2025-2026 ENSO

[winter_warlock]

23 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'll be pretty suprised if we don't see at least one round of significant blocking.

Blocking would be nice but we've had  blocking many times with a perfect set up and still storms missed us.   Sometimes  a strong block can actually keep storms too far south.

[anthonymm]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm not sure how you interpret my composites in that manner. It's not a KU cookbook, no....ah, you live in Jersey, so maybe.

Any warm anomaly at all is extremely bad news for snow south of Connecticut.

[MJO812]

46 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

Any warm anomaly at all is extremely bad news for snow south of Connecticut.

I haven't seen one bad winter outlook yet for the east coast. Hopefully that holds.

[chris21]

1 hour ago, anthonymm said:

Any warm anomaly at all is extremely bad news for snow south of Connecticut.

For the coastal plain/piedmont that is true. At my location in extreme NW NC at 4000 feet, we have had many above normal snow years in warm winters. We average at least 45 inches and approximately 80 percent of that comes from upslope. We have never had a winter without at least 20 inches of snow here mostly due to the reliability of upslope even in total dud winters.

[anthonymm]

4 minutes ago, chris21 said:

For the coastal plain/piedmont that is true. At my location in extreme NW NC at 4000 feet, we have had many above normal snow years in warm winters. We average at least 45 inches and approximately 80 percent of that comes from upslope. We have never had a winter without at least 20 inches of snow here mostly due to the reliability of upslope even in total dud winters.

Elevation is cheating yes. 

[Maestrobjwa]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The same can be said every year. If this board were around for the 95-96 and 97-98 winters, I’m sure you would have had people saying 95-96 was going to be a warm and snowless winter because of the Niña and on the flip side, I’m sure you would have had the weenies trying to force a cold and snowy winter for the 97-98 super El Niño. There are biases at play every year

And what would your bias is?

[bluewave]

8 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

There are some posters you just know are never going to deliver good news, and if they ever do, it will be measured and delivered with ample caveats. Seem them post....brace first, read later-

You are a very funny guy and appreciate the levity. But it’s been difficult to sustain any wall to wall DJF -EPO -WPO patterns since 2018-2019.

It was much easier to lock in the -EPOs and -WPOs from December to March in 2013 to 2015 when the WPAC was much colder and the jet stream weaker. This allowed the NEPAC blocking to extend through the season since the weaker jet wasn’t constantly lowering heights with repeated shortwaves eroding the ridge from the west.

As long as we have the enormous WPAC warm pool above and below the surface, the gradient between Siberia and the WPAC will drive these faster jet streams and frequent extensions.

So what we are beginning to see now with the big EPO reversal this month is just a microcosm of the larger pattern since 2018-2019. The EPO reversal last year from late November into December was much more impressive. 

It’s actually been easier to sustain the NEPAC blocking during the summers since 2018 than during the winters. My guess is that this is due to the gradient between Siberia and the WPAC being much weaker during the summer. 

November 2024 into December 2024 -EPO couldn’t lock in and the daily +EPO max in late December was more impressive than the -EPO min in late November. Major Jet max and extension sent multiple shortwaves into the EPO domain lowering heights.

2024 11 20 -168.33
2024 11 21 -243.29
2024 11 22 -258.96
2024 11 23 -229.99
2024 11 24 -222.98
2024 11 25 -212.57
2024 11 26 -174.73
2024 11 27 -153.02
2024 11 28 -130.16
2024 11 29 -105.10
2024 11 30  -81.63
2024 12 01  -43.78
2024 12 02  -14.50
2024 12 03  -35.60
2024 12 04  -34.12
2024 12 05  -14.08
2024 12 06   28.23
2024 12 07   49.16
2024 12 08  -27.22
2024 12 09 -137.55
2024 12 10 -149.44
2024 12 11  -49.79
2024 12 12   35.08
2024 12 13   64.11
2024 12 14   70.96
2024 12 15  -21.55
2024 12 16  -72.62
2024 12 17  -59.81
2024 12 18  -48.59
2024 12 19  -98.46
2024 12 20  -88.76
2024 12 21   -9.80
2024 12 22   99.09
2024 12 23  112.77
2024 12 24  186.45
2024 12 25  280.91
2024 12 26  310.29
2024 12 27  225.40
2024 12 28  135.47
2024 12 29   75.67
2024 12 30   11.94