Once again, I decided to have a little fun in Python 🐍 today & created some Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar CONUS surface temp & 500mb height anomaly probability + mean composites for El Niños since 1855 using NOAA's 20th Century Reanalysis! Unlike the previous set of composites I showed in early October, these composites include more El Niño events (53 in total). Also, weights have been applied to account for El Niño strength (1x - moderate, 2x - strong-"Super"), a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (-PDO), Positive Indian Ocean Dipole (+IOD), Positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (+AMO, or a warm Atlantic), and appearance of a negative North Atlantic Oscillation (-NAO) in December As you can imagine, these new composites are more favorable looking for snow lovers over the Eastern US ☃️❄️

Decided to have a little fun in Python 🐍 today & created some Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar surface temp & 500mb height anomaly probability + mean composites for moderate-strong or east-based El Niños since 1870! To provide a more apples-apples comparison for the near-150 years worth of El Niño events & account for climate change, I created a 30-year sliding base period in NOAA 20th Century Reanalysis Version 3 that lags significantly behind each year. This is typically how today's climate anomalies are perceived & forecasted (relative to the most recent 30-year climate period (e.g. 1991-2020)). #climate #ElNino

I finally found enough time today to analyze this past Christmas's cold wave in North Carolina. Widespread sub zero lows occurred in the mountains, w/ 0s & 10s in much of the piedmont + coastal plain Mt Mitchell was the cold spot, getting down to -21°F 🥶 #ncwx #wncwx #scwx

A lot of weenies don't wanna hear this, but next week's pattern doesn't support big snow on the coast Nice deep trough over the OH Valley & -NAO yes, but there's no trough near Atlantic Canada & the ridge off the West Coast is too far west >> Interior NE US & Great Lakes favored

For those that are curious about what goes thru my head when I'm looking at long range models to forecast from week-to-week, here's a little snippet of a few things I'm seeing thru mid-late November #climate #winter ☃️❄️

I always wondered what the @NHC_Atlantic's climatological Atlantic Hurricane Chart would look like if I replicated the visual, but instead for winter storms in North Carolina. Well... I finally did it. ☃️❄️ #ncwx

The pattern being shown on most medium-range NWP models for next week is one that signals an active monsoon here in New Mexico. Notice the big ridge off the coast of British Columbia on the EPS >> should give us a nice feed of disturbances &/or backdoor fronts to work w/ #nmwx