40/70 Benchmark

I agree with John that this is unlikely to be a La Nina like late season...we can leave it at that.

Ice all night? I'll believe that when I see it....if it is, it will probably be a situation where it accretes on surfaces that no one cares about, like mailboxes....

I hope it's plain rain here.

MEI does....and like I said, assuming it is dead, there is a reason that the ONI encompasses a tri-monthly period. I understand you are dug in on this given your thoughts on CC....I get it. We don't always have to agree on everything.

Yea, it doesn't help, but more to it.

Well, only if you went with a generic, boiler-plate-ENSO forecast....really immaterial AFAIC because I did not....that said, the RONI and MEI are still down there, so that would give me pause before summarily declaring it dead. That said, the sensible weather moving forward probably won't hurt your argument if you want to claim that...but I would argue the inverse of what you say when we have ENSO congruent sensible weather by chance, despite your argument that it really isn't coupled or the "driving force" per se. Assuming it is dead, people like to conveniently dismiss the notion of a lag, too....it doesn't just "shut off"...but this event was fairly weak, anyway....which is part of the reason I didn't go very warm in February.

He has some bizarre preoccupation with ENSO events ending early....always hammers that every year and it never happens.

I'll sell any big coastal mid-month.

Not happening DJF in the east this season. Take that to the bank. Only shot is March if the SSW doesn't materialize for some reason, but it should.

It's dead when the atmosphere says it is.....you don't suffer from the symptoms of many viruses until they are essentially "dead", but you probably don't consider yourself "healthy".

I don't think that will necessarily be the case this year.

Define "well above average"....if you mean like +5F, I don't think you're getting that anytime soon.

Anywho....here was my progression for January from last fall....doesn't look half bad. January 10-13 January 13-16 January 18-21 Ridge Over CONUS & Southern Canada Retrogrades Towards Alaska January 23-26 January 28-31 Early February

We all do it....except Will....he's a cyborg developed in the bowels of NCEP.

Yea, kind of like how much of CT whines about 2015...

February will be colder than January.

Agree on big coastal storms, but that doesn't necessarily preclude snow, period...

Going by that MJO progression, we should pop a steep gradient with a ridge over the south and lower heights in the EPO domain mid month.... Followed by a visit from the PV in SE Canada in conjunction with a PNA ridge.

My guess is phase 7 will do...Jan 23-24.

Kind of like how the PNA last January was biased west, off of the west coast, so on paper it looked good...but found a way to bone us. Seems like every time mother nature throws us a bone, it's a cookie laced with cyanide.....poison pill decade.

My edit to this statement: I think the whopper persistent -WPO hybrid has been suppressing the MJO from COHERENTLY propagating out of the marine sub-c. It has been denoted as being in phase 8 on several occasions throughout December, but if you viewed the hovmoller of vp, the wave was fragmented with some parcels remaining in the MC. Those MJO plots can be misleading...I have learned to rely more on the hovmoller to see what is actually happening. It's analogous to how actually playing out the H5 plot is more illuminating than simply looking at teleconnections. I actually did mention this in one of my write-ups.

Sensible weather wise, it is a lot like the 80s...clippers, front-enders and cold/dry blend....but that was a +PDO era that didn't yet have the CC footprint. Different means to a similar result.

My theory on that was the west warm pool favoring the MC phases, but I don't think that is as large of an issue this season with the MJO being mostly neutral and the WPO deeply negative....