The signals for El Niño are still there for Winter 2018-19 from the models but the teleconnections don't really support the models in this case. There is nearly zero chance of this coming out as a strong or very strong El Niño event so there lies only two possibilities of El Niño strength; weak and moderate. We have already looked at moderate El Niño Winters for analogue #8 and for analogue #9 here, we're going to be looking at the weak El Niño Winters.
The 500mb height anomaly reanalysis for the Winters overall shows above average heights over Greenland with below average heights over central Europe backing into the UK. This is a very snowy and cold reanalysis.
The Decembers look very different though to the Winters overall with below average heights to the north and west of the UK as well as over Greenland. Above average heights are over Scandinavia. It looks like a very mild and wet December.
Both January and February provide a great contrast to the Decembers though (especially January) because they're very snowy and cold reanalysis charts indeed. Probably as perfect as you can get for snowy and cold. January's reanalysis looks extremely blocked with well above average heights over Greenland nearly going off the scale.
Weak El Niño Winters overall start off poor but soon become insta classics for snow and cold. Moderate El Niño Winters provided similar results to the above but February was a bit more of a knife edge in that analogue than this one.