The good thing is we play the Rams at the end of the season…Stafford should be on the sidelines by then, and Puka will be puking in the back of some Limo and forget what day they are playing. We should be fine.

Torchiest anomalies will probably be after February 1st this time, from the looks of it. Hard to get a more hostile analog pool for late season cold and snow than this. Background state will probably be hot garbage but it's not impossible that things line up right for a week or so at some point Dec 10 - January 20. This season's mountain snowpack was once in a generation level awful, I can't imagine there's a strong chance next season will be quite as bad. If it is, good luck to the ecosystem, lol.

The actual problem is strong/super Niños have been relatively rare thus far in the 21st century, so our brains revert to recency bias. We’ve only had 2 truly powerful Niños in the last 26+ years, and one of them (2023/24) developed via a conduit not observed since the 1970s, which rendered the global state unfavorable for a potent Aleutian Low Unlike 2023/24, the mean state will actually be favorable for a strong Aleutian Low this winter, similar to 2015/16 and most of the super Niños during the second half of the 21st century.

That’s a myth. 2015/16 had as potent an Aleutian Low as any Niño in the modern era (save 97/98).

Some variably-weighted pool of 1957/58, 1982/83, 1991/92, 2002/03, and 2015/16. I’m starting to like 1957/58 more, but the placement in the solar cycle gives me some pause for the QBO method I employ.