I have enjoyed reading all the thoughts on this thread during the past hour.
I see that J.B. has defaulted to 97-98. I pray that he is correct. 97-98 averaged +2.20 Nino, the ECMWF is closer to 3.00 for this coming winter.
As most realize, we are in a serious to extreme, drought. To prevent hardship for many in our society, we need lots of rainfall or melted snow over an extended period of time.
I pray for a repeat of 97 - 98 because it was the wettest winter of any of 9 strong Nino's back to 1950. I received 22.62" of rain and melted snow compared to a normal 8.40" of precip. in DJF. Regarding snowfall in 97-98, 33 inches was 9 inches above normal for Augusta County.
Regarding NAO or AO for Augusta snowfall ?? The NAO doesn't seem to be really important, but the AO should be firmly negative according to historical observations. During 97-98 the AO averaged -2.00 and the NAO averaged about -.30".