Krs4Lfe

Im just saying that if La Niña is truly front loaded and somehow we escape Jan without any meaningful snow; it wouldn’t bode well for the back half of winter.

That sounds terrible. If 8” of snow in NYC is the best this winter has to offer and the backside is worse, then we’re looking at a near ratter. The cold has been impressive though. Just wish there were more opportunities coming for snow. December was amazing; would be nice for January to have continued that trend.

They rushed the pattern change. The pattern will become colder around 1/11 no doubt. But the thaw is very powerful and very warm and it’ll take significant cold to make these areas below normal temps for January. Cold is only one step towards creating snow chances. Still nothing to look forward to on the horizon

BAM is honking about a warmer than expected "thaw" says it might persist longer than originally expected. Still expecting a flip to cold afterwards but even they admit this thaw has some teeth

That's how you know we're down bad. Not just us, but extreme inactivity across the US during peak climo. It's rare to not even see fantasy snow showing up. Either we have a huge flip and a return to storminess towards mid month or we're pushing into some rare territory

Outside of ratter winters, I've never seen such low prospects for snow for this area in the heart of January. Very reminiscent of 2020, 2023, 2012. That being said, we've had as much snow as entire winter 2024, all of winter 2023, all of winter 2020, and all of winter 2012. So it's very unlikely we end up in ratter territory unless we see no more snow for the rest of the season. But unless we have a massive turnaround at some point this month, winter has taken a vacation from the US. Just mild and warm as far as the eye can see

I know it sounds funny but it probably is the reason

We’re almost all above normal at normal for now. Give it a week or so or two weeks and we’re all below normal. Never seen almost compete dryness for most of US in January. A sight to behold

While some change to the weeklies is likely, La Nina’s are rarely cold in February. La Nina’s are very front loaded and usually torch the east by February. A SSW could bring some cold after February (regardless of the ENSO state) but Februarys in La Nina’s are notoriously warm.

The cold during 2014 and 2015 was very impressive. January 2018 as well. A few other periods since then have been mighty cold. 2014 and 2015 were amazing back to back winters. Could you even imagine something like that happening these days?

That's the biggest reason as to why there is no meaningful storminess in the foreseeable future and why winter has been limited to the midwest and northeast. The STJ is non existent, the pacific flow is too fast so the Northern stream can't link up with the non-existent southern stream (so no amplification). Even during our ratter winters we see some large storms somewhere. January 2025, January 2024, February 2021, January 2015 all had sharp returns to larger storms and widespread wintry precipation after a mild previous month. But January 2026 is looking high and dry for all of us

Yeah the West US through North New England did well but aside from that, most of the winter was very mild for most of the US. But even in ratter winters like that, someone usually performs well (like the west in 2024 and 2020) but here, it doesn't look like anyone is going to perform well with such a dry January on the way. Cold, yes (not deep cold but probably cold enough). Precipitation? Looks like the desert out there

I'd expect that to play out pretty well here. It looks like the northern stream will continue to outpace the southern stream and that fast flow pretty much ruins any chance of those amplified solutions actually coming to fruition. While the ENSO state in late January and February appears to mirror 2013-2014, the winter weather outcome will likely be polar opposites.

Prediction: NYC ends up this winter with under 15". Would be 4 in a row, probably a record

Exactly. The northern stream and southern stream need to be timed perfectly in order to amplify without the suppression risks and the cutter risks that we've seen this entire decade (aside from 2021 and January 2022). While we were admittedly spoiled in the 2000s and 2010s, I don't consider this a reversion to the mean, I consider this to be part of a larger climatological problem (though I suppose that's discussion for another thread.)