40/70 Benchmark

"We just traded the 8th best catcher in MLB for Pee Wee Herman and his spank bank, but we're still trying to make the playoffs".

I think that will change in a pretty big way in about a couple of weeks.

I beat Mario 3 many times....Mario II is the only one I never beat. Mario I only once; that was hard, too. I was just about unbeatable on Mario Kart....I used to snipe people with shells while I was in front of them hahha

It was the best one. Admittedly, I used the cheat flutes to beat it lol

I think eventually we see that surface and the warmth from the higher latitudes of the PAC will trend south towards the dateline....this is usually the early stages of the system of ocean currents that facilitates the development of modoki el nino down the line. I think the big IOD plays into kick starting that process, too....nothing in the atmosphere is coincidental.

Did they really call it that in Mario 3? I just remember racoon Mario...

Its because this is not a canonical la nina, its a modoki...different beast with an entirely disparate convective forcing scheme...just as modoki el nino often leaves the west high and dry, as opposed to canonical el nino.

I think another significant factor with respect to ENSO is whether or not there is a concomitant IOD response, as this, in addition to the MEI, helps to inform how well established the ocean-air coupling is. This is important with respect to the MJO because the MJO is essentially a tentacle of the vast tropical ocean-air coupling that the IOD-ENSO system represents.

The forecasting follies with respect to the MJO are a microcosm of why so many forecasts mishandle ENSO....if you think about it, this makes sense because why is ENSO even important? It is ONE OF the main determinants that dictate the origin, placement and ultimate evolution of the MJO. The fact of the matter is that like ENSO events, not all MJO events are created equally, and it is a knowledge of the interaction with other ambient atmospheric variables that informs our knowledge of this....IE Just as one weak la nina event may be east based, and impacts the MJO quite differently then a west based (modoki event), it may also be more or less coupled with the atmosphere. This is also applicable to MJO waves in that you need to also study the ambient hemispheric landscape in order to determine how coherent the MJO wave will be, which is to say what other factors will attenuate or augment its impact on the pattern.

NOAA/CPC is terrible with respect to ENSO....very broad brush approach that exudes laziness and complacency. I remember in my 4th outlook leading up to the 2017-2018 season, I specifically pointed out their tame outlook and made a mockery of it by explicitly stating why it would fail...the character of la nina was polar opposite to that of the one the prior season (2016-2017), despite being of comparable intensity. Four months later we got the "All Hell Breaks Loose" March.

We see this with respect to winter, as well.....while I think ENSO is a very prominent player in the atmosphere, there are three other factors that need to be considered: 1) There are a multitude of other variables at play in the atmosphere and its an exercise in futility to consider any one in a vacuum....there needs to be more time spent on considering how said factors will interact because this is the key to successful seasonal forecasting. 2) People tend to generalize all cold and warm ENSO events and only distinguish between intensity, when in fact its the structure of the SST anomalies that are at least as important, and probably more so. 3) As John has mused about ad nauseum, we need to be constantly re evaluating our perception of how ENSO interacts with that is an incessantly evolving globe around us. There need to be more critical thinking utilized by the general consensus because the approach with respect to ENSO has gotten fairly lazy, especially by certain government agencies.

Talk dirty to me....

Nice...good call. Yea, it's tough to get a consistently hostile N PAC during an eastward biased cool ENSO event.

I agree that folks a bit overly pessimistic. While I don't see anything in the early going that implies the second incarnate of Snowmageddon is on the horizon, nor do I see anything particularly horrendous, either.

I'm just messing with you, but most of your posts do tend to have a theme....never implied that you don't know your stuff, though.

It is going to be more of a modoki la nina this season, but at as long as it remains relatively weak, which it should, then that isn't necessary an absolute death knell.

I'll be down the cape Sunday, so hopefully a bit cooler there.

How many days of the month did you take two or more poops?

What did you guys base that off of back then?

I wasn't doing outlooks back then, but if you read my stuff last fall then you would know that 2010-2011 was my top ENSO analog, which should tell you that it isn't a fluke that that winter wasn't a dud. It was central based, but it wasn't a modoki....it was actually biased a bit to the east end of the spectrum. I would forecast a decent winter given those same parameters today, as I did last season. In hindsight, last season ended up even more east based, which saved us from a total train wreck because the sun ultimately porked us with respect to the poles. Remember, a well coupled ENSO event is not necessarily bad if the forcing is in the right place, though often times well coupled ENSO events have hostile forcing because the most highly coupled events are usually east-based el nino events and modoki la nina.

The composite of those 4 triple-decker cool ENSO seasons is remarkably normal, temperature wise, and slightly drier than normal for our region.

My early hunch is that the middle of portion of winter may be rather mild and lean, though not exotically warm on average...maybe another one of those nocturnally driven warmer periods that have become so prevalent in today's climate. I feel most confident in a favorable stretch in December and possibly another in March.

Agree.

2012-2013 is actually another example of a third year cool ENSO event...again, cool-neutral ENSO that continues the theme of weaker having a happy ending, so I will be watching for more sign of that later this fall.

Another thing to watch is kind of tied into it remaining weak, but if we see a rapid demise of la nina, it could lead to some increased variability late in the season. A couple of the triple-decker cool ENSO analogs had late season blocking, namely 1957 (cool neutral ENSO) and 2001 (weak modoki la nina). 1976 (strong and basin-wide) did not, possibly because it was a much stronger la nina.