Winter '17 / '18 - Fans of cold and snow in the U.S. will love this new winter outlook

Or so reads the headline from Mashable which comes with these nuggets of questionable conventional wisdom:

"Along the East Coast of the U.S., for example, major snowstorms tend to take place when a blocking pattern
is in place over Greenland." which more than explains why the AO index for 16 of the KU 66 storms rated '3' or higher was greater than zero including the Storm of the Century (1996).  The AO was positive for 42 storms in the landmark study.

The claim "When the Arctic Oscillation is negative, cold and snowy conditions are favored (though not guaranteed) in the eastern U.S." is unsupported by the data but why let pesky facts get in the way of a quality click-bait headline.


Don't know why the FB text field doesn't render.  Displays OK in Blogger's editor.
Here's the text ...

"Laying to rest the claim season-total snowfall in the NE and M-A is associated with winter's average Arctic Oscillation index.

"A mere 13% of the variability in NE and M-A season-total snowfall is explained by variability in the D-J-F average Arctic Oscillation."

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What's not to love?