Stormchaserchuck1

Euro continues to show a shot at 60s Feb 19-20.. Sounding is 67F around DC

Man does the long range look bad on long range models.. +EPO has the chance of making it warmer than average the last week of Feb possibly into early March. The Euro weeklies are warm through March 15th. MJO going through Phases 3-6 is a warm composite in late Feb/early March

There are other indexes, stronger correlated than the WPO, that are not favorable at the end of ensemble mean runs, +nao/+epo here:

120 hours out.. what a bad model

Satellite as it was making landfall

1988 does appear to be a good anti-analog. This is my favorite La Nina, because it was independent, strong on its own, it wasn't part of a 2 or 3 year phase. I think you see La Nina effects better in analogs such as 88-89. We did have 2 El Nino's 2 years before, which inversely matches the RONI 2 La Nina's of the last 2 years. Jan-Feb 1988 was also the most subsurface cold water anomaly of the analogs. This matches this year being one of the warmest subsurface anomalies (whole subsurface area). Also to note, although the subsurface analog matches give off a strong signal (80% going in the direction later in the year), I think it's inflated a little high, because there are only 10 examples. More reasonable is probably 60% odds, based on the subsurface.

This is a time sensitive ENSO subsurface anomaly map, and 5-day subsurface temperature trend. It will always be updated to the most recent day:

I made a new thread This one should still continue through the Winter, as effects of yearly ENSO state are felt through the following March.

The subsurface has warmed significantly over the past few months. That's +4c in the central-ENSO-subsurface. TAO/Triton is a little more conservative in their readings than CPC, and it still has a >+4c area in the western subsurface I went through, since data became available in 1985, and found the 10 top analogs to broad subsurface state in January-February, like we have now. There are 5 positive analogs, 5 negative analogs. It should be noted that a lot of analogs had a warm/cold western part vs a cold/warm eastern part, in contrast, and I didn't use those, I only did the whole subsurface based warm or cold. Jan-Feb 2026 so far -1) 2025 -- This later in the year was ENSO Neutral (0-1-0), with the ONI peaking at -0.5c, but not for 5 consecutive months. The RONI in 26-27 was Weak-La Nina, -1.0c +1) 2023 -- This later was a Strong El Nino (1-1-0), ONI peaking at +2.1c, RONI peaking at +1.5c +2) 2015 -- This later was a Strong El Nino (2-1-0), ONI peaking at +2.8c! RONI peaking at +2.4c +3) 2014 -- This later was a Weak El Nino (3-1-0), ONI peaking at +0.8c, RONI peaking at +0.6c -2) 2007 -- This later was a Strong La Nina (4-1-0), ONI peaking at -1.6c. RONI peaking at -1.6c +4) 2002 -- This later was a Moderate El Nino (5-1-0), ONI peaking at +1.3c. RONI peaking at +1.5c -3) 1999 -- This later was a Strong La Nina (6-1-0), ONI peaking at -1.7c. RONI peaking at -1.7c +5) 1998 -- This later was a Strong El Nino (7-1-0), ONI peaking at +2.4c. RONI peaking at +2.4c -4) 1994 -- This later was a Moderate El Nino (7-1-1), ONI peaking at +1.1c. RONI peaking at +1.4c -5) 1988 -- This later was a Strong La Nina (8-1-1), ONI peaking at -1.8c. RONI peaking at -1.9c So out of the hand-picked 10 best analogs of the past 40 years, 8/10 (80%) became the same ENSO state (warm subsurface to El Nino, cold subsurface to La Nina), 1/10 (10%) was Neutral the next year, and 1/10 (10%) was opposite. The total cumulative ONI peak for the 10 top analogs since 1985, was +13.9c, an average of +1.39c per year (Moderate ENSO state). CPC in January gave these probabilities I now see the RONI is linked on the CPC page. Very good! (Edited analogs above -- the RONI is good because it neutralizes the global warming skew, where ENSO has warmed on average about 0.2-0.3c vs historical) Climate Prediction Center - Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) Mid January IRI models forecast. I will edit these if someone links more recent forecasts. Since 1994, only 7/31 ENSO years have been Neutral, per RONI. 24/31 have either been La Nina or El Nino. Since 1994, only 7/31 ENSO years have been Neutral, per ONI. 24/31 have either been La Nina or El Nino. Per RONI, 5 of the last 6 years (20-26) have been La Nina. Per RONI, 7 of the last 10 years (16-26) have been La Nina. Per RONI, 11 of the last 19 years (07-26) have been La Nina. Per RONI, 15 of the last 28 years (98-26) have been La Nina. That's >50% La Nina since 1998. You can see this post-1998 general La Nina pattern clearly in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere's Hadley Cell, High pressure right above and below Nino 3.4: ^People say it's a decadal PDO state, I think it's a decadal cold-ENSO state. That map encompasses the most recent 333 months.

Subsurface is torching. Should I start an El Nino thread for 26-27?

It was 71F in Nashville today. The next few days may bust a little bit warmer, although snowcover may keep it cooler.

Yeah it's the GFS, but Here's later that day.. probably a little extreme but it shows that there is some potential for a nice warm up. Sounding says DCA is 75F.

Too bad we had a Nina STJ this year. It was a nina-stj last winter too. Too bad, the AO was favorable

I'll probably give it a 3% chance for all snow at this point. 15% chance for some snow at some point, at least on I95.

Something like 31/762 cases does not support a forecast position.. What's your call on High temps Feb 15-16?

Boring. Your map of snow events completely missed the +450 Aleutian anomaly. This coming storm is not a good platform to base this "it doesn't snow anymore in marginal" stance.

Because the PNA isn't neutral

I don't think it's a marginal setup at all..

Feb-March's 2018-2026 so much more -PNA than the past.. like 160% of number 2. That's interesting! Maybe it has something to do with temps starting to get warmer after Jan 27th, and the start of the rise to spring right after? It's something interesting to watch this Feb-March too.. does the 8-year trend persist?

That's why I said it's extreme. It's extremely extreme coming up, too.

We have had a smaller % of neutral setups.. the lowest DC's high temp in the Wintertime gets is 40F, Jan 27. Baltimore gets down to 39F. 2-3 weeks surrounding that it's mid 40s. We need "neutral" for marginal setups, not 3std -PNA's.

So why is -PNA more extremely warm and +PNA more extremely cold lately? Dunno.. maybe it's something we aren't seeing. AGW isn't PNA consistency though.

Here's my favorite

Dude we just had one of the coldest 3 week stretches in history, and it was the 2nd time that happened this Winter. It's not all lost omg! We are just in extremely bad Pacific patterns lately, in the wintertime. You're underestimating the Pac influence a little bit. More neutral is what you're looking for, not +450dm.

^Pac ridge is about as unfavorable as a spot as it gets in the 20-25 plot.. it's a little further west in the 1970s, allowing some space for gulf of alaska negative anomaly.. our snowiest patterns are negative gulf of alaska, so those little differences are actually big.. it's fragile.