U.S. biased toward the South and Southeast U.S. due to the La Nina climate. About 68% of the U.S. are observing dry-to-drought conditions although D2-D4 severe drought is observed by only 3% of the U.S. Nino34 SSTA forecasts are aggressively indicating El Nino ahead for 2026. If so, the Southern U.S. shifts wetter and long-term drought eases or ends.

The ongoing negative arctic oscillation (-AO) is in-the-face of any significant U.S. warm-up. Overnight, forecasts are trending colder in the 11-15-day period, particularly GFS, as -AO inspires cross-polar flow of arctic chill into the U.S. Consequently, the February 6-12 HDD forecast increases substantially, 23 HDD from 24 hours ago.