40/70 Benchmark

You have their data from March 2001?

I remember those vividly...had like 6" and then 8" to finish the best winter of my life in style.

I do know what you mean on that....unlike other disappointments, like 12-5-03, PD II, 1-29-22 and even 12/96 round two to a degree, I wasn't even close this time. I missed 2' by like 40 miles and the holy grail by like 60 miles. It was only awful because guidance got it up here, and then pulled away at the last moment.

Call it .75" here for a total.

B The fact that I can grade it that highly despite being grazed by an all-timer that ended the season prematurely speaks volumes to how much I appreciated the consistent cold and snowpack.

TBH, we probably would have been better served if it had been a canonical super El Nino, than the strong one that was tainted with cool ENSO residue.

I wasn't even being sarcastic...that's the best way I can describe how I reach my climo snowfall, which is respectable in the aggregate....I take turns getting sloppy-seconds from @dendriteand @TauntonBlizzard2013.

1/2" overnight in addition to the 1/4" yesterday. Please stop.

First 10 days or so I'm balls-deep in the outlook, anyway...then the last 20 days or so I'm just happy to be done and coasting to the holiday season.

Yea, weaker just allows for other influences to have more impact...which aren't necessarily cold influences. Weaker events are just colder on average because they aren't overwhelmingly strong east-based events, and thus have greater variability.

You need to understand why the index is reading what it does, and what it is trying to portray, just like any other index. 1972-1973 is actually a good comp given the -PDO. The only reason the RONi lagged the ONI in 2023 is because there were competing influences that actually made it warmer across the eastern US. "Weaker" is not necessarily "colder".

Take out that west warm pool and I think 2023-2024 would have been in line with the ONI, which was bordered on super-designation. The expression was partially stifled throughout the hemisphere.

I would argue that the 2023-2024 El Nino coupled, but it was partially masked by the prevailing west warm pool, so there was some mixed cool-ENSO like attributes to the pattern.

If El Nino doesn't become exceedingly strong, I wonder if we don't see this same type of warm west/cold east pattern stagnate into next season...a la a 2002-2003 type of warm ENSO.