Siding with the AI 4Cast Net V2 forecast direction heading into mid-May. Why? Cooling of the western North Atlantic as previously stated last week. NCEP CFS V2 is the operational model capturing this philosophy. The model is substantially cooler than ECM. A marked cool change is indicated for the Midwest U.S. with a southern shift from Canada to the Mid-south States of the wet weather belt. A major change!

A super warm global ocean surface is in the news! However, not all oceanic zones are warm. Norte the 1-year change in the western North Atlantic. The western North Atlantic has cooled to near normal during mid-spring. The cooling waters foreshadow presence of an upper trough on the East Coast for much of May.

A large marine heat wave (MHW) is developing off the East Asia coastline and is strengthening. Consequently, CFS V2 is forecasting a large high-pressure area to develop across the MHW during the summer season.

The Nino34 SSTA region has cooled a whopping 0.69C during the past 2 weeks as El Nino 2023-24 is about to end. The record warm global ocean surface of the past 12 months is unique and causes uncertainty regarding the speed of development and intensity of La Nina for later in 2024.