raindancewx

I can pull composites like these pretty quickly again now that I have my weighted analog system back, with he full package of predictors (ENSO, AMO, Solar, Modoki, PDO, ENSO prior yr, and monsoon rain for high/ridge positioning over the deserts). I took out 1997 because it was further along, but it only dulls the warmth a bit and you still have the general look.

Some of you are probably wondering how I ended up with my blend of 1963, 1982, 1997, 2004, 2015, 2018. If you look at Apr-Jun unweighted, its actually a very close match to 2026 for Apr-Jun, although running about 2F too cold in warm areas, in part because of how strong this event is, and how much warming has gone on since ~1995 the analog center point for time. You just have to make the north a bit colder, south warmer, and then the gradients are a bit more extreme.

The PNA is negative to barely positive in July in a lot of the big El Ninos on this data set. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/pna.data 2023: +0.65 2015: +0.29 1997: +0.10 1982: +0.49 1972: -1.13 July was negative in 2018, 1963, 1965, 2004, etc along with 1972 Was also negative in Aug 1997.

The Midwest Regional Climate Center snow maps for the years I picked. You can see generally the Northern Plains and Ozarks sort of get screwed for snow. Northwest does OK, especially if the PDO stays negative into Fall. Northeast does OK. Southeast & Southwest are generally furthest above means for snow. I can't get the maps to work for 2004-2005 and 1963-64. This is my attempt at drawing the consolidated snow maps. I put in a few example cities. So Richmond (~50%) is further above average than Philadelphia (~20%) and Philadelphia is further above average than Boston, which is a hair below (5-10%). Detroit and Chicago are around 20% below average. Topeka is right on the edge of the just below average/just above average zone (since it is low elevation, and blue western areas will be highly elevation dependent in a warm pattern for snow). Reno was something like 40% above average, Albuquerque around 20%. I'm using 1961-2020 as snow baseline. Billings is 3,000+ feet above sea level and around 15% below average. Those higher areas in the orange areas won't do too poorly, its the lower spots that get hosed. I may change my main analogs for temps, but I don't expect to change the snow maps. I'm pretty comfortable with this group for where moisture will be.

So the new AMO data is not de-trended like the old AMO data I used. If you de-trend it for time/global warming, correlation (r-squared) is over 0.8 between the two data sets for Nov-Apr. I also converted the PDO data back to the old Nate Mantua/JISAO methodology which ran about +0.5 more positive (2014-15 was +2.07 from Nov-Apr by that method, now shows as +1.59). Converted to the old methodology, where PDO was +2.07 and not +1.59 in 2014-15, I'd expect PDO in the -0.25 to +0.25 range for Nov-Apr (but it will show as -0.75 to -0.25 probably on the current methodology overall). AMO looks like it will be in the +0.20 range. Even with the de-trending, AMO was bonkers in 2023-24, +0.60 for Nov-Apr, warmest ever v. baseline and long-term trends. Part of why the 1972-73 pattern held (warmest NE 1/4 US, much colder elsewhere) but not the actual temperature pattern that year (much hotter). It's also really interesting seeing how weird the last solar cycle was in retrospect. We're quite similar to the down-slope of the cycle that peaked in 1968-1969 at 155 (we peaked at 149 in 2024-25). The QBO data stopped in Feb 2026. However, the six most similar years to 2025 for QBO, by objective absolute value measure are: 2014 then 1972 then 2021 then 1974 then 1979 then 1958. The winters starting 2015, 1973, 2022, 1975, 1980, 1959 are all +QBO winters in the +0 to +10 range. El Ninos in that QBO range are 1957, 1963, 1969, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1994, 2004, 2006, 2015, 2018. The Jamstec believe it or not has the Modoki index reaching +0.95 or so for Dec-Feb, v. +0.5 forecast for Dec-Feb forecast in July 2023 for Dec 2023-Feb 2024. I think it will trend lower, but its probably recognizing (correctly) that this event will decay rapidly in late winter from east to west, with the warmth maybe peaking in Nino 3.4 in Nov/Dec/Jan and then retreating to Nino 4 in Jan-Mar before collapsing in Summer. I'll guess +0.65 for the Modoki index. I lean toward something like this now that my old analog system is fully up to date. But I wouldn't be surprised to see a pretty cold stretch in the East later in the winter, probably late-Feb to mid-Mar for about three weeks if I had to guess when you do briefly see pretty ideal Modoki conditions. I think Dec-Feb overall is pretty warm almost everywhere, especially North, even with a few intense, but brief cold snaps. Winter ONI DJF AMO N-A Sun Jul-Jun ONI DJF(p) Modoki PDO N-A Monsoon QBO DJF Weight 1963 0.8 -0.036 29.1 -0.4 0.48 -0.88 5.06 4.9 x1 1982 2.3 -0.156 129.2 0.0 -0.49 0.95 3.84 10.9 x3 1997 2.3 0.220 54.9 -0.4 -0.66 1.24 6.58 -1 x1 2004 0.5 0.222 55.3 0.3 0.48 0.47 4.06 0.3 x1 2015 2.6 0.211 55.8 0.6 0.32 1.70 5.02 9.2 x2 2018 0.9 0.049 5.5 -0.8 0.41 0.51 4.84 8.8 x2 Blend 1.75 0.05 64.96 -0.09 0.03 0.81 4.69 7.29 x10 Target 3.20 0.15 75.00 -0.40 0.65 0.30 3.67 5 Long-term, since Nino 3.4 is a stronger warm signal in the North and weaker in the south, the composite should actually be more extreme than depicted by the blend I used - If you exaggerate the features of the winter to account for record setting warmth in Nino 3.4, I think you end up with something like this. Very warm in the North, still actually pretty snowy, and not really cold anywhere. I think we'll likely have a pretty cold December in the Southwest, and that's maybe the most extreme cold temperature month for the winter nationally. Sort of a joke map - but my current rough idea. Look at December - I think it will be warmer than this - by a lot in the warm areas and likely colder in the SW by quite a bit too. Now look at the Jamstec and the composite. The east-based look is real and present. But it will likely be breaking down by mid Nov to mid Jan. I'm not warm enough for the Nino zones - you can't get a +3.0 to +3.5C in Nino 3.4 with the anomalies. But I essentially was able to validate that the Jamstec isn't crazy. It has a canonical +PNA - very warm NW/cool SE. I don't quite think we get that with the AMO / PDO as they are.

I did find a site that has monthly AMO readings still. So we can do direct analogs for that again. At some point I'll compare it to the other AMO data and convert the recent winters to the old scale I have data setup for. The Atlantic is the coldest it has been in an El Nino since the 2010s - that's good for early season cold and storms diving further south generally than 2023-24. The 2018-19 El Nino actually had the AMO stay pretty low (near neutral) throughout winter/spring, and if you remember we had some storms in March powerful enough to set all-time low-pressure records in the interior West/Plains in that Spring. Was a fun pattern. In modern times, 2002-03, 2009-10 had the coldest AMO for El Nino. Atlantic is roughly a blend of 2015/2023, or 2018/2023 right now. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.amo.dat 2026 4 0.64 2026 5 0.70 2026 6 0.67 2023 4 0.94 2023 5 1.07 2023 6 1.27 2018 4 0.37 2018 5 0.33 2018 6 0.25 2015 4 0.29 2015 5 0.41 2015 6 0.40 2009 4 0.09 2009 5 0.11 2009 6 0.36 PDO is roughly a blend of 2015/2023 - https://psl.noaa.gov/pdo/data/pdo.timeseries.sstens.data

I found some of my old research and updated it for the last few years (2021-2025). It looks like the formulas still work for predicting precipitation locally in El Nino / La Nina seasonally, and even month by month. El Nino DJF precip locally can be predicted at very high confidence (90%, within 0.8" of output, 75% odds of within 0.59") using the Sept high, Nov precipitation, and wet days in July-Sept (+1/2 of wet Jun days). Formula is: =(B13*-0.04239*B13)-(0.30999*B13*C13)-(0.018527*B13*D13)+(0.01853*C13*C13)-(0.2244*C13*D13)+(0.00347*D13*D13)+(7.277*B13)+(28.465*C13)+(1.6066*D13)-(311.76) Where B is Sept high, C is Nov precip, D is Wet days. DJF highs in El Ninos locally tend to match DJF ONI, July-Jun annual sunspots, and DJF ONIp, within ~2.3F or so 90% of years. Here is 2023-24 as an example: I never was able to find an El Nino at that solar level / trajectory - 129.6 in the rising part of the cycle. The peak was 149.2 for 2024-25 (Jul-Jun). This is the only El Nino since 1931 one year from rising to the peak. 1957, 1968, 1979 are at the peak, not before. Dec El ONI Sun ONIp DJF Tmax 1939 1.0 125.9 -1.0 49.8 1957 1.8 281.6 -0.2 50.5 1972 1.8 75.4 -0.7 45.2 1982 2.2 129.2 -0.1 47.9 1994 1.0 36.9 0.1 54.4 Blend 1.6 129.8 -0.4 49.6 2023 1.9 129.6 -0.5 51.4 For 2026-27, there is probably no real way to use my method given what is forecast (ONI at +3.0C to +3.5C in DJF). But you can use solar (60-80?) and ONIp as anchors. Dec El ONI Sun ONIp DJF Tmax 1965 1.4 37.1 -0.6 44.4 1972 1.8 75.4 -0.7 45.2 1982 2.2 129.2 -0.1 47.9 1997 2.2 54.9 -0.5 47.1 2015 2.5 55.8 0.6 51.4 2023 1.9 129.6 -0.5 51.4 Blend 2.0 80.3 -0.3 47.9 2026 3.1 75 -0.4 47 Solar was 106.2 sunspots/month from July 2025-June 2026, and declining. Similar initial positions/trends (roughly: 86-126) were 1939-40 (126), 1950-51 (103), 1960-61 (117), 1971-72 (101), 1982-83 (129), 1992-93 (103), 2002-03 (131), 2014-15 (91). The following years imply ~72 sunspots/month for July 2026-Jun 2027. If you use just the solar cycle positioning/tendency, you can see 1950-51 and 2002-03 as a blend is very similar to last year for temps -

Locally, almost everything I'm seeing implies a colder winter than 2023-24. For Nov-Jan, a colder Atlantic (AMO) is correlated almost everywhere with colder US temps. That reverses later, but its important early on.

If you go by the June -SOI (-22 is very strong for an El Nino historically) you'd expect a cooler than average Great Basin & New England. Not what we have. Moisture is closer though, its wet / dry in mostly the right areas, although spottier than I'd like. Long-term, -SOI in July is a weak cold West signal for Sept, and then the eastern ~5/6 of the lower 48 is weakly favored cold in October. Dec goes to Cold West, Warm East, Mild Plains favored. December also has the first deeper blue signal for precipitation - strongly favoring the Midwest/Southwest for a wet month. No big signals for January via July SOI. In February, SE is strongly favored cold, NW strongly favored warm. March is then a strong SW / Plains wet signal, weak SW cold signal. We're in a flash flood warning here - it's been a good monsoon day statewide (finally). So the precip map should move closer to the correlation map for New Mexico after today.

Canadian looks like it did an OK job on precipitation for July in the US. It had a bad read on the SE/SW US placement, but pretty closer for northern precip. The cooler than average middle of the US didn't verify at all though. I think we'll see similar model issues all Fall-Spring. Moisture is much more directly tied to the subtropical jet/SOI/how strong the El Nino is. The temperature pattern is PDO centric. Most interesting outcome for winter would be if subtropical jet remains very strong and PDO weakens enough to not be a major influence, with the Arctic/Pacific patterns fighting for dominance week to week or month to month.

The 2015-16 El Nino screwed up the progression of the QBO if I remember correctly. Did anyone ever figure out why and if it could happen again? I would think its decent odds for this year with this El Nino, even though the QBO is off a bit from where it was then.

These are your y/y changes in 27.0C DJFs in Nino 3.4 winters. I've also found this to be essentially four real patterns: Cold South/Warm North, Cold SW/NE, Cool East/Warm West, Cold East/Mild West. El Nino Y/Y Change Nino 3.4 1951 +1.3 1953 +0.4 1957 +2.0 1958 -1.2 1963 +1.5 1965 +2.0 1968 +1.7 1969 -0.6 1972 +2.5 1976 +2.3 1977 +0.0 1982 +2.2 1986 +1.7 1987 -0.4 1991 +1.3 1994 +0.9 1997 +2.7 2002 +1.0 2004 +0.2 2006 +1.6 2009 +2.3 2014 +1.0 2015 +1.9 2018 +1.7 2019: -0.3 2023 +2.4 2026 +3.1? Look at the signals - +2.0C gain or more: 1957, 1965, 1972, 1976, 1982, 1997, 2009, 2023 +1.0C to +1.99C gain: 1951, 1963, 1968, 1986, 1991, 2002, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2018 +0.0C to +0.99C gain: 1953, 1977, 1994, 2002, 2004, 2014 <0.0C gain: 1958, 1969, 1977, 1987, 2019 Big Gain El Ninos (2.0C or greater warmer y/y in Dec-Feb). Coldest Southeast US. Average Gain El Ninos (1-2C warmer y/y Dec-Feb). Coldest SW & NE US. Small Gain El Ninos (0-1C warmer y/y Dec-Feb). +PDO driven / cold East & warm West. Small Loss El Ninos (0-1C colder y/y Dec-Feb than prior El Nino, but still El Nino). All pretty severe Eastern winters, except 2019-20.

My local indicators based on Summer don't support full-on idealized El Nino conditions locally. I have two approaches for that: Low Solar + ENSO Prior + ENSO Current. So ideal is a) solar minimum plus b) big La Nina in prior winter c) big El Nino in current winter. Factors B/C are relational - cold winters here are directly correlated to the biggest warm-ups y/y in Nino 3.4. 2023-2024 was a notable failure - although that's likely due to both high solar and the strong -PDO offsetting a strong y/y warm up to some extent (Nino 3.4 warmed +2.4C from 2022-23 to 2023-24 in Nino 3.4, v. +1.7C from 2017-18 to 2018-19, but 2018-19 had low solar, and a neutral PDO. So with solar/PDO more favorable 2018-19 was much colder than 2023-24 even though 2023-24 was stronger.) 2018-19 netted out to about 2.2F colder than the 1991-2020 average high, while 2023-24 was 1.1 warmer than that 1991-2020 average high. For 2026-27, you have potentially: +3.5C in Nino 3.4 (biggest gain on record, call it -0.4C to +3.1C in DJF y/y) High Solar (75-100 sunspots for July 2026-June 2027) So I'd expect temps colder than 2023-24 locally as both the SST gain and solar conditions are better, especially with the -PDO looking weaker. The biggest misses on this image are also tied to volcano influenced El Ninos (1963-64 Agung is the big cold miss, 1994-95 is the big warm miss (54F) and then 2023-24 (Tonga?). Low solar is more directly correlated to lower lows and less rain/snow here, but it tends to indirectly make highs colder too (El Ninos starting 1963, 1965, 1976, 1986, 1997, 2006, 2009, 2018 are all low solar and very cold here). My other indicator is Summer conditions. Snowy winters tend to follow Summers that are cold in June-Sept, El Nino, with a wet Monsoon, and three years or more since above average snow. Right now, we're on track for: Hot June (-) / Hot July (-) / Mild/Hot Aug (= or -) /Mild/Hot Sep (= or -) Dry Monsoon (-) /El Nino (+) / ENSO + Monsoon (=) / Duration since big Winter (+) The monsoon could still flip. But I doubt we get a cold Aug AND Sept. Best case: There was a signal in the data locally, hottest Marches on record tend to precede cold August unusually often. Same for extreme -WPO/+NAO Marches. That would need to coincide with a wet month. So - Good (El Nino, Wet Monsoon, ENSO + Monsoon, Aug Cold, Duration since big winter) Neutral (Hot Sept) Bad (Hot Jun, Hot July) Nets Out to ~10 inches of snow based on my historical testing, and that'd be accurate within 4 inches of snow in 70%+ of all cases. I need to dig out some of my older research. I have it on a blue thumb drive somewhere.

The PDO should continue to erratically weaken with this event toward neutral. You probably will see it move slightly positive in a few months from Oct-May, but on net I still expect it to be about neutral. I've always found if PDO & Nino 1.2 are opposite states in October, that's when you start to see rapid regression of the PDO toward Nino 1.2. But the movement toward the 1.2 state is sort of dependent on far out 1.2 is from local averages and the PDO baseline. 1.2 is where water below the surface comes up and fills into the rest of the ocean which changes the dynamics in the North Pacific eventually. With more storminess in the North in fall-spring, its harder to change what areas of water are warmer/colder than average from sunlight/high pressure (almost no sunlight in Fall-Spring in the North, especially if stormy), so at that point you're seeing current driven changes. With only ~8 hours of day light at 50N in winter, relatively rapid fluctuations in SSTs v. means have to be tied to storminess/current changes. Globally, July SSTs look like a 1972/1991/2023 blend to me, with 2015 in there weakly too. 1997 had a very positive +PDO already by July, as did 2014. 2015 had so much warm water in the N. Pacific that is sort of mechanically forced the PDO negative by making the cold tongue east of Japan warm too.

July now looks a bit like July 2012 nationally, near average/cool West/South undercutting a very warm East/north. Sort of the summer version of how a +WPO often looks in early winter. The look is forecast to flip in the 6-10 and 8-14 day periods almost to the exact opposite. I don't expect any of the big indices to remain locked in for the winter. For June, all the big Pacific drivers were of similar sign and magnitude to June 2012 - PNA, WPO, EPO. The Atlantic stuff (AO/NAO) opposite. Wetter, warmer 2012-13, with blocking is my ceiling for the winter nationally. It's pretty cold for most of the US for brief periods, just not consistently. You can see for right now when 2012 looked like a weak, east centered El Nino, the Pacific is similar. Atlantic is opposite.

2015-16 actually had several very cold periods nationally, it's just no one remembers because they never mapped cleanly on to calendar months. I had 5 inches of snow in December 2015, give or take - but it was so cold it didn't melt for three weeks in the shadows. On these images, light blue is 1F to 3F below average, and dark blue 3F to 5F below average. The light purple spots are 5F to 7F. That super heat wave at the end of January flushed out most of the cold in the North.

For most of the past decade we've had cold West/warm East setups nationally when the subsurface is warming rapidly. You can sort of see it earlier in the month when it was very cold in the West near the peak of the current subsurface warming burst. I think its pretty likely late winter the subsurface heat will collapse quite rapidly, and so it should get fairly cold/stormy in the East at that point. Whether that's mid-Jan, mid-Feb, or mid-Mar makes all the difference. The first bit of research I ever did on El Nino was regarding March heavy snows locally. From 1931 to 2014, we never had any March with over 3-4 inches of snow in low-solar conditions and without El Nino. The last high solar El Nino March was 2014-15, and we had...9.6 inches of snow on Feb 26-28, with the mountains getting 50-100 inches in five days in late Feb/early March. 2015-16, 2018-19, 2019-20 were not high solar, and failed on the heavy March snow, and then 2023-24 failed as well (although honestly, March 2023 was more El Nino-ish by the subsurface +0.84 v. --0.54 in March 2024 and it snowed quite a bit in March 2023 throughout the Southwest. Remember the blizzard warnings in San Diego County?) If we get a warm subsurface and high solar in March 2027, I'll be on the lookout for blizzard/heavy snow risks throughout the Southwest. It used to happen in almost every high solar El Nino March. But recent El Ninos have either died too early or lacked high solar. We've had up to 14 inches of snow in March here, but never more than 3.5 in a non-high solar March, its literally 10x more common to get heavy March snow here with v. without it (>3", since average is 1.5" last century, and under 1.0" past 30 years). Mar-Apr 1973 locally had over 22 inches of snow, following only 15 inches in Oct-Feb, its the best winter here after 1914-15. My guess is the WPO/PNA/EPO/NAO/AO will all be pretty volatile compared to traditional expectations if the warmth is far enough east and warm enough by magnitude relative to position. I'd really like to see what 30.0C+ waters in Nino 3/3.4 or even 1.2 would do honestly.

You can see on the maps four major differences to now if it isn't clear: 1) In 2023, you had hot water east of Mexico, cold water west of Mexico. That implied high pressure off the West Coast, and low pressure of the east coast. Absolute worst possible case for monsoon development. Followed the hottest June on record in Mexico, and coincided with the hottest July (and month) ever locally. in 2026, the warm water west of Mexico implies low pressure and the colder Gulf implies high pressure - nearly ideal pattern for moisture. Monsoon has been quite strong in Mexico since May and should pick up locally here too in the next week. 2) NE/SE Atlantic are night and day different - much colder now than 2023. 3) Coldest waters are relatively in the Atlantic now. Not the Pacific. 4) The SE Pacific (SW of South America) is much warmer, consistent maybe with steady weakening of the -PDO, just as the -PDO seems to be weakening somewhat in the NE Pacific. Still present though for both spots.

Which is more likely? ONI at 3.5, or 3.5 pages without mention of snow in the Northeast. I know what I'd bet on. July 2015 was actually very much dead on the long-term temp correlation for Nino 1.2, 3, 3.4, 4, etc. This year has been less so month to date. The pattern right now for July looks a lot like the 2023-24 winter - very warm NE 1/4 of the US, a bit cool or near average West & South. But July 2023 itself was cold North Central. The Modoki El Ninos that are cold in the East in winter tend to be cold in July in the East: 2004, 2009, 2014 were all cold in the East or Northeast for both. Best indication that everything is "clicking" correctly for US El Nino impacts is the long-term precipitation tendency. We're not there yet. Amarillo-Boise zone is not behaving yet. Northeast and Florida should be much better too. The map (even accounting for Tropical Tidbits adjusting for global SSTs by global mean above average) for oceans looks very different to July 2023.

I don't count March for winter - its not only a Spring month, but transitional out of the most dominant ENSO period (Nov-Feb) to the period when it matters way less (May-Aug).

The Canadian run is actually pretty cold most of the US in the winter. The look is -WPO ish. We haven't really had a big El Nino with a -WPO. The El Ninos starting in 2023, 2019, 2018, 2015, 2006, 2002, 1997, 1987, 1986, 1982, 1972, 1968, 1965, 1957, 1951 are neutral/positive WPO net. The El Ninos starting 2014, 2009, 2004, 1994, 1991, 1977, 1976, 1969, 1963, 1958, 1953 are neutral/negative. 1982 was +WPO early, -WPO late winter (Dec v Feb) but mostly positive. 2009 is the strongest -WPO El Nino DJF, but even then its driven by a strongly negative -WPO in December. For the stronger El Ninos (1957-58, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1997-98, 2015-16, 2023-24), the -WPO months are: Dec 2009, Feb 1992, Feb 1983, Feb 1958. A lot of La Ninas in the South/Southwest are predominantly warm with sharp, brief cold shots - think all the recent snow down to the Gulf Coast, Texas in Feb 2021, etc. I'd expect a similar type of thing this year, but for the Northern US - predominantly warm with sharp, brief cold shots. The southern US should see mostly 'weak' cold but with brief sharp warm ups.

Progression of actual weather still looks pretty different to 2023. That was a very cold month in the Southwest. It's been fairly warm this June v. averages. Europe had a few major heat waves with the recent El Ninos - 2015, 2018, 2023 all had them I believe.

The truth is you guys in the Northeast probably won't get too much snow. In your favor - 1) Very wet conditions are likely. 2) Some blocking is likely later on. Not in your favor - 1) -PDO is a negative PNA tendency. I expect PNA finishes positive in Nov-Mar, but not by much in a few of the periods. There won't be a whole of lot of shots at big nor'easters when it is cold. 2) -AMO trend pushes storms to the South. I had storms miss me (in the desert) in 2010-11, 2009-10, 2011-12, and 2018-19 to the South - same applies in the Northeast. 3) Three cold winters in a row is rare for the Northeast, and should not be the expected outcome. 4) Sort of looks to me like a -WPO in the Fall which will build up cold in Canada, and then it gets warmed up and dispersed in winter when it flips later on.

The best way to validate what will happen with this event is to find opposite conditions : Solar Max or Min (rather than mid-cycle) Strong east based La Nina in Summer that is colder (relatively) than Nino 4 Opposite IOD/AMO for Summer. Roll that year or blend of years forward and flip it. That should match the analogs. Haven't done that yet.

The only year that has cold ENSO-->warm ENSO, very +NAO, very -WPO in March is 1986. For winter, that's - +NAO & AO early (Oct-Dec), -NAO late (Jan-Mar) -WPO early (Oct-Dec), +WPO late (Jan-Mar) +PNA (Dec-Mar) -EPO (Jan-Feb), +EPO (Mar) Signal Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar NAO + + + - - - AO + + + - - - PNA + - + + + + EPO + + ? - - + WPO - - - + + + That's a good pattern for storms nationally, volatile but warm for temps for most of the USA. +NAO - For Oct, warm Plains and East. Neutral West & Deep South for Oct. Warm signal strongest over Missouri. For Nov, warm signal strongest SE US, warm signal eastern 1/3 of the USA. Weak cold signal TX to WA state. +AO is similar in Oct-Nov, but a broader warm signal for the Midwest in October. -NAO/AO in Jan-Mar - cold everywhere. Strongest in March. +PNA - very warm signal for the Western US in October. Weak cold signal in the Eastern US. Netural Plains. -PNA Nov - cold signal Western and Northern US, warm signal Southern & Eastern US. Strong signal Northwest and Deep South. +PNA Dec-Mar. Broadly cold for the South and East in Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar. But strongest signal and widest significant spatial correlation in Nov-Jan. +EPO is a cold signal for the entire US east of the West Coast in Oct-Nov. Strongly so east of the Rockies. -EPO is a strong warm signal for the US outside the Southwest in Jan-Mar, especially in Jan/Mar. Weak cold signal in the SW Jan/Mar, strong in Feb. -WPO Oct is very cold in the middle 2/3 of the US, neutral coasts (think Oct 2020). Cold east for Nov - weak. Strong cold signal NE US in Dec. +WPO is a weak cold SW/warm NE signal in Jan, and then much stronger for both components in Feb/Mar. These are the years with the 1986-87 projection for the main signals. Oct: +NAO, +PNA, +EPO - WPO, El Nino: 1957, 1963, 1965, 1969, 1976, 1986, 1987, 2015, 2018 Nov: +NAO, -PNA, +EPO, -WPO, El Nino: 1982, 1986, 2019 Dec: +NAO, +PNA, ?EPO, -WPO, El Nino: 1986, 2014 Jan: -NAO, +PNA, -EPO, +WPO, El Nino: 1957, 1986, 1991, 2002, 2009, 2015 Feb: -NAO, +PNA, -EPO, +WPO, El Nino: 1951, 1963, 1976, 1986, 1997, 2009 Mar: -NAO, +PNA, +EPO, +WPO, El Nino: 1957, 1986, 1987, 2023 Honestly looks...plausible? Something like this overall - it'd be a 0-1F colder nationally for Jan-Mar v. Dec-Feb but very similar.