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I'd expect a large rubber band effect in June with much warmer temperatures.

Had some brief but freaky lightning, 2-3 hours ahead of my hourlies forecast. I'm sitting at 11C dew at 6C. Quick flashes and has that scary feel as its seems to be with lower temps in these parts. Oddly my weather station didn't detect a single one despite the 16 of them. Lots of small cells forming over lake Huron, most weakened rapidly.

note: 5% tornado outlook

Bring on the dews baby..my skin could use a little natural moisture from Mother Nature

Today turned out to be what seems to be the sunniest day for the month.

I'm up on Skyline Drive and all we saw was a faint bit of purple in photos. We are back at our hotel now warming up and may go back out if it ramps up again.

Since the AMO turned + in the Atlantic mid-latitudes, the PDO has had a tendency toward negative. In the last few years, we hit -3 on the monthly, which was the strongest -PDO since 1954. With AMO still roaring positive and now a La Nina developing, it's really difficult for the PDO to go negative for the Winter.. we needed the Strong Nino to do that job, and we had one the highest relative -PDO/ENSO Winter's on record. It may take quite a few years to go back to true positive, although a 1-2 year blip like 2013-15 isn't impossible.

18z GEFS has a pretty strong -PNA pattern starting around May 17th. Hard to say that it will sustain, but sometimes when it starts and we are cooler on the EC, the later part of the -PNA pattern is above average to way above average.. something to look for if it sustains into June. I've done some research linking ENSO subsurface with the N. Pacific pattern at 0-time, but in the age of weather derivatives it's harder to say if that is the reason for the correlation (my opinion).

This weekend down here was very nice thanks to dewpoints mainly in the 50s.

Nice job Ray.. I don't agree that the PNA was +0.55 for the Winter.. there was an Aleutian High most of the time, and +EPO/+WPO. I think their measurement runs into the EPO domain, counting Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska.. I see it as a -PNA Winter, especially since the North America part included a SE ridge and NW trough. The one time the EC got cold in January was because of -NAO.

Another thing to watch that could throw a wrench into things is how early/late does this Niña peak? The Niña is expected to transition from an east based event to a modoki, if the Niña peaks early like the latest guidance has that would be bad news. However, if the guidance is jumping the gun a bit and that transition to a modoki event is delayed a couple of months, that could make a big difference for the first half of winter. Despite the latest guidance being a bit weaker with the Niña I’m not sold on that just yet, especially given how the subsurface looks. I still think it’s going to be a strong event with the more aggressive guidance ultimately being correct.

1.30" total

Hp30 index climbed to 7.333 briefly but has come back down. Saw pics of auroras over Lake Ontario but probably not going to get to us barring a bigger hit waiting in the wings tonight. And of course the clouds are excruciatingly stubborn on top of this.

The PDO is still up in the air, but it will likely be negative as is typical for moderate to strong Nina’s. These are valid points, and I agree that it looks ugly right now. Some of the latest guidance is trending more towards a moderate peak than strong one, but regardless the solar activity is a strong negative factor for east coast snow prospects. I am much more concerned about that than the raw strength. In the extremely snowy strong La Niña event in 2010-2011, the solar activity was very low, opposite of this year. Id keep an eye on the PDO, it is negative but not as strongly negative as it was earlier in the year despite the Nino falling apart. That’s one thing to look for as a possible wildcard that could work in favor of those rooting for snow on the east coast. Ultimately, right now things are pointing in the direction of a +NAO moderate-strong Niña which is bad news for weenies such as myself.

25/14/8

Couple folks caught the aurora in Shenandoah again. Good for them! But night one was definitely the move.

AQI around 180, a smelly nasty smoke filled evening. Wouldn’t want to go outside looking for the Aurora if it was right overhead.

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Already 3" to 5" have rain fall in some areas north of Houston in the last 24 hours. NWS has flood watches from the Florida Panhandle to Dallas.

Clouds but dry today and temperatures were ok. Walking from Coolidge Corner to the North End for Mother’s Day dinner took us through spectacular foliage-a beautiful time of year for Back Bay, the Public Garden, the Common, and Faneuil Hall into the north end of Boston as dogwoods,magnolias, cherry blossoms explode. You guys wanting nonstop winter are the minority even amid snow weenies.

While I think this is generally true, my work was more flawed than I implied here. Here is the post analysis. https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2024/05/winter-2023-2024-outlook-largely-failure.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiWG_5941YQ Nice pulse around 10 minutes ago.

I agree in general, but I think we are a year or two off from peaking with respect to this. Here is my wrap up from last year. I was right about the forcing, but completely wrong about the implications of it....did not matter one bit. West Pacific drove the bus, which is why I think @bluewavenailed it with respect to articulating the disconnect between the ONI and RONI/MEI as reflective of "competing forces". And unfortunately for NE US snow lovers, all of the forces that competed with and overcame ENSO were in the west Pacific and were evil ones. https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2024/05/winter-2023-2024-outlook-largely-failure.html

Just saying....+NAO is most correlated with an increase in geomagnetic wind and solar particles, which peak in the few years following solar max. Regardless, I agree next winter looks mild again.

18/11/6