@frd this is just a hunch and I probably won't articulate this well enough although I will try, but one of the things that has me most hopeful right now is that I kind of have the gut feeling we are experiencing the worst pattern winter has to throw at us and yet its muted and not that bad. We are going through the same basic progression we are used to early season except the results are muted by this years base state fighting back in a positive way imo. There are some similarities to last year, only this year the MJO was muted and didnt go ape through warm phases. The background state seems more conducive to blocking episodes either from the EPO side or NAO side. Last year the pattern did improve, I know it didnt live up to high expectations but we did get a decent amount of snow in January and February. This year when some of the typical season progression happens and things "improve" along with our climo just getting more favorable...I have a feeling we will get a pretty good pattern at some point.