The 2026 East Pacific basin tropical cyclone season is forecast above too much above normal activity. A large mass of unusually warm surface and subsurface water is present off the Southwest Coast of North America and coupled with a developing vigorous El Nino should provide an environment exceptionally supportive of many dangerous storms.

Combining GFS and ECM yields a heavy rain weather pattern evolving this week and extending into next week yielding 7+ inches of rain in East Texas to Southwest Arkansas and Northwest Louisiana. The forecast is made increasingly convincing by a potentially eastward shifting active Madden Julian oscillation (MJO) as forecast by GFS.

The NEW relative SSTA analysis across the Pacific basin reveals neutral ENSO as measured within the Nino34 SSTA region. Conversely, the standard global SSTA analysis reveals moderate El Nino has formed. As of late April, multivariate ENSO index was -0.6, indicating a lingering La Nina climate.

We are experiencing elements of the ENSO springtime predictability barrier, specifically, lack of a sustained atmosphere-to-ocean link to force an El Nino climate. The equatorial oceanic warming is there but the atmospheric reflection lags.