I was personally privileged to get to know Charlie Hosler at Penn State. A mid-morning visit to my office, with a tale or two of WWII weather exploits, was a common occurrence.

A legendary meteorologist and teacher, he left an enormous legacy.

www.psu.edu/news/earth-a...

Remarkable collapse of the negative PDO phase as warm SST anomalies are wiped out east of Japan. The models expect a negative phase to persist through winter, however.

As expected, El Niño is slowly losing its East Pacific focus, with the core warm anomaly shifting west. Latest forecasts suggest a winter Modoki index similar to 2015/16 (+0.4).

That's a fairly typical value, neither strongly east-based (1997/98) nor Modoki-like (2009/10).

This isn't the whole story of course, but the now-strongly positive IOD certainly favors a more westerly pattern for northern Europe in early winter: warm, wet, and windy.

Contrast El Niño winters with +IOD versus near-neutral IOD:

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is spearheading a $13.9 million study that will look into climate change’s impact on Western Alaska - in close collaboration with 8 communities

www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/10/16/u...

One of the "niche" climate indicators I like to watch is the area of the Northern Hemisphere 850mb cold pool (temp < -5°C).

Lowest on record (1950-present) for the first 10 days of October 2023. Record high was in 1976 (also for the full months of October and November).

doi.org/10.1175/JCLI...