raindancewx

Also, using the most -PDO years on the JISAO index, -1 or below for Nov-Apr since 1931, you have very few cold seasons: Dec-Feb N-A PDO Next DJF 1955 -2.63 LA 1971 -1.78 EL 1948 -1.62 LA 1961 -1.53 N 1949 -1.50 LA 1990 -1.48 EL 1970 -1.45 LA 1975 -1.42 EL 2008 -1.39 EL 1950 -1.35 EL 2011 -1.28 N 1973 -1.14 LA 1956 -1.07 EL 1951 -1.02 N The PDO value for Nov-Mar 2022-23 is currently -1.54. Here is the blend of the six El Ninos after the most -PDO cold seasons. Fairly similar to what the Canadian showed for strength and placement? PDO/AMO are very different though.

The subsurface from 100-180W at 0-300m depth shows that the cold below the surface ended in February. Similar to 2016-17, another incredible winter for California late. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt The actual Jan-Feb-Mar transition in 2023 below the surface at 100-180w is: -0.24 / +0.09 / +0.84 Here is 2018: -0.16 / -0.11 / +0.51 The subsurface is actually still much colder and slower to warm than 2014: -0.33 / +0.39 / +1.60 1997 was slower to warm than 2014 too - +0.56 / +1.00 / +1.17 The closest simple match below the surface to 2023 is really a 2014/2018 blend: 2018/2018/2014: -0.22 / +0.06 / +0.87 2023: -0.24 / +0.09 / +0.84 The Nate Mantua / Jisao PDO was still running around -1.56 for March. Any type of canonical El Nino response needs to squash the -PDO. It's sort of the opposite of 2014, when the super +PDO created El Nino conditions before it was fully there.

https://twitter.com/WorldClimateSvc/status/1642980751862902785/photo/2 Generally, the warming of waters in the MJO phase 4-5-6 area (by Perth to Indonesia), and the ongoing -PDO push have all been horrible for east coast snowiness in recent months. Forget what the models show for strength in winter btw. May is a very good indicator for Nino 3.4. Since 1950, no year has featured DJF more than 0.4C warmer than May. CPC has March overall at 27.14C, and normal warming March to May would be ~0.65C. I think 27.8C - 28.2C in Nino 3.4 in May is a reasonable guess, and so an all time historical warming push would be 28.6C at most (+2.1C). But most winters actually finish below May's Nino 34 reading, even El Ninos. I don't think there is any real chance of a 28.5C Nino 3.4 for winter without at least 28.0C May, we're at ~27.5C now on the weeklies, with a month left to warm.

Second half of March was 6 degrees below the 100-year average. So that was fun... There is still quite a bit of snow coming through 4/15. So going to wait a bit longer before I evaluate how well my snow forecast did. Some unusual places should get snow soon.

Canadian has an east-central look for winter, with maybe ~28.0C in Nino 3.4. But that's a -PDO look still. No cold tongue east of Japan. No warm ring by NW North America. That's a very good winter for me for me verbatim. Honestly that's probably not an amazing winter in the Northeast US like so many of you want. It might be an incredible winter with some random blizzards in the South though in between tornado outbreaks. The big El Nino years for eastern snowfall have incredible +PDO setups. This is not that verbatim. It's nothing like the PDO look of 1977-78, 2002-03, 2014-15, 1957-58, 1968-69. Vaguely resembles a blend of 2018-19 (x2), 1990-91, 2015-16. But I don't think the Canadian has the placement of the Pacific / Atlantic features right yet.

I wanted to let everyone on here know about this website I discovered when trying to find Mexican weather records. https://www.visualcrossing.com/weather-data There are thousands of locations globally with daily weather records that can be downloaded for free. When precise records for a smaller city are unavailable they use pretty rigorous elevation and location interpolations as estimates as well. I was able to come up with some generalizations of local lapse rates and various other things I've been wanting to study in global monsoon patterns using their data. The climate score table is my subjective assessment of how frequent pleasant days are in a given spot. Very cold or very hot days get negative scores. The first Mexcan/second data table is my summary of range in monthly average high temperature, average temperature, with latitude and elevation information. Pre/Evp is my assessment of the Koppen Climate type, in the sense of whether theoretical evaporation exceeds observed precipitation or not. The highland subtropical climate zone of Mexican is maybe 1/5 of the country but it has 50% of their population - pretty special climate type. Often ~30 inches of rain, with lows rarely below freezing and highs rarely above 90. Routinely 300+ daily highs in the 60s/70s or 70s/80s. Climate Score -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 Oct 2021-Sept 2022 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100s 110s 120s Score 0s -0s Albuquerque 0 1 2 36 58 64 55 86 59 4 0 0 374 Queretaro 0 0 0 0 0 12 175 161 17 0 0 0 535 Pachuca 0 0 0 0 2 70 225 67 1 0 0 0 659 Durango 0 0 0 3 4 15 175 138 29 0 0 0 522 Ruidoso 1 0 17 29 78 67 114 54 5 0 0 0 474 Phoenix 0 0 0 0 9 32 63 77 71 91 22 0 141 Minneapolis 12 33 49 46 36 21 70 66 17 1 0 0 76 14 Philadelphia 0 4 18 45 60 53 66 71 48 0 0 0 343 Jacksonville 0 0 0 2 15 45 82 132 88 1 0 0 400 Richmond 0 1 10 28 51 56 72 89 58 0 0 0 384 Charlotte 0 0 4 18 44 57 78 95 68 1 0 0 404 Boston 1 13 31 55 63 63 70 48 20 1 0 0 316 Seattle 0 3 12 75 123 55 57 27 13 0 0 0 356 Las Vegas 0 0 0 8 37 58 72 50 66 66 8 0 265 Salt Lake City 0 6 38 47 64 52 40 32 52 34 0 0 196 Dallas 0 0 6 9 26 42 72 81 82 47 0 0 282 LA Airport 0 0 0 0 13 133 156 54 7 2 0 0 643 Burbank 0 0 0 0 13 52 109 101 75 15 0 0 421 El Paso 0 0 2 4 32 56 62 82 93 34 0 0 314 Denver 3 8 22 27 66 59 49 62 62 5 0 0 284 2 Billings 6 15 22 51 72 62 38 44 39 7 0 0 199 5 4 Flagstaff 0 4 32 47 68 78 82 54 0 0 0 0 402 Vancouver 2 6 23 96 79 74 63 22 334 City Annual T Temp (C) Pre/Evp Latt Elev Hi Var(F) Cuauhtemoc 55.0 12.8 85% 28 6,760 25.0 Toluca 56.3 13.5 136% 19 8,730 9.0 Pachuca 59.0 15.0 131% 20 7,979 9.5 San Cristobal de las casas 59.0 15.0 187% 16 7,200 9.5 Zacatecas 60.3 15.7 83% 22 8,010 15.7 Tlaxcala 60.8 16.0 139% 19 7,346 9.7 Durango 62.4 16.9 86% 24 6,201 17.8 Ciudad Juarez 62.6 17.0 36% 31 3,730 39.4 Fresnillo 62.8 17.1 67% 23 7,250 17.1 Puebla 63.0 17.2 155% 19 7,005 9.0 San Luis Potosi 63.3 17.4 62% 22 6,115 14.0 Mexico City 63.7 17.6 135% 19 7,350 9.2 Tijuana 64.0 17.8 65% 32 65 14.1 Nogales 64.0 17.8 72% 31 3,934 30.3 Morelia 64.8 18.2 125% 19 6,300 12.3 Saltillo 64.9 18.3 56% 25 5,250 19.0 Aguascalientes 65.1 18.4 82% 22 6,194 7.9 Atlixco 65.1 18.4 118% 19 3,396 15.2 Chihuahua 65.5 18.6 59% 28 4,635 28.6 Guanajuato 65.7 18.7 112% 21 6,709 15.0 San Miguel de Allende 65.8 18.8 86% 21 6,200 13.9 Queretaro 66.0 18.9 80% 20 5,970 13.9 Xalapa 66.6 19.2 216% 19 4,649 11.7 Tepic 68.5 20.3 181% 21 3,020 9.7 Guadalajara 69.6 20.9 144% 20 5,138 9.0 Cuernavaca 69.6 20.9 181% 19 4,950 14.0 Oaxaca 70.3 21.3 106% 17 5,102 11.1 Zamora 70.7 21.5 121% 20 5,184 12.4 Chilpancingo 71.2 21.8 122% 17 4,111 6.6 Monclova 71.6 22.0 52% 27 2,030 28.9 Torreon 71.8 22.1 28% 25 3,670 23.6 Monterrey 72.1 22.3 81% 25 1,770 25.3 Cabo San Lucas 75.0 23.9 29% 22 30 15.0 Reynosa 75.4 24.1 59% 26 108 27.0 Culiacan 77.0 25.0 86% 24 233 13.5 Mazatlan 77.0 25.0 103% 23 33 14.6 Guaymas 77.2 25.1 28% 28 30 20.9 Hermosillo 77.2 25.1 49% 29 700 28.4 Veracruz 77.7 25.4 199% 19 30 12.0 Cozumel 77.9 25.5 189% 20 46 5.6 Colima 77.9 25.5 112% 19 1,500 7.9 Tuxtla Gutierrez 78.4 25.8 120% 16 1,713 10.6 Merida 80.1 26.7 127% 21 30 10.2 Zihuatanejo 80.2 26.8 129% 17 70 2.5 Campeche 80.6 27.0 127% 20 33 12.2 Villahermosa 80.8 27.1 238% 18 70 13.0 Acapulco 82.2 27.9 160% 16 100 3.4 Salina Cruz 82.9 28.3 133% 16 3 7.4 Apatzingan 83.1 28.4 89% 19 1,066 13.9 You can pick a retirement destination - by high - City Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Toluca 66.4 68.7 72.9 74.8 75.2 72.0 69.4 69.6 69.3 69.6 68.4 66.2 San Cristobal de las casas 68.5 70.5 73.2 74.3 73.6 72.3 72.5 72.5 71.1 70.3 69.3 67.8 Zacatecas 64.0 66.7 70.9 75.9 79.7 78.3 74.8 74.5 72.5 71.8 69.8 64.8 Cuauhtemoc 60.1 64.4 68.2 74.7 79.5 85.1 80.4 79.2 76.6 73.0 66.6 62.8 Pachuca 69.8 73.0 76.6 79.3 78.8 74.8 72.9 74.1 71.2 71.2 71.2 70.5 Tijuana 68.5 69.4 69.4 71.8 74.3 77.4 82.0 82.6 82.0 78.8 74.3 70.0 Mexico City 71.2 74.3 78.3 80.4 80.2 77.7 75.4 75.4 74.1 73.6 72.9 71.4 San Luis Potosi 69.1 72.5 77.7 81.9 83.1 80.1 76.6 77.0 74.8 73.8 72.3 69.3 Tlaxcala 71.8 74.3 78.6 81.1 81.5 77.7 76.1 76.5 75.0 75.7 74.3 72.1 Fresnillo 67.8 71.4 76.5 80.2 84.9 83.3 78.8 77.9 76.5 75.9 72.9 68.7 Xalapa 70.2 72.5 77.7 81.0 81.9 79.3 77.5 78.8 77.9 75.7 73.4 71.1 Puebla 73.4 75.0 78.6 81.5 82.4 79.5 77.5 77.5 76.6 76.6 75.9 74.5 Durango 68.9 71.8 76.1 81.0 86.0 86.7 82.4 81.7 80.1 78.1 73.4 68.9 Nogales 64.0 64.6 69.8 76.8 84.7 93.4 92.3 89.8 87.3 79.5 70.2 63.1 Ciudad Juarez 56.7 62.4 68.2 80.6 88.9 96.1 95.9 94.3 88.0 78.4 66.4 60.3 Saltillo 67.5 70.5 76.5 82.2 85.8 86.5 85.5 84.6 79.9 76.8 72.7 68.2 Guanajuato 72.1 75.4 80.8 84.9 87.1 83.7 80.4 80.2 79.0 77.9 75.6 72.7 Atlixco 75.7 78.1 82.2 83.5 83.5 79.9 79.2 79.5 77.9 78.3 77.7 75.6 Aguascalientes 72.1 75.2 79.7 84.2 87.3 85.3 81.1 81.0 79.3 78.3 76.3 72.5 Chihuahua 64.6 70.2 75.6 82.2 90.0 93.2 89.8 86.5 84.6 80.2 71.4 64.8 Queretaro 73.4 76.3 81.7 85.1 87.3 84.6 80.4 80.2 78.3 78.6 76.8 74.3 Morelia 74.8 78.1 82.2 86.0 87.1 83.1 79.0 78.8 77.9 77.9 77.5 75.6 San Miguel de Allende 73.4 77.4 83.3 86.4 87.3 84.4 81.0 81.0 79.3 77.9 76.3 73.8 Cuernavaca 77.4 79.7 83.8 86.2 85.5 80.8 79.2 79.0 77.2 78.6 78.4 77.4 Tepic 76.3 78.1 80.2 83.7 86.0 84.6 82.8 82.8 82.4 82.0 80.8 77.5 Guadalajara 76.5 79.7 84.2 88.2 90.5 86.9 81.5 81.1 80.8 80.8 79.5 76.5 Monterrey 69.3 73.8 80.4 86.0 90.0 92.8 94.6 94.1 88.7 81.7 75.4 70.2 Veracruz 76.5 77.0 81.3 84.6 88.0 88.5 88.2 88.2 87.4 85.5 81.9 78.6 Chilpancingo 82.2 83.5 86.4 88.2 88.3 84.0 82.2 82.9 81.7 82.6 82.9 81.9 Monclova 67.5 72.5 81.3 88.7 93.2 96.4 95.7 94.8 89.1 82.4 75.6 70.3 Oaxaca 81.7 85.1 89.4 91.9 90.5 85.1 83.3 83.3 82.0 82.2 81.9 80.8 Mazatlan 77.7 78.3 79.2 82.0 85.1 89.8 91.0 91.2 90.9 90.0 85.1 80.2 Torreon 72.1 77.5 78.8 90.5 95.5 95.7 93.7 92.7 89.2 85.1 79.0 73.0 Cabo San Lucas 77.7 78.6 80.4 84.2 87.3 89.1 91.9 92.7 91.4 89.8 84.9 80.2 Guayamas 75.0 76.3 79.0 83.3 89.4 93.6 95.9 95.7 95.5 90.5 81.9 75.2 Zamora 81.3 84.6 88.9 92.1 93.7 89.8 85.3 85.5 85.5 85.3 84.4 81.5 Reynosa 71.4 76.1 84.4 89.2 93.7 98.1 98.4 97.9 95.0 87.8 80.1 73.4 Cozumel 83.5 84.4 87.6 89.6 90.9 90.3 90.7 91.4 89.4 87.3 85.5 83.5 Acapulco 86.7 86.7 86.7 87.4 88.9 89.4 90.1 90.0 88.9 89.1 88.5 87.6 Villahermosa 82.2 84.6 89.4 93.0 95.2 93.9 93.0 93.2 91.4 88.2 85.6 82.9 Tuxtla Gutierrez 85.6 88.7 93.0 96.1 95.7 91.0 89.6 89.8 88.3 87.3 86.7 85.5 Zihuatanejo 88.7 88.9 88.7 90.1 91.2 90.7 90.7 90.5 89.4 90.3 89.8 89.2 Hermosillo 75.6 78.4 83.7 90.1 97.3 103.6 102.7 100.9 99.5 93.0 83.5 75.2 Culiacan 82.0 84.0 86.9 91.0 94.8 96.6 95.9 94.6 93.9 93.6 88.7 82.8 Colima 88.3 89.4 91.2 93.2 93.9 92.5 90.3 90.3 88.7 89.8 90.3 88.9 Campeche 84.4 87.1 90.9 95.0 96.6 94.8 94.1 93.6 92.1 89.8 87.3 84.9 Salina Cruz 88.0 89.2 90.7 93.4 95.4 93.2 94.1 93.6 92.5 91.6 90.5 88.7 Merida 87.4 88.7 93.2 96.1 97.3 95.5 95.0 94.8 93.6 90.9 88.7 87.1 Apatzingan 90.1 92.8 97.5 102.2 104.0 100.0 94.5 93.4 92.7 93.4 93.2 91.2

Should be dry in Central Mexico with the Nino 1.2 warmth / building El Nino...and yet:

Not planning to do a Summer outlook this year. There are certain general patterns already fairly evident. The snow pack in the West will delay the advancement of the monsoon from old Mexico into the US. I look at precipitation/temperatures in old Mexico a lot in Spring. It's been pretty hot and rainy in the central plateau from the eastern Pacific warming up and drawing the subtropical/east Asian jet out of its usual spot. That's not really typical though. It's not the usual monsoon process where it is cool/dry winter (~55F), warm-hot dry spring (~65F), and then a rainy summer/fall for the Mexican plateau. There are towns in the highlands of central Mexico where lows are very rarely above 50-55F due to elevation, that are much more humid than normal for Spring, and so they're seeing highs 80-90 even at elevations of 6,500-8,000 feet up. Typically they'd be in the 70s, with their lows still in the 40s. Fairly common when you get the big warm ups in Nino 1.2. Opposite holds too by the way, there is a town I look at that had 70 lows in the 20s/30s in Central Mexico in the 2017-18 winter, which hadn't happened in like 50 years...but Nino 1.2 was near record cold for a while. In order to fully melt off the Western snow pack, it should get very hot late Spring/early Summer. But it will be brief, and then the rest of the Summer shouldn't be too bad. Could actually see a pretty nice Summer in the SE US this year - not super hot, not real wet. The Plains had a very wet / fairly snowy winter too, it's going to take a lot of heat to thin out that water content. On balance I think the Tonga eruption enhances weather pattern craziness near the equinoxes and dulls it near the solstices. You can see what I mean about the enhanced humidity in Central Mexico - it's very telling. Still very much in La Nina mode for precipitation enhancement in the tropical spots of Mexico.

March 2001, 2012, 2017 v. 2023 month to date. It's not perfect, but I've not found any single developing El Nino or blend of El Ninos closer than those three. You can get cute with 1997/2012 or 1972/2012 as a blend or something but the oceans are so different everywhere. The gigantic cold pool in the southern hemisphere is likely from the very low sea ice down there melting off as a very cold body of water, with maybe some influence from Tonga too. The Indian Ocean (cold), Atlantic (warm by US), N Pacific (-PDO) are conceptually right though, the ENSO also conceptually right. Naturally, the US temp profile is completely horrible as a match - so I'm not suggesting these are good analogs. But the oceans are similar. It's mostly that the MJO is horribly off timing wise I think.

If you look at average snowfall annually/snowfall frequency in North America and plot it against average temperature annually, most of the continent sees sporadic snow up to climates with average temperatures of about ~60-65 degrees. El Paso, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chihuahua, and Norfolk are all examples of places with that level of warmth that see snow in 1/4 to 3/4 of all years still. The rate of warming since the Dustbowl, even if it were to double, implies Boston has 200-300 years before reaching the El Paso / Atlanta / Charlotte / Chihuahua / Norfolk range of 2-10 inch annual snow totals. You'll not live to a see a 10, 20, 30 year period where Boston gets no snow in under 80-90% of the years. That said, you're not too far from the next level, 55-60 degrees, which includes Philadelphia, Albuquerque, St. Louis, Amarillo, etc. The 55-60 annual temperature zone tends to see median snowfall in the 5-20 inch range, with infrequent total dud years and infrequent heavy snow years. That's what I'd expect Boston to look like in 100 years, a slightly snowier version of 1991-2020 Philadelphia averages, which means some near 0 duds (1997-98, 2019-20, 2022-23 for Philadelphia), some great years (2014-15, 2013-14, 2009-10), but rarely outside a 10-30 inch range for snowfall. Locally, we're essentially split into thirds long-term - the dud years are 3 inches or less, the near median years are around 3-13 inches, and the good years are 13+. The difference is, Boston will always have far less sunlight in winter than a place like Philadelphia or Albuquerque in winter, so even if your high low split is 45/25 on January 18, 2125, you'd still have more hours near the 25 than St. Louis would with an identical high/low split. For reference, Albuquerque has an average annual temperature of 58F, Philadelphia is 56F using the current 30 year averages. St. Louis is about 57F, and averages 17 inches of snow. Amarillo is about 59F annually, and averages 18 inches of snow. My guess is Boston will have an average temperature of 55-56 degrees for the 30 years centered on 2120 (up from 52 or 53 from the 30 year period centered on 2020).

Here is the great "El Nino" of 2012 v. current SSTs. Similar features include: -PDO, very warm by Peru. - Very warm western Atlantic - Cold Indian Ocean, warm by Australia. Summer 2012 I don't expect to warm up a ton and cool off a ton immediately after. But hopefully this shows why I'm still skeptical. By the way, 2012 is a very hot Summer, very active for hurricanes, despite how warm the ENSO zones are.

As I went to bed last night, with all my lights off, I was trying to figure out why my rug was pink and glowing. Sure enough, the aurora borealis made it this far south. Pretty neat. Light went through the skylight window. Another sign of high solar activity. Fairly similar to the major solar storm of March 1989, although in that event, the northern lights were visible down to Honduras. From around the USA. Not like we need the extra beauty here anyway -

I normalize all Nino 3.4 temperatures winter to a 26.5C base. On that baseline, the largest y/y warm up is ~2.7C for winter. 2022-23 was a 25.93C La Nina in winter - not impressive at all. So 25.9C + 2.7C = 28.6C (+2.1C). CPC would call it +1.9C or something since they are using a warmer DJF base than I am. Biggest y/y gains in winter (at least a 2.0C gain): 1971-72 --> 1972-73 1975-76 --> 1976-77 1981-82 --> 1982-83 1996-97 --> 1997-98 2008-09 --> 2009-10 2014-15 --> 2015-16 Once in a great while, you do get a huge warm up without an El Nino: 1988-89 to 1989-90 is nearly +2.0C as well. But since 1950, even a 2C y/y warm up is rare. Six times in 75 years, but with some clustering evident. I'd throw out 2015-16 for following an El Nino, and also 1976-77 and 2009-10 for occurring at the solar minimum and after very different winters (both 2008-09 and 1975-86 were dry in California). I suspect 1972-73 is actually one of the better matches, as it's a pretty healthy event but after a weak La Nina that was cold in the West. But of course the volcanic aspect of 2023-24 will need to be blended in. Have to see what Spring/Summer/Fall temps and precip do nationally. I'm also still a bit wary this is some kind of 2012 head fake, where it Spring-Fall warmed to near El Nino conditions and then collapsed back to cold-neutral in winter. You had huge MJO movement in Feb-Mar 2012 too, at about one month off the timing to 2023.

The mountains locally are dressed in their finest with the subtropical jet waking up very quickly. We have the strongest correlations to ENSO in the whole US here. So the cloudiness and late cold are a good sign. All the trees and local vegetation are still dead - something I've not seen this late in the season locally. SOI has flipped negative month to date as well. Suspect this will be the coldest March for us in 20 years or so too. Conceptually, our coldest winters are major La Nina that turn to major El Nino with low solar. We don't have that. But our wettest winters are a big Nino 3.4 warming y/y with high solar - which we could have. Actually, truth to be told, years like 1939-40, 1963-64, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1997-98 are all pretty good. March 22-April 5 1973 is legendary here - 23 inches of snow in Albuquerque. Kept snowing into late April too. 1963, 1982, 1991 arguably 1992 in some ways, are the recent "Volcanic El Nino" years. Unfortunately, most years that become El Ninos don't look like this March.

This article references a paper stating that although Tonga added record amounts of water vapor to sky globally, it also had the biggest aerosol eruption globally since Pinatubo in 1991. https://t.co/kMtmm098aC This past winter you had 10-15% extra water in the sky. That enhanced rainfall/moisture saturation in any given column of air. But you also had unusual cold pockets from dimmed solar radiance. If you look around the US, most places, even very warm spots in winter, had at least one record cold snap (like Boston at -10). I'd expect the weirdness with the cold pockets to continue cycling through in light of the aerosol effect. But I don't think it will ever tie in timing wise with the extra water effect. As far as ENSO goes, the events tend to move like a conveyor belt. Whatever is happening at the surface probably won't persist unless it has mirrored support "up-current". Western Subsurface +3 months = Eastern Subsurface trend. Eastern Subsurface trend +3 months = Eastern surface trend. Eastern surface trend +3 months = Western surface trend. Conceptually, October-November 2023 should once again see extraordinarily powerful storms moving across the US, as volcanic periods tend to. But the Fall should be pretty different from last year. There are a handful of volcanic falls with extraordinarily expansive snow-cover in North America, with much tamer winters that follow. Could see something like that. My instinct is next year will still be a wet/cold winter for CA, but the entire Southern US is cold, rather than the Western US. I don't think we're done with atmospheric rivers until the excess moisture is drained from the sky to at least some degree. Arid climates are designed to handle this type of imbalance I think.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-risk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/ Volcanoes are a big deal. The good news is we'll likely pass that stupid 1.5C threshold of warming everyone worries about. So we can see much sooner than expected what will happen.

March has largely done what I've been expecting since October nationally. Record heat, record cold, record rain/snow/flooding in various parts of the US at times this month. There will be more storms for California and one more Nor'easter before we quiet down fully. Locally, we may see the wettest March in over a decade too. West is theoretically in excellent shape, with drought destroyed during La Nina, and an El Nino incoming.

As much as I hate La Ninas, if we're going to have these big Modoki events most of the time, I'm pretty OK with them. The trend locally is for more snow in Fall/Spring than a normal La Nina in the Modoki events, particularly in Oct-Nov, and late Feb to late Mar. I'll never understand why people were expecting the event that just ended to be a basin-wide or east-based La Nina. Been impressive seeing the cool down in the Indian Ocean this winter. A lot of winters in the 60s had that feature, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Eastern Atlantic didn't really do what I expected, but kind of irrelevant since the cold showed up consistently in the West via its partner in crime over NE Asia. I believe this is most +WPO winter on record using the index, but I'd have to check. I know it went super positive in February, which is when the pattern started to get real crazy for California, and it's a very strong warm signal in the East. -WPO is basically mirror image of the winter. https://www.worldclimateservice.com/2021/10/04/western-pacific-oscillation/#:~:text=The Western Pacific Oscillation is a pressure dipole that exists,than a week or two.

La Nina / La Nina-ish winters that are cold West and then go immediately to an El Nino the next winter are pretty rare. Not convinced we get an El Nino just yet, but it's probably the plurality outcome at this point. Clear cut examples are 1938-39, and 1971-72 since 1930. Debatable to include 1996-97, 2001-02, and then 1968-69, 2014-15, 1951-52, 1957-58 as anti-logs. Something like this? This is actually a pretty harsh winter for most of the US even though it only looks cold in Oklahoma. December and January are pretty cold in the East, it's just offset by blazing heat in February-March. As these are east-based El Ninos that turn into Modokis late, you get the cold early in the East (as it will be trending colder by Peru like in a strengthening La Nina), and then everybody flips warm by March when the El Nino collapses cold.

In a global sense, using 1940-now ERA data from the Europeans, the cold West / hot East really stands out. I definitely had the right idea with a harsh Western winter. California is about to get nuked with snow again too. It's always interesting to look globally and see the "correlation points" in Asia - typically if the Indian subcontinent south/east of the Himalayas is hot, so is the Eastern US, and if Central Asia up to Kamchatka/NE Asia is cold, so is the Western US.

I had mentioned the NE not doing well for snow either in the urban corridor. Also, had the NW dry in my outlook. I'm fairly happy with the results - I tried to incorporate the volcano into the forecast.

Eh close enough

Heading into this winter, my research indicated that volcanic winters tend to precede extremely harsh weather in the West during seasonal transitions. That's largely played out quite well this season, with October and the current period seeing extraordinarily powerful systems in the West. There is some tendency in the second volcanic winter for craziness as well, but at different times and locations. The winter of 1932-33 was extremely harsh in the West following Cerro Azul (VEI 5) in April 1932, and also Volcan Fuego in Guatemala in 1932 (VEI 4). Fuego also erupted in Fall 1974 (VEI 4) ahead of a harsh winter in the West, and again in 2018. I used 1984 as well, in light of the volcanic idea. March 1993, 2019, and some of the other Marches with extraordinary low pressure readings are in the mix both this year and next year - hold on to your butts.

If I did my winter forecast correctly, you guys may actually have as many as three of these in March before you flip very warm again. Obviously, I have no idea if they'll all be snow. Good luck.