showmethesnow

Was just informed that the trough that sets up in Alaska on the Euro seasonal for the fall retrogrades for the winter and we have ridging replacing it. This should allow for cold air delivery into the CONUS. But that's all i have at this time as far as the Euro.

Not sure when they release the CanSips every month but I sort of expected it out by now. Wonder if they may be having issues again. Have been curious as to whether it would follow up on last months release with all the high heights over the arctic and pole (which would be a good thing).

And here I thought you were trolling the weenies. I enjoy seeing all the different things posted even the bad with the good. Helps give me a general feel of what to expect for winter besides just looking at the major indices. And that method works so well. Take last year for example, all the things out there were suggesting a blockbuster winter and we had a great... mediocre winter.

Naw. Grab a 6 and a beach chair and ride it out on the beach.

Not sure if you can still get to the rocks on the jetty but if you can, stay off the rocks even if it looks as if it might be safe. Never know when a rogue wave will come in spawned from the Hurricane.

I am not so sure I would 1 to 1.5 degrees above normal an epic torch. Now the cold anomalies showing up over Greenland and the West could be troublesome. The one in Greenland suggests a +NAO as normally temps would be above normal for a -NAO. And the anomalies in the west suggest a trough which normally results in ridging in the east. I do like seeing the greater +temp anomalies over the arctic and pole as that suggests higher heights there and a weakened PV and possible -AO. Would like to see how each month pans out though rather then just a mean of all three months to get a better idea of what we are looking at.

Guess I have been toning them out but I didn't realize how loud the locusts are here. Taking a shower a few minutes ago and I could hear them over the running water..

Might see some heat relative to norms in the east in the early part of Sept in response to Dorian as she pumps up heights to the north/east of her track. How intense, location and duration will really be up to intensity/track and if it we see the system linger somewhere in the south as it degrades. Right now I believe any heat in our region would be somewhat short lived (2/3 days at most) as the mid-latitude flow (W/NW) should take over fairly rapidly. Of course this will be all dependent on whether Dorian can survive the trip through the Caribbean.

I hear rock/gravel lawns are easy to maintain.

This brings up my thoughts that not only do placement of anomalies play a part in driving the pattern but also the magnitude of contrasts we see with SSTs in surrounding regions. Have a feeling that this plays a huge part as well. After all contrasts and their magnitude are what ultimately drive the weather. Every year at around this time I start to consider looking back over prior year's SSTs (actually the last couple of weeks I have started to consider this very thing) to see if there may be an actual relationship with contrasts/or lack thereof and how they may possibly impact ENSO forcings as well as maybe WPO/EPO/PNA. Just seems like a daunting task as well as very time consuming. Let alone the data set to pull from is probably much too small to get a clear idea if a relationship actually may exist.

Thought earlier in the spring/early summer that we had a good shot of a toasty end of summer into fall. From what I have been seeing lately though I am beginning to have some serious doubts. Would be no complaints on my end, I hate the heat.

No complaints on my part with this stretch of wonderful weather. Has the feel of Fall in the air. Probably my second favorite season after winter.

Looking at the damage it is a good thing this was early in the morning before employees within those businesses started showing up for work and/or customers started shopping. Otherwise we would probably be looking at quite a few injuries if not fatalities.

You live in a desert. So I would expect the correlation between WSI and DJF snowfall and temperatures should be extremely high.

From what I understand from others there is a pretty strong correlation between the Newfoundland cold pool and the NAO. But of course I do recall over the years where this relationship has failed so though it may be a strong driver of the NAO values it is not the sole one and others come into play.

Curious if the May/April and Sept/March correlation is something you have taken note of or has there been a study on this? Also, if this relationship has only held for the last 20 years or so and not so much beyond that then I wonder if we are talking more so coincidence then an actual precursor to the winter NAO values. Sort of like Cohen's Siberian snow advance theory that worked well for a stretch and then went all to hell the last few years. If this is an actual study would love to read over the material if you could point the way.

Have very little knowledge on the subject myself except the bits and pieces I have read on this board but I have it from a good source that the Newfoundland cold pool this year bodes well for episodes of blocking (-NAO). Evidently it was very impressive (best since 09-10) during the May-July time period of which research suggests this is the key period.

Decent little storm here. Not much lightning but gusts 40 maybe 50 mph for a time. Fairly heavy rainfall guessing maybe an inch or so. eta: And to top it off we had a double rainbow.

Thought I would give a visual of what we are talking about in regards to the NAO when we have the ridging centered off the west coast. This will also give you an idea why we were rooting so hard for a legit -NAO last winter. Below we have the CANSIPS Dec forecast. The ridging is centered up into the Gulf of Alaska. This will tend to force troughing into the southwest and that in turn will favor height builds/ridging into the east. But notice the heights are weak in the east. This is due to the -nao/50/50 combo that is set up. This will back the flow and tend to try to force troughing into the east. So essentially this block is dampening/putting a cap on height builds in the east as both these tendencies (trough/ridge) fight it out. You can follow the flow up around the Alaskan ridging, down into the southwest trough and then exiting off the east coast farther south then what you would typically see with the PAC aligned as it is. This is a snow look for our region. Now compare the above to what we see below (Feb 2018). The PAC is essentially the same but now we have the -NAO taken out. We see the flow swinging around the ridging forcing troughing into the southwest but as it moves eastward we are now seeing a difference. Notice that we are now seeing a neutralish NAO which is allowing the - anomalies in the 50/50 region to shift northward. This configuration is a weak block at best as the backing of the flow is minor. Thus we are not seeing the forcing of troughing in the east as in the previous example. With no longer having the pushback from this trough the southeast ridging is given free reign to do its thing and we see that with a very notable bump up of the Southeast ridging. And with that bump up the flow responds by flowing to our west and then off the coast in NE. This is not the look we want to see for snow. ETA: We preferably want to see a western based -NAO or at worst a central based as I am not sure an eastern based -NAO would cut it.

Hence my statement that we need to see the -NAO.

Don't think I have seen the Euro seasonal yet. Take it it isn't such a great look?

It's a risky look, one that we could score within as depicted or get totally screwed with just some minor changes. The ridging off the west coast is too far west but it should work as long we do see a western based -NAO in place. The strength and placement of that -NAO (blocking) should force systems farther south through the east then you would typically see with the ridging setting up off the west coast. But shift that -NAO to an east based one, weaken it or worse yet pull it out altogether and we are most likely pooched. What that ridging off the west coast will do is force troughing into the west and a corresponding bump up of heights/ridging in the east. You can see the minor height builds through the gulf and southern states but they are dampened because of the blocking to the north. But weaken, shift east or pull out the -NAO altogether and you will see those heights bump up forcing systems to our west.

Was just glancing over the CANSIPS anomalies for the winter and comparing it to the CFS and they just do not jive. The heights over the pole are stronger on the CFS and yet the Cansips is the one going to town on the +height anomalies. They are using slightly different climatology years (CFS 1984-2009, Cansips 1981-2010) but I doubt very seriously that that is accounting for the huge discrepancies on anomalies between the two. Maybe a different methodology on computing the anomalies? Now I am looking at tropical tidbits so I am not sure whether it has been updated or not from the issues it had with its initial run but from comments I have seen the issues did not affect the heights so that is probably not the issue? In any case, either I am just plain thinking wrong or I have a feeling we should just probably toss the Aug Cansips run because I have a sneaky suspicion that the Sept run is going to look a lot different when it comes to the anomalies. Here's hoping I am wrong. ***Came across a good article in regards to the strat/trop PV. Very informational for those with a limited understanding of that. Video of the 2012/2013 SSW (sudden stratospheric warming) event and its impact on the strat pv is well worth watching. http://www.severe-weather.eu/long-range-2/polar-vortex/

2 years ago it was on top of the Nina and did fairly well. Last year not so much. Anything beyond 2 years you will have to ask someone else as I really didn't take note of it. Just an aside, but when you are quoting a long post such as above you might want to delete all but what is relevant to what you are commenting on. Saves people a lot of scrolling through dead space.

Just want to preface this with the fact that this is not a prediction/thoughts whatsoever on the upcoming winter it is more so just for curiosity's sake. Climate models can have their issues and we are talking roughly 4+ months for the winter so it is somewhat at range. Not to mention they did have issues with this run to boot. Now it we continue to see this look in the coming months then I will get excited. Below we have the 3 month 500 mb anoms for Dec-Feb. This is a great look IMO. A large concentric ball of red (higher heights) centered on the pole with higher height anomalies centered both over Greenland (blocking) and eastern Russia (cross polar plow). This look would be suggestive of a very weak PV probably getting shoved around a good bit (think -AO). Under riding this we see the lower pressure anomalies straddling the mid latitudes (active weather pattern). Now if you look in the CONUS we have strong ridging driving all the way up into the arctic regions which is the vehicle to drive cold air into the central/eastern US. In response to this ridging we are seeing low pressure anomalies set up in the east (troughing). As I said I like this look a lot. What is even more impressive is the duration. We see the building of the heights begin in Sept and only by May do we see them breaking down. We are talking roughly 9 months. This would imply an early start to winter as well as a late ending with little to no breaks in between. Since I have been tracking (96) I can't ever recall seeing heights over the pole during the winter be at such magnitude, so concentric and centered on the pole and for such a long duration as what the CANSIPS is advertising. So I thought I would look into recent previous winters (back to 1981). Below we have some of the winters that featured stronger high latitude blocking. Notice that though some may share a feature or two of the above none are what I would call exactly a good match. That brings us to these two years. Below we have 1985-86. This is a good match. Though not as large in scope nor as concentric it does have good heights centered over the pole. The greater anomalies are also setting up over Greenland and nosing into eastern Russia. West coast ridging, east coast troughing. Also see neg anomalies in western Europe which the above Cansips has as well. The one thing it does show that the CANSIPS does not have are indications that we may have been dealing with WAR (Western Atlantic ridging) at times. But over all this is a pretty good match. And for those who are curious, 15.6 inches were recorded in Baltimore and 15.4 in DC that year. Would have expected better myself but have to question whether episodes of WAR played into those totals. And then we have 2009-10. Though it doesn't match up as well with the mid-latitude pressure anomalies like the previous example it does match better in the upper latitudes. I am sure I don't have to list snowfall for this year. And before someone brings up 1996 here it is. As you can see it is more so the strategic placement of the blocking/higher heights in the upper latitudes more then anything else. Not a good match to what we see with the CANSIP around the pole. .