My Winter Outlook for 2023-24

[raindancewx]

I've uploaded my outlook for 2023-24.

Here is the link: https://www.scribd.com/document/676713540/2023-24-Winter-Outlook

General themes: I matched each three month period starting Feb-Apr to various years in the past to build my analogs, and then rolled the blend forward. I built those analogs with El Nino following La Nina, -PDO, -QBO, volcanic, high solar years in the abstract. I have this as a 28.0C (+1.5C ish) El Nino in winter. 

Premise is the -PDO look wins through Nov maybe early Dec when it is more correlated to temps in the US than El Nino. Then in Dec, record/near record hot Nino 4 is more correlated than Nino 3.4 or the PDO to US temps so that wins. After that, ENSO mostly wins, but with some input from the -PDO.

On net, the winter time -PDO is a wet signal for KY/TN and a cold signal for the Northwest. So I dragged the cold somewhat west of its usual placement, and the analogs shift the dry zone that normally sets up somewhere east of the Ozarks and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Outlook includes monthly temperature maps, snow maps, and I tried to explain how I "sanity check" my analogs by looking at what the precipitation pattern looks like in the tropics v. what the matching MJO pattern looks like and how the MJO pattern matches US temp profiles. I also have a slide with the 500 mb pattern for July-Sept rolled forward to Dec-Feb, and another slide with a look back at how that went last year. 

Last year was a good outlook overall for the season (had a severe March, following a cold West, very hot East look for winter), not so great by month though. Suspect this year will be similar in the sense that the seasonal look is better than my monthly looks.

[Go Kart Mozart]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I've uploaded my outlook for 2023-24.

Here is the link: https://www.scribd.com/document/676713540/2023-24-Winter-Outlook

General themes: I matched each three month period starting Feb-Apr to various years in the past to build my analogs, and then rolled the blend forward. I built those analogs with El Nino following La Nina, -PDO, -QBO, volcanic, high solar years in the abstract. I have this as a 28.0C (+1.5C ish) El Nino in winter. 

Premise is the -PDO look wins through Nov maybe early Dec when it is more correlated to temps in the US than El Nino. Then in Dec, record/near record hot Nino 4 is more correlated than Nino 3.4 or the PDO to US temps so that wins. After that, ENSO mostly wins, but with some input from the -PDO.

On net, the winter time -PDO is a wet signal for KY/TN and a cold signal for the Northwest. So I dragged the cold somewhat west of its usual placement, and the analogs shift the dry zone that normally sets up somewhere east of the Ozarks and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Outlook includes monthly temperature maps, snow maps, and I tried to explain how I "sanity check" my analogs by looking at what the precipitation pattern looks like in the tropics v. what the matching MJO pattern looks like and how the MJO pattern matches US temp profiles. I also have a slide with the 500 mb pattern for July-Sept rolled forward to Dec-Feb, and another slide with a look back at how that went last year. 

Last year was a good outlook overall for the season (had a severe March, following a cold West, very hot East look for winter), not so great by month though. Suspect this year will be similar in the sense that the seasonal look is better than my monthly looks.

Good stuff, but I wonder about using past volcanic events as analogs.  The typical volcanic event sends a blast of ash and SO2 into the stratosphere.  Hunga Tonga sent a blast of water vapor.  Shouldn't we expect a different, and probably unknown, atmospheric response?

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I've uploaded my outlook for 2023-24.

Here is the link: https://www.scribd.com/document/676713540/2023-24-Winter-Outlook

General themes: I matched each three month period starting Feb-Apr to various years in the past to build my analogs, and then rolled the blend forward. I built those analogs with El Nino following La Nina, -PDO, -QBO, volcanic, high solar years in the abstract. I have this as a 28.0C (+1.5C ish) El Nino in winter. 

Premise is the -PDO look wins through Nov maybe early Dec when it is more correlated to temps in the US than El Nino. Then in Dec, record/near record hot Nino 4 is more correlated than Nino 3.4 or the PDO to US temps so that wins. After that, ENSO mostly wins, but with some input from the -PDO.

On net, the winter time -PDO is a wet signal for KY/TN and a cold signal for the Northwest. So I dragged the cold somewhat west of its usual placement, and the analogs shift the dry zone that normally sets up somewhere east of the Ozarks and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Outlook includes monthly temperature maps, snow maps, and I tried to explain how I "sanity check" my analogs by looking at what the precipitation pattern looks like in the tropics v. what the matching MJO pattern looks like and how the MJO pattern matches US temp profiles. I also have a slide with the 500 mb pattern for July-Sept rolled forward to Dec-Feb, and another slide with a look back at how that went last year. 

Last year was a good outlook overall for the season (had a severe March, following a cold West, very hot East look for winter), not so great by month though. Suspect this year will be similar in the sense that the seasonal look is better than my monthly looks.

Thanks for posting. Wow, you’ve put a lot into this! It is well thought out.

1. Do you use 1991/2020 for normals or do you use another base period?

2. Have you made a DJF NAO or AO forecast?

3. I know you said Oct would be cooler/warmer in the E/W than the Oct 1-7, 2023 temp map you posted. However, you also said that the full month would retain the look where the E is warmer than the W relatively speaking. Based on the Euro weeklies and other model output showing a BN/AN last 3 weeks of the month for much of the E/W US, I wonder about this, especially for the SE vs the W but also even for areas further N like the Mid-Atlantic states. If there are 3 weeks of AN in the W, wouldn’t a lot of the W end up AN?

[raindancewx]

I use 1951-2010 for highs, or 1961-2020 as a proxy for modern periods because every area of the US has lows warming at wildly different rates if you look. The highs are much better at teasing out the actual weather pattern and not the regional variation in the global warming signal by month. Locally, March is something like 6 degrees warmer than 100 years ago, but I doubt it is in the Northeast as an example. 

I'm fairly certain via the Bering Sea Rule we'll have a few cloudy or wet/snowy days in the Southwest at the end of the month. If that's the case, some of the West will finish near normal. I don't think the heat for the West the rest of the month will top the +5 to +10 that is still in place in the Plains even as that falls. October is always super annoying to me, because it tends to change erratically in the middle of the month from the pattern at the start of the month. For the baseline period, I think some little pocket of the Great Basin will be +/-1 or 2 from average, with most of the west +2 to +5 or something, while areas of the East are generally +2 or warmer outside of the deepest parts of the Southeast. Keep in mind though, this is using the older averages which are colder in the East and more similar in the West to modern averages.

If I'm being honest - I'm not that worried about October. The main thing is the two competing patterns have shown up - a Western cold pocket and a Southern cold pocket. How they interact is just based on their duration, which is difficult to get correct. But I essentially expect those two cold pockets to compete in most of the coming months.

As far as the volcano, 1982 was a Northern Hemisphere volcano (Mexico), and 2022 was a Southern Hemisphere volcano. My premise last year was that Southern Hemisphere volcanoes normally enhance tropical activity, while Northern Hemisphere volcanoes suppress it in the Atlantic, based on a paper I read. But with Tonga being a net global warming event and not a net global cooling event, I assumed it would act more like El Chicon (1982). So my premise is since that basically worked (hurricane season was kind of a dud in 2022), it makes sense that the most recent analog to a Northern Hemisphere volcano would continue to work.

 

[raindancewx]

One thing I'd like to see more of in outlooks is developing correlations for counting stats. I had this in my outlook last year:

Cold Day Count in ABQ 
     (-5) / (-10)
Nov   14 / 5
Dec    5 / 0
Jan    5 / 0
Feb    7 / 2
-----------------
Total 31 / 7  (ranges given were 25-35 cold days, and 3-13 very cold days)

Sum	1637	880	-	-	685	0	0.14	T	-
Average	54.6	29.3	42.0	-3.7	-	-	-	-	0.0
Normal	57.3	34.1	45.7	-	579	0	0.57	0.9	-
2022-11-18	40	28	34.0	-10.6	31	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-11	48	26	37.0	-10.5	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-04	48	32	40.0	-10.4	25	0	0.03	T	0
2022-11-16	44	26	35.0	-10.4	30	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-17	47	23	35.0	-10.0	30	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-19	46	24	35.0	-9.2	30	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-15	49	26	37.5	-8.3	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-12	54	24	39.0	-8.1	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-20	50	23	36.5	-7.3	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-05	58	29	43.5	-6.5	21	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-24	47	25	36.0	-6.2	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-22	49	25	37.0	-6.0	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-14	49	32	40.5	-5.7	24	0	0.01	0.0	0
2022-11-23	55	20	37.5	-5.1	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-21	53	25	39.0	-4.4	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-25	51	24	37.5	-4.3	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-28	51	24	37.5	-3.3	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-10	53	37	45.0	-2.9	20	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-13	59	29	44.0	-2.6	21	0	0.08	0.0	0
2022-11-30	51	25	38.0	-2.1	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-26	55	24	39.5	-2.0	25	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-01	65	35	50.0	-1.7	15	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-03	65	34	49.5	-1.4	15	0	0.02	T	0
2022-11-27	53	30	41.5	0.4	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-06	67	34	50.5	0.9	14	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-29	55	30	42.5	2.1	22	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-02	67	41	54.0	2.7	11	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-07	67	42	54.5	5.3	10	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-09	70	40	55.0	6.7	10	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-11-08	71	43	57.0	8.3	8	0	0.00	0.0	0

 

2022-12-17	37	16	26.5	-9.8	38	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-18	36	21	28.5	-7.7	36	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-16	37	22	29.5	-6.9	35	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-23	41	19	30.0	-5.9	35	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-13	39	24	31.5	-5.4	33	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-15	43	23	33.0	-3.6	32	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-14	44	24	34.0	-2.7	31	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-19	48	20	34.0	-2.1	31	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-20	45	23	34.0	-2.0	31	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-21	50	22	36.0	0.0	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-24	52	20	36.0	0.1	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-25	49	26	37.5	1.7	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-03	45	37	41.0	1.8	24	0	0.48	0.0	0
2022-12-01	57	28	42.5	2.7	22	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-12	51	29	40.0	3.0	25	0	T	0.0	0
2022-12-08	50	33	41.5	3.6	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-30	47	32	39.5	3.6	25	0	0.02	T	0
2022-12-29	48	32	40.0	4.1	25	0	T	T	0
2022-12-09	54	30	42.0	4.4	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-11	56	28	42.0	4.8	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-22	55	27	41.0	5.1	24	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-27	53	29	41.0	5.2	24	0	T	0.0	0
2022-12-10	54	32	43.0	5.6	22	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-26	52	31	41.5	5.7	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-04	50	40	45.0	6.1	20	0	0.04	0.0	0
2022-12-28	50	35	42.5	6.7	22	0	0.06	0.0	0
2022-12-07	55	36	45.5	7.4	19	0	0.04	0.0	0
2022-12-02	59	36	47.5	8.0	17	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-31	56	32	44.0	8.1	21	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-06	56	39	47.5	9.2	17	0	0.00	0.0	0
2022-12-05	60	42	51.0	12.4	14	0	T	0.0	0

 

2023-01-26	40	19	29.5	-9.0	35	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-27	43	17	30.0	-8.7	35	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-19	41	21	31.0	-6.7	34	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-25	41	25	33.0	-5.4	32	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-22	44	22	33.0	-5.0	32	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-21	40	26	33.0	-4.9	32	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-24	43	26	34.5	-3.8	30	0	T	0.1	0
2023-01-23	38	31	34.5	-3.6	30	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-20	46	25	35.5	-2.3	29	0	T	T	0
2023-01-28	53	21	37.0	-1.8	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-18	44	28	36.0	-1.5	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-31	51	25	38.0	-1.2	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-03	40	31	35.5	-0.6	29	0	T	T	0
2023-01-29	54	23	38.5	-0.4	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-04	44	28	36.0	-0.2	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-05	46	27	36.5	0.3	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-07	50	24	37.0	0.6	28	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-12	51	24	37.5	0.6	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-16	42	34	38.0	0.7	27	0	T	T	0
2023-01-30	54	27	40.5	1.4	24	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-17	45	33	39.0	1.6	26	0	0.13	T	0
2023-01-13	52	26	39.0	2.0	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-08	52	26	39.0	2.5	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-14	53	27	40.0	2.9	25	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-09	54	26	40.0	3.4	25	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-02	44	35	39.5	3.5	25	0	0.01	0.0	0
2023-01-06	53	30	41.5	5.2	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-01-11	50	36	43.0	6.2	22	0	T	0.0	0
2023-01-01	50	36	43.0	7.0	22	0	0.17	0.0	0
2023-01-15	50	40	45.0	7.8	20	0	T	0.0	0
2023-01-10	58	32	45.0	8.3	20	0	0.00	0.0

 

2023-02-16	34	19	26.5	-15.6	38	0	T	0.1	T
2023-02-17	44	17	30.5	-11.8	34	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-10	43	21	32.0	-8.9	33	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-15	41	25	33.0	-8.9	32	0	0.14	1.0	1
2023-02-09	40	27	33.5	-7.2	31	0	T	T	0
2023-02-27	55	21	38.0	-6.8	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-11	49	21	35.0	-6.1	30	0	T	0.0	0
2023-02-07	41	31	36.0	-4.3	29	0	0.05	0.6	0
2023-02-02	51	21	36.0	-3.5	29	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-28	57	27	42.0	-3.1	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-08	50	25	37.5	-3.0	27	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-23	54	29	41.5	-2.3	23	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-18	53	28	40.5	-2.1	24	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-22	55	28	41.5	-2.0	23	0	0.01	T	0
2023-02-26	59	27	43.0	-1.6	22	0	T	0.0	0
2023-02-03	52	25	38.5	-1.2	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-14	48	33	40.5	-1.2	24	0	T	T	0
2023-02-24	57	29	43.0	-1.0	22	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-01	51	26	38.5	-0.9	26	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-19	51	33	42.0	-0.8	23	0	T	0.0	0
2023-02-06	52	29	40.5	0.3	24	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-04	60	26	43.0	3.2	22	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-25	60	35	47.5	3.2	17	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-05	63	25	44.0	4.0	21	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-13	60	32	46.0	4.5	19	0	0.12	0.1	0
2023-02-12	61	32	46.5	5.2	18	0	T	T	0
2023-02-20	61	36	48.5	5.5	16	0	0.00	0.0	0
2023-02-21	65	34	49.5	6.2	15	0	0.00	0.0	0

[Volcanic Winter]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:49 PM, raindancewx said:

 

As far as the volcano, 1982 was a Northern Hemisphere volcano (Mexico), and 2022 was a Southern Hemisphere volcano. My premise last year was that Southern Hemisphere volcanoes normally enhance tropical activity, while Northern Hemisphere volcanoes suppress it in the Atlantic, based on a paper I read. But with Tonga being a net global warming event and not a net global cooling event, I assumed it would act more like El Chicon (1982). So my premise is since that basically worked (hurricane season was kind of a dud in 2022), it makes sense that the most recent analog to a Northern Hemisphere volcano would continue to work.

 

El Chichon was actually an extremely stinky eruption for its size (3-5x smaller than Pinatubo in total eruptive volume), yet it had a sulfur release totaling ~7Mt / Tg of SO2 compared to ~19 for Pinatubo. Both were extremely gas rich eruptions, but El Chichon erupted through an anhydrite layer which really boosted the SO2 release relative to its size. 

AFAIK when researching this event it did produce a small decrease of surface temps in the early 80’s. 

It’s really difficult to compare to Hunga Tonga, which had an initial estimated SO2 release of 0.4Mt / Tg. I did catch a paper that suggested a revised estimate that at least doubled that amount, but it’s still substantially less than El Chichon while releasing much, much more water vapor. 
 

I would expect unusual variations to normal volcanic forcing due to HTHH. It was as large or larger than Pinatubo in total erupted volume but 80% of that mass was deposited in underwater Ignimbrite formation (think pyroclastic flows), which is why the expected volume of SO2 never hit the stratosphere. The enormous plume seen on satellite and some ground images is primarily steam. 

[jm1220]

Well I hope you’re wrong but very nice write up. And you did quite well this past “winter”. 

[Daniel Boone]

I envisioned a similar setup when stewing over everything that influences the Winter pattern a couple weeks back. Since being a rusty Relic now, I just can't delve into the work, coming up with maps, graphs etc. 

    Kudo's on the Work you put into the Outlook. The Outlook looks alot like a blend of 72-73 and 82-83. Snowfall looks more like 72-3 as 82-83 normal to above encompassed a larger area of which included the upper South and portions of the MA.

     I lean more of an 82-83 but, not quite the extreme Eastern warmth as that Winter featured in December. I think there'll be periods of decent blocking and the MJO looks to be favorable for at least the lower MA and SE a good bit of the Season. Just my 2 cents coming from a mind of antiquity. 

      

     

[Itryatgolf70]

9 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

I envisioned a similar setup when stewing over everything that influences the Winter pattern a couple weeks back. Since being a rusty Relic now, I just can't delve into the work, coming up with maps, graphs etc. 

    Kudo's on the Work you put into the Outlook. The Outlook looks alot like a blend of 72-73 and 82-83. Snowfall looks more like 72-3 as 82-83 normal to above encompassed a larger area of which included the upper South and portions of the MA.

     I lean more of an 82-83 but, not quite the extreme Eastern warmth as that Winter featured in December. I think there'll be periods of decent blocking and the MJO looks to be favorable for at least the lower MA and SE a good bit of the Season. Just my 2 cents coming from a mind of antiquity. 

      

     

The issue imo is the sample size is pretty small to compare this winter compared to previous winters

[snowfan789]

Appreciate the time and effort you clearly put into this. Your outlook last year was really solid overall so I have been looking forward to this year’s. Quick question - Part of your outlook suggests dry and mild for parts of Colorado but then another suggests normal to about 130% of normal snowfall for the same area. I’m having a little trouble seeing how both could be true. What are your thoughts on that?

[raindancewx]

Premise for Colorado is that the location/elevation matters. Beyond that, the actual Dec-Feb period may not be very snowy. But I do think the shoulder seasons, especially March-May are pretty active. It's the type of thing where you could get 70 inches of snow, but it's 10/15/45 or something for Fall/Winter/Spring just to make something up. 

For what it's worth, in 2020-21, we had a very dry winter locally (-0.5") but we had 9.3" snow (+3") in that period. It's just that we had a lot of high ratio snow, and almost every storm from Dec-Feb was all snow, with no rain.

Denver (Stapleton) had 25" in Dec-Feb 1972-73...but 95" in Oct-May. I expect a lesser version of that - this is July-Jun

1971-1972	0.0	0.0	17.2	3.1	1.4	8.4	10.9	9.1	7.1	17.2	0.0	0.0	74.4
1972-1973	0.0	0.0	0.0	9.7	19.4	9.8	12.1	3.0	15.1	24.8	1.0	0.0	94.9

[snowfan789]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

Premise for Colorado is that the location/elevation matters. Beyond that, the actual Dec-Feb period may not be very snowy. But I do think the shoulder seasons, especially March-May are pretty active. It's the type of thing where you could get 70 inches of snow, but it's 10/15/45 or something for Fall/Winter/Spring just to make something up. 

For what it's worth, in 2020-21, we had a very dry winter locally (-0.5") but we had 9.3" snow (+3") in that period. It's just that we had a lot of high ratio snow, and almost every storm from Dec-Feb was all snow, with no rain.

Denver (Stapleton) had 25" in Dec-Feb 1972-73...but 95" in Oct-May. I expect a lesser version of that - this is July-Jun

1971-1972	0.0	0.0	17.2	3.1	1.4	8.4	10.9	9.1	7.1	17.2	0.0	0.0	74.4
1972-1973	0.0	0.0	0.0	9.7	19.4	9.8	12.1	3.0	15.1	24.8	1.0	0.0	94.9

Are you thinking above snowfall overall for the CO mountains? Your outlook suggests that in places but not so much in others. I honestly care way less about the Front Range than mountains because it’s more relevant to water supply, ski season, fire danger, etc. I’m not particularly optimistic for west of the divide north of the San Juans but would love to be wrong. 1982-83 was a great season for a lot of the West, I believe. 2009-10 not so much, among other analogs.

[raindancewx]

Southwest CO is at the southern edge of areas favored by La Ninas, and the northern edge of areas favored by El Nino. The rest of the state tends to do better for snow in Fall/Winter in La Nina, and Winter/Spring in El Nino.

The -PDO El Ninos tend to have more patchy precipitation patterns even in the favored areas. 

[raindancewx]

On 10/10/2023 at 5:49 PM, raindancewx said:

 I'm fairly certain via the Bering Sea Rule we'll have a few cloudy or wet/snowy days in the Southwest at the end of the month. If that's the case, some of the West will finish near normal.

 

Old Bering Sea Rule.

I'm not that confident in the precip, but cooler weather dumping into the West looks right.

Another big low off the Southern tip of Kamchatka ~now. More storms for me in 17-21 days (Nov 3-7). After that, should get quiet for a little while.

[Roger Smith]

I am expecting the winter to be dominated by upper ridges often located near the west coast and troughs often located near the east coast, when both are weak flow will be mild Pacific air masses coast to coast, when both are strong, very mild in west and cold air will flood south from Yukon and NWT, and cover central and eastern regions of southern Canada and the US (Texas and New mexico will often be in a warmer sector associated with the western warmth). Although you can get a few snowstorms out of this pattern, it tends to be dry relative to normal. Lake effect snowfall could be very heavy at times. There will be a tendency for the ridge to flatten and move inland in Feb and into central regions by march, leading to mostly warm weather in early spring, especially central plains to northeast US and lower GL. An analogue may be 1976-77 except that it won't be as cold in Nov and Dec. January could bring one or two severe cold spells into central and eastern regions. A few areas of Utah and Colorado could have above normal snow, California will be prone to a few heavy rainfalls but it won't be as extreme as some El Nino winters. Another possible analogue would be 1980-81. 

If this has bust potential I would expect it to be towards all mild all the time in a weaker ridge-trough couplet forcing mild air to go coast to coast almost all winter. Given recent tendencies, I suppose the best call is to blend the theoretical with that pessimistic view, and predict mostly mild with brief cold intervals, generally rather dry. I agree KY/TN looks like one area likely to see closer to normal precip. Other than lake effect snow potential, I foresee a rather infrequent snow regime and any location outside of snow belts managing to get close to average will be stringing together a number of moderate snowfalls to do it. Expect a lot of places that regularly receive snow to be in the 50-75 per cent of normal range this winter. 

 

[raindancewx]

It looks like I had the right general idea for temperature and precipitation profiles seasonally, but not monthly. Warmth was more impressive than I expected too. But I had the warmest part of the US as MO to MN and east, and that verified. No one was expected to be cold overall, which verified, but coolest spots South and West. Dry spots in an ocean of above average moisture were generally placed correctly too. I'll do a more in-depth update on snow once the March snows settle down late March into April.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

You did very well, congrats. 

That's 2 Winter's in a row I think. I remember thinking that you would be too warm last Winter, but it verified.

[raindancewx]

Snowfall distribution has been fairly interesting so far for the cold season. The fluky snow in the South looks like it will hold. Have to see if the late season Nor'easter verifies. Couple more big storms for the West too through 4/15 before I can really analyze if the snow outlook was good.

March has eaten away at some of the snowfall deficits nationally. It's been a very snowy month for most of the West, although shifted somewhat north of March 1973 unfortunately. Late March 1973 had the big snows by WI as well if I remember right. Taos Powderhorn (11,000 feet up) locally went from ~40" at the start of March, which is pretty low, to 74" the other day for snow pack. So it's been a good month for the West. That site tends to peak around 60 inches in March.