February 7 03:49 PM

I guess I should be asking the same thing of myself, right?

But it is amazing how this winter has been one where  short and long term, there have been problems galore.

The overall forecast for a warm winter stateside by the Euro and JMA was on target.  The CFS started in agreement with what I had, the cold December and caught on later. The end game though has extra meaning added on because of  a) the major bust in Europe by the modeling, as no model I saw had a month forecasted like what is going on there.  The  ante gets upped now because the very places  that are coldest in Europe where forecasted to be warm.

last months forecast                                                                   current

US current

The path to the end game started with the negative AAO late in the winter season in the Southern Hemisphere. While not a strong correlation, the Met Sul crew has often talked about watching their AAO to give clues about ours. Amazingly it was the end game there, as well as here, that the respective oscillations changed.  The strat warm was the second signal, the backing off of the la nina that has started, and finally Europe getting frigid. The turn to colder in Europe ignored the MJO,  but not the AO.  In the states, like last winter, which was MJO driven (the AO went positive in mid winter, but the cold held on...this year the negative turn occurred mid Jan, and the warmth came right back, in line with the phases 4, 5, 6 of the MJO).  So now the question is will all that has pointed us here, get us to where I think we should wind up.

Truth be told, I feel like the Knight in Monty Python, who after having all his limbs chopped off is still yelling at arthur to come back and fight

It's the weather chopping my arms off.

Come back and fight, I am not done.

They say the toughest thing to do when you have lost is to win the last match in a tournament. When looking at the nationals in wrestling, for instance, I always look at the guy that placed 3rd as the toughest guy mentally, then 5th, 7th. To have your goal set on winning, then losing and having to come back...  real real tough.  So there is no such thing as a consolation really.  But I figure it this way, there is still another match, so I might as well try to win it.

In any case, I think the amount of variability this year, which I knew coming in was going to be there, has been something that I can tuck away and perhaps  teach my son about.  While it's of no true consolation, the guru European has had its worst year I can remember. Today its back to the arctic attack, which I think is on the table given the nature of the pattern worldwide... in fact it should happen, the attack of sub zero into the Northeast..its a staple of strat warms and the Euro cold, if it happens, would have been the tip off. But it's on one run, then it's gone, then it's back.  If I didn't have models trying to tell me otherwise, I think next week is a no brainer.  Arctic attack, jet comes in, storm develops in Gulf Tuesday with snow I-40 north in the Plains and its into the Northeast with snow Wednesday night and Thursday.  But the models, of course, try to warm it up before it gets cold again, and given what has happened that has to be considered.

But look at the Euro 240 from 5 days ago:

all the westerlies to the north, and higher than normal heights over the Northeast and East.

Now it shows this for the same time

That's a wild bust for this model. Again, given this, why should the energy coming into the west head for the Gulf and crank next week.. ala 00z GFS last night

Given the pattern and the way I think its turning, it's as much on the table as the monster shot into the Northeast.

After all look at what happened in Europe.

ciao for now