BlizzardWx

That's fair. I think the tri-monthly is around -0.9 eyeballing it.

Thanks for the comments. I do think we will get our turn down here in January or early February.

As of the 7th I had the RONI at -0.97.

Per Roundy the warm pool near the MC continues to move east. One would think, especially if this continues, the default forcing may shift east as well.

Do you see any decent winter weather opportunities for the southern plains moving forward?

I was thinking some more about the question of where do you want to focus on for the VP. I assume the ITCZ location is the main driver of that, which obviously varies a lot and isn't always +/- 5 degrees. The map I posted earlier kind of shows this too with much of the stronger forcing south of the equator near the MC. I'm also thinking more about the idea of the raw VP vs anomalies. Since the water is always warmest near the MC isn't having a standing wave there in the raw the climatology we would always expect? Like doesn't that almost always exist? And anomalies might be more useful because they show the deviations from that standing wave? I don't know, just thinking a lot this morning If you use the equator to 10S band it looks MC focused the next week, then becoming more incoherent.

I see you used the +/- 5 latitude VP. I know some sites use a broader area like +/- 15 degrees and with anomalies. Do you find this selection to be the most relevant? I'm still wading my way into understanding the MJO better. I attached some GEFS plots for the current precip and VP anomalies. I think a good chunk of what might be more 7-8 forcing is below 5 S with the record warm temperatures off of Australia. But I definitely see the 4-6 forcing within the +/- 5 latitude band too.

I know MJO 7 is supposed to become more favorable later in December compared to early in the month or November, but I am worried that the extended jet (relating to what you were mentioning in the west Pacific) will continue to keep things out of phase with expectations. I guess we will see.

The pattern we have coming up does not have many historical matches comparing it to past Decembers. I'm not exactly sure how to generalize it, but to me it almost appears that the lower latitudes portion of the pattern (say 25-40 N) is shifted east of where you would expect it given the polar configuration. It's a strange to, for example, have robust ridging for 2/3 of the country downstream of the -WPO block like we see days 10-15 in current guidance. I think this may be related to the strong Pacific jet disrupting what would otherwise be a better pattern.

I can't disagree with you there. But if we could push the trough west a bit and allow for just a hint of offshore ridging (off the east coast) like the MJO map shows, it would slow the storm track down and give a better chance of snow for many. So impressively cold for some yes, but we have got to get some moisture with an improved storm track or it hardly matters.

Really makes you wonder if the extended range guidance is going to be doing some hard corrections in the next week or two. Clearly at least somewhat at odds with what the MJO would say for that time of year.

That is interesting for sure! In my area its the first part of the month that has been warmer with a flat temperature trend for the 2nd half of the month. This may be the coldest first half of December here in some time.

The pattern in place is becoming deeply entrenched with the widespread deep snow cover across Canada and the tendency for the PV (or at least a piece of it) to want to sit over Hudson Bay. For a variety of reasons I think the general pattern in place now will want to stick around in some form for a while. I know the EPS weeklies have been insistent on shifting things west late in the month but I have my doubts, and even then the cold doesn't really go south it's mostly just in Canada. I certainly wish we could change some aspect of the pattern because otherwise my area stays dry. For me I need some help from the subtropical jet or for the polar jet to pull in a cutoff low when it breaks south. In ninas, I climatologically do better in January and February anyway so I guess we will see.

Dry with lots of up and down cold my way with that pattern. I'd like to see even some rain at this point.

Increasing support for a temporary weakening of the PV mid month. At least enough to keep it from being too strong for now but its still going for near normal strength by January.