40/70 Benchmark

Having insight into the fact that the consensus forecast for a big winter last year failed is one thing, but claiming that there were no data to support such an outcome in the first place is incorrect.

Right...it was just so immensely frustrating that people treat it like one. Losing by one every night can be perceived as badly or worse than getting blown out with regularity.

Good luck this year. I have really come to appreciate your work and have learned a great deal from it. I do not expect a blockbuster in Boston, so we agree there.

Bottom line is none of us have a great grasp on the ling range.

I would love some early season love..off from work until 12/9 starting tonight.

Shift last season a bit se, and it would have been good. It has incorrectly gotten associated with some pretty awful seasons by people staring at the KBOS seasonal total on an excel file....but it really was not like those years. Don't get me wrong..consensus forecast of banner year bombed, but it was not an awful pattern...more a serviceable pattern during which southern New England was snake bitten.

I disagree. 1) Things do not look bad. 2) "Ratter" implies a pretty anomalously bad outcome, which is never "50/50..its like declaring a 50/50 shot that Boston sees 100". Always silly.

I agree regarding CPC potentially missing the boat on the late nino, but it will be close. Not sure I agree that a weak el nino will be worse for Boston, but it should be marginal and relatively late, so probably won't make a huge difference either way. I don't understand the logic behind the idea of low solar being bad for snow around here....doesn't mean its definitely wrong, but until I wrap my mind around causation, any statistical evidence is chaos due to sample size imo. I know some of the seasons in your data set, like 2010, could have easily played out much better snowfallwise. Even 2007 had a pretty big ending not too far north.

February 2007, 1995 and 2010 are all patterns that I would take another roll of the dice with, though.

Looks like a healthy dose of NAO/EPO, but meager PNA...don't disagree.

Fall of 2006 had some toasty region 1.2 readings, though I think that you are right in that both ended up moderately modoki.

Pretty nice look...

Yea, used ENSO warm-neutral and weak el nino.

Yea, I never engage in the debate over whether eastern regions need to be below +.50, or whether the west just needs to be warmer. I let the Japanese do the calculations and plug them in.

I'd keep an eye on the MEI....it was +.30 as of AS value. SO should be higher.

@psuhoffman

Note regarding 2014-2015...it actually started more basin wide, and trended into a modiki. There were some pretty toasty eastern regions late summer/early fall...but by peak ONI that had changed. This one is evolving differently...opposite evolution.

I see the guidance...I think it will be close with a very late peak ONI. The fact that it will be marginal and late do have ramifications on the forecast...whether or not it technically registers as official el nino is probably trivial. This is baked into the outlook.

And btw, I do not think that this season offers the most pristine of patterns.

@psuhoffman very good point. Easy to drive yourself crazy, and dillute what is an already paltry sample size of data by endeavoring to assign more specific criteria in binning ENSO events. I have always interpreted the data as moderate el nino favoring mid atl most (stronger STJ, more miller a) and weak favoring sne most (More n stream dependent..miller b). Modoki is just better for the east coast in general because the central PAC source of forcing teleconnects to a weaker PAC jet, more PAC ridging and polar blocking. As far as modoki goes, I believe that it is best not to crudely designate or generalize as either modoki or cannonical, but rather utilize a sliding scale akin to that which is utilized to assess intensity/ONI....ie +1.0 modoki value is strongly modoki, +.50 to +1.0 is moderately modoki, and under +.50 minimally modoki hedging towards cannonical. Very few events register as negative, but those that do are also powerful, such as 1982, 1997 and 2015....1976 being the exception, as it was modestly negative and peaked as weak ONI. The catch is that the structure of ENSO is usually relatively fluid, thus assessing and assigning a numeric value at any given, arbitrary point in time is a fool's errand because it provides but a mere snapshot at random point. My aim is to assess this "snapshot" and assign a numerical value to denote its place on the modoki vs cannonical continuum during the apex of its ability to manifest itself into the hemispheric regime and modulate forcing schemes. This is during peak ONI intensity, which will also usually coincide with maximum bimonthly MEI. IOW, if the el Nino peaks during the OND tri monthly period, calculate the mean of those three monthly modiki values to assign a seasonal value. Remember this...generalizations and meteorology do not mix well, especially within the context of this burgeoning frontier science referred to as seasonal forecasting. Always keep an open mind and be ready for anything. The moment that your throught processes become too rigid, you fail and fail badly, as I did last season.

Everyone was whacking it to the big nor easter last week.

Don't completely agree...

I'm not trying to drive hype...not forecasting 100"+ in Boston..main take away from that is that odds of a ratter are relatively low.