40/70 Benchmark

Some, sure.

Well, 2015-2016 had us merely brushed by one of the largest east coast snow events in history and some SNE areas still finished near normal snowfall. 2018-2019 was a meager el nino that never coupled and left us in residual la nina hang-over. If this el nino is nearly as potent as you believe, then that won't happen.

Its going to depend on the polar fields.

I didn't imply that this fatailstic thought process was "wrong", but rather dysfunctional. The fact is that healthy el nino events leave us prone to high-magnitude snow events.....if you average 40" per year and you get half of that in one event, then you are several advisory events away from climo-

Yea, I was young and naive enough to take it hook-line-and-weenie back then. I scoff at similar present day set ups. Unless you have the huge ULL over the lakes to hoover these things in, adjust east of guidance once above about 38* in latitude.

I don't have any issue with essentially punting the first half of winter.....I am not trying to claim a record winter is en route....but rather I find it hard to believe that we won't have some favorable stretches this season.

The RONI, as well..... .33 cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/RONI.ascii.txt

Same place Brett came in back in 1999....another one in 2017, too.

But it was east-based!!!!!! How could that be? I'll bet @snowman19's great grandfather kicked his horse and buggy and smashed all of the lanterns in the cabin.

The rebuild at H5 continues. If you care to donate to the fictional Red Cross, send your account and routing number to [email protected].

1982-1983 was average. He is in this overcompensation pattern for his first couple of years on the forum, when he acted like a manic JB. Once he realized that we don't average 100" of snow in coastal SNE, he has never been the same.

Agree. I think the snowfall looks reasonable.

More importantly, the forcing remains west....my guess is they meet somewhere in the middle (150-160Wish?), as max anomalies slide westward and forcing eastward.

Right.

1948. Multivariate ENSO Index (webberweather.com)

Its just one tool....the problem is that everyone is looking for a that fail-proof "silver bullet" in seasonal forecasting and once we realize that any new concept isn't that, then its automatically mocked and considered useless. No wonder progress is so slow with that mindset because I don't think there is any failproof indicator....the atmosphere is too complicated.

The MEI and RONI did not reflect el Nino at all that season.

I feel like part of the issue that year was people taking into a consideration a weak el nino when forecasting, but the atmosphere wasn't in el Nino mode.

Same crap last fall about la nina...peak ONI was 1.0....

Good thing there is never any ENSO hype-

Look at the majority of good winters and it was mainly due to one great month.

I agree. People need to remember that just because the mean DM charts depict modoki forcing doesn't mean it will be pinned at the dateline from 12/1 through 3/31.

"It’s technically going to be considered basin wide simply because the nino itself is so strong it has no choice but to engulf the whole region" You realize by basin wide we mean that the greatest anomalies end up relatively evenly distributed or centrally located, right?

I mean, I feel like he thinks we are arguing that every month will be modoki orgies....the western forcing to me means that we will get favorable stretches....sure, one month will probably blow.

One cold month is fine for NE snowfall, though...that is the point. No one is implying wall-to-wall cold...punt one month, get one near normal and a cold one. All I am saying is that I don't see a wretched snowfall season for the NE like some folks are insinuating. I don't care about extreme cold...I just want ot cold enough to snow. BTW, I would be perfectly happy with 5/8 years you mention. You say the composite will be warmer/shifted NW....fine. But I also feel as though the warmer Atlantic may mean more major storms.