Last year this one fired up in April. I think the big March snowstorm for most of us may have sated the enthusiasm for a while. The hot weather has me longing for winter and this thread is always one I look forward to just to speculate on better weather days.
The La Nina watch has me excited, even though it's only around a 59%, chance for early winter La Nina. It would likely be weak and weak Nina is usually good times for the area. Moderate Nina's tend to see the Plateau and west do well, strong is more often mid-state and west. Weak tends to see a weaker SE Ridge and we generally see a good storm track Valley wide.
The QBO has risen two months in a row now. So it's negative cycle is finally coming to a close it would seem. Usually it rapidly heads positive once it starts. The last time we saw the trend towards positive in May/June was 2015-16. We torched that December but had a cold and snow January that came in around 4-6 degrees BN. February came in right at normal with a really good snow event. So the rising QBO doesn't mean doom for winter.
Long range models, which are notoriously volatile and inaccurate are showing either torch the whole winter or a relaxation in January towards cold. They are consistently showing the West as being the area most AN though. I'll take that, as we mostly suffer only when the West is BN. Their AN forecasts would suggest ridgeing in that region. We just don't want stubborn troughing to set up over the West.
Models are generally showing continued dry weather through winter but BN precip in winter often means colder weather is around and isn't a negative for snowfall. AN precip here usually means big warm storms that just produce a lot of cold rain.