40/70 Benchmark

This year should be much wetter I would imagine...hopefully El Nino doesn't get too strong.

LET IT GO

I'll take a closer look at March when I do the preview in a couple of weeks....gonna decompress for now. I don't keep my eyes pinned on the long range throughout the season like people may suspect...I tend to just go into snow-hunt mode. I do a deep dive for the outlook, obviously, and then only dip my toes back into it for the monthly previews.

Sorry, Steve. My mother has afib....

It's definitely less likely since we didn't get the SSW, but more than one way to skin a weenie.

It depends on how well coupled the stat and trop are, which is just about impossible to diagnose at a seasonal level. This is why I missed the late January blocking...I nailed the PV intensification through January, but they weren't coupled, so we still had blocking persist.

Really not very warm in NE.

It will def. be a late-spring...that was always a given IMHO. Question remains RE how much snow is left in the balance.

Anyway, good discussion....this is why our threads are awesome.

Yes, it's a final warming, but point is it's not strong at any point in March, either.

Remember, Scott....we don't necessarily need the mother lobe of the PV in close proximity to have a productive March at this latitude. 2018 was a perfect example of that. Now granted, we aren't going to get the major SSW in time like we did that year and I thought we would this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean we won't get another round of stretching. Furthermore, this season has also already very aptly demonstrated a strong predisposition towards high latitude latitude blocking at least excuse imaginable due to the aforementioned strat-solar-ENSO overlay, which is what I meant by adhering to pre-season work. Where was the huge stratospheric smoking gun that triggered the latter January NAO blocking??

We didn't have the MJO constantly flexing in the MC and flatlining in the west Pac at that point.

Sounded like they never saw any chance of a SSW in February, until guidance actually showed it at like 10 days lead. It didn't work out, but my point is that group-think isn't very effective....this stuff isn't often apparent until very short leads. This harkens back to what I said to @Typhoon Tipyesterday, about letting the foundational pre-season work guide you.

Yea, back is brocken, but there remains a functional spine....it's not a paraplegic. I just think you need to be a bit more nuanced in your approach here.

That is February, first of all, second, our coldest weather actually comes from stretches, anyway...as we saw in January.