OKwx2k4

That is literally, year for year every analog that I blended for my winter forecast. That's just insane. Had no clue about that fact though. Nice post. Edit: I have 1940-41 in there too but it's looking like the weakest year at this time.

I have to agree with you. You can only pull a rubber band so tight before it breaks. I will say this in advance also, if we do not see a colder than normal winter this year for much of the US, (not just the east) I'd almost put money down that we will next year. I still think we have a great shot at it this year though.

Yeah. If one was to look at the daily surface maps of November 77, they wouldn't be freaking out at all yet. Unless they hate cold weather of course. :-) I'd have loved to have lived through that winter. 33 days of continuous snowpack as far south as I am is a record not easily matched or broken.

Yeah. I'm not too disheartened by it. The active weather is cool. I hate that the storms keep verifying more to the east than what the models show. Hope that's not a trend that continues for long.

Yeah. Pretty high. Saw some guidance suggesting that maybe it goes weakly negative after the 17th or so. Just don't know if it will help much. Probably will have to resign to November being close to normal by the time it's all said and done and rainy. Have to see if anything cool happens in the last 1.5 weeks of the month.

Been a fan of KC for a few years also since following several of their players that have come up through the Arkansas Naturals minor league team down here. They're one of the most exciting teams to watch play the game today. Very glad they were able to win it. Doesn't look like anyone in my area will be seeing any high temperature records fall over the next week. Also looking like my latest frost date record will be intact so not stressing out about the weather too much.

I agree. However everyone writing a forecast just shrugs and says "El Nino Winter blah blah blah..."

Around what date do you see on the later system through my neck of the woods. I let my euro subscription expire.

Larry Cosgrove has a good forecast out this morning. It is so far the one that I agree with the most. If I can link it later I will. It can be found on his Facebook page if you follow him. He really weights his variables very nicely and explains them quite thoroughly. Just a really well balanced and weighted forecast.

I most definitely agree with this statement.

I have found myself increasingly guilty of the fast winter talk as well. It seems to me that the first cool shots we get make me want to accelerate this process too quickly. Just a habit of loving winter too much I guess. I take a lot of comfort in looking at November 2009 and 1977 for my area and realize the value of not rushing things along. Seasons in seasons as I always say. That however will not keep me from being excited about the winter that is to come.

Yeah. I probably made a classic "foot in mouth" statement right there. I think I'm suffering from Niño hype fatigue syndrome today. Lol.

Wow! Had no idea. Very impressive.

Great post Tom. I've been wondering why I haven't heard or read anyone talking about sea ice lately. Now I know.

Yup. I can hear the sound of people's forecasts busting as we speak. :-) Even mine is looking weaker now. I have December at average temperatures down here. I don't know if we'll even be as warm as average now.

If I've read correctly, we are near (slightly above) last year and only behind 1976 in SAI for anyone who follows that stuff. I think snowcover is a bit lower than that and pretty paltry on the North American side of the globe. I did notice on what snowcover map I have seen that it seems like western Siberia has performed much better than last year. I don't know what correlation that has if any. Just an observation.

This x1000

I'll take that pattern, anything to keep the darn Pacific air out of here! I'm hoping we can keep a -EPO around and then get the AO to crash. That would be pretty awesome.

Good luck James! Enjoy the snow!

Interesting case study based on this post mentioning 1997 this morning. Had to finally break down and analyze the daily surface maps from September-November 1997. At 500 mb, the pattern looked like a dream almost. Storm after storm rolling through. The mean was pretty much a central US trough with a ridge over the southwest. Also had some decent early season snows for the Rockies and even the Northeast I think. However, the problem lies with the fact that all the cold fronts early that year were either "counterfeited" by their origin over the Pacific or they were recycled, stagnant air that never really had time to get really cold. These were also almost immediately followed by warm fronts from the Pacific as well. I have honestly never saw so many straight north to south oriented cold fronts in my life. Then in the same map, by the time a front would clear the Appalachian Mountains, there would be a massive warm front right on its heels flooding the southern US with warm air. Rainfall helped keep the temperatures in check quite a bit but that year was literally a train wreck from the word go. The temperature readings and statistics from that autumn are very very misleading when taken by themselves. I learned quite a bit this morning. Just thought I'd share. :-)

I keep waiting anxiously for the model run that shows the nice cold front finally making it all the way across Oklahoma. It never makes it. :-(

I think you folks up north are in for a pretty wild month. May not be too exciting down this way until late month. Probably week 3 or so.

Thank you again for all of the resources. I've been studying the daily weather maps for Oct and November 1977 for a couple of days now also. The similarities to what has happened and what the models are all showing are pretty awesome. My hunting season looks crazy this year. :-)

Awesome! Thank you! We'll trade links. Lol. I found the Brazilian meteograms link. http://previsaonumerica.cptec.inpe.br/~rpnum/meteogramas/meteo_acopladot062.shtml

Will be closer to end of November I think before much cold air can get all the way across Oklahoma. I love all the hints I'm seeing out of the pattern for my area though. That meteogram that you posted is a heck of a lot snowier than the last one I saw for Chicago and it was pretty snowy also. I keep wanting to hurry things along but I'm reminding myself that November isn't a winter month. Lol. No need to waste arctic air this early. December will be just fine.