Yeah I was kind of looking at that, even if it's an ops deterministic at that range. Those are some serious HP systems, and even if they tend to get "kicked out" (with a +NAO), the implication seems to be there's still some cold air around and not far away. All the freaking out over next week's warmup seems a bit odd to me...for the past week, it's been WELL KNOWN (or so I thought!) that after this weekend, we'd be looking at a relax or warmup pattern for 7-10 days or there about. This is no surprise. Will it be a "torch"? I don't know, but even if it is relatively speaking, wouldn't it be good at least if the cold air source region in Canada remains cold (i.e., if Canada doesn't get flooded with Pac puke)? As you said above, this isn't the same kind of thing that we had coming out of December. I hold out reasonable hope and optimism that we have a favorable pattern sometime by the first part of February, and hopefully a return to some good -NAO blocking. In any event, the indications are for a pretty good +PNA ridge to form sometime toward the end of this month or so. I seriously don't think we get screwed for all of February into the first half of March (at least not yet, LOL!!).