GaWx

Today’s Euro Weeklies are significantly warmer than the last few for the 3 wks 2/23-3/15

Thank you. Y’all predicting no more snow in y’all’s locations down in the SE US with it looking mild next week and with it getting late are obviously very reasonable predictions. But do you expect any more hard freezes? That and cold in general are obviously part of winter, too. Cold without snow is a lot more common than cold w/snow. Even in this warmer era, an average of 4 freezes in March occurs. Do you expect any March freezes in ATL? TIA

What is your definition of “winter is over”? I read this often from various people as if it’s a black and white thing but without them explaining what they mean. Thanks.

The period Feb 1-7, 2026 was in MJO phase 8 as per this image: Using Baltimore again as a proxy for the E US, Feb 1-7 was the coldest La Nina Feb phase 8 on record in terms of both average anomaly and cumulative anomaly. Keep in mind that -It averaged 9 BN. The prior coldest was 7 BN and that was just a one day period. -The cumulative anomaly was 66 BN over the 7 days. The prior largest cumulative Feb phase 8 La Niña anomaly was only 36 BN, which was over a 9 day period in mid Feb of 1999. Comparing this to other Feb MJO phases during La Niña: - This very cold phase 8’s cumulative anomaly of 66 BN is the third largest of all phases with only these two exceeding that: 1. Early Feb of 1996’s phase 3 added up to 84 BN over 7 days 2. Late Feb of 2008’s phase 1 added up to 70 BN over 10 days.

Warmth won’t last per EWs for last few days, including today’s, as SE goes back down to back and forth averaging NN and NE goes back to cold: these are for 2/23-3/1

Hoping after a mild week 2 for an improvement to mainly NN in the SE late month into March!

The chances for an overall Feb -PNA are good as of now with a strong -PNA upcoming. This goes through Feb 24th: AO now rising sharply: NAO is, like the AO, also rising. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this rise will be enough to get the DJF NAO >-0.25, the # I’ve always used to classify a winter as -NAO vs neutral. DJ is at -0.5. In order for DJF to rise above -0.25, the Feb NAO would need to end up >+0.25, which is a decent possibility per this:

Regardless, it’s important for continuity/looking back that we keep most of the posts specifically pertaining to the rest of this cold season in this thread. Besides the lag of ENSO related effects, these threads are obviously about far more than ENSO, itself.

If I get enough time, I’ll analyze the Baltimore daily temperatures for some of the MJO phases in (post) La Niña years in March as a followup to my 20 Feb MJO La Niña MJO phase analysis. If I do, I might start with 8. I’d look at the same 20.

Don, once you adjust normals upward to take into account GW, is deep cold still about as common as it ever was? Example: adjust normals upward by 3F vs what normals were from around 1900. After doing so, is same degree of extreme cold about as common as it was then?

Of course warmest will outpace coldest with global land areas averaging 3F warmer than where the avg was in 1900. If you were to subtract 3F from recent years of records, wouldn’t cold anomalies be on par with warm anomalies?

Pick your model. If one picks Feb 8th ext GEFS like you did (2/9 ext GEFS not out yet), it looks mild. But if one picks the Euro Weeklies, which is a superior model to the GEFS, it isn’t as it’s a mix of AN, NN, and BN. Of course none of them are reliable that far out. But I much prefer the ext Euro over ext GEFS.

Per what the EW have been showing this period (2/17-23) could end up the warmest week in the E 1/3 of the US overall, possibly even in the absolutes in some areas, til at least late March.

The EW week 3/2-8 suggests warmer sneaking back in but not even to the E coast. But afterward, the EW then suggest that that warming, itself, would also be temporary as per what I just posted.

Today’s Euro Weeklies fwiw for Feb 23rd-Mar 22nd still show no sustained NE warmth and only limited sustained warmth at most in rest of E US: 2/23-3/1 cold NE/NN elsewhere: 3/2-8 NN NE; this is only AN week of these 4 weeks OH Valley to SE and it doesn’t even have sustained torching as it’s just the edge: 3/9-15 cooled back to NN all of E US: 3/16-22 NN entire E US: Notice that on all of these maps the W 1/2 of US is mild. More often than not, that supports the E US at the least not being mild and sometimes downright cold. This is certainly not a warm look for the E US and suggests no early spring despite the expected false spring next week. @40/70 Benchmark