I think I remember @raindancewxsaying that a lot of the warmer eastern el nino analogs had warmer months October....so even though I know it isn't correlated to winter per se, it may be more important this year.
I walked that statement back....not well thought out response on my part. Its actually one of my analogs. I expect the polar domain to be different than 1972, but point taken.
I shouldn't say 2018-2019 is irrelevant...we are still in the cold phase of the Pacific and its actually a decent analog, but I expect some more traditional el nino interludes this year is all I meant.