The terrible teleconnections

Well, you can more or less thank the teleconnections for all the latest mild and rainy winter weather in the United States. The NAO has been positive, the AO has been positive, and the PNA has been positive. Where do you want these teleconnections for the cold and the snow in the Northeast? You want the NAO to be negative, the AO to be negative, and the PNA to be positive. So, the only teleconnection that has been cooperating, is the PNA. It's been solidly positive. Well... A flip is about to take place... It's one that makes me happy and upset.

The latest teleconnections (which I cannot post because I'm on vacation time!) look interesting. FINALLY we see the NAO go towards neutral or negative and the AO go towards neutral or negative! Good news, right?! Wrong. Normally I would be happy with this, BUT now we have to worry about the PNA. After having the PNA being the only one supporting snowy and cold weather in the Northeast, it too decides to go negative. Something that is not supportive of cold and snowy weather in the Northeast. So what happens now? Well we probably see blocking set up, and maybe even have some good storms set up along the east coast and Northeast, but I'm not sure we'll have support from the temperatures. If the AO really decides to go negative, I will be happier and then maybe the PNA won't be such a concern like it is right now for me. The AO usually supports very cold weather. But the negative PNA often is a signal for warmer weather, so it will be a battle between those two. We'll have to see who wins...

As for the MJO, I know people were starting to get excited about it going into octets 8, 1, and 2, but that no longer looks to be the case. There is still time for change, but right now I'm not very pleased with it. Rather then going into the correct octets, we see the MJO head into octet 6 (already partially in 6) and then briefly move into 7, before moving into the COD. Not a very good place to support a negative NAO. And after that? It goes right back into octet 4, and maybe even back into 5. But again, thats only if all of this verifies. There is still plenty of time for the MJO to shift about, maybe going into more favorable octets... Only time will tell though...

Right now we are at a state of battles between all these different variables. It will be very interesting to see which one of them will win out, and right now I really do not know. My hope is that we see the MJO do a flip in the COD and head back into octets 8, 1, 2, or even 3, OR we don't see it go into the COD at all, and it heads straight into 8, 1, 2, or 3. It would also be nice to see the PNA stay positive, but right now a lot of models agree we see it go negative. Trust me, I want the cold and snow as much as everyone reading this, but until I see things head more favorable for the cold and snowy weather, we need to continue watching and waiting. It will come sooner or later, it's just a matter of when!

-Scott Pecoriello