CAPE

You should get used to this possibility unless you plan to relocate. Or be more realistic with expectations and use median instead of mean.

I know this is not DC- but I am basically on the same latitude and at low elevation- and I can think of 3 warning level events right off the top of my head in the last 2 Nina winters. The one in March I think did have some blocking, but the other 2 didn't. They were both coastal scrapers with 10" plus at the beaches, about 6 here, and little to nothing for DC. Just dumb luck I suppose. eta- being further East/NE does help in a Nina with catching the edge of a Miller B sometimes. Happened here in Dec 2010 (the storm never to be mentioned). Got 5" or so from that, and there was 10+ a few miles to my east, but that period did feature a -NAO IIRC.

Blocking would be lovely, but as we all know, its pretty rare during winter lately. We could see something transient ofc, but if this winter is to feature a colder period, I am inclined to think it will probably require a favorable EPAC for a time, something like Jan of 2018. No one in DC area should expect more than a low end warning event or 2 at best, and hopefully a few 1-2" deals. That would be a major win after the debacle of last winter.

QBO won't make much difference. Its impacts are nebulous imo, and even more so in Nina. The AO/NAO is pretty much guaranteed to be positive for the winter months based on persistence and general correlation to Nina. Not to say we wont have a few periods where it is less positive or neutral. Maybe the solar minimum will save the day(winter).

Yeah a CanSIPS Dec followed by a CFS Jan and Feb would be pretty decent. A month from now we can reanalyze.This is fun.

The latest CFS runs now have a torch for December lol, but then a pretty good look for January- similar to above but better- deeper trough and hints of a bit of HL help. Looks pretty similar to h5 back in Jan of 2018 when we had the cold period(and the bomb cyclone). February doesn't look terrible either. All just for fun ofc at this juncture with these climate models.

September edition of the CanSIPS is out. My glass half full overview- Overall it looks less torchy for the winter months than the previous run. For December, not a half bad look, and verbatim just about average temps. At h5 the positive heights in the EPAC are such that the mean ridge is decently placed..close enough for perhaps a +PNA at times. Beyond that the heights shift westward in Jan, but still not a terrible look for the east coast- maybe a gradient type pattern. By Feb the EPAC ridge is a monster, max +height anomalies south of the Aleutians, and whatever winter there was would be over. Up top, December looks like a neutral AO/NAO, Jan a somewhat +AO/NAO, Feb ++AO/NAO. So not much help in the high latitudes.

Excellent write up. The bolded is the bottom line, and pretty much what I expected would be the case. Another "thought". With SSTs basin wide on fire lately, can a weak Nina even produce the same sort of atmospheric response as it would have say 20 years ago? At some point you would think a sliver of slightly negative sst anomalies would get overwhelmed, and have about the same 'impact' on the atmosphere as a neutral/warm neutral ENSO... more variable/less "typical".

Since it is pretty clear we are heading towards a weak Nina for the winter at this juncture, how many weak Ninas/cold neutrals(just to expand a bit) over say the last 50 or so years have featured a -AO/-NAO for at least a third of the winter? Not that this correlates to above normal snowfall because we already know it doesn't the majority of the time with a Nina. Just trying to gauge the prospects of at least somewhat mitigating what will probably be a less than favorable Pacific, to at least improve the odds for some decent cold periods, and perhaps luck into a few well timed fluke events. Not that we will ever actually see a -AO/NAO in winter again lol.

Sorta like my bigfoot(Daryl) analogy with a -NAO.

Likely depends on the strength of the Nina. A moderate to strong Nina and +QBO likely eliminates any chance of HL blocking. A cold neutral/weak Nina AND a severely negative QBO may allow for either some HL blocking episodes or some favorable EPO periods, providing a mechanism for cold outbreaks in the east. PSU is saying his research finds no correlation, during a Nina winter, specifically between QBO and snowfall for the MA.

Not surprising. As I have said, the QBO correlations seem nebulous, but in theory it impacts the strength of PV, and thus potentially the AO/NAO phases, so I would expect to see better correlation(-QBO) during a Nino, when HL blocking episodes are more prevalent (and we tend to get more snow).

CFS is on one of its better "runs" lately, Big picture h5 for Dec and Jan look pretty decent, and is a 'believable' look for a typical weak Nina. Feb doesn't look bad either, but with the massive +height anomalies it has in the EPAC, there would probably be more of a ridge in the east, although it also suggests a -NAO lol.

This area rarely sees big snow totals from a Nina, but can do ok with smaller events and scraps, and sometimes make it to average. That is a hell of a lot better than the crap we dealt with last winter. Ofc you have to completely tune out the fact that places further north are getting hammered from miller Bs while our region mostly gets jipped. We are who we are here, and we sure as fuuck aren't NNE.

This is pretty much how it went in 2017-18. The early Jan period was memorable for folks in the eastern MA, esp right along the coast with the blizzard. The snow also stayed around for a week or so with the cold, before moderating a bit.

Something to keep in mind with the general gloom and doom/early predictions for a warm winter- wrt the "new" normal/base state of the Pacific, in conjunction with a Nina, it doesn't necessarily translate to a crap winter. The last Nina we had was just 3 years ago, and it did produce a very respectable cold period, the bomb cyclone, and for some of us, normal snowfall. My yard was literally right at or maybe a tad above average. Point being these changes in the Pacific certainly existed to some extent then, and this stuff waxes and wanes each season even if the general trend is headed in an 'unfavorable' direction going forward. Nina winters can be an exercise in frustration wrt snowfall for the MA, but an anomalous cold period. even in an overall warmish winter, does happen- we just need to time it up and get lucky.

The most reliable indicators we have about the character of winter are ofc ENSO, and then the recent persistence of the background state in the Pacific. At this point its hard not to have visions of a persistent pig ridge sitting over the EPAC exactly where we don't want it.

Chuck needs to expand on the stock market/crude oil correlation to the global weather patterns. He might be on to something. Probably cant be any worse than the SAI/AO bullshit.

The PDO seems to be heading back to a predominately negative phase, and it might stay that way for a while. I never know what to think of it anyway, as it is clearly a response to multiple influences, and not an atmospheric driver itself. Most of the patterns/temp/precip anomalies that the PDO is associated with, have a stronger correlation to the ENSO state itself. So I suppose it is an enhancer/moderator in certain cases. We have had a recent tendency for a massive ridge in the EPAC/suppression of the Aleutian low, and combined with SST anomaly persistence, seems to argue for negative phase. The ENSO has an impact on the elements that drive the PDO (like the Aleutian low). Looking at the distribution of SSTs associated with the -/+ PDO phases, it seems logical that the cool phase should be generally favored in a Nina, and vise versa, esp during stronger ENSO events. Ofc it doesn't always work out this way.

Maybe after a few 120s and some weed.

Jeez stop engaging in the weather channel's absurd winter storm naming crap.

This looks like crap, Chuck.

Ofc any serious talk of a -NAO during winter is like chasing Bigfoot at this juncture.

You can see it if it persists on the means. It is rarely modeled well in advance though. Also a transient ridge passing through the NAO domain really isn't a NA block. The difference there is a thread the needle deal vs having persistence in forcing the storm track below us.

It will advertise plenty of -NAOs in the day 25+ range.