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La Nina or not, no meaningful fires this year out here with the relatively cold/wet Summer. I like to speak with farmers and ranchers before I do my forecasts. The state looks somewhat healthier than the drought monitor would imply for vegetation with short-term increases in soil moisture. If you've never left the East, we call this first picture "the night sky".

If you look at the forecasts for the North Pacific, the next big Kamchatka low around 10/27 is forecast to move/obliterate the recent very persistent North Pacific high placement. That would translate using the Bering Sea Rule to a big pattern change for the US around 11/13-11/17. My analogs had a big pattern flip ~11/15 when I did my winter outlook. I'm inclined to believe the the 10/27 low off Kamchatka is real, as is the following change in the North Pacific. But it's obviously speculative until we get closer.

Next time frame is 11/6-11/10 for NM/CO (10/20, +17-21 days) with the low today SE of Kamchatka. This one is way south of the other one, likely better for NM. The storm in a week by Kamchatka is shown to move that stupid North Pacific high around 10/27. That's your big mid-Nov pattern change if it verifies.

The storm shown in a week or so in the same spot as the one today south of Kamchatka is forecast on some runs to move that damned north Pacific high for a while. That's your mid-Nov pattern change via the Bering Sea Rule if it happens (10/27, +17-21 days for the pattern change). The Kamchatka storm today lines up well with my analogs which had a good snow signal locally around 11/8 (10/20, +17-21 days). Had mentioned mid-Nov for a pattern flip in my outlook from 10/11.

Jim Sullivan again for the second half of the video.

Nate Mantua sent out the new PDO value for September today. 2021 PDO Index monthly values: January -0.16 February -0.54 March -1.17 April -0.91 May -0.94 June -1.18 July -1.87 August -1.12 September -1.53 Last September was -0.7. Look familiar? Btw, most -PDO for September since 2012. Similar to 9/2011 (-1.79).

What are you talking about? https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/pna.data 1988 0.03 1.37 0.38 1.12 0.61 1.31 1.60 -0.62 -0.97 0.89 0.11 0.33 1989 -1.57 -1.71 -1.56 -0.77 -0.04 -0.56 -0.59 -0.27 0.41 -1.08 -0.70 0.57 Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 01SEP2021 20.7-0.1 24.7-0.2 26.4-0.3 28.4-0.2 08SEP2021 20.8 0.1 24.7-0.1 26.5-0.2 28.3-0.3 15SEP2021 20.7-0.0 24.6-0.3 26.4-0.3 28.2-0.4 22SEP2021 21.1 0.4 24.7-0.2 26.5-0.2 28.2-0.5 29SEP2021 21.2 0.5 24.8-0.2 26.2-0.5 27.9-0.7 06OCT2021 20.9 0.1 24.7-0.3 26.1-0.6 27.9-0.7 13OCT2021 20.7-0.2 24.4-0.7 26.0-0.8 28.1-0.5 I'm on board with the government now - we're at 26.0C. That's cold enough for a La Nina to me. About two months later than last year though. Still running warm of last year each zone. 02SEP2020 20.1-0.6 23.9-1.0 26.0-0.7 28.3-0.4 09SEP2020 19.6-1.1 23.9-1.0 26.1-0.6 28.3-0.3 16SEP2020 20.0-0.7 24.0-0.9 26.0-0.7 28.2-0.4 23SEP2020 20.2-0.5 24.0-0.9 25.9-0.8 28.1-0.5 30SEP2020 19.9-0.8 24.3-0.6 25.9-0.8 27.9-0.7 07OCT2020 20.0-0.8 24.0-1.0 25.8-0.9 27.9-0.7 14OCT2020 20.6-0.3 24.0-1.1 25.6-1.2 27.8-0.8 Looks like the Peruvian fishermen will win again. The cooling below the surface looks like it is about to stop. Should translate to coldest readings at the surface in 2-4 weeks after the cooling stops. Then the La Nina begins a slow death. We've been following the 2011 most closely of the years when that data exists. The timing of an imminent reversal (1-3 weeks I think) is on schedule with 2011.

It's forecast to be a 999 mb low at the surface on one of the models I saw. Not too bad really. I think with the PDO so negative at the moment a lot of these "Bering Sea" translations are going to be somewhat north of where they would be normally in the West, although the jet shifts south with time. From the local NWS - Strong winds aloft rounding the base of an eastward moving upper low, currently over south central NV, will overtake our area tonight into Tuesday morning as the low continues east into CO. Breezy to windy conditions are developing across our area ahead of the upper low, as a lee side trough deepens to 999mb at the surface. My matching precipitation analogs to each month of July-June 2020-21 in Albuquerque did pretty well for the monsoon (I created a blend that was within 0.2 inches of observed precipitation each month for an entire year, and rolled it forward). Will be curious to see how that continues or breaks. Years included 1937-38 for 2020-21, so 1938 had the hurricane hit on New England, similar to this year. Have to see if I can find the image I have of that blend somewhere.

Going into this winter,one thing I looked at was anti-logs. So this is a La Nina after a La Nina. My idea was what do El Nino after El Nino winters look like, flipped? I threw out 'three year' El Ninos. This is only second year events of a two year sequence with the sign flipped. October for El Nino after El Nino years, flipped, are a strong opposite match to this year, which is what you'd expect conceptually. For winter, El Nino after El Nino flipped implies a cold NW US winter. We'll see.

One thing I looked at last year was the WPO state in La Nina Octobers and then the following winters. These are "meaningfully" positive or negative WPO years since 1950. -WPO October La Ninas: 1954, 1974, 1984, 1988, 1995, 1999. You can throw in "near-La Ninas" 1959, 1966, 1967, 1978, 1981, 1996, 2001, 2012 too. It's not a not super common look though. Last year was -1.18 in October. Whether you include the near years or not, the signature is for a cold spot in the interior West (Great Basin). I had a similar look to that, but it the cold was centered SE of where I had it, by TX rather than Utah. +WPO October La Ninas: 1950, 1955, 1956, 1964, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1983, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2017. The "near-La Ninas" of 1960, 1961, 1962, 1980 too. The +WPO Octobers have the Southern and Eastern US warm and a tiny cold spot in the Northwest (Montana to WA). It's a essentially a classic -PDO signature. Assuming the WPO finishes positive this month, will be interesting to see if we go to the latter composite. That's essentially what I forecast for the winter.

October has switched to matching the "year after cold Nino 4 correlation" after Aug-Sept were complete opposite. Suspect this is due to the WPO switching phases in Sept to Oct. The green areas on top are positive correlations. So cold Nino 4 a year earlier favors cold. The blue areas are negative correlations - cold Nino 4 favors warm areas. You can see for October, the Midwest is warm as it should be via the correlation. West and South cold/mild. For November a cold / mild spot is possible in the South (similar to what I forecast) if we stay with the Nino 4 correlation + a year working. December is you guessed it: Cold in New Mexico after a cold Nino 4 December if the match holds.

Still a basin-wide "weak center" La Nina to me. What I mean by that is the coldest waters are right by Peru and also west of 160W. Center zone, 140W at the equator is a bit weaker than the edges if anything. That warmth SW of Mexico is a major hindrance for the northern part of the Nino zones to get too cold though.

This is what I have for winter. It's 60 slides, but I promise lots of pictures and charts. https://t.co/qpg8wV8Cmw?amp=1

I linked to my outlook in the other section if anyone is curious. Should be an interesting winter.

I have a chart in my winter outlook showing how close Nino 3, 3.4, 4 temperatures are to a 1967, 2001, 2011 blend in 2021 if anyone is curious. It's right near the front of it. Also went into a lot of detail at the end about how I scored analogs and what could wrong with the outlook. https://t.co/qpg8wV8Cmw?amp=1

https://t.co/qpg8wV8Cmw?amp=1 General Idea: - Some blocking present again (likely Dec/Mar, brief periods Nov, Jan-Feb too) - Temp pattern reflects -PDO looks - Solar incorporated I have temperature maps by month with different weightings of the five year blend I used for winter overall (1961-62, 1974-75 (x2), 2001-02, 2017-18 (2), 2020-21). Analogs have fluky snow events deep into the South each year. February is expected to be both snowy and tornadic, and I like Feb-Mar as snowy for most of the Northern US compared to averages. I went cold again in February. But the overall look is pretty different to last year. There is a strong signal for several major cold waves reaching at least parts of the Southwest (NM/TX) at times. This is 60-slides, but around 40 have pictures or charts. It's not just me blathering. Regarding ENSO strength at the surface, this is what I used to justify a weak event despite the cold below the surface. It's a bit fuzzy below, but clearer at the link.

The big drop off in SSTs this week likely is from CPC switching data sources. For the 1951-2010 period, 26.50C is average in Nino 3.4 We're not 0.5C below that yet on the weeklies. Still running well warm of last year to the east, and somewhat warm of last year in Nino 4. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf Starting this week, the weekly sea surface temperature data is based on OISSTv2.1 (Huang et al., 2021). This impacts slides #4-9. The source data is available at this link. Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 01SEP2021 20.3-0.2 24.7-0.3 26.5-0.3 28.4-0.3 08SEP2021 20.7 0.2 24.6-0.3 26.4-0.4 28.5-0.3 15SEP2021 20.6 0.2 24.3-0.6 26.3-0.4 28.4-0.4 22SEP2021 20.6 0.2 24.5-0.4 26.4-0.3 28.2-0.5 29SEP2021 20.5-0.0 25.1 0.3 26.8 0.0 28.2-0.6 06OCT2021 20.7 0.1 24.7-0.2 26.1-0.7 28.0-0.7 02SEP2020 18.9-1.7 23.6-1.4 25.8-0.9 28.4-0.4 09SEP2020 19.5-1.0 23.4-1.4 25.7-1.0 28.5-0.3 16SEP2020 20.0-0.4 23.6-1.3 25.9-0.8 28.2-0.5 23SEP2020 19.6-0.8 23.6-1.2 25.7-1.0 28.1-0.6 30SEP2020 20.1-0.4 23.8-1.1 25.6-1.1 27.9-0.8 07OCT2020 19.5-1.1 23.4-1.5 25.5-1.2 27.8-0.9

I'm pretty similar to what you have. I've actually finished my outlook but even though I sent it to my home email from work it hasn't arrived yet. Have to try again Monday if it doesn't arrive later today. I arrived at a severe cold snap in February in four independent ways in my outlook: - Objective most similar matches for La Ninas in Albuquerque for high temps and precipitation Jan-Sept (Feb 1939, 1951, 1955, 1972, 2011, 2021 blend) - Similar solar/MJO/ENSO matches - Februaries following severe Plains centered cold Februaries. I used Feb 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 as a proxy blend for last year and then rolled forward a year to see if Feb 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019 looked like my analogs or had a cold February. - Actual analogs I like overall are pretty cold February. For me, warmth in November is a key feature ahead of the November cold snaps. Since at least the late 70s, the super-duper cold Februaries in the Plains have tended to feature very Novembers with a +WPO, +AO, +NAO look. I do think November turns pretty cold late in the month. But should be pretty warm overall. Even last November, warm as it was, started to get cold in the West at the end of the month.

Date Tahiti (hPa) Darwin (hPa) Daily Contribution 30 day Av. SOI 90 day Av. SOI 9 Oct 2021 1012.98 1009.70 2.51 10.87 9.55 8 Oct 2021 1014.42 1009.50 13.08 11.04 9.69 That supports something around 10/19. Have to see if it drops again tonight.

I finished my winter outlook earlier today. I tried to send it from work to my computer at home to post it and save it here but it hasn't arrived yet. I was looking at Nino 4 earlier too. From May 2020 to July 2021, Nino 4 was cooling year over year. Now it is flat/warming. My basic take is if Nino 4 was still cooling y/y this probably would be a La Nina Modoki. But since it doesn't seem to be cooling anymore, the coolest area will not be Nino 4. Essentially, Nino 4 is riding on the coat tails of last year. The cool down that was ongoing at this time last year was way more impressive given that Nino 4 was near record warmth as late as early 2020 (literally warmer than 1997-98 as an example). With warmth below the western edge of Nino 4 and less cold at the surface, and Nino 4 no longer cooling y/y, I just don't see a Modoki look developing like we had briefly late last winter. Enough cold will come up to cool off Nino 1.2/3 eventually, and some of that will get to Nino 4 late winter. But the cold that comes up has to cool off Nino 1.2/3 to the levels of last year before Nino 4 has a shot at getting cooled off a lot.

I'm not expecting this winter to drop below 25.50C in Nino 3.4 If that's the case, we'll have gone every winter since 2010-11 without a La Nina below 25.5C - one of the longer time frames for that since 1950. There were some widespread rains over western NM and Arizona on 10/5-10/6 - that exact time showed up as a favored storm date in the Southwest in my analogs, so I think my outlook is on the right track with the timing variables I use. I've mentioned 2011 a lot in this thread for similar La Nina development. Let me give some reasons why I don't particularly like it as an analog for actual weather: 1) MJO timing is a bit off. We were at the 4/5 border on 10/1. For 2011, the MJO was at 5/6 on 10/1. 2) No Gulf Hurricanes. I don't mean US landfalls...I mean any hurricanes. At all. That's pretty weird and I don't like what it says about how the Atlantic is behaving. Probably not coincidentally, the AMO was also negative in winter 2011-12. Not looking that way this year. 3) 2011 was very cold in the Northwest in June (remember the 120s in Canada this past June?). When it did get hot int he Northwest in 2011, in September, it was fairly cool in 2021. 4) Arctic Sea Ice extent was considerably higher at the minimum value in 2021, despite following a much lower minimum year. On balance, that means Arctic patterns were more favorable for sea ice retention for a full year from 9/2020 (3.8m square km min) to 9/2021 (4.7m square km min) then from 9/2010 (4.6m square km min) to 9/2011 (4.3m square km min), especially given the warming up there since 2010. Long-term the lowest sea ice extent minimums are pretty correlated to the WPO in winter. It's not hard to find similarities to 2011 though - 1) Second year La Nina winter 2) warmer than preceding winter in Nino 3.4 3) rising solar activity 4) similar subsurface development (warm Spring before cooling) 5) record precipitation Summer Northeast in a year with tropical storm hitting NE US 6) very negative PDO My guess is 2011 will be a decent match to US precipitation patterns for a while (I'd give it a B for that) with the PDO state similar and the La Nina developing in a similar way. But I don't think it's going to be a good analog at all for temperatures. If you look nationally, it's definitely one of the best matches in the past century for precipitation in September.

Have to be careful with assuming the subsurface cold will translate fully to the surface. September 1983 was 26.2C in Nino 3.4 like this year. But the subsurface was -2.15 in September, much colder than this year. Still only a 26.0C event in winter. The coldest reading was 25.40C in November 1983 with that La Nina. The warmth in the PMM area and then by Indonesia (at and below the surface) also are going to get mixed in with the cold coming up at some point. Given how closely the subsurface has mimicked 2011 for Jan-Sept, the warm up below the surface should begin around Halloween, give or take two weeks. My guess would be November / December coldest at the surface again and then fairly rapid decay starting late January.

BAM for comparison. The joke with last winter is it'd be near impossible to be much warmer than December or much colder than February on a national basis. So two thirds of the winter forecast trend are kind of known already on a y/y basis.

Objective best matches for January-September highs and precipitation in Albuquerque heading into La Nina winters...rolled forward to February. Local blend of these six averages eight days 10F or colder, with two of the eight days 20F or colder. I'm warmer than this nationally, but it is fairly similar to what I have in my real analogs for February.

Might as well mention this here: Nino 3, Nino 3.4, and Nino 4 have tracked very similarly to a blend of 1967, 2001, 2011 at the surface for January-September. When you roll the blends forward, you get the following for winter. 24.95C in Nino 3 (-0.65C v. 1951-2010) 25.95C in Nino 3.4 (-0.55C v. 1951-2010) 28.00C in Nino 4 (-0.10C v. 1951-2010) Nino 1.2 has been running warm of the blend all year, and September was close to +0.5C v. the blend in Nino 3. So if anything, Nino 3 may be somewhat warmer than what I have. At some point, these blends will break - but right now actual data keeps coming in slightly warmer than the blend. So there is space for quite a bit of cooling when the cold water does reach the surface. At this point, I see no reason for the blend not to hold for the La Nina structure through at least December. I have a table showing the similarities of the three years to 2021 for the three zones in my outlook, I'll link it in a few days. Last winter was similar in Nino 3, colder in Nino 3.4 (25.58C) and Nino 4 (27.32C).