Even during that stretch, we had some years like 1986-1987 and 1981-1982....even 1982-1983 was decent. Bottom line is I have had five consecutive shitty seasons, which is unprecedented.
The strong el nino/high solar years are pretty split....1940, 1957 and 2002 were good, but 1972, 1982 and 1991, not so much.....looks like there were only two with a notable dearth of big east coast storms....1972 and 1991.
Even if the NAO were just as strong, while not an ideal pattern for us and especially me, I am confident some of those systems would evolve slightly differently and that would have major sensible implications.