George001

South of NE is more dicey, agree. I like Jan best, but I am not sold on a bad Feb especially for New England and possibly the northern mid atlantic. Gradient patterns can lead to big snows if you are north of the storm track. It is also looking like the polar vortex is going to be especially prone to disruptions this year.

Agree, its no longer a debate whether or not La Niña will develop. We are below the -0.5 threshold on the weeklies in 3 of the 4 ENSO regions, pretty much all the non ONI indices are consistent with La Niña, and the CPC has announced that La Nina conditions are present. So, La Niña is already here. The question is how long does it stay intact and when does it peak? I am hearing some people argue that the La Niña will break down in January and others believe it will remain intact the entire winter. What are your thoughts here? I am very skeptical of the idea it breaks down in January.

Historical precedence argued against this, I remember doing research on this when hearing about all the El Niño hype. 2 years after a strong or super Nino goes -ENSO roughly 80% of the time.

I’m not nearly as negative about Feb as many here, but that surprises me. Just curious, what do you think many of us who are less optimistic about Feb are missing? Or are you just less optimistic about January? edit: I just saw your post raising concerns about the pac jet for January.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a repeat of last Feb with storms taking more of a northern track. I am all in on a big January though.

I am very excited for this winter. I do not except really any snow until the second half of December but strongly believe that January will be a burial.

Agree. If we do get a fast start to winter I would expect that to not only continue into January, but would expect January to be the snowiest month of the winter. The strat stuff actually lines up with January better than December anyways when taking into account the lag period.

Well…. technically 96-97 was a bad winter even in Boston

Yeah it takes time to build snowpack. Right now it is slowly building over western Canada, and is beginning to expand south and east. This process will continue until the snow arrives in New England by mid-late December.

below normal temps for New England in the La Niña/-QBO composite….. sign me up

Either way 2014 isn’t an analog I would use, but I do think it’s worth keeping an open mind about +ENSO analogs if other factors line up. I would prefer a negative PDO though

For what it’s worth this no longer looks like it will be a low ACE season.

Things are looking promising for a big December.

The only thing I disagree with here is the negative NAO. Our big -NAO years like 09-10 and 10-11 were near the solar minimum. We are descending, but solar activity is still a lot higher than it was during those years. I would lean towards more of a neutral to slightly positive NAO. The more important factor is the fall pattern, we have diverged from the bone dry fall pattern that continued into the winter. We saw a mid fall shift from an extended dry stretch (leading to drought conditions), and it has shifted to a stormy pattern with frequent coastals. This combined with the other factors mentioned has me very optimistic about this upcoming winter for New England, even if the negative NAO idea doesn’t pan out. When I think of a big snow pattern the first thing I think of is NOT a Greenland block, it’s a tall ridge over Montana.

PDO is still solidly negative, but it is less negative than it was last October.

I got buried in 12-13

I am all in. I believe something big is going to happen this winter.

I am very excited about what I am seeing this fall. It is still early but things are looking better and better for a big winter in New England.

Agree. We are already seeing some promising signs with a transition to a wetter pattern, which did not happen until Feb last year. Weak east based Nina, early northern snow cover build up, the early signs look pretty good. The PDO is negative, but it’s less negative than last year (-2.4 September 2025 vs -3.5 September 2024).

Yeah, I was of the impression the debate was weak La Niña vs cold neutral and everything else was off the table.

You can tell it’s bullshit by looking at the south. It’s not going to snow a lot in the south.

Way too early

How come? I know you don’t like the 13-14 analog, so I’ll bring up a different year that is a better PDO match. Jan 2022 was strongly +PNA with a -2.7 PDO

This is the most excited I have been about an upcoming winter since probably 21-22. East based La Niña AND that warm pool off the WC and in the GOA??? I like the look of that.

I am starting to think this has the potential to be a big winter in the east, especially New England. I like what I am seeing with the warm pool that has developed just off the pacific NW, that is something that was present in our big +PNA/-EPO winters. There are also signs that the La Niña is going to be east based, which is another point in our favor.