cbmclean

If this were a Hollywood blockbuster, this is where it would all come together for victory. The TPV and the SER would push on each other just enough to target five straight 30" + storms at you guys. The SE would be like your loyal sidekick taking the bullet (the SER).

I haven't taken a look at the MJO prog's today. Still stalling in 8 or making a move towards 1?

A valid point. On the other hand though, I also think that when phenomena are difficult to understand it is a great temptation to do a knee-jerk grab at some simple causation. But it seems that whenever a forecast does not turn out the way that we expect we want to pull another index out of our hat as an explanation. I am just as guilty as anyone else: NAO, AO, PNA, EPO, ENSO, SOI, PDO, AMO, QBO and now I guess the TNH.

Also, whenever we start talking about cause an effect, we always run into the causation chain problem: what causes the cause? For example, above you mentioned the MJO and ENSO as drivers. But something has to drive them right? I know that a lot of research ink has been spent looking into the hows and whys of ENSO. I for one am being driven crazy by the ineffability of the MJO. Why is it strong some times and weak others? Why does it move fast or slow? Why does it sometime do loop-de-loops. I'm not trying to be pointlessly argumentative. I just have so much desire to understand, and so little knowledge.

While this statement seems intuitive, it is by no means universally agreed upon by scientists and philosophers. Some physical processes may not be causal in the way that we understand. Take radioactive beta decay for an example. We can define with great precision the probability that any given atom will spontaneously decay, but explaining why this atom decays as opposed to the one next to it is a different matter. I'm not just rolling or being silly. I actually think it is a great philosophical point to ponder.

Does it have to have a cause? Many natural process are stochastic in nature. Or put less pretentiously, maybe its just bad luck?

From doing the reading at the CPC site, it doesn't seem that the + phase of the TNH is strongly correlated with warm temperatures in the east. Which is surprising given that it seems to pump the SER. Correlated with cold temperature over much of the rest of the CONUS though.

I find BobChill's silence ominous. I fear he may be working an epic melt rant that will make the paint melt off of my walls just from reading it.

Did we ever actually make it to official El Nino status?

How many -NAO fails does that make this year? Four, five? Man I am going to try very hard to never give two craps about any -NAO being modeled more than a few days away.

Just plain sigh...

Well, the wording of his statement "I take full responsibility for my actions ..." kind of suggests to me that he did something bad to someone else. I could mention the first thing that comes to mind, but it would be baseless speculation. Man, I am bummed I grew up with him.

I am seriously bummed out by this. I wonder what the heck happened.

First I heard of this. What the heck happened?

It amuses me that even with biblical snow in Alabama, it still shows a harsh Wake County gradient. Cold Rain would approve.

You know, this kind of leaves me nervous. Too much wandering around in the really low amplitudes or even the COD.

Not really pertinent, but e20 is an odd distribution.

Seems like you would prefer e13.

PSU, I see what you're trying to do, drag me back in, raise my hopes only to more completely crush them. It won't work this time!

I haven't given up in the sense if stopping tracking. I just mean to say that I think there is a less than say 10% chance for NC outside if the mountains. I'm going to be here to the bitter end rooting for you guys.

This SE weenie isn't falling for it. My towel is still thrown.

Don t know enough to care about DT, but Don S spooks me. Or would if I hadn't thrown the towel in for my area two weeks ago.

Ditto but worse for us in the SE.

What happened up your way in March 2001? I remember back then my local meteorologist mentioning that modelling had been suggesting an impressive NAO block, but that it disappeared (imagine that).

To put it simply you guys have more and better analysis than my home forum. I don't know what it is, but there is a real concentration of snow weenies in DC/Baltimore and environs. Also, while our climatologies are vastly different, a lot of the large scale pattern drivers which impact you are the same for me. Obviously, I need more suppression. Also the opportunity to lurk has allowed me to learn a lot. Hopefully I am not annoying anyone by being here.