raindancewx

There are bowling ball lows...and then are bowling ball lows. Crazy -

This still looks on track, assuming the March pattern comes in as advertised after March 7th.

Accuweather seems to like Spring 1983, 1987, 1998, 2007 for analog years based on this: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-video/video-traditional-and-hybrid-el-nino-patterns-used-through-spring/97649985001 2007 x2 1987 x2 1983 x2 1998 x1

This is a bit preliminary since we're not through February yet, but I grabbed the six driest Marches in an El Nino for Albuquerque and compared them to the last 90 days of precipitation anomalies. NW and MW look completely different, which makes me think the wet March idea is real? Not expecting huge totals, but above normal looks likely. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Precip_Monitoring/Figures/NAMS/p.90day.figb.gif

My research suggests that it is very rare for snowy Decembers in the SW to continue into snowy Januaries - we may get a bunch of little storms, but I think we're kind of due for a quiet period around maybe Jan 20 - Feb 20 before the action resumes with impressively strong/cold storms plowing way south in the West again until maybe May 20. My idea for this winter has always been cold/wet in the NW in the fall, that cold/wet area moves south and east in Dec and early January. The east bakes until late January, then they have one month of winter. After the east has it's one month of winter we get two-three months of cold (often snowy, but not always) spring storms. Could still be completely wrong, but we'll have to see. Main differences from last year are the warmer AMO and cooler PDO, and the El Nino will likely be weakening, not strengthening in the Spring.