Jeff Berardelli

15h

There’s a debate in the meteorology/ climate community about how to visualize the 2026 El Niño. One method subtracts recent tropical ocean warming mainly due to climate change (relative RONI index) and one that simply visualizes the event with no correction…

15h

So how does 2026’s El Niño compare with 1997 after accounting for warmer tropical oceans? Bottom line: 2026 is still significantly stronger than 1997. For these October 14–20 maps, a RONI-style adjustment subtracts the tropical-average SST anomaly: 0.29°C in 1997 and 1.14°C in 2026…

15h

Niño 3.4 changes from: • 1997: +2.13°C → +1.85°C • 2026: +3.34°C → +2.21°C 2026 remains warmer but its lead shrinks from 1.21°C to 0.36°C after adjusting for tropical-ocean warmth.

Did you know Florida’s Sea Level has varied ~480 Feet over the past 500K years?! It’s true! Due to ice ages, every 100,000+ years ice freezes and melts in natural cycles driven by Earth’s oscillating Orbit & Tilt and the changes in absorbed sun. This causes huge swings in sea level…

you’d have to walk 130 miles west of #Tampa Bay! This back and forth is why Florida’s bedrock is made from limestone. At many points in its history #Florida was a shallow sea and #coral reef. 🪸…

Of course most of today’s sea level is driven by greenhouse warming. And the current warmth of the planet has already likely committed Earth to meters of sea level rise over the next several centuries.

400K years ago, when the ice caps melted, water rushed into the ocean raising sea level 52 feet higher than today - flooding Florida. Then 24K years ago, with water trapped in miles of frozen ice in the ice caps, the sea was 427 feet lower. Florida was 2X its current size and to hit the beach…

youtu.be'You're with the billionaires or you're with the people' — Interview with Gil Duran | DW NewsYouTube video by DW News

Good interview: youtu.be/2176dnVR02E?...

Let’s zoom into the El Niño regions and see how they compare to 1997 (the event of record). This event is not only remarkably ahead, it’s also weighted further east! Big impacts coming to the US and Globe this winter! #elnino

‼️ Significant Coastal Flooding Florida East Coast starting later Sunday through Wednesday. A prolonged fetch of strong east wind and large waves will batter the #Florida East Coast for days. Unfortunately there is a new moon with exaggerated tides…

nature.comAmazon carbon emissions driven by human actions amplified by droughts - NatureFifteen years of atmospheric CO2 measurements show that the Amazon carbon sink is weakening, with fires, deforestation and climate stress driving increasingly high carbon emissions.

This means 2-3 feet of coastal flooding is likely at times of high tide, on several high tide cycles! If your neighborhood is lowlying on Florida’s East Coast from #miami to #ftlauderdale #CapeCanaveral #flood

Jeff Berardelli reposted

Prof Ian Hall

@ianhall.bsky.social

The Amazon is shifting from carbon sink to carbon source. 15 yrs of CO2 data show that fires are the dominant carbon source and now outpace forest uptake. Deforestation is driving the damage, amplified by drought and El Niño. Protecting forests is climate action. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Jeff Berardelli reposted

Zack Labe

@zacklabe.com

El Niño is everywhere in the headlines, but ultimately human-caused climate change is the key reason for the record global warmth. 📈 Curious about how these two climate stories relate? Learn more in our latest report: www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt...

nature.comHeat-related urban mortality attributable to human-induced climate change in Europe from 2000 to 2025 - Nature HealthIn an analysis of the 430,365 deaths attributable to heat in 854 European cities in the period 2000–2025, 68% were due to anthropogenic climate change in 2025, up from 39% in 2000.

“The proportion of estimated heat deaths attributable to human-induced climate change shows a marked rise over time, increasing from 39% in 2000 to 68% in 2025.”

Dr. Aaron Thierry@thierryaaron.bsky.social

"We estimate 430,365 heat-related deaths over the study period, with just over half of the modelled burden attributable to human-induced warming." #Europe 🇪🇺 #ClimateEmergency

Jeff Berardelli reposted

Dave Vetter

@davidrvetter.bsky.social

Kudos to NBC New York for saying it without equivocation: "The US is to blame for the world falling behind in the fight against climate change."

What’s funny is they all know a scientist… their local TV meteorologist. But perhaps it doesn’t come to mind or they don’t really associate their weather person with science. Odd. Why?

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com

Every year, Research!America does a poll that asks, "Can you name a living scientist?" In January 2026, 76% of respondents said "no." Of those who said "yes," 5% named a scientist who was, in fact, dead. www.researchamerica.org/blog/can-you...

And their Doctor. The one obvious one.

youtube.comNew Exxon El Niño CommercialYouTube video by Yellow Dot Studios

Warning: It comes with some unexpected surprises :)

Yellow Dot Studios@yellowdotstudios.bsky.social

The Exxon ad Exxon doesn't want you to see. New from Adam McKay @ghostpanther.bsky.social and voiced by Woody Harrelson.

‼️ New: 50,000 Killed in #Europe’s worst summer #heatwaves on record! Two new peer-reviewed studies find: “Climate-driven impact: About 50,000 excess heat deaths are estimated to have occurred in 854 #European urban areas during summer 2026…

Of the estimated 50K deaths, 2/3rds were caused by carbon pollution driven warming. These numbers are for the summer as a whole and only for Urban areas, so deaths are likely underestimated…

Link to papers: www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/pub...

About 2/3rds of the expected mortality total is attributable to climate change, primarily as a result of burning fossil fuels.” “The modelled urban area mortality toll for this year’s summer is the highest in the 26 years since 2000, far in excess of the next highest in 2022 (29K) and 2003 (28K).”

😮 Comparing El Nino’s Current State: 2026 makes 1997 look like Child’s Play! Who lived in #Florida in 1997-1998? I was a whipper-snapper weatherman in #Tampa back then. It was a crazy winter…

Instead it shows 2026 is simply in a league of its own. Thus we expect big impacts on the winter weather. It’s important to note though that every El Niño event is different. We know it will be very active and wet in Florida, but we simply don’t know exactly how and where it will materialize…

Tornadoes are more likely, but not guaranteed. It will be rainier than normal, but 3-4X like 1997? We just don’t know yet. #elnino #elniño

@climateofgavin.bsky.social

The strongest El Niño on record brought Florida’s worst #tornado outbreak and more than triple the normal winter rainfall. 🌧️ In the image below I made an apples to apples comparison of sea surface temperature anomalies on Oct 20th. I thought it would reveal a closer comparison…

Jeff Berardelli reposted

Gavin Schmidt

Updated estimates of 2026 + 2027 expectations - new and improved graphic! data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/gmsta/

New: 💦 One of the wettest Florida winter’s on record?! It appears likely! The Super Ensemble forecast shows rainfall 2-3X normal in South #Florida and around 2X over central /north Florida in over Dec, Jan, Feb. (232% =2.3X normal rain) Thanks, El Niño…

The Super Ensemble is the mother of all seasonal model forecasts. It incorporates models from the US, Europe, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Australia. Obviously these are just an estimate, not exact. #elnino #elniño

New paper by the World’s most prominent climate scientists shows rapid acceleration of human-caused warming, with a warming rate now that tracks to near 2.4°C by 2050, far faster than was expected, if it continues…

Human activities are driving profound shifts in the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere.” A who’s who of the best in the World on this paper. academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

“Far faster than expected”… is not quite right… it’s within the range of expected outcomes, but we are reaching Paris milestone’s much earlier than than expected is the better way of communicating it.

From paper: “We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present. Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits, with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond…

Straight out of a meteorology textbook. Super Storm Slams #Iceland with wind gusts over 100 mph and a pressure of 930mb - equivalent to a Major #Hurricane! It has a classic comma head. The #storm is hitting Northern #Europe now.

🌀 Florida Can’t Get A Break! 🌀 11 Hurricanes in 11 Years! Here’s the crazy part… 10 of those hit the Gulf Coast! Coincidence? Cycle? Maybe… we’ve seen that before. But there may be a more scientific reason. Hear me out…

Then the action begins… warm air rises and storms form. Since the favored area in fall is the Gulf, and the favored steering is towards the Northeast, it’s a recipe for more Gulf Coast #Hurricane hits…

If this theory is right - since warming will continue - it seems likely “backloaded” seasons may play a more prominent role in future #hurricane seasons and the target may increasingly be the Gulf Coast. Just a theory for now. But worth monitoring.

and hitch a ride on the Autumn Jet Stream, hitting the eastern side of the Gulf. So… why are seasons backloaded? Probably warmer summers. It’s a bit complex, but over the longer term the mid-level atmosphere is warming faster than the low-levels during summer…

If it’s warmer aloft, there’s less vertical contrast, then the air below tends not to rise. Less rising air = less storms. It’s called stability. Thus quiet summers. But then when the upper atmosphere starts to cool in fall, the hotter water and cooler air aloft has more contrast…

the storms are more likely to crash into Florida’s #Gulf Coast. If you are interested, let’s dig a little deeper. During July/ August storms tend to move from east to west due to easterly steering winds in summer…

So IF a storm forms in mid-summer it’s more likely to hit the #Florida East Coast. However it’s been very quiet lately in July and August. To the contrary, Sept and October have been active. Those storms are more likely to form in the W Caribbean and Gulf…

Many weather and climate scientists think it may be due to an increase in “backloaded seasons”. That means the first half of seasons are less active now-a-days, and the 2nd half are more busy. So, since the Gulf is favored in fall, and tracks tend to go Northeastward due to autumn steering patterns

ECMWF had to change the color scheme to capture this El Niño.

Sam Burgess@oceanterra.org

Many versions of the current El Niño intensity have been shared… we’ve had to change the colour scale to appropriately show the strength of the anomaly.

How did a STING JET cause 120 mph gusts in #Hurricane #Isaias AND the AI models Crush the Competition! (Note: AI models are built on the back of decades of research, researchers, and the dynamic models observation assimilation / traditional methods)

Realized I forgot the European model. Added it. Worth mentioning that the AI models are built upon decades of dynamic physics model research/ researchers and the AI models simply could not function without traditional observation & forecasting methods.

Jeff Berardelli @weatherprof.bsky.social

🌀AI Models Dominate Isaias Forecast By now you’ve heard that Google Deep Mind nailed the #Hurricane #Isaias track forecast, but this shows just how dominant it was. The graph shows the forecast error… less error = more accurate…

~72 hours before landfall out the Google Deep Mind AI ensemble was only off by 19 miles, Euro AI by only 36 miles! There are lots of negative uses of AI, but weather forecasting is one example in which AI can be beneficial.

For clarity, it wasn’t purely a track win, it was also a timing win. So the 72 hour error is a function of both. And the AI models nailed the timing too. Whereas the other models error may be exaggerated at 72 hours due as much to timing errors as track errors.

“Here we analyze the latest observational temperature records through 2025 and identify a statistically significant doubling of the global warming rate during 2011–2025 (0.40 °C per decade) compared to 1971–2025 (0.20 °C per decade)…