raindancewx

Also: Nino 3.4 may already be just about done warming. Via CPC - 2023 8 28.21 26.86 1.35 2023 9 28.32 26.72 1.60 2023 10 28.38 26.72 1.66 Ocean heat content has been flat around 1-1.1 in the 100-180W zone. It's now running behind 2018 on that metric. For the moment, it's very similar to 2009. But 2009 had a massive increase in subsurface heat in November that we're not seeing. So that match won't hold. It's enough to avoid a brutally cold November though.

Models have been particularly inept with this event so far. -PDO El Nino blend was not too bad for October. We'll see how long that lasts. Weaknesses in the transient heat showed up more or less where you'd expect. Pattern competition has been showing up. That's a hallmark of the years with PDO/ENSO in opposite phases. Cold snap below is what I was referring to in my outlook from 10/10, the late month Western cold shot. Shows up in the analogs too - 1951, 1972, 1982, 1991, and 2009 as a blend got pretty cold late October in the West. Some of the years have it bleeding East by month end, others wait until November. Showed up about two days two late to make the West colder than the East unfortunately. Canadian has moved DJF tropical precipitation east of the last run. Now looks like a true 6-7 MJO blend, with the positive Indian Ocean Dipole influence north of Madagascar. The 500 mb look seems to feature a lot of +WPO looks. It's hard to get the US real cold when that happens. This is actually pretty close to the look I had in my forecast. March looks ferocious again actually. I'm on board with 1/15-4/15 being pretty snowy in the West and Plains, with occasional monster storms running east as wind + rain or snow on various trajectories. It's a very wet look.

Actually, any predilection by the intelligentsia to engage in the manifestation of prolix exposition through a buzzword disposition form of communication notwithstanding the availability of more comprehensible, punctiliously applicable, diminutive alternatives is enough to impress you Mr. Tip. After all, you are the reigning insufferable blowhard of the forum.

The El Nino / La Nina cycle itself is a cycle. A lot of research suggests that before the mid-1700s, there were hardly any El Ninos. Even in recent periods, you have a nine year gap from the 1930-31 El Nino to the 1939-40 El Nino. I'd be a bit nervous about the winter if I lived in the East though. This is nominally a -NAO, -AO, +PNA month on net, even with the big dips for the PNA at the start and end of the month. It's just much warmer for the East than those patterns imply, likely from the -PDO or the global ocean warmth. We're "supposed to be" warm with the pattern this month in the West. Although we've got some cold and snowy days by Halloween out here. Models still have some snow for me. +PNA, -NAO October...it's like...3-5 warmer in the East than the composite? Even without 2009 it's 1-3 warmer I'd reckon.

I was actually going to mention in the main thread that I see a bit of a signal for a Northeast snowstorm in mid-November. But I'm not really confident in it. It would be during the transition from the warm spell to a cooler spell that should set up after 11/15 or so. The SE ridging is how I think the -PDO aspect will play out as it weakens from super negative to weakly or moderately negative. Often the super -PDO is just a Western trough (1988 as an example), but the weaker ones are SE ridging. That's been my premise for a while.

My winter outlooks (posted on 10/10 this year) utilize harmonics in the analog data for storms locally. The first period for that was 10/29-10/31, which the GFS has been showing as a pretty widespread snowstorm here. Euro has a different look. We'll see. Light snow is not really that rare here in late October. I had 8 or 9 inches in October 2020, which was unusual to say the least. Also mentioned two systems for the SW in late October using the Bering Sea Rule. One was south of Kamchatka on 10/6, that was supposed to show up 17-21 days later (it has, today), and then this coming system was 10/10 south of Kamchatka, and will show up 17-21 days later. One more here in early November, and then we quiet down again. I don't live at sea level, I don't get the luxury of waiting until 12/1 to forecast winter. https://t.co/W8NJDlixXP

I'm pretty convinced that the OLR is screwed up because of the extra moisture / cloudiness around globally from the volcano. I'm 6'3" and my clothes are designed to fit my physique. Imagine if I woke up tomorrow and I was 7'2" and I had to come up with an outfit from my wardrobe. Now imagine that only my legs got longer and the rest of me remained the same. OLR and a lot of the other variables are based on historical averages that are incoherent at the moment. Especially since the +15% extra water vapor globally isn't distributed evenly across all zones. Imagine if the moisture content was distributed like this: NW: X---> 0.85x NE: X-----> 1.50x SW: X --------> 1.15x SE: X-------------> 1.1x That's a 15% net increase from 4x to 4.6x where x is the 30-year water content in each zone.

Here is 2002 & 2009 as a composite for October in the US. I'll keep asking this - if the weather never actually matches what those VP maps show for forcing....who cares where the forcing is? We're getting pretty close to winter. Do you really want to ride years as your main analogs that have not worked all Summer? 2009 is pretty warm in November and I think March could be fairly similar, but it's at best a C- type of match. Oct 25-31 looks fairly cold in the NW and warm in the SE, so we should end up with the pretty traditional October -PDO correlation, where MN to Maine is the warmest spot nationally. The PDO is still going to finish very negative for the month. Nino 1.2 in October tends to lead changes in the PDO in Nov-Apr. So the PDO should be weakening, but it's not a quick process. It moves in fits and starts. The good news is the -PDO has virtually no correlation to US temps in December. As the warmth of Nino 1.2 moves West, the degradation of the -PDO should slow if anything. I expect it get to 0 to -1 by December and then fluctuate in that band until late winter/March when it may re-strengthen or go weakly positive. This El Nino is still only "officially" around +1.3C on Tropical Tidbits. Not even sure anymore that we'll top 1.5C for winter. We're hanging out at 28.1-28.2C on the weeklies after reaching 28.3C for a hot minute in September on the weeklies. CPC uses 26.63C as the DJF baseline...and I'm sure it'll be weakening quite quickly by late winter. I think the raw SST number for Nino 3.4 October may come in below September. 06SEP2023 23.6 2.9 27.0 2.2 28.3 1.6 29.7 1.1 13SEP2023 23.3 2.6 27.1 2.2 28.3 1.6 29.8 1.1 20SEP2023 23.5 2.8 27.0 2.1 28.3 1.7 29.9 1.2 27SEP2023 23.5 2.8 27.0 2.0 28.1 1.5 29.8 1.1 04OCT2023 23.4 2.6 26.8 1.9 28.2 1.5 29.8 1.2 11OCT2023 23.2 2.3 27.1 2.1 28.2 1.5 30.0 1.3 https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

Just think of El Nino like a person. If you had a person with $3 million for his net worth and $20,000 a year income, would you classify that person as wealthy or poor? Maybe some combination? The wealth for 30 years would safely produce $120,000 in income, so maybe it would be best to think of the guy as a $100,000+ earner? It's the same type of thing with El Nino. You just have to determine what you value in the measurements. Where I live, the SSTs are much more correlated to actual weather than the various indexes in most months. The AO/NAO/PNA/EPO/WPO have almost no relevance for temperature correlations outside of a small mid-Jan to mid-Apr window. Most of the users on here like to use El Nino / La Nina as little more than a proxy for the PNA phase.

CFS has widespread warmth for the US so far for November. I doubt the month will be as warm as it shows. Tropical Tidbits has filtered global SSTs closest to 2006, 2004, and 2015 at the moment. By the way, the Jamstec precipitation outlook shown earlier is very similar to the Canadian. It's very much a phase 6 look with a contribution from the +Indian Ocean Dipole. The wettest conditions are west of the dateline but east of Australia. Very dry West of Indonesia, but also to the East in a small spot. The Jamstec outlook looks like a blend of 6-7-8 for temps on the MJO composites. I could actually see that, if you weighted the looks at 65-25-10 or so.

Old Bering Sea Rule. I'm not that confident in the precip, but cooler weather dumping into the West looks right. Another big low off the Southern tip of Kamchatka ~now. More storms for me in 17-21 days (Nov 3-7). After that, should get quiet for a little while.

Here is a quick look at the most -PDO Nov-Apr years in October and then this year. Looks like a decent match to me for where the month will end. The models have the PNA going negative again later in the month. The most +PDO El Ninos are pretty cold in October in New England, where it is currently warmest relatively. Southeast tends to be warmer too.

Southwest CO is at the southern edge of areas favored by La Ninas, and the northern edge of areas favored by El Nino. The rest of the state tends to do better for snow in Fall/Winter in La Nina, and Winter/Spring in El Nino. The -PDO El Ninos tend to have more patchy precipitation patterns even in the favored areas.

Check out our messed up shadows today from the eclipse. Was really interesting watching the solar radiation measurements today. Most of the state seems to be underperforming forecast highs in light of the eclipse. My cheap imprecise local thermometer showed temperature drops at the house during the eclipse peak.

Might be a pretty interesting year. I doubt many will comment here, but oh well. I laid out my winter outlook elsewhere on the site. If I'm even remotely close NM should see a somewhat cold and snowy cold season.

Any of you out here to see the eclipse tommorow? I'm seeing a lot of out of town license plates around. Looks like a cloudless chilly morning. Sky should be amazing with the balloons illuminated in the unusual sunlight. That blended snow map looks too low, but it does have the highest totals (near average) in the Plains and Southwest. If the whole country is +5F to +10F or something for the winter, that's probably the right idea. Should be colder than that though. Here in the Southwest sometimes the best patterns for snow aren't actually "storms". If you put a strong cold high, like 1040 mb say, right over Wyoming and have a Baja low shooting up moisture, you can get moisture flowing over the low level cold and the mountains can get like 100 inches of snow here in like five days if the pattern sets up as a Rex Block. My main concern for snow nationally is that you just have big batches of unorganized moisture shooting in from the very warm Pacific. Hoping the subtropical jet shoots out...actual storms and not just waves of moisture.

Premise for Colorado is that the location/elevation matters. Beyond that, the actual Dec-Feb period may not be very snowy. But I do think the shoulder seasons, especially March-May are pretty active. It's the type of thing where you could get 70 inches of snow, but it's 10/15/45 or something for Fall/Winter/Spring just to make something up. For what it's worth, in 2020-21, we had a very dry winter locally (-0.5") but we had 9.3" snow (+3") in that period. It's just that we had a lot of high ratio snow, and almost every storm from Dec-Feb was all snow, with no rain. Denver (Stapleton) had 25" in Dec-Feb 1972-73...but 95" in Oct-May. I expect a lesser version of that - this is July-Jun 1971-1972 0.0 0.0 17.2 3.1 1.4 8.4 10.9 9.1 7.1 17.2 0.0 0.0 74.4 1972-1973 0.0 0.0 0.0 9.7 19.4 9.8 12.1 3.0 15.1 24.8 1.0 0.0 94.9

This is what I have for El Nino snow by PDO state. I'm using only the most + / - PDO years for Nov-Apr. This is using the old JISAO data. Most -PDO El Nino. As an example, they all kind of suck in areas of NY due west of the CT/MA line right? They tend to be at least sporadically good in the West. Then these are your most +PDO El Ninos, Nov-Apr. The PDO & ENSO strength often go together, so several of these are pretty powerful events, which can also be bad for the East. There is definitely some tendency for shit winters in the Northwest with these events. Several of the -PDO El Ninos are actually pretty solid up there.

The whole point of analogs is that you can't actually match a single year on all variables. Just make a sheet in Excel with all the variables you think are important, and blend them together until you find something that matches actual weather conditions. I'm kind of baffled by the tendency to ignore the actual location of the warmth in Nino 1.2. It doesn't really matter if the atmosphere isn't responding the way you expect at 500 mb. The mere presence of that warmth has effects on its own. The main idea with Nino 1.2 warmth is just that the subtropical jet is stronger than normal, you certainly have that look already. You can see it with how well 1982/1997 matched the US temp profile in July-Sept 2023. You're still getting similar effects to the east based years, regardless of whether anyone is willing to acknowledge that or not. For god's sake just look. Hot TX, some random cold NV & Midwest, look familiar?

What do you look at for the subsurface? There is plenty of cold to the center and west even if it is a bit incoherent. You have just enough heat by Nino 1.2 to block a Modoki look for a few months at least. It takes several weeks for that heat to surface.

I'm really not a fan of 1986 for the Summer pattern. I don't think it's an impossible look for the winter. But you're talking about a really cold Summer, that was very wet for the Southwest. It was blazing hot, like all time record heat in places that are already very hot this year. Just a much colder look nationally in general. 2002 was coldest in Texas nationally, where the high and heat was strongest this year. I also vaguely remember that Summer being extraordinarily hot late as a teenager in NJ. 2009 was actually very cold in the east in July-Sept, whereas this year was not really that cold. If you try to blend 1986, 2009, 2009 together you get no real pattern overall for July-Sept. I've been meaning to ask, but isn't the VP velocity potential stuff messed up by the volcano? I would think the shitload of extra moisture screws up where "above normal / below normal" sets up relative to a 30-year baseline.

One thing I'd like to see more of in outlooks is developing correlations for counting stats. I had this in my outlook last year: Cold Day Count in ABQ (-5) / (-10) Nov 14 / 5 Dec 5 / 0 Jan 5 / 0 Feb 7 / 2 ----------------- Total 31 / 7 (ranges given were 25-35 cold days, and 3-13 very cold days) Sum 1637 880 - - 685 0 0.14 T - Average 54.6 29.3 42.0 -3.7 - - - - 0.0 Normal 57.3 34.1 45.7 - 579 0 0.57 0.9 - 2022-11-18 40 28 34.0 -10.6 31 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-11 48 26 37.0 -10.5 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-04 48 32 40.0 -10.4 25 0 0.03 T 0 2022-11-16 44 26 35.0 -10.4 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-17 47 23 35.0 -10.0 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-19 46 24 35.0 -9.2 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-15 49 26 37.5 -8.3 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-12 54 24 39.0 -8.1 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-20 50 23 36.5 -7.3 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-05 58 29 43.5 -6.5 21 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-24 47 25 36.0 -6.2 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-22 49 25 37.0 -6.0 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-14 49 32 40.5 -5.7 24 0 0.01 0.0 0 2022-11-23 55 20 37.5 -5.1 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-21 53 25 39.0 -4.4 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-25 51 24 37.5 -4.3 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-28 51 24 37.5 -3.3 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-10 53 37 45.0 -2.9 20 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-13 59 29 44.0 -2.6 21 0 0.08 0.0 0 2022-11-30 51 25 38.0 -2.1 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-26 55 24 39.5 -2.0 25 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-01 65 35 50.0 -1.7 15 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-03 65 34 49.5 -1.4 15 0 0.02 T 0 2022-11-27 53 30 41.5 0.4 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-06 67 34 50.5 0.9 14 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-29 55 30 42.5 2.1 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-02 67 41 54.0 2.7 11 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-07 67 42 54.5 5.3 10 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-09 70 40 55.0 6.7 10 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-11-08 71 43 57.0 8.3 8 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-17 37 16 26.5 -9.8 38 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-18 36 21 28.5 -7.7 36 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-16 37 22 29.5 -6.9 35 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-23 41 19 30.0 -5.9 35 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-13 39 24 31.5 -5.4 33 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-15 43 23 33.0 -3.6 32 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-14 44 24 34.0 -2.7 31 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-19 48 20 34.0 -2.1 31 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-20 45 23 34.0 -2.0 31 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-21 50 22 36.0 0.0 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-24 52 20 36.0 0.1 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-25 49 26 37.5 1.7 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-03 45 37 41.0 1.8 24 0 0.48 0.0 0 2022-12-01 57 28 42.5 2.7 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-12 51 29 40.0 3.0 25 0 T 0.0 0 2022-12-08 50 33 41.5 3.6 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-30 47 32 39.5 3.6 25 0 0.02 T 0 2022-12-29 48 32 40.0 4.1 25 0 T T 0 2022-12-09 54 30 42.0 4.4 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-11 56 28 42.0 4.8 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-22 55 27 41.0 5.1 24 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-27 53 29 41.0 5.2 24 0 T 0.0 0 2022-12-10 54 32 43.0 5.6 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-26 52 31 41.5 5.7 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-04 50 40 45.0 6.1 20 0 0.04 0.0 0 2022-12-28 50 35 42.5 6.7 22 0 0.06 0.0 0 2022-12-07 55 36 45.5 7.4 19 0 0.04 0.0 0 2022-12-02 59 36 47.5 8.0 17 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-31 56 32 44.0 8.1 21 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-06 56 39 47.5 9.2 17 0 0.00 0.0 0 2022-12-05 60 42 51.0 12.4 14 0 T 0.0 0 2023-01-26 40 19 29.5 -9.0 35 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-27 43 17 30.0 -8.7 35 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-19 41 21 31.0 -6.7 34 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-25 41 25 33.0 -5.4 32 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-22 44 22 33.0 -5.0 32 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-21 40 26 33.0 -4.9 32 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-24 43 26 34.5 -3.8 30 0 T 0.1 0 2023-01-23 38 31 34.5 -3.6 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-20 46 25 35.5 -2.3 29 0 T T 0 2023-01-28 53 21 37.0 -1.8 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-18 44 28 36.0 -1.5 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-31 51 25 38.0 -1.2 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-03 40 31 35.5 -0.6 29 0 T T 0 2023-01-29 54 23 38.5 -0.4 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-04 44 28 36.0 -0.2 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-05 46 27 36.5 0.3 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-07 50 24 37.0 0.6 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-12 51 24 37.5 0.6 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-16 42 34 38.0 0.7 27 0 T T 0 2023-01-30 54 27 40.5 1.4 24 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-17 45 33 39.0 1.6 26 0 0.13 T 0 2023-01-13 52 26 39.0 2.0 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-08 52 26 39.0 2.5 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-14 53 27 40.0 2.9 25 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-09 54 26 40.0 3.4 25 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-02 44 35 39.5 3.5 25 0 0.01 0.0 0 2023-01-06 53 30 41.5 5.2 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-01-11 50 36 43.0 6.2 22 0 T 0.0 0 2023-01-01 50 36 43.0 7.0 22 0 0.17 0.0 0 2023-01-15 50 40 45.0 7.8 20 0 T 0.0 0 2023-01-10 58 32 45.0 8.3 20 0 0.00 0.0 2023-02-16 34 19 26.5 -15.6 38 0 T 0.1 T 2023-02-17 44 17 30.5 -11.8 34 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-10 43 21 32.0 -8.9 33 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-15 41 25 33.0 -8.9 32 0 0.14 1.0 1 2023-02-09 40 27 33.5 -7.2 31 0 T T 0 2023-02-27 55 21 38.0 -6.8 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-11 49 21 35.0 -6.1 30 0 T 0.0 0 2023-02-07 41 31 36.0 -4.3 29 0 0.05 0.6 0 2023-02-02 51 21 36.0 -3.5 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-28 57 27 42.0 -3.1 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-08 50 25 37.5 -3.0 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-23 54 29 41.5 -2.3 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-18 53 28 40.5 -2.1 24 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-22 55 28 41.5 -2.0 23 0 0.01 T 0 2023-02-26 59 27 43.0 -1.6 22 0 T 0.0 0 2023-02-03 52 25 38.5 -1.2 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-14 48 33 40.5 -1.2 24 0 T T 0 2023-02-24 57 29 43.0 -1.0 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-01 51 26 38.5 -0.9 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-19 51 33 42.0 -0.8 23 0 T 0.0 0 2023-02-06 52 29 40.5 0.3 24 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-04 60 26 43.0 3.2 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-25 60 35 47.5 3.2 17 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-05 63 25 44.0 4.0 21 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-13 60 32 46.0 4.5 19 0 0.12 0.1 0 2023-02-12 61 32 46.5 5.2 18 0 T T 0 2023-02-20 61 36 48.5 5.5 16 0 0.00 0.0 0 2023-02-21 65 34 49.5 6.2 15 0 0.00 0.0 0

I use 1951-2010 for highs, or 1961-2020 as a proxy for modern periods because every area of the US has lows warming at wildly different rates if you look. The highs are much better at teasing out the actual weather pattern and not the regional variation in the global warming signal by month. Locally, March is something like 6 degrees warmer than 100 years ago, but I doubt it is in the Northeast as an example. I'm fairly certain via the Bering Sea Rule we'll have a few cloudy or wet/snowy days in the Southwest at the end of the month. If that's the case, some of the West will finish near normal. I don't think the heat for the West the rest of the month will top the +5 to +10 that is still in place in the Plains even as that falls. October is always super annoying to me, because it tends to change erratically in the middle of the month from the pattern at the start of the month. For the baseline period, I think some little pocket of the Great Basin will be +/-1 or 2 from average, with most of the west +2 to +5 or something, while areas of the East are generally +2 or warmer outside of the deepest parts of the Southeast. Keep in mind though, this is using the older averages which are colder in the East and more similar in the West to modern averages. If I'm being honest - I'm not that worried about October. The main thing is the two competing patterns have shown up - a Western cold pocket and a Southern cold pocket. How they interact is just based on their duration, which is difficult to get correct. But I essentially expect those two cold pockets to compete in most of the coming months. As far as the volcano, 1982 was a Northern Hemisphere volcano (Mexico), and 2022 was a Southern Hemisphere volcano. My premise last year was that Southern Hemisphere volcanoes normally enhance tropical activity, while Northern Hemisphere volcanoes suppress it in the Atlantic, based on a paper I read. But with Tonga being a net global warming event and not a net global cooling event, I assumed it would act more like El Chicon (1982). So my premise is since that basically worked (hurricane season was kind of a dud in 2022), it makes sense that the most recent analog to a Northern Hemisphere volcano would continue to work.

My outlook is out in the general section for anyone curious. The snow pattern in the analog blend is fascinating, but generally areas in Northern New England, by DC, and then in the deep South did OK to pretty well for snow in the East. Best chances will be pretty late though from what I can see, like late February to early March.

That error comes up when data is moved/deleted/discontinued. I've uploaded my winter outlook in the general section for anyone curious. I do have you guys much colder than last winter, but you still kind of get shafted in my analogs. I'm not sure why, but you do tend to have a dry spot in the volcanic El Ninos over the Northeast. Tends to show up in the -PDO El Ninos too.