GaWx

I’ll go only B+ because of the two long torches, the weeklong holiday centered one and the late Feb one that included ridiculously warm highs of 85 and 86. Otherwise, the consistently cold period of Jan 12th-Feb 9th was one of the most pleasurable winter periods ever experienced as a wx hobbyist. Not only was it cold, but there were also 3 weekends in a row of fascinating and unique SE winter storms to generate very enjoyable forecast discussions for full week periods in advance of each. These discussions are always made more interesting when FL is threatened like they were twice. As a big bonus, my area got 3/4” of snow. That’s 4 times the average snowfall in this area and at the 90th percentile of the area’s winter snowfall. Also, that makes two straight winters with measurable snow for the first time since 1988-9 and 1989-90. And as an additional bonus, KSAV tied for its coldest since 2012 with 19 on Feb 1.

Today’s EW have a notably colder signal weeks 3-4 in E US vs yesterday and other recent runs. Maybe these are related to the March 4 SSWE? EW: wk 3 (3/16-22) run 3 days ago: Today’s wk 3: colder E US Yesterday’s week 4 (3/23-29): Today’s week 4: colder E US

This year’s El Niño will very likely become a strong event. Yet another series of strong westerly wind bursts over the central Pacific will trigger a new downwelling Kelvin wave that further suppresses the thermocline in the East Pacific a few months now. https://x.com/webberweather/status/2028468392550924638?

The winter of 2025-6 had only 18 of its 90 days with a WPO >0. That’s the lowest # of days since the very cold winter of 1962-3, which had only 11 (lowest number of any since 1948-9). 1956-7 had only 16. So, 2025-6 had the 3rd lowest. I think 1967-8 is in 4th with 21 of its 91 days >0: https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/wpo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt

Thanks, Charlie. Don’t forget to consider a “relative” RONIlike adjustment downward. That could be ~-0.3C.

Hey Mitch, thanks for doing that. You could go ahead and delete this post if you’d like.

Hey DB, To be efficient, I’ll look at one city, Tulsa, as a good rep of the S Plains. They actually had a NN precip fall. But winter has been dry with only 1.62” vs 5.65” 30 year normal. This was the driest winter there since 2005-6’s 1.59” and second driest on record! Records go back to 1893-4. 1931-2 winter there was wet with 7.7”. Also, Nov of 1931 is the 2nd wettest Nov on record. So, winter of 31-2 didn’t at all foretell the upcoming dust bowl. Then again, 1932 overall ended up dry overall with a very dry Feb-May and Aug-Sep. Also, 1934 and 36 were dry while 1939 was the 6th driest on record. https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=tsa

The E coast is due for a cold April as the last 3 have actually been mild.

The current drought throughout the SE US is serious business! In my area, for example, the last 6 months’ 9.38” were in the aggregate at KSAV the driest Sept-Feb since way back in 1931-2 (though 1931-2 was much drier) and were <50% of the 1991-2020 avg of 19.74”!Driest Sept-Feb KSAV on record:6.52” 1931-2 6.64” 1917-8 7.78” 1901-29.04” 1906-79.06” 1889-909.38” 2025-69.44” 2001-29.55” 1940-119.74” 30 yr avg

Hey suzook, I don’t know if you’ve seen it but latest FFC has only ~68 in your area and only ~62 closer in to ATL due to their stronger wedged E winds for Mon’s highs. CHS has us here similar to your 68 with brisk NE winds from the wedge. But indeed, this with lots of sunshine is still a far cry from the 40s cloudy/cold rain highs in NC.

Thanks, Mitch. This thread is the perfect place. Although we have to take this new CANSIPS run with a huge grain as @snowman19correctly reminded us, it is at least encouraging from my perspective for two reasons: -decent chance at a much lower hurricane season ACE vs recent years in 2026 -next winter’s E US cold potential Regarding next winter, this run for Jan 2027 is colder in practically the entire lower 48 vs the run from one year ago for Jan of 2026: Current 2m run for Jan ‘27…N America has the largest and most intense area of BN on globe (and vs 1981-2010 to boot) and is slightly colder than last month’s run: One year ago’s 2m run for Jan of ‘26…sig. warmer than new run for Jan ‘27:

The NOAA Feb NAO will likely come in between +0.35 and +0.60. That would easily be high enough to give us still another winter without low sunspots/not near a solar minimum without a sub -0.25 NAO as I’m projecting -0.13 to -0.20, which I’d classify as neutral. My def. of neutral is between -0.25 and +0.25. It was headed to sub -0.25 as it was ~-0.45 winter to date as of Feb 14th, but the strong +NAO of the 2nd half of Feb raised the average. So although this was the closest call to finally stopping the non-negative NAO non-low sunspot combo streak, it appears we’ll still be able to say that the only -NAO winters since 1980 (only 6 of them) have been during sub 30 sunspot averaged winters.

EWs: 1. ~100% chance for SSWE Mar 4th 2. Last 2 runs: Week 6, Apr 6-12, is coldest week in absolutes! Not easy to do in spring!

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AAM says here comes El Niño!