Some Winter Ideas, MEI theory...

I believe that this warm summer will be leading the way to a cold winter season this year. 

Look at this summers negative NAO pattern that dominated.

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Look at the -NAO that dominated in the 1950's. These are the summers with a PDO that has flipped from + to - and a warm AMO. 

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Here are the temperature departures in the summers of the 1950's. 

And the departures from the summers of 1952-56 have the core of heat centered in the central u.s, much like the past few summers.

Drought occurred in those summers as well and voila, the same thing is happening now.

Notice how similar our current pattern is to the 1950's because of the same -PDO and +AMO regime.Taking a look at the second el nino of the 1950's(much like this year is the second el nino since the PDO flip) we can see the -NAO in the summer of 1957 as well as warmth in the nations mid section.



Lets see what dec-feb looks like that year.
December is a blow torch!

Better:

WOW!

Not bad as well.

There was a negative NAO that summer and then a positive spike for 3 months, highest in december and then into the tank for the rest of winter. I'm not saying that the same exact result will occur this winter but the overall pattern will stay the same. This is a good analog. 

All of this raises the question, why is the NAO negative so much of the time? Lets think about this logically. When you flip the PDO to negative and you cool the tropics the air will dry out before cooling .This will cause hot and dry summers across north america. More daytime heating is caused by a "snowball effect" because of the dryness. Since the AMO is warm pressures will stay low over the atlantic while the pacific is cold causing higher pressures over this area. This causes the NAO to stay negative most of the time because of the ridge that builds over the atlantic. The NAO is negative but it is still warm across NA. We also have to take into account the fact that the NAO has less of an effect in summer. Pressures from the 1950's are low across NA because of the dryness caused by the response from the PDO flip.

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Last 3 summers have similar pattern.

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So how does this translate in winter time. Well in an el nino pressures lower across the pacific as well as the atlantic because of the warm mode and el nino. The colder nights and natural cooling created by the PDO flip causes a natural compensation causing higher pressures across NA. This is why I believe that this winter will be a cold one. We will also see a negative NAO overall because of the warm AMO. Many upcoming winters will average colder then normal( as long as the SST's are right for it as well as other factors). The next few summers will average warmer and hotter then normal as well because of the physical realities of the pattern we are in(proven by the 1950's). So it is the -NAO during summer, the -PDO along with the pre existing decadol driver that sets up a reaction across NA. Its not the pattern that we want to change but the natural evolution and different seasonal reactions.
Blizzardof96