40/70 Benchmark

The only reason why we care about the index is because they correlate to a given pattern or weather....but at the end of the day, the ambient environment is what matters and determines how the weather plays out. If that is highly anomalous, then so will the resultant weather pattern, and it renders our correlations moot because of said interaction. The reason an east-based el nino normally produces a mild pattern over the eastern US is because it pins the forcing near S America over the greatest +SST anomalies in the Pacific basin. But if there is a larger body of warm water to the west, than the larger scale resultant weather pattern is going to be akin to what it would be in a modoki situation.

I don't give a rat's a$$ what the ONI is or which ENSO region is warmest, blah, blah...that is a textbook modoki pattern. That GOA low is flat and displaced well off of the coast with a downstream split flow pumping in moisture beneath a very disturbed polar region. I'm not sure I even detect much of a gradient issue on that chart, so it appears to be an impactful storm factory. You can write a novel about the IOD and wax poetic about whichever other esoteric index fits your agenda, but there is only one way to interpret these seasonal charts if the reader has a modicum of: A: Objectivity B: Meteorological intellect Now, will they verify...who knows, but what I can tell you is these solutions make sense since the west PAC is so anomalously warm. We have a quite a seasonal consensus that is getting more difficult to dismiss by the week.

IDK, everyone has an opinion....and I know that the smart money is always on above normal to some degree in this modern era, but this doesn't signal "game over" to me. It looks like December is kind of eh......then shit hits the fan in January into February, which lines up with what I am coming up with independently.

Why so much vitriol? It's only ENSO

Lol I mentioned that....I was all over that. At least that was well coupled with the atmosphere and acted stronger..this is the opposite.

Its possible we end up with forcing further west even with the east based el Nino...that is what happened in the 1925 analog that Snowman23 and Paul Roundy shook on.

One thing to ponder is that seasonal guidance is normally deplorable at picking up on high latitude blocking....they are most skilled near the equator and into the tropics, but struggle more with increasing latitude, so the fact that they have been so consistent in signaling a disturbed polar domain will be illuminating to those with an open mind. This doesn't mean 2009-2010 en route necessarily, but it should at least give pause to the pre-conceived notion of the death-star PV that is a staple of uber ENSO events. There is only one el nino/+IOD analog that I know that has a disturbed PV and that is 1963-1964.

This event isn't going to be comparable to 1997-1998, aside from the robust 1.2 anomalies....seasonal guidance has been petty consistently and emphatically trying to convey that message for months. You can probably get away with dismissing it for another month...maybe two at most. But I can't imagine doing that into November would be wise.

I don't think its going to be frigid. I agree with that, however, it depends where the forcing is in terms of the PNA because if its west of about 160W, then the GOA low is going to be further off of the west coast.

Is this what you are looking for?

Been there a couple of times, but just passing through en route to Uganda.

Notice a lot of the seasonal guidance has ridging INVOF Greenland and Alaska...not a ton of cold, but I can work with that.

Well, it should certainly flip from a latitude standpoint, at least to some degree...no large leap of faith there considering ENSO.

August DM remembers.

"Catastrophic" snowstorms....I'll be sure to toss a dropsonde into a snowbank.

.78" rainfall on the day.

Can't cancel what has passed.

Good place for it.

Great consensus. ONI can be 4.2 for all I care, if it looks like that.

Just looking back at the big east-based events....I don't see how the forcing gets any further east than about 155-160* this winter, which is like 1972. All of the other intense events were further east by this point, and I just don't see that drastic of a flip, as none of the others have. 1972 is def. the most viable analog of the bunch IMO....it was a descending solar, though. Its also not a terrible QBO match, but it did flip westerly during the winter. This one will not. Again, 1972-1973 had virtually no blocking to speak of. I don't see us pulling off what we did last year....if we get the blocking, then we should be good.

Steve probably disagrees lol

Ginxy wearing very, very tight cut-off and faded daisy duke shorts from the mid 80s, while raking the pool water to the lips 'n hips tune lol