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I plan on doing a post tonight or tomorrow which illustrates the past 3 solar minimums have brought the coldest and or snowiest winters to the NW since we transitioned out of the cold phase after 1975. Pretty compelling stuff!

Mayyybe...

We can always hope! In all seriousness with the post El Nino backlash in combination with the extraordinary solar minimum that is unfolding we could be in for it. The QBO is a huge wildcard due to the fact the extreme negative phases in that index over the past few decades have come at the same time as our January woes. A major shakeup with the QBO could be part of what we need to finally move on.

Sunny and 71 here. I'll see if I can send it down your way.

Very exciting times indeed. Some of these developments could have major implications and could easily mean a much overdue regime shift for the West. The solar is going to be most interesting to monitor. Assuming we are still 3 to 4 years from the minimum we could easily be looking at Dalton minimum type numbers going forward. The most exciting possibility is that in spite of the high asymmetry we are still years from solar min. Apparently the asymmetry is the most extreme witnessed in the modern era by quite a margin.

Long story short, in this case it means another +QBO winter, which in La Niña favors stronger NPAC blocking. Very, very interesting stuff ongoing right now. Not just with the QBO, either. We're now observing the most anomalous -IOD/-AMO circulations/SSTA signatures (relative to global average) in several decades. I guess some of this isn't surprising given we're on the cusp of several multidecadal base state flips, QBO aside. Also FWIW, solar cycle 24 appears to be collapsing with high polar field asymmetry, which is somewhat unusual considering that weak solar cycles are typically longer in duration. Could mean a number of things, depending on how you interpret it. Will be fun to watch things develop going forward.

splillo QBO still in process of shifting nearly 180 degrees out of phase from the oscillation we've observed for decades https://t.co/VCtgcN1HQv 04/07/16 12:17 pm splillo This is showing up in all reanalysis datasets. Just about a long enough signal to call this a major re-alignment of the QBO 04/07/16 12:19 pm splillo Re-alignment of QBO phase has major implications for any long range model guidance using a prescribed QBO 04/07/16 12:22 pm What does this mean for winter? Snow in the lowlands?

Sunny and a very pleasant 68 with a breeze here in southern OR. Happy 240, America!

I was going to "like" this post but I feel badly that your fishing time was ruined. It's drizzling heavily here adding to the 1/3 inch in the cup since Saturday.

Cooler waters are continuing to spread west along the equatorial Pacific. We are not seeing dramatic shifts in declining temps, but nonetheless, cooling is expanding slowly. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/sstaanim.gif The latest depth anomalies... http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/anim/wkxzteq_anm.gif http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/ssta-week.gif

Beautiful retrogression now showing up in the d11-15 00z EPS. It now has troughing resuming by day 13-14, temperatures never really warm above average through the run.

I can't disagree with this, I guess. Too vague. I suspect there will be a brief reprieve in the deeper troughing (poleward AAM propagation..has to go somewhere), but persistent ridging will probably be hard to come by, and more troughing is likely later in the month.

Nice dAAMt spike on the 00z ECMWF. Will make Jesse/Jim happy in the long run, should the run verify.

Think dry thoughts! The Sahara, martinis, British humor, Hillary Clinton....

Another Article that Robert Filex posted from iceagenow about the solar sun http://iceagenow.info/sunspot-activity-dwindling-lows-not-seen-200-years/