Stormchaserchuck1

A lot of models are showing above average temps just about everywhere in the CONUS for the Summer.. they had 80% of the country above average for DJF though, and it ended up being 70% below average.. not a perfect science, but it seems like a lot is favoring a hotter than average Summer. SW, US heat ridge is expected to really pick up in a few weeks, and that's usually a leading indictor to weather further east +months time.

Yeah, overall the SSW underperformed a bit wrt to below average temps in the East and Europe.

Very cool. Nice pictures. Your trip to the UP of Michigan was probably my favorite. They had one heck of a LES season.

I'll have to do a write up in the next few days, now that US climate division data has updated.. I actually did good on methodology, but it didn't translate at the surface to -PNA (SE ridge), so that was my flaw. Natural Gas though jumped 60% this Winter, so if you went with the CPC's cooler forecast, you could have made money.

I think we had 3 record breaking storms last year, for how strong they got east of 40W at that time of the year. It's no surprise SSTs have cooled off this year, after a La Nina.

Here is how Dec - March 24-25 compares with 13-14 It was relatively the 2nd coldest Dec - Feb in the eastern 1/2 of the CONUS since 13-14 though. I do get that "cool analog" correlation

90-day SOI is near +9.. here's how that rolls forward to following years ENSO Pretty good North Pacific High (+NOI) correlation

Weak

Well I got barely any rain out of this nor'easter. It was suppose to last for 4 days, and it was only 2 days. It seems like the overall dry pattern is still in effect, where the best chance at good rains comes from a SE ridge and low pressure coming in from the west and thunderstorms.

I don't disagree that that SE ridge has been stronger than usual.. it was really bad 3 Winter's ago, but the last 2 years when Greenland blocking happened, it has actually happened with a cooler pattern. The one big anomaly being this February, but there was a really strong low pressure in the Atlantic at 50N (the -AO was too far north, over the North Pole). However, I do think if the CPC NAO goes the direction it has in the Spring/Summer/Fall in the coming Winter's than we will see more benchmark storms and snow. A general warming is definitely occurring, but I'm not ready to connect it to SE ridge, since SE ridge is in play with a number of factors, where something like a Southwest, US High pressure is more independent.. I think a globe warming should be warming the west coast the most.

Another really high correlation is state of the AO and benchmark storms. I will give this one to bluewave.. that lately this one has not been hitting, although you can see it's kind of mutable, where NAO is right on the coast.

10mb warming still going strong on April 10th... making it 32 straight days! (1st day was March 10th)

One of the biggest anomalies is how the Southeast, US (north of Florida) has stayed shielded from landfalling tropical systems, since year 2000, when the Atlantic activity has been well above average during that time. Until last year, that was because of a trough pattern over the East in the late Summer.. then last year a heat ridge developed for the first time in a long time and stayed there for 2 months.. finally in September the pattern broke down, and it got cooler in the east, when tropical activity started heating up, peaking in October. It will be interesting to see if we see some semblance of last Summer this year, and if it may time better with Atlantic tropical activity.

I guess you have it stuck in your head, the 12/20 times it didn't happen vs the 500/784 that I'm pointing out it did. My point is that the NAO is strongly correlated with benchmark low pressure systems. And that we've had 14 straight +NAO Winters in a row. That's all.

Your issue is with the CPC and how they measure the NAO. I've been impressed though over the last few Winters - their methodology has correlated with X conditions over the east coast more than what happens over Greenland and the Davis Strait. Many times in the last few years we had a SE ridge with Greenland block, but their index says it's positive during that time. You might say there is something wrong with that, but the methodology has nothing to do with the east coast. In other words, Greenland block is correlating -0.4, but their methodology has been at -0.6 to -0.7, for something independent. Like I said, it's a specific measure of sea-level pressure over the North Atlantic ocean, which is not always completely connected to Polar blocking.