This winter will be most remembered for long range cold and snow fantasies on the weeklies, on the 11-15 day ensembles and failed SSW attempts. Looking back on it, there were red flags all over the place back in November….the east-leaning super El Niño, the ++IOD, the blazing hot WPAC SSTs, strong -PDO, cold GOA, roaring PAC jet/jet extensions, the MJO wave trains, arctic cold locked on the other side of the globe in Eurasia, the record low snow and ice cover, very high solar activity, *possible* Hunga Tonga volcanic effects on the stratosphere, ++AMO; no semblance of a “tripole” in the Atlantic SSTs, AGW (big factor). The only thing we had going for us was the -QBO, which was not anywhere near enough of a factor to override the other bad stuff. There were also proven studies from Joe D’Aleo that a -QBO/El Nino combo leads to below normal snowfall along the east coast, I-95 corridor