Update: I’m feeling pretty good about my high end strong nino call (1.9 ONI peak seems likely). The storm track so far has been to our west, and based on how December has gone I’m feeling pretty good about that as well. There are a few things I got wrong though. One was that I expected the PDO to increase, and it actually decreased more. That could result in a more unfavorable pacific later in the winter. However, it looks like I also got the arctic pattern very wrong. I said I expected a stronger than normal PV, and a split is highly unlikely. There is now cross guidance support for a polar vortex split, and trying to be as objective as I can I’m not going to ignore that. I don’t think it will make much of a difference for my Dec-Jan forecast, but it very well could for Feb-Mar. The issue is, if we get skunked Jan it will be very difficult to make up the snowfall deficit even if we do get a favorable pattern from the PV split. The pacific is still a concern, and due to this I don’t see the truly high end months like Feb 2015, Jan 2011, Jan 2022, Mar 2018 etc being in the cards. That’s why I am sticking to my 20-30 inch snowfall forecast for the Boston area.