Stormchaserchuck1

Kind of a wide range, but a lot of recent years are probably good analogs. I guess weed out the El Nino's and La Nina's. In the last 30 years though, global ACE is 70% of normal, while Atlantic ACE is something like 185% (and Atlantic is included in global number!). So although warm Atlantic SSTs and no El Nino may make some want to go aggressive, it's important to remember that globally more storms are not correlating with global warming over the last few decades..

ENSO models going near Neutral for the season.. We saw a major warming trend a few weeks ago, but that since waned big time: ENSO Subsurface is still negative.. so Neutral continues to be highest probability for the coming season... difference since 1995 is: ~20 NS La Nina, ~16 NS Neutral, ~12 NS El Nino.

Washington DC could make a run at or above 90F sometime around 4/4-7. It's amazing how forecasted long range -NAO tendency (March Stratosphere warming +time "downwelled") has run so warm in the East over the last few years. We had the warmest winter on record last year (23-24) with 4 separate Stratosphere warming events. -NAO potential at Day 15+ has almost always run with higher temps in the eastern, US, to verification time lately. That's why last Summer I was seeing +NAO potential for this Winter (24-25) as possibly a cold signal.. and it was! It often linked up with -EPO/+PNA/-AO!

With the Western US ridge really overperforming today (Portland almost hit 80*), Models really trended warmer in the medium range for the US, with that being initialized. Really amped this +NAO/+EPO pattern, maybe something near 90* around here isn't so far away. Apr 4-7 looks warm, if not hot.

If you remember, we had record warm SSTs across the Atlantic early last Hurricane season. I made that chart in February 2024 I think, and it was smoothed out, so the cutoff had to be 2023. But if you include last year, it would look like this:

For the 777th post, I'll say it's going to be 77* on April 7th. https://ibb.co/pjWYBwg9

That's just the Gulf Stream shifted a little south.

In other news, we continue to get warm US conditions in warm Stratosphere, and cold conditions in cold Stratosphere. You would say that makes sense, but it's main effect at the surface is AO/NAO. The NAO has a 0.5 temperature correlation in the eastern 2/3 of the US.. negative (warm Stratosphere +time) being cold, and positive (cold Stratosphere 0-time) being warm. Last Winter we had the warmest Winter on record for CONUS and it was during 4 Stratosphere warmings. The mean for the Winter was +500dm at 10mb. This Winter the opposite occurred, -500dm 10mb, but now after this March Stratosphere warming, in the allotted time where it's suppose to have NAO correlation, we have a major SE ridge signal on models, and possibly 80s. Another point is this -NAO correlation with SE ridge after the coldest day of the year (Jan 27th). For the last few years, the NAO has anomalously low correlation to it's usual tendencies in the late Winter/early Spring. I've found that even "potential -NAO events" (like a "downwelled" Stratosphere warming, or MJO wave cycle) have occurred with a flexed SE ridge in that time.

The AMO is still near the high peak of its positive cycle. For now, it's not in a descending state, it's sustaining or slightly continuing to increase. There is an overlap between the AMO and NAO. When the NAO is positive there is a -0.3 correlation to Atlantic SSTs. This is what happened last Summer - it wasn't that we were cooling because of an oncoming -AMO state, it was cooling because we had a near record +NAO occurring. If you think we will see more +NAO in the future, associated with Solar Max, that could be a cooler AMO.. It's around the timeframe now where decadal states have shifted, but I just don't see the "first Wave down" happening yet. Here is a chart going through 2023 of the current +phase

Nice SE ridge showing up on models April 5-7. We could break the 80s sometime around those days.

+PNA has really correlated with cold this year! It's underrated. That's what we need going forward (next Winter).

I can definitely see the strongest ridge being over the west coast this Summer.

Close to some flurries here! Hopefully this cooler trend associated with +PNA carries into next Winter.

Surprised no one mentioned the 18z GFS snows on us like 6 different times. It probably won't happen but the Stratosphere warming occurring now is going to create some more neutral conditions toward the end of the month to possibly keep us cooler.

^We were a -NAO away from having a good Winter pattern, it would have pushed the mean trough SW. Instead we had +NAO (SLP difference in the N. Atlantic between the Azores and south of Iceland), and it kept everything progressive. It's a shame we had -60dm 50/50 low, favorable Pacific, and really so little snow.. although places down south had average.