40/70 Benchmark

Everything looks fine to me and about as confident as I've ever been that winter will be decent.

Good stuff. Nice to see raindance posting. We seem to be generally on the same page, but he is a bit colder.

I'm in no way implying a 1995 repeat...I understand how different the western PAC is and how much we have warmed...I get it. Just saying ENSO in a vacuum is a decent match.

The forecast winter EMI from JAMSTEC is very 2018 like...along with 1995 and 2021. The newest El Niño Modoki Index (EMI) guidance from JAMSTEC has also remained fairly consisted in it's depiction of an EMI value of around -.20 to -.30 during the boreal winter season. This range is similar to the EMI analogs of 1995-1996, 2017-2018 and 2021-2022, which is supported by the similarity in both the placement (near 140 longitude) and the intensity of the respective subsurface cold pool analogs relative to 2025.

Well, remember...he has a pronounced cold bias.

Another important difference is the character of La Nina....hard pressed to find many weak/east based Nina events that occured during -QBO that didn't feature some blocking. Although 2005-2006 was pretty mild mid season, it was wintry in December and featured big blocking in March.

I think initially they are disregulated by the cold, so they get frantic....kind of like torchtiger...he races around to troll every thread wwith haste a the first signs of seasonal change.

100%. This is why I am so confident that my area will see more snowfall, even if it's a bit warmer. I do not feel warmth will be prohibitive for the vast majority of the season...at least not at this latiitude.

Direct Weather is as bad as any.

Yes, the issue was definitely increased stability...which may have been for a couple of reasons.

I think it's the same issue that plagued my seasonal forecasting during the 2023-2024 El Nino season...folks need to reevaluate more archaic methods of forecasting given the rate at which the modern climate is changing. I don't think forecasters take into account the redued gradient between the sub tropics and the tropics enough, which stifles convective instability. We are warming more rapidly with latitude.....just like nights are warming more rapidly than days. The general warming of the oceans outiside of ENSO also alters the equations, which is something that I failed to appreciate. Remeber...weather happens because of the gradients that result from the redistribution of heat....nothing else. Alter that gradient and conventional forecasting methods will not work.

Don't accept next time Scooter invites you over for nude holiday twister.

The loss of "fake cold" is how the majority of CC manifests...and we know how very real that phenomenon is.

Gonna get the plow on to clear some frost?

27.5. That should do it for the bugs and growing season.