Chris, from a historical analog perspective, dont stable patterns like this last for about 6-8 weeks?
Let's look at similar patterns from the past:
1989-90
2005-06
2006-07
There are others I cant remember at the moment.
2005-06 was similar to this winter in that we started December cold and on the snowy side; the change to warmer occurred around Dec 10-15. January was toasty and we didn't get back to cold again until the second week of February. So that was about 60 days of mild weather?
2006-07 had about 7 weeks of mild weather, from about the middle of December to the middle of February.
1989-90 was the most extreme case, where we went from a cold December to a warm January, February and March. So about 90 days of mild weather. We ended up getting a light snow event in early April which ended the pattern.
But wasn't that also around a solar maximum? And we're near a minimum now, so I favor the first two options. Our mild period started around Dec 22 (the first day of winter, ironically enough) so I predict it should end by Feb 20.... thoughts?
edit- how can I forget 2015-16?!
Record warm December and the pattern flipped around January 15 or so and we had a historic snowstorm after that around the 20th. So that was a 45 day period of mildness.