Question Re Long-Range Outlooks From CPC

First - today's temperature update. Low this morning at the house was 35 F versus 49 F at the airport official observing site. We are in a classic radiational cooling situation where morning lows are not well-correlated with elevation, since low elevation sites with drainage flow can be colder than high elevation sites. The closest RAWS stations (all higher to much higher elevations than here at house) mostly had warmer readings this morning: Sasabe - 35 F, Empire - 36 F, Saguaro - 44 F, Mt. Hopkins - 46 F, Rincon - 37 F, and Sollers (Mt. Lemmon) - 40 F.

An earlier post generated the following question: Hi Bob: It would interesting to see whether you agree with the NWS's 2, 3 months and out forecast. To a non-professional, the start of this fall portends a colder winter, not a 60% chance of above normal temps. These fronts that are coming direct from the Gulf of Alaska appear to be happening more often. Or am I misinterpreting what is going on????

I assume that the question refers to the various longer-range forecasts issued by the NWS Climate Prediction Center (CPC). I have posted their current NDJ three-month outlooks for temperature (above) and precipitation (below).

My basic answer is that I almost never look at these products, since they are so vague as to be almost meaningless. I have to admit that I don't know how these forecasts are generated, and I'll explore that issue some tomorrow.

When I do take a look at them, I usually end up scratching my head about some details. There was some controversy a year or so ago regarding the seasonal temperature outlooks. It appeared that CPC was "gaming" the forecasts to reflect the long-term trend in temperatures (the issue being what is long-term normal when there is are upward trends in temperatures, especially in morning lows?).

Another example of something puzzling is the "A" area below, indicating above normal precipitation for the three-month period over Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Idaho. What weather patterns would lead to this outcome? It does not seem to reflect more frequent or wetter systems coming into the Northwest. The only thing I can guess is that the area reflects more frequent, or wetter, upslope conditions and that whatever is causing this does not have a corresponding impact on seasonal temperatures, nor have much impact on precipitation to the east and southeast of higher than average area. This all seems strange to me, especially when what I am interpreting as "upslope" affects both sides of the Continental Divide.

In the shorter-term, CPC's 6-10 forecast does reflect strongly the current and forecast large-scale patterns over North America, as one would certainly expect.