40/70 Benchmark

My largest concern about next winter was the volcano, and that is pretty sufficiently assuaged from what I have been reading. Don't see it as an issue.

Good job last year.

So pretty much neutral. I would take that this season....similar to last year.

Your NAO calculation must be nearly ready...where does it stand?

No, it wasn't a record -PNA....though it was decidedly negative. However, it essentially acted like a record -PNA because we had a modest +PNA in January that was biased to the west, therefore it was fraudulent in that it actually bolstered the trough over the west and essentially acted like a robust neg PNA. The DM value belies how the pattern truly behaved. This was another part of the forecast that I nailed, but got punished for it, anyway....I called for a PNA recovery in January and the atmosphere was like, yea, here it is....300 miles west- #upyours

I pick my spots. Feel free to quote it.

Its looks to me from that data that @griteaterposted concerning solar activity, referenced above, that there is a clear signal for negative NAO this winter given the ascending activity nearing solar max.

Not surprising since there isn't going to be a peak that high-

I will say, looking at the QBO at both 30mb and 50mb levels, there are two el nino seasons that really stand out to me as a dead-ringer match at both levels. That is pretty tough to do, as most years may match at one level, but not both. Stuff like this and the solar activity will be relatively important this season given the meek signal given by the ENSO analogs.

I agree.

Bingo, Will....the seasonal guidance was all ++NAO/AO.....and the DM value ended up just a hair over 0.0....essentially neutral. What happened was that we had the December and March blocking that I had expected, but what I didn't realize was that a record PDO would negate. it...."its like raaaainnnn..on your wedding day".

I thought that, as well, but research suggests otherwise.

I don't think the pattern was a slam-dunk ratter last year...anything less than a record -PDO, and we would have had a decent winter. Its pretty tough to forecast that magnitude of an anomaly in a seasonal forecast, since they are usually smoothed products, akin to an ensemble mean.

I have noticed more and more both on this site social media, that you will make a comment in like April and people will latch onto it call it a forecast several months later.

I don't think anyone is planning on basing a seasonal forecast off of the RONI.....I think the value it provides is similar to the MEI in that it is a source of insight into how strongly ENSO may or may not manifest itself as a hemispheric driver relative to what may be deduced based soley on the ONI. Its just another tool. Looking back through the years historically speaking, it seems to me that it is a fairly solid tool in that respect. I agree it probably doesn't specifically correlate to any given index modality or temperature/snowfall trend for a given area in and of itself.

Wow, so solar max is a -NAO signal? I never would have thought...

Any data on solar activity on the polar domain during el Nino seasons? Intuitively, I feel as though active years, like this one, are more prone to a strong PV.....this was also the case in 1991 in addition to Pinatubo.

Classic east-based look.

We will also have to see if the forcing actually sets up that far west...maybe a bit east of that season.

@brooklynwx992009-2010 is a horrible solar analog....that is my primary issue with that season.

Well, not to trigger you....but I think GW would have a similar impact on tropical activity and snowfall....ie the ceiling is raised, but not necessarily "more" activity. Given that that Godzilla of a Pacific basin is also warming upstream, wind shear is also likely to become more prevalent IMO...not to mention perhaps more predominate SAL as the deserts cook. Folks just tend to overattribute and oversimplify the impact.

Yea, same page....had I taken the RONI conceptualization into consideration back in 2018 and 2019, it likely would have mitigated what were two absolute clunker-seasonal forecasting efforts those years. By far my two worst. I based everything on modest warm ENSO events that never coupled (2018-2019) and never really existed (2019-2020).

The largest wildcard for me this season is the impact of the volcano on the PV....I suspect that we will be fine unless we get #pinatuboed.

Regardless of whether its warm, the ceiling will be high.....especuially over the mid atlantic.

Not me....look at 2015-2016 in the mid atlantic.....hell, look at 1965-1966 everywhere.