cbmclean

Well sure, if we can get some -EPO cold in place and then launch the -NAO, then it's game on. I was more referring to the loss of the -NAO that had been showing up as mentioned by Chuck, was not a huge loss in my opinion, although I'd still rather have it in place than not.

I continue to poo-poo the value of a -NAO in the first half of Dec; it's useless without antecedent cold to block in. Well maybe not useless, but certainly much less useful. That said, I think Chuck's point that it would be nice to see the +NAO base state change is exactly right, and so far, no evidence of seeing that happen.

Lest anyone be in doubt that we are still in a -----PDO Lan Nina basestate take a look at the MJO forecast. It actually did a backwards propagation (often forecasted rarely occurring) in phase 5 and looks poised to do it again in phase 6. Convection REALLY likes to be in Maritime Continent/E Pac.

You calling for less than -16 inches?

We were also colder than advertised but only got to 32.7, seems impossible to freeze this year despite it not being that mild. The tomatoes and peppers still carry on.

I can confirm that Eastern NC has NOT been getting more snow. Last year wasn't bad by our standards though. It made us happy.

That was a historic cold period in Eastern NC. RDU set a record for most consecutive hours below freezing. A pond at a park near my house froze over, which I had never seen in my life before. My PWS recorded 0 °F, and there was shore fast ice at the Outer Banks. Crazy times.

After all the hype, didn't even hit 32.0, much less a hard freeze. My growing season goes on.

Oakwood dominated by... maples?

Feb torch is a classic Nina trademark, and has been extra strong in the recent -PDO regime so I'm expecting a hostile Feb by default. If the E CONUS actually got a cold and productive Dec/Jan, I wouldn't be too broken up abut a mild feb though.

Understood but... The most consistent winter feature in our ---PDO period has been the Xmas torch. The second half of December has been a horror show other than a few notable dry cold periods (including 2017) Of the two "flavors" failure that have dominated recently (SER and Pac Puke), the problem in late December seems to be more Pac Puke. Like clockwork I know somewhere between Dec 5 - 10 a big AK vortex is going to show up on the extended and march toward verification.. Second, a good Nov/early December might not help us, but a bad Nov/early December can surely hurt us. I believe it was 2020-2021 where we had the first extended period of -NAO in a decade and we were all excited, but the preceding November was a +++++++AO cluster and all of NA had no cold air, so the -NAO just blocked in mild a

I think the OP was talking 2016-2017, wasn't he?

What is the physical basis for a hurricane wind of 190 mph being significantly less destructive than a tornado wind of 190 mph?

Any idea what caused this strange temp pattern?

What do you mean?