The "warm blob" has a cause in my humble opinion. The lack of maximum sea ice(historic low) the allows more sunlight absorption into the ocean, the circulation brings that water to California during the spring when there are typically strong NW winds driving the surface water south which creates up welling and a much cooler blob that circulates to Hawaii in the summer. California(and HI as well) has lacked these trade winds for two years now. While I love surfing without my wetsuit in NorCal the lack of up welling off our coast hasn't happened like this before in the short 27 years I've lived here. Causation or correlation, I don't know but it's definitely worth paying attention to. There seems to me a significant relationship between AO, max/min arctic sea ice, and trade winds. On a different note, graphical awesomeness is awesome, keep it up please.