Hi Nat and everyone .

Thank you for the immense and informative analysis . It was also noticeable that most mediterranean-like climates in both ( North and South) hemispheres had shown early signals of drought  in December-January Projections from last year , the coupling of a negative ENSO and negative PDO with Negative IOD brings limited number of Lanina years with such combined wet-dry phases during a particular ENSO ( cold or warm ) . Most Mediterranean-like climates ( like South-West Australia, Cape Canaveral , Chili mid-west, East Mediterranean countries and South California ) were pre-forecast to have drier than normal  Early winter  but showed wetter Mid-winters and hopefully the rest of the winter will be wetter . I confirm from a regional point of view here in Jordan we had terribly dry December-January and the start of February was highlight with torrential rains . Probably the coupling of weak Polar vortex with the recurrent PV stratospheric warming has something to do with the Southward (equator-wise) migration of Atmospheric wet Rivers  in mid to late winter , this last point is well-documented in many physical science papers that weak polar vortex post SSW events tend to measure more equator-wise  migration of the Jetstream causing these atmospheric rivers to bring wetter than normal events to California and many mediterranean-like climates in the northern hemisphere late winter. Above all thank you for the richness of the information but i take note that some (data simulation methods) may tend to under-estimate (under fit) and others may overestimate (over-fit) an ulterior assumption , choosing the best ( mathematical)  simulation methods may sometimes tell a good tale   even with the presence of short data window . 

Warmest Jordanian Regards ,

Mohammad Alkhateeb ( Abu Abdel-rahman)