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Yeah, JoMo, definitely not going with a strong or even moderate Niño at this point. I'm glad to see the possibility of a neutral winter next season. Let the other variables play ball and see what happens.

So far, light rain, maybe one hundredth of an inch of rain. NWS got one thing correct: It did rain, albeit very lightly. Point and click declared HEAVY RAIN tonight for Dale City. That was a bit of a hype. NWS should have forecast 50 percent chance of showers in Dale City tonight, less than a tenth of an inch of accumulation of rain.. I got less than a tenth of an inch worth of light rain, more like a thousandth of an inch tonight. Given the setup, particularly heavy rain is not indicated east of the mountains when the moisture is coming from the west, and the center of remnant circulation is NORTH/NORTHWEST of my backyard.. Go back to met school  for 78 million years, KLWX. I'm only a rain weenie and even I KNOW that tropical moisture coming from the WEST tends to be light east of the mountains. Repeat after me KLWX forecasters: Areas NORTH AND WEST of the center of circulation end up with heavy rain in these types of tropical remnant setups, areas south and east of the center of circulation get light rain in these types of setups. Go sit at the blackboard and write that 50,000 times.

Technically the Earth's tilt is the reason for the seasons. Yes our sun has a large effect on our jet stream, afterall it provides the uneven heating on our planet which causes the jet stream, however I suggest you read some papers from Jennifer Francis about climate change influencing the temperature gradients that cause the jet stream to weaken (because global temperature gradients are lessening), and like a weakened stream, slows down and meanders causing wavier and stagnant weather patterns. I can't understand why people put such a huge belief in the sun causing the climate change we are experience now. It has been proven the TSI hasn't increased enough to explain most of the warming we have seen since the industrial revolution. The sun's energy has been monitored for years now and it can't explain the warming trend. What has increased is the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere, which helps in keeping our atmosphere warmer than it otherwise would be. Another thing people can't comprehend is AGW is all about rate of change, the current rate of change in warming in geologic time is incredibly rapid. Yes the Earth's climate has been warmer in the past in it's history, yes these were caused by natural processes i.e. Milankovitch cycles and other forcings, but all of these different forcings work on much much slower time scales. What we are experiencing today is NOT normal, and not natural. I can't understand why people just can't accept scientific reality.