A warm winter or a polar vortex? Two possibilities for Ottawa's chilliest season

In one corner there’s El Niño, a warm area in the Pacific Ocean that could make Ottawa’s coming winter a little milder.
But El Niño has an opponent this year, a potent weather-changing influence also in the Pacific that scientists simply call The Blob.
The last time a Blob formed, it gave us the icy winters of 2014 and 2015. Can anyone forget the words “polar vortex”?
Environment Canada doesn’t issue a formal winter forecast until Dec. 1, but alre