From NOAA's Climate Prediction Center:
This page displays seasonal climate anomalies from the NCEP coupled forecast system model version 2 (CFSv2). Forecasts are from initial conditions of the last 30 days, with 4 runs from each day. Forecast ensembles consist of 40 members from initial a period of 10 days. The 1st ensemble (E1) is from the earliest 10 days, the 2nd ensemble (E2) from the second earliest 10 days, and 3rd ensemble (E3) from the latest 10 days. Aomalies are with respect to 1999-2010 hindcast climatology. Temporal correlations between hindcasts and observations are used as skill mask for spatial anomalies. Standard deviation to normalize anomalies is the average standard deviation of individual hindcast members. For SSTs, anomalies with respect to 1982-2010 climatology are available here.
CAUTION: Seasonal climate anomalies shown here are not the official NCEP seasonal forecast outlooks. The NCEP seasonal forecast outlooks can be found at CPC website. Model based seasonal climate anomalies are one factor based on which NCEP seasonal forecast outlook is issued.
We entered the short saying "The market is trading off the cold snap and the cold snap is not going to last" because we are currently experiencing a meridional (north - south) jet stream that progresses in stately fashion from California to New York, alternating cold and warm:
The meridional pattern can set up a nice long-then-short-then long sequence in natural gas futures trading.
Except when it dips too far and you have Texas guzzling gas like Minnesota. Or if the pattern stalls and the warmth is delayed.
Or if it changes to a zonal pattern.
The warmth is coming but it looks like next week.
