40/70 Benchmark

That is what composites and explicit forecasts are for.

It also didn't help that most of the cold was on the other side of the globe, and what cold we had here loaded west due to the juggernaut PDO...... in the absence of any poleward Aleutian ridging due to modoki la nina, there was no mechanism to get it to bleed east. Raindance had it down...aside from the NAO, which was ultimately rendered useless last year. I have my post mortem write up just about done....probably post this weekend.

If you are looking for an analog to act as an exact replica of any given season, then you should probably reevaluate your conception of what an analog actually is regardless of the climate era. Its incumbent on the forecaster to utilize discretion to in extracting the value from an analog. For instance, I like 1955-1956 last season....was it a carbon copy? No.....but there was value in that we had a hell of a block in March, as well as an extreme cold phase of the Pacific. Of course, it didn't work out in terms of snowfall, but that is often the case because snow is subject to so much variance. My outlook was trash at the end of the day, but it doesn't mean there wasn't some value.

Obviously the Pacific is more important at the end of the day, but anything short of a historic PDO and last winter would have been pretty good with those blocks. Get that again this winter and it will be different. I feel like there will be this ground swell of claims that the NAO is useless when in fact it's really just that the Pacific is more important. Get those blocks in place with an el nino and pedestrian -PDO and see what happens. Of course, the trick is that if el nino is heavily east-based and appreciably potent, then we probably will not get the blocking.

I feel like the cold was more due to the modoki nature of some of those seasons than the fact that it followed a cold phase PDO, but it may help to mitigate some of the warmth with el nino if we begin with from the opposite base state.

Yea, this is why I was saying a 1986-1987 type of outcome is the ceiling. Blocking is going to be crucial this season.

Agree.

I don't agree with this...you just need to know how to use them and remain mindful of said changes.

33.6

Well, that is a no-brainer....there is a reason el nino offers higher end storm potential on average than la nina. 1) More of a STJ prescence. 2) What you were alluding has to do with Tip's compressed geopotential medium....ie heigher se heights. That is less likely to be an issue during an el nino, so we aren't as prone to that shearing influence when either an NAO block flexes during west coast troughing (see December 2021) or when we have lower heights over the northeast while there are higher heights over the se...obviously el nino favors lower heights down there. This will be illustrated when I do my el nino work next month.

I feel like its going to become in vogue to dismiss the NAO, but I think it will hold a lot of weight next year. There is no way that heights over the west will be as low as they were last season, so I'm pretty sure big blocks won't be so at risk of going to waste as they did last year...trick will be to get them again next season.

Its a passive aggressive jab. But I'm not sure I would say they are usually dry....warm, sure.

Something has to give soon, whether its this year or not...but dating back to 1956, my worst 5 year stretch is 87-88 through 91-92, when I averaged 38.5"....this stretch from 18-19 through 22-23 I have averaged 45.1". But I have never had six consecutive seasons of well below average snowfall dating back to 1956....1992-1993 ended that drought with 97.3". On the front side of that stretch was 86-87 with 77.7"....I could envision something like that as the ceiling next year if its basinwide. But even if it isn't....the juggernaut east-based events have a tendency to deliver one heavy hitter.....I had 60.2" in 82-83. If we get one more terd out here, I would have to imagine 24-25 ends it.

Its tough to doubt raindance's idea of an el nino looking pretty much like the last 3 la nina events given the -PDO....but I highly doubt that snowfall will be as anemic as it was this past season....just about impossible in the mid atlantic and coastal SNE.

I never, ever would have guessed....

Right. As much as I love that season, it won't be on my short list. It was actually east based, but so weak it didn't really matter.

Hey, looks like a got the smoke jack

36.5

Everyone run and hide before the ENSO eats us all alive

I think we can toss 1976-1977 based on the PDO....was pretty positive that year.

Got my first round of mowing in on Saturday...gorgeous wknd.

Again...I have no issue with a neutral to negative PDO ....but just not sure a top 5 el nino in terms of intensity, or extremely eastern biased ordeal is a certainty.

JMA looks like the CANSIPS...mod-strong, basin wide ordeal with high latitude blocking and -PDO

If its warm, its warm...oh well, but we will have a better chance of a large scale event than this past season...obviously Jan 2016 and the Megalopolis system...but even 12/23/97 produce 8" in an hour not too far from me.