Winter '12/ '13 - Arctic Oscillation: Is December A Leading Indicator?

UPDATE
December AO:  -1.749
Rank:  11th (17th percentile)

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Original post date:  26-DEC-12 @6:31 PM EST

Little doubt DEC/s index will come in negative given the 30-day moving average stands at -1.965.

Does the sign of DEC/s AO have any predictive value?  The sign of NOV/s AO was shown to have predictive value for the sign meteorological winter/s (D-J-F) average AO.

The 2x2 contingency table of DEC/s AO index and JAN/s index shown below suggests there/s a strong association between the two...especially when DEC/s AO is < 0.

Each cell in the table shows the number of years where the sign of the DEC/s AO was associated with the sign of JAN/s AO.



When DEC/s AO is < 0...there/s an 82% chance the JAN/s average AO will also be negative. 

The table/s precision is 74%...where precision is the proportion of negative cases predicted correctly [a / (a + c)].  The probability of a 'false positive' (-AO forecast; + AO observed) is 36%.