40/70 Benchmark

Oh, your subjective grading of the winter.....ie your experience of it was unfulfilling. I hear that. I thought you were speaking of my forecasting effort. I would give the winter a D from my perspective...I have seen worse, as frustrating as it was. I would honestly take this past winter over 2009-2010...that was much more frustrating for me. I would take the 2009-2010 synoptic landscape again...but not the result. lol

I wish there was a better way to forecast not only the predominate seasonal state of indexes, but also their character/orientation....ie, the heavy west bias of the PNA and the cold loading into the eastern Hemisphere. It is this that is the smoking gun IMHO and it is why I feel like misdiagnosing ENSO is so often fatal. I got the peak ONI correct.....BOING.....but I don't think its a coincidence that la nina shifted to modoki and so much went wrong. I expected a continued slight eastward lean....had I realized that this was going to shift into a modoki signature for winter, I would have anticipated a lot more of these details to conspire against us.

Thanks alot....believe me, I don't disavow my errors.....quite the contrary. The correct parts of a forecast provide validation of some of the methodologies, which is gratifying, but its the errors that serve as the real impetus for growth and act as a beacon to guide future seasonal efforts through that fog of ambiguity that is long range forecasting.

Ironically enough, this season may have been my best effort in terms of teleconnections Only thing I really whiffed on was the EPO, as I expected it to be positive and it was actually pretty negative. While I hit on the ONI, I definitely blew the modoki index this year, but the site it down right now. I don't like to do the full write up until May due to random snow events, but I am confident this forecast effort was actually pretty good, SNE snow not withstanding. A lot of the cold ended up on the other side of the globe, though, in which case a neg AO is actually a mild signal. This is why I was off on temps IMO...that and the bouts of +PNA, most notably in January, were heavily west biased, which essentially acts as a -PNA...so while it looks like I essentially nailed the PNA, western heights were lower than forecast, which is evident when comparing the H5 chart to the forecast composite. This in conjunction with the cold being in Eurasia also played a role in the season ending up milder than forecast. Its details like this that do not show up on a grander scale in the teleconnection tables that can turn an ostensibly serviceable winter season into a rat. December-March 2022-2023 Teleconnection Forecast Index Value Predicted '22-'23 DM Value Range Actual '22-'23 DM Value Forecast Error Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) -1.27 to -1.57 -1.39 Verified Perennial North American Pattern (PNA) -.35 to -.65 -.68 .03 too positive ENSO SON -1.0 to -1.2 EMI: -.3 to -.5 (slightly east-hybrid) SON -1.0 (Verified) Verified (J-M) East Pacific Oscillation (EPO) +.30 to +.60 -.43 .73 too positive Arctic Oscillation (AO) -.15 to -.45 -.37 Verified North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) +.15 to +.45 +.23 Verified

Anyone have a link for the JISAO PDO data? The one I usually use doesn't seem to be working....

Just doing a quick calculation, I actually nailed the DM NAO value....was within my predicted range. Satisfying since the polar domain is where I have struggled a great deal since doing this.

Even though snowfall was comparable for a lot of SNE, this season was definitely not a 2011-2012 type of dumpster fire pattern....if it were, then I would grade my effort an "F". The pattern evolved pretty similarly to how I postulated it would, but unfortunately the result in terms of SNE snowfall was still a dumpster fire. The main issue I see with my work is that heights out west ended up being lower than I expected and the middle portion of the season remained void of blocking (I thought January may bounce back some after a big thaw), so its not a total fluke that it was warmer with less snowfall than expected....but the fact that it ended up this bad was also due to some synoptic misfortune.

I'm not sure how you can consider a multifaceted seasonal outlook a complete failure because of one aspect, though.....while I agree that raindance had the best outlook, and have stated as much many times, I don't think its entirely fair to ignore the fact that he did whiff on the NAO....that needs to be factored. I hit on many aspects of the outlook, which I will demonstrate in my post analysis, so it doesn't make much sense to claim the work is a dumpster fire because of mid Atlantic and SNE snowfall. I wasn't that far off in CNE/NNE and did I a pretty good job identifying early and late periods of blocking. The middle portion of the season was a big whiff in terms of temps, but I did get the active pattern right. There were certainly some big issues and it definitely wasn't an A or B....I agree with that. If you are speaking specifically as it pertains to SNE snowfall, then yes...that is probably a D- or F. Sometimes I feel like you have to actually attempt one of these before you really have any insight on what goes into it and how to assess.

Same dynamic at play this year to a degree, IMO...albeit it should be more potent than this la nina....at least ONI wise.

It end up right where I said it would intensity wise....its the orientation that messed me up.

I would strongly hedge towards a correction west over the ensuing months...it has to if el nino is indeed going to develop and flourish.

Just that one line there makes it silly to strongly favor an east based event at this early juncture IMO....who knows, maybe east based events are going by the wayside due to climate change, since we blame it for everything else. Never mind the fact that this event isn't evolving in the same fashion as other powerhouse east based events. How anyone can conclude that modoki is off of the table based upon that is beyond me. Maybe it gives you pause, sure....

If I had to guess, I would say like 1.5 to 1.7 ONI basin wide event...but I do think this is going to have a strong westward tug its sleeve.

I do not.

Surprising that 1945-1946 featured above normal snowfall in Boston...wouldn't have guessed that. El nino must have been weak if it was east based in order to allow that much blocking.

This is my point....region 1.2 is so volatile that there isn't a ton of value inferring too much about next winter from its current behavior....it probably makes a true modoki pretty unlikely, but that eastern flank is very volatile. Here is last November: Compared to January: Consensus was also pretty emphatic that it remain east-based and whiffed at like 1-2 months lead....so, good luck declaring east based in April.

I factor everything in....it wasn't a total fluke that snowfall underperformed my expectations in most of SNE and it was warmer than forecast. There were issues that I will assess and then grade the work accordingly...all I am saying is it isn't as bad as SNE snowfall would make it appear.

Topics will be dead until at least July...aside from a rouge system here of there. I'll be good to go by then.

I'll do this is either May or June....after I do my seasonal post-mortem.

The snowfall portion of the outlook was clearly flawed in a major way for the majority of SNE...not all, but most of the area. Would not debate that. All I am saying is that there are many other factors to consider rather than snowfall for SNE and on a grander scale, the work was not nearly as bad as it appears.

If you don't know how to formulate one, I wouldn't expect you to have any clue on how to properly assess an outlook, so this isn't surprising. Hope you enjoyed your March 2012.

I haven't done that yet....but it will be higher than that for the season. My seasonal outlook encompasses more than how much snow falls at 990' in Tolland, CT.

Doesn't really mean much right now....like I said, la nina was really east based last year until like late November.

Even Dec 1997 had a one of the more remarkable events of my life on 12/23/97....Just west of me in Ayer, MA had like 8" in an hour. Those potent STJs can do some crazy thing even in an overall hostile envt.

Well, the good news is that a best match in April often doesn't ultimately prove very relevant.