Thank you for this.
A few pages ago I posted the incredibly warm daily temps for 1888. Just one year in a colder background state however it shows that warm winters are not new. I get that we are in an interesting streak, however we have had 5 year warm streaks before.
Don posted the 500mb plot for that December (1888) and guess what, it had a deep west coast trough and a SOUTH BASED NAO like the last 2 Decembers, yet somehow there is a theory that what happened last December was new and scary.
As for strong El Ninos Decembers you are 100% correct. This JUST happened in 2015 yet somehow posters are acting like this is new. Posters would have thought snow was extinct after the 97/98 super Nino season when we had repetitive perfect benchmark tracks yet all were rain due to the continent being flooded with PAC air (odd, just like now but over 20 years ago).
I believe what would help this forum are December stats for weak, moderate and strong El Ninos to show they are not alike. We want weak El ninos with warm departures in the central Pacific. Not strong El ninos for wall to wall winters.
Yet, our posts will be ignored and certain posters who are not professionals will throw out ensembles and predict victory when all they are doing is riding the coattails of great posters like Bluewave. Or worst yet claim winters as we knew them are over like there are statistics to prove this theory.
2000 through 2018 skewed a lot of posters perception of reality. 1970 through 1999 were a joke for snowfall outside of a couple of years. Also, those who claim the 80s were FRIGID need to go back and look as the daily temperatures. Sure there were some incredibly cold outbreaks, but that JUST happened in 2013/2014 and 2014/2015.