snowman19

The Australian BOM has issued a La Niña watch: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/outlook/ Here is the summary: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

Correct and the Arctic sea ice loss seems to have enhanced the lack of -AO/-NAO blocking if anything. Some had theorized several years ago that it would enhance high latitude blocking, which it done anything but

The mets in the New England forum brought it up the other day, but they think the long term +NAO is being driven by the big -AMO ice bath in the North Atlantic positively feeding back into the positive NAO and making it sustain itself

That’s just because it’s August. Come October, he will be hyping 95-96 as his #1 main analog, 10-11 as his #2 analog

You are really obsessed with me. Wow just wow

Just to add, that El Niño falls into the larger global warming picture. It shows we still have a lot to learn about weather overall and how it’s evolving now. If you look at the theories that *should* have resulted in colder winters; solar cycle, Siberian snowcover, sea ice loss, soil moisture, etc., they are just not working at all the last several winters, the question is why....

The thing that is most surprising IMO is the QBO. Ever since the super El Niño, its behavior has been completely erratic. Just a few months ago it appeared to be going into its negative phase, now it looks like it’s going back into a positive again. That Nino event threw something off big time

Larry seems to think that this is going to be a basin-wide La Niña. The current SST configuration would give some support to that. All ENSO regions, including region 4 are dropping right now. We’re going to have to monitor whether or not this continues into November. You definitely don’t want region 4 in La Niña territory going into winter. The other things to closely watch this fall are the QBO (which rose up to neutral in July), PDO and AMO

I’m really not anti cold and snow. I usually lean on the warmer side yes but over the last several winters I see no reason not to. I will say this, if this stays a weak La Niña, and the QBO goes solidly negative/easterly in the fall, I’m more than willing to go with a cold and snowy winter even if the PDO is negative and the AMO is negative. For the most part, I don’t really care what the solar cycle or Siberian snowcover do, for the reasons I’ve already stated. In the study I linked to a few days ago, they had strong evidence that a La Niña promotes a colder stratosphere, regardless of solar cycle anyway. I think to a large extent the soil moisture theory that DT loves to use is very unreliable as well. Anyway, that said, I definitely would not expect 95-96 to walk through the door even if the QBO goes negative, besides the changed climate, that winter had a strong +PDO (very unusual for a La Niña), the AMO was strongly positive, the SSTs around Greenland and Davis Straight were very warm and well above normal, promoting the -NAO Tripole setup we had that winter, the QBO flipped negative in the fall then gained a lot of strength that winter (whether that happens this winter remains to be seen) and that La Niña stayed weak and east-based all winter. Like you said, the La Niña/QBO link is a very strong one. D’Aleo’s study was eye opening in that regard

This isn’t “parroting”, it’s fact. Like I just said, JB is a prime example, he continues to use “analogs” from 50 years ago, hypes them, then wonders why they turn into epic fails. Denying reality. It’s been happening for years yet he still continues doing it. There is no denying that our climate has changed in a very huge way over the last 15-20 years

He may well be exactly correct. There is no comparison right now to the climates of 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Joe Bastardi is a great example, constantly using “analogs” from the 40’s, 50’s, 60s, 70’s and wondering why his forecasts are a huge fail after huge fail

It’s been mentioned before but global warming over the past 15 years has really rendered old analogs useless. It’s a completely different climate now, than it was even 15 years ago, let alone 20, 30 or 40+ years ago. Global heat budgets have changed, jet streams have been altered, Hadley cells have been altered, feedbacks and ENSO circulations have changed, sea ice loss..... Use analogs from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, etc. at your own peril IMO

The only saving grace is that this storm will be moving quickly. Had it been a slow mover, we would probably be talking rain totals reminiscent of Hurricane Irene

Another theory which was completely blown out of the water was: “low arctic sea ice will result in more high latitude blocking (-AO/-NAO)” Over the past several winters, we’ve had record low arctic sea ice levels and high latitude blocking has been non existent

Let’s hope it’s wrong

Those are some scary rain totals if correct. You are talking very serious flooding, then when the winds kick in Tuesday night with the soaked ground, you are going to have trees and power lines coming down like no one’s business

We shall see and yes, global warming I’m sure is definitely playing a factor. The people who used “low solar”, “solar minimum” and Siberian snowcover/SAI last winter to justify a cold and snowy winter forecast busted really bad and it’s not the first winter that happened either with people using those 2 factors

A La Niña is looking more and more likely by the day. I think one of the keys will be what the QBO does in the fall, if it goes positive/westerly then it may be time to worry, especially if the -PDO, -AMO continues. As far as the solar cycle I’m not so sure it correlates to winter as well as some people had thought, same story with Siberian snowcover/SAI, just look at last winter....

According to D’Aleo there is also an effect on the PNA. Westerly QBO/Niña favors more -PNA, easterly QBO/Niña favors more +PNA

Here’s another study: https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/29/24/8899/34342/The-Stratospheric-Pathway-of-La-Nina

Here it is, go to page 126: https://books.google.com/books?id=PvJyVtw53Y4C&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=joe+d'aleo+nina+west&source=bl&ots=IZzwDpsLOl&sig=ACfU3U0KjJcmSsDgryXj2AK4mMRkfMomYg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidy63sxvfqAhX6gXIEHSDfC50Q6AEwGnoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=joe d'aleo nina QBO&f=false

There was a study years ago by Joe D’Aleo which showed a very strong correlation to a negative (easterly) QBO during a La Niña winter resulting in a cold eastern US. The exact opposite was true for positive (westerly) QBO during a La Niña winter, it resulted in a warm eastern US. Also, I believe there was some evidence from a different study which found that La Niña’s that occur during a solar minimum resulted in a colder stratosphere/stratospheric PV than the ones which occurred during periods of higher solar flux. I’m going to look back and see if I can find the links

December

On the bright side, the GFS and Euro are showing a nice warm shot for next weekend, 70’s, maybe even approaching 80 degrees

There might be some wet snow mixed in with the rain but as far as accumulating snow, not happening in the metro area