Stormchaserchuck1

It used to not be uncommon to see snow flurries in October.. we aren't seeing anything like that, but Aug 1 - Nov 5 is probably going to be the first time we've been below average for the time period in a while, possibly since 2013.

The troughy pattern really turns into a +NAO out here pretty quickly With it being just after a Solar Max, I do think more +NAO is favored this Winter.

If I were a farmer in the 1800s, looking at sensible weather lately, I would go for a colder Winter. In August it got cool.. I had something like 15/16 days where it didn't get out of the 70s in August, and it's stayed relatively cool through September, October, and it looks like early November. In the last 15-20 years, we have had a lot of very above average Fall's. At the least, I think a blowtorch winter is off the table. The pattern would need to completely change around for that -- we have a little more tendency for -EPO right now.

The NAO is correlated with changes in the AMO at about 0.4, or 70% of the time. +NAO cools the AMO, we saw this in Hurricane season 2024 when there was a lull of activity mid-season during record +NAO. Now since October is -NAO, and the NAO looks to be negative a good 4 weeks, they are saying the AMO is changing. A better way to do that, is just roll forward October NAO, which does not actually have a positive correlation with Winter NAO. Every October has been -NAO since 2019.

Here is what we get the Winter before an El Nino the following year

SOI has been positive now 15 straight months.. -AAM the last few months, -PDO, a few things are lined up for cold-ENSO it seems, but without a big ENSO subsurface cold pool it's going to be hard to get N. Pacific -PNA. The subsurface cooling could come back, it waxes and wanes, but the way it looks right now is pretty far from La Nina analogs.. Crazy thing, although SOI has been positive 15 straight months, it has never gone above +10.. so we've been consistently on this weak-cold ENSO thing. I think the past shows us that when that happens the odds for a future El Nino increase.

Halloween now looks very cold. A few ensemble members bring the 528dm into the Northeast.. there is a pretty good spread and variation for that trough on current models though.

I think this Winter might just act ENSO Neutral.. a lot of different patterns. I do think we'll see more +NAO but probably more -AO. December has this high coincidence being very, very cold in neutral-negative ENSO/deep -QBO. I want to see if that coincidence persists this year.

I think last Winter was the most +PNA on record for a non-El Nino (CPC).

RONI does have 2-3x more impact on the pattern in the cold season. I'm really curious if we get more La Nina tendencies this cold season, seemingly out of nowhere, as that's what a few things seem to suggest. I'm not sold on it.

Yeah part of it too is that we haven't seen anything La Nina like in the N. Pacific this year. It's acting Neutral ENSO. Also, the subsurface moves up and down a lot in a short period of time.. remember how I was congratulating Gawx for La Nina calls because the subsurface had made it <-5? Now it's come all the way up to 0! Depending on MJO waves and gravity waves, it moves around a lot.. I don't necessarily know that it won't turn negative again, as that is the base long term state right now.

See how we are getting this +PNA over the next few weeks now that the ENSO subsurface has neutralized? It's not perfect but more times than not how it fluxes connects with PNA (Kelvin/Rossby waves).

In the last day +0c has hit 140W. That is significant. The central area is most important for N. Pacific H5 correlation.

2005 is pretty good. 1989.

It's trending where there might be no cold water in a few weeks.. let's see how that goes. In the last few weeks it has warmed significantly, and that is the trend right now.

Yeah.. the La Nina is just about no more on the latest TAO/Triton subsurface. I think the N. Pacific pattern is more based on the ENSO subsurface near the thermocline, so I personally wouldn't use La Nina analogs for this Winter. 96-97 is a good example of negative-neutral ENSO with warmer water starting to develop in the subsurface.

Looks like a +PNA pattern into the 1st and 2nd week of November. We haven't seen a big Aleutian ridge pattern much this year, or really since the 2023-2024 Strong Nino. Before then we were seeing it all the time. It doesn't mean that we won't see -PNA this Winter, but the pattern isn't "the norm" right now, like it was before.

October is interesting because there is a big negative 500mb anomaly over and around Alaska in the -PDO.. and -PDO's when the warm SSTA has been predominant pattern. You would think warmer water temps would be linear with warming somewhere else or there.. but it's a -0.5 H5 correlation that occurs consistently for the last 75 years.

Pretty interesting because 2021-2025 isn't even included in that composite! From 1948-2020 + and - phases had almost a 0.4 correlation with the PDO over SE Canada. And now in the last 5 years that correlation is growing bigger!

Yeah, the PDO holds a very strong correlation in October. It's been matching. That's why me and snowman19 were saying this would happen back in August and September.

It's still at $3.40, which is lower than average. I like to use $5 as a gauge for expected Winter NAO state.. under $5, more +NAO, over $5 more -NAO. It was $2.99 on Friday and has risen a lot in the last 2 days.. +12% it looks like, but the market is volatile and long range models have been showing cold for a while to start November.. so it might be more about Winter expectations, but the price is not currently high...

I was surprised NOAA had 19 Named Storms at the high end of their range this season.. their high end was 25 Named Storms last season.. they have been too high 2 years in a row. Global ACE hasn't been as the same as Atlantic ACE and I think that is going to level out a bit in the coming years. As for the MJO, long range models have been trying with the idea of a +PNA last few days of October, into the first week of November. It will be interesting to see how that verifies.. I think there is some expectation of the MJO making it to Phase 7.

We're not going to so easily hold a Winter -PNA if this subsurface cold pool doesn't re-strengthen I've found that the subsurface around the thermocline is most important of all ENSO variables for correlating North Pacific pattern.

The SOI never went strong during the 23-24 Strong Nino. Here's the monthly data: 2023 4 -1.20 2023 5 -15.26 2023 6 -3.19 2023 7 -3.32 2023 8 -10.85 2023 9 -13.87 2023 10 -6.63 2023 11 -8.38 2023 12 -3.78 2024 1 3.96 2024 2 -15.55 2024 3 -0.35 From 2020-early 2023 we had 34-straight months of +SOI.... so this decade there has been a severe +SOI tendency compared to other ENSO variables. Oct 2025 is likely going to make the 15th straight month of +SOI, although none of those months have gone over +10.. it's been consistently weak Nina/negative-Neutral for 2 years now... and La Nina-like SOI for 5+ years, with a little blip to slightly negative during the 23-24 Nino.

I'm always kind of surprised at you saying the WPO was very positive last Winter, are you referring to an actual index number? The 500mb looks neutral to slightly negative WPO.. Japan had a cold Winter