40/70 Benchmark

Yea, I think my last piles should go today.

Father time is undefeated.

You mean just pack, or including piles? I still have a couple of small mounds left at either side of the end of the driveway.

I thought I recall you posting something to the effect of a "typical front-loaded La Nina winter"? Perhaps I'm mistaken. Yea, I mixed up February and March, but other than that...one of my better efforts in the aggregate.

Yup. We are definitely seeing more variation with fringe-events, though, which is why passing the baton from ONI to RONI was so crucial.

When in doubt, go warm, though...not disputing that. But I'm like that 4th grade math teacher trying to instill the processes of solving long division problem into the class..."make sure you show the work", even if the short-answer could be easily discerned.

Perfect example, RONI and EMI denoted a La Nina that was better established than the traditional ONI would imply, so of some forecasters went warm in the east just based off of that...oops.

Yea, I'm taking about the actual pattern, though....not simply "warm or cold". Obviously warmer is the safe bet....

Eh.....having issued 12 winter seasonal efforts now, I think they still have plenty of utility as long as you make an effort to incorporate climate change into the work. For instance, it's important to understand that what other forces are now competing with ENSO, and the ramifications said forces have on the hemispheric pattern. If you simply interpret a lower RONI as a weaker El Nino and blindly forecast colder because of that....yea, good luck.

Makes that succession of +WPO seasons that we had even more impressive considering we have also had a consistent cool ENSO baseline. No wonder we had such an awful stretch of eastern US winters given that we were ripping off +WPO La Nina events and the strong El Nino that was accompanied by -PDO.

I'm pretty sure we aren't getting a super El Nino.

Yea, this past season already seemed to have behaved more like a +PDO, if anything, despite the continued negative readings.

Chuck, thanks so much. Two questions....I have to assume it's tougher to get the -WPO loading SST pattern ("C") during an El Niño? Secondly, do you have a similar schematic for an EPO correlation? TIA.

My early hunch is it's right, but like I said....we shall see. So, so early...

Do you have an image from this past fall to illustrate how it lead the big -WPO winter?