That is odd, it chronically under-estimates lightning out here (or at least those maps do). Already this spring there have been two cases where it showed nothing or very low concentration of strikes and we ended up with a lightning barrage instead that had me running for cover. Even early this morning at ~ 3-4AM there were some lightning strikes in the vicinity behind the cold front which were totally missed by these maps.

If you wanna go really far back, May 1888 had 11 80+ days in Portland. And May 1928 had a whopping 13 days of 80+!

Pretty muted signal, either way. Doesn't look very warm or very cold at this point for the second half of the month. Yeah, it's gonna end up a warm month, easily warmer than the past couple of Mays. As far as true summery temps, got a ways to go to match the likes of 2023 (11 80+ days at PDX, this month has 1 so far), 2018 (8 80+ days), 2016 (9), 1997 (8), 1992 (11), 1958 (10), 1947 (8), or 1940 (9).

Contrail and a high cloud... all you could ask for and more!

That is the *realized* forcing (following an average Niño) and only OLWR (infrared) is considered. The real atmospheric window is much wider, including the visible and near-infrared spectra. At least read the paper before posting it. And while I did indeed take the most extreme ENSO extremes in the CERES record to make a point, strong Niños regularly increase total outgoing TOA radiation by 7-8W/m^2 at peak. Which is more than double all radiative forcing from GHGes since the Industrial Revolution. Let’s not forget that your initial argument was that Niños warm the climate system. At least we have now established that is actually the other way around..they are a heat release valve.