If we see a cold-ENSO (cold-neutral/weak La Niña), along with the almost certain -QBO, I’m not so sure we see the strong poleward ridging that we did last winter in the PAC. The +QBO/cold-ENSO we had last winter supported the poleward ridging we saw. -QBO/cold-ENSO favors a flatter, equatorial PAC ridge. As far as the arctic and Atlantic, I would agree with you. The solar/geomag states, QBO evolution and the North Atlantic SSTA profile, at this very early stage obviously, would seemingly not be very supportive of big high latitude blocking in those domains