snowman19

Until we have a legit wholesale, major shift in the Pacific, I don’t see anything drastically changing, it’s been semipermanent, stagnant status quo for awhile now, regardless of the ENSO events, they have made no difference. The background state has not changed at all. We saw a very good illustration of that last winter. The background state has to change big time and until that happens, it’s just more of the same. Same story with the Atlantic (++AMO)

ENSO 4 was very warm last winter and the Niña like forcing stayed the same in MJO 4-5-6. Nothing has changed in that respect, the main tropical convective forcing has been the same for years now regardless of La Niña or El Niño

Looking like it may be a rather healthy +QBO event coming up

This is going to be quite the EWB

I was skeptical of the RONI last year, but once I researched it more and looked at the atmospheric response to last winter’s Nino, I’m a believer. Something obviously changed big time (AGW/warm oceans) and we need to change our metrics with it. @40/70 Benchmark ended up being correct about that part of it @GaWx

@bluewave Out of curiosity, what was the time frame for the last major Mid-Atlantic/Northeast drought period? I know it ended in the spring of 2002, but when did it start?

It’s a miracle that we haven’t had a major, full fledged mid-Atlantic to northeast drought since 2002. The fact that it’s been over 22 years since the last one is pretty astounding in itself. I guess you can say “we’re due”

The theme since last year has been a late developing ENSO event. Given what we are seeing right now, I still expect a rather big uptick in La Niña development this month. Like you said, last year’s El Niño didn’t really “take off” until late July and especially August-September. We have seen later developing Nina’s in the past, so such a scenario definitely has precedence. With such pronounced AGW the last several years, I think the RONI is really the metric we need to use as the adjustment to gauge this event as opposed to the ONI

After the utter debacle, epic fail of this past winter I don’t trust what any of these climate models show for 500mb patterns or temps. And again, as far as whether the Niña is weak or not on the ONI, it’s not going to make a difference on how its actual real long wave pattern effects are with such a very strong La Niña background state

^This. You’re right, even if this Niña turns out weak per ONI (I still think it goes moderate), but regardless, it’s clearly not going to behave like a weak La Niña with this background state. It’s VERY likely to behave like a moderate-strong La Niña

@Gawx @40/70 Benchmark

Shocker….another winter of MJO 4-5-6 and -PDO

Good info. Low geomag figures into it too

Back in early November of 2010, HM predicted the incoming historic blocking. He said the stratosphere and troposphere were “talking” and major AO/NAO blocking was on the way. He attributed it directly to the low solar and low geomag

10-11 started as a purely east-based event, which is why that early-mid winter did what it did. It was also a solar minimum. Once the Niña migrated west at the end of January, 2011 and was no longer east-based, all of the blocking disappeared in February and it never came back again….not a coincidence. This Niña event is (and never was) definitely not projected to be east-based on any model. In fact, as @GaWx stated last week, some models have actually warmed in region 1+2 on their new runs

I think this slower La Niña progression may end up resulting in a later peak (i.e. the El Niño last year)

I think we can say with a lot of confidence that we see another winter of MJO 4-6 forcing, especially with the Niña and the IOD turning more neutral-negative, which favors eastern IO and Maritime Continent convection. Seasonal snowfall is always a wildcard, since a single event can skew it. The other thing that’s striking right now is the record low arctic sea ice already….that’s only going to decrease even more in July and August

This is only going to serve to drop the PDO and PMM even more. Also going to really strengthen the ENSO region trade winds. Becoming very confident that we see a big uptick in the La Niña in July, also with Maritime convection starting to fire, we very likely also see a rapid rise in the SOI

I figured when I saw the tropical SSTs around New Foundland that was going to happen. There hasn’t been anything even remotely resembling an Atlantic tripole this entire month

@bluewave Might be playing a role in the record low arctic sea ice too you think?

I think this current very strong -PDO cycle was well predicted by a few people after the 15-16 super Nino ended, once that west PAC heatwave off Japan showed up. What was not seen, by anyone, was the historic ++AMO cycle that started after that winter and is still going strong

Besides those factors (Niña/high solar/+QBO), we also have the unknown effects of the cumulative VEI 5 eruptions of 2 months ago. While it’s obviously not going to have a “Pinatubo” effect, it was still a cumulative VEI 5 tropical volcanic eruption that injected sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere. I would imagine, educated guess, that it’s probably going to have *some* effect on the SPV. Does that mean raging SPV all winter? No, but it may help to magnify those other factors even if it’s not a huge effect

100%. The author of that write up either has no clue what they’re talking about or is wishcasting. There is zero evidence to support their claim that La Niña/high solar/+QBO is extremely favorable for SSWEs and a very weak stratospheric polar vortex

If you look back at their forecasts over last 5 years, they’ve said the exact same thing every year. They always predict a weak SPV and SSWEs. +QBO/Nina/high solar absolutely does not support a very weak polar vortex and -AO/-NAO. In fact, it is the LEAST likely to produce a SSW. I have no clue what they’re looking at

Nah, Joe Bastardi says the PDO is going positive, just like 1995 and 2014 lol Analogs: 95-96, 10-11, 13-14, 14-15, 17-18