40/70 Benchmark

Good example of this winter could look with a strongly +NAO/WPO. I am with you on the NAO, but main question is the WPO...I could see that being a bit more negative.

It's a more neutral north Pacific response, which means other hemispheric players are more influential. In 2023, the most prominent players were a raging +WPO/+NAO/-PDO. This is why I said that the NAO and the state of the extra tropical Pacific will be so crucial this year. I think that fact that 2023 resembled 1997 was largely due to the extreme +WPO both seasons. Dec 1997 actually had some blocking, hence the major SNE snow right before xmas. The PDO was also positive. 1982 was -WPO....my guess is we end up with a better extra tropical patten than 2023.

Think of the information that be gleaned from ENSO concerning the hemispheric response as a continuum of sorts...of both strength AND type. Climate change is exacerbating the perils of a reductive analysis that considers merely strength of ENSO because the fact of the matter is that the hemispheric response is becoming more nuanced and varied.

Simply knowing the strength isn't very helpful if you don't know what the response will be....quite the contrary, it can actually be misleading to a forecaster, which is the trap that I fell into in 2023.

Yea......look at the absolute value of each to obtain a general idea of how strong the event is, but more importantly, it's the relationship between the RONI and ONI that is indicative of the type of response that ENSO may induce around the hemisphere. The latter is what we really need to understand because knowing how strong said response will be is pretty useless if we have no idea what the response will be. I suspect we are going to need the RONI to be at least equivalent or greater than the ONI to avoid yet another muted Aleutian low/se trough couple response. If we have a very strong El Nino with a lagging ONI, as was the case in 2023, then you get a very strong RIDGING response over se Canada and an Aleutian low/se trough that is still meager.

This is why we are seeing less of an Aleutian low/se trough response.

1957 is best subsurface map in terms of placement AND intensity of subsurface warm pool. It's also a good polar analog in terms of solar and QBO.

Exactly the type of analogs I was speculating on. 2002 is similar, but obviously weaker. I think the issue will be the NAO...1991-1992 was awful because it was the only strongly positive NAO/weakly -PDO, which we may very well have this year.

Got down to 23.2 this AM...recovered up to 53.1 39.6

Gotta be careful, though....2023 mimicked modoki forcing, but it was because the west Pacific was so warm, so it actually created a MC influence...which was wretched.

Yea, here, as well...except for 1982, which was around normal.