I hope I'm not jinxing us here when I say this: not gonna lie, I've been waiting for the shoe to drop on a torch pattern to rear its ugly head around here, I still don't see any definitive signs of one on the horizon (yet).
I mean... maybe we try to flip towards a more stereotypical NINA/-PNA look by mid-January as an MJO wave tries to encroach on the Maritime Continent. However, if we see a sudden stratospheric warming event begin to try & take hold by then, as the current hemispheric z500 pattern suggests, you might as well toss that idea out the window & just buckle up for the ride that'll ensue.
SSWEs matter more for Europe & it's basically a coin flip whether the pattern gets better or not after one begins around here.
Some research I did in passing on storms several years ago on winter storms in NC and global tropics circulation patterns showed that when we snowed, it usually occurred when -VP (cool colors) showed up between 30-60E longitudes over the East Indian Ocean. I suspect if there is a relationship, it has to do w/ a westerly wind duct opening up over the Tropical Atlantic, encouraging Rossby Waves over N America and the east Pacific to move equatorward.
Lo & behold, one of these 30-60E longitude -VP200 bursts is starting to show up on the models in early January as an MJO-like wave enters the Indian Ocean.
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