so_whats_happening

Solid rise and fall would mean many moving parts. I do think the trough will come, not being denied in that aspect but I would expect the forcing from phase 8 to come into November. Now I do not necessarily agree this will be the look for November though maybe after the trough swings through? (hence the red border, some of the lowest probabilities you will find) I do find it weird though that we would have one phase show up more than another meaning we don't even see Phase 7 pop in for October if we are getting an instant reaction but we do see Phase 8.

Maybe this is what you are looking for? http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/#tabs=Monitoring

This seems like a pretty major AO shift to me.

Sensible weather lags what phase the MJO is in. We are in Phase 5 currently but we certainly look to be in a Phase 4 with the current weather pattern. I would expect Phase 8 influences to be in November.

Even better yet to our current pattern here is 4

Most MJO forecasts barely put us in 8 by the end of the month and the effects won't be felt right away so I would expect that in mid latitudes for November. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/clivar_wh.shtml Here is 5 and 6 though, 5 seems to be the reasonable look we have for that time frame.

I mean just looking at the SST patterns they look very similar in both time periods, right now we have warmer oceans so to compensate for the same -PDO signature and value we have higher anomalies than the surroundings just as you did back in the day. As for the 500mb pattern can't explain the difference but we could easily be in a constructive pattern versus a destructive pattern overall. Im sure the atmospheric warmth right now plays a role in allowing a more ridge like presence versus a trough like presence but im sure this flip flops so much it is hard to say this will be what the pattern should be. The biggest issue I have is we have seen these marine heatwaves before this is in fact what you are pointing out right now but what is to say that a -PDO should produce this atmospheric pattern. It may be more common for a pattern to occur during these strong phases of teleconnection but it does not necessarily mean that this will always be the resulting pattern. Im sure ill get lambasted for such a take.

April of 1859 and July of 1950 both tied at -3.65 if my eyes have not deceived me. This is the most negative block of PDO years we have seen since the early 1950's. If we continue on this path of -2.5 and below we could end the year as the most negative average PDO year on the ERSST records. As for your second point yea having the PDO this low late into the year typically means we have a continuation even if there ends up being a relaxation of the PDO values as we close out the year.

TAO finally brought back online the eastern portions of the subsurface (not sure for how long) you can see just how much of a difference this makes in the overall look. Much more inline now with the CPC look although the most upper portions of eastern Nino 3 are a bit off between the two. BTW some things are finally starting to be updated from NCEI. One in particular that went wild with this last update, PDO. Ill just leave the link below and folks can take a look at it when they get the chance. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

The bolded was probably the biggest factor this year maybe they go hand in hand? When we finally relaxed the VP pattern where it was globally showing more uplift versus being concentrated around Maritime Continent things went wild. You can see the brief breaks in VP that allowed the small portion of time where storms were able to form. I get where you are coming from with ITCZ shift but to me that just signals a storm that would have formed but have a better recurve potential versus one in lower latitudes of around 7-10N. I do ask is there evidence of this via wind anomalies now that we have passed that time frame that we did indeed shift the ITCZ further north? I would assume we would need to look at maybe 850mb for this observation but Tropical is not my forte.

It is not far fetched to believe that if indeed we do see the -WPO periods that a -EPO happens in tandem, as for staying power I do not believe that will be the case but weirder things have happened. I think it is still a good idea to know that oddities do happen and that certainty this far out is anyone's guess. If the idea is true that atmospheric mode changes before oceanic temps do then one shouldn't get caught up in the here and now of current oceanic temps, just know that the pattern could easily revert back type of deal. Take a look at mid month for an example even with a strong -PDO and an Aleutian Low (though this is much further west in a more ideal spot) the resulting pattern in the east is one that folks would love if this happened closer to winter time. Just stuff to keep in mind as we have seen extremely harsh conditions over the east over the last few years, it is nice to see some breaks in the persistence department.

I think we see a lot of back and forth with the WPO this year. I believe this is what raindance was trying to articulate before he left. While yes the -PDO state will still have a strong influence I could see us overall near neutral in the WPO department with some periods of pronounced + and - WPO patterns mixed around. I don't believe as of now we see a steady state of +WPO this winter. As always this could change but if the constant back and forth we are seeing now is an indication ill take it.

Nice I agree as well overall though I do expect the mean trough to probably be a little further west and probably the Aleutian Ridge but as you state timing is and always will be everything. We have come rather close with several storms over the past couple years but timing was just off or the cold retreated just too quickly. I will say it will be interesting to watch the NAO state as we get further into Fall and early Winter. For some reason we have flipped that switch and we could just as easily flip it back so that may be a bit of a wild card. I do believe we continue to see the slow demise of the -PDO state. It ain't flipping this year but a gradual push to neutral is something that has been on my mind for a bit. While the atmospheric pattern still tries to revert back to the ridge around Japan it seems to only have flairs right now of that state which could serve us opportunity, as expected with timing of course. Also good luck with the job search it is really difficult right now to get into the field, very competitive. With one maybe two spots open at NWS offices and nearly 20-30 applicants it is tough to stand out. I presume you are trying the NWS route. Luckily I have the weather observer job currently so I get minimal experience under my belt and look like a little bit of an oddball when applying to locations, but seriously though best of luck to you.

Most products will have late updates due to the NCEI issue from Helene.

Nah we are going to be waiting a bit on data due to the NCEI issues from Helene, not sure when things will be back up and running.