The NAO and AO are negative according to the method Dr Ryan Maue uses and interestingly enough that method may show why you should look at it, rather than what NCEP plays with. In any case I have been showing examples off his site. 

The NAO gets a heck of a lot more credit that it deserves for storms. It is not the end-all of the weather. It is more like a tight end in a football game...at times it may be the most important  player on the field, but most of the time it acts in tandem with the rest of the players to lead to the total picture. While people are moaning and groaning saying it can't be negative because it's warm here,  in Europe they know darn well it's negative, because their coldest weather occurs during the combination of negative NAO and AO,  which it plainly is now.

But there are different  measurements of it, and we should not get too hung up on it except to say that generally, if you have troughs over Europe and south and southeast of Newfoundland, then you usually have a negative NAO.

In any case the modeling is bringing a blow torch east with temps in the 60s into DC, and perhaps NYC, tomorrow and Wednesday.  A front drifts south to VA and a negatively tilted trough then comes east and deepens into the mid atlantic States on Thursday and Thursday night.  As it does, we will have a chance for it to rain from the lower Ohio Valley east with wet snow taking over from the WV panhandle into PA, perhaps even  into MD, DE, NJ NYC and southern New England. While most of the speculation  later in the week is on what to do with a storm, the GFS tries to take the lakes into a block (this I gotta see).  We may have a sneaky  system right in front of it.  In this case, it rolls east and deepens into the trough off shore and re-enforces the negative NAO. The Euro actually sees that and you can too on its graph.

In a way, this is a nice lesson for all, this warm weather with a negative NAO and AO for it will re-enforce something I try to tell my readers, that someone making a statement like  "There can't be a storm because the NAO is positive"  or  praying for the NAO to be negative, because that means storms are being exposed. Consider:  it's warm out now and though the NAO being negative means this has a shot at turning to snow since it rolls east southeast and draws cold air into it, if the pattern was colder, this would probably go off the Georgia coast and you would see nothing in areas that may have the rain turn to snow Thursday or Thursday night.

Yesterday I drew a map for clients which had this storm coming out of the southern plains and reaching the northeast US Sunday or Monday (second one).  I thought, "what's the big deal? it should roll east under the block and perhaps phase at the end." Of course the models are all over the place now,and I am sobered by memories of my Christmas fiasco trying to push a storm out, but  I still think this bolls east with the center eventually reaching the mid-atlantic coast and then turning northeast Sunday or monday.  This is a problem since it appears this could be a major snow from the southern rockies into the central plains, including Lincoln, Nebraska  where PSU wrestles Friday night and then is supposed to get on a plane and get back here to wrestle Michigan on Sunday. But my take is that the first center may climb up into the Ohio Valley, but will have to exit  south of New england as the block  will force it to reform. The result? Superbowl weekend snow threat for PA/NJ/northeast as the storm's first batch of snow weakens coming toward the lower lakes.  Heavy rains then develop in the Carolinas Sunday and then the secondary forms.  So in the northeast,  it's a Sunday night and Monday event. But I have a lot of problems with this just following the path northeast, or getting stuck out there as it is later in the year and the EPO looks negative.

So, Monday night:

Now let's say it snows in NYC at the end of the Thursday system. (Friday morning or late Thursday night).

Temperatures a couple of days before the October storm were in the 60s.. they surged a few days before the Saturday snowstorm we had 10 days ago,  and so the surge coming the next couple of days wouldn't be out of character.  But my point is this: For those using the  NCEP NAO, which is positive, ask yourself, how is it you have a shot (north of Mason Dixon line) at snow in such a warm pattern?  You will see that this is not that far-fetched. It's only because this has to transfer energy east, under the block.  Put a block in that part of Canada and the trough is over the atlantic to the east in the position used to calculate the NAO.

Now for you people in the plains where temperatures are in the top 10% of warmest readings at this hour  (stations in red, bottom) and 15-25 above normal, how does this turn around and snow there in a few days???

Remember the old Sam Kinison routine on hunger where he starts screaming...you live in a desert, food doesnt grow there

My take is this:

YOU LIVE IN THE PLAINS.  IT SNOWS IN THE WINTER EVEN IF IT'S WARM A FEW DAYS BEFORE. YOU DON'T NEED A NEGATIVE NAO, OR WHATEVER....YOU LIVE IN THE PLAINS.

So if this map is what is going on Saturday morning, and PSU wrestling  is stuck in Lincoln  (what's that old joke.. I once spent a week in Lincoln one afternoon.. or wait, sorry, that's Austin, my mistake).

IT'S BECAUSE YOU LIVE IN THE PLAINS...THAT IS HOW THE WEATHER IS.

Now that I have that off my chest.. ciao for now