In article
,
Dawlish writes:
snip
PS Joe forecast the east and the west coasts of the USA would be very
cold this winter and the central states would be warmer - exactly the
opposite of what actually happened. He got the overall colder than
average forecast correct (good guess) but the complete failure with
the areal temperature distribution showed he'd done the same as he had
for the 4 previous incorrect USA forecasts - he'd made, again, a guess.

I'm no admirer of Joe, but is your first sentence correct? I don't know
about the west coast, but my own impression is that the eastern states
were colder than usual but that central areas were milder. The chart in
Weather Log in the latest "Weather" showing 500-1000mb thickness anomaly
contours for January shows a huge positive anomaly centred just west of
Hudson Bay with a peak value of +14, which would seem consistent withe
central regions being mild.
--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)