so_whats_happening

Always does after 240hrs whether it be La Nina or El Nino. I would not look past 240 in any regard not sure what is going this year with models having such wild swings but they are not even in lock step with each other past 96 hrs.

I applaud you for taking the advice and using a single source for both. I still don't like the SSTA-Global map but that is of my own. Do you happen to have the site to see the depth of the warmth within this region or is that just a twitter thing? I do find this year interesting even though we are in the Nina like atmospheric pattern/ base state it is not typical for us to see systems (in this particular pattern) going up the coast with little affect from a SER feature especially since we are entering mid to late January. This would and should be a time period where we see systems running right into the lakes almost similar to the a few days ago but over the next week and change we look to have this Nino like pattern evolve something is just off about this year so far. The -PDO is 100% responsible still for the lack of precip in the east and SE how long that lasts will another interesting thing to watch over the next couple months. I personally would have thought by now we would at least be touching near average monthly precip totals.

This may the response from the EWB Don was talking about a cooling of 3.4 (briefly) and a warming further east (potentially also briefly?). Sustainability unsure but would at least look to allow a MJO wave to past through weak. What concerns me still within the subsurface is the persistent cold pocket 140W roughly 150meters below the surface. That has a very persistent feature over the last ~4 years, even during the Nino event.

I dont follow online meteorologists because social media is a cancer that being said this go around might be interesting. Let's see how the EPAC evolves over the next few weeks. This would give credence for a weak phase 8 and jump to 1 and eventually 2/3.

Location is also extremely important for where these anomalies exist. https://atlas.niu.edu/gwo/ While the tropics are exerting more of a El Nino flair which may very well be enhancing some of these cold dumps horse to mid latitudes have not yet caught up.

Im not a fan of cherry picking charts. I remember rather well that CDAS 3 years ago during the Nino event was showing SSTs in the moderate to low end strong sector (roughly 1.3-1.5C above average) when almost every other (OISST, ERSST, CRW, etc.) was showing the waters near upper end strong. Now we use it to show La Nina? Come on with that. Honestly if you are going to show these types of charts in either picture stick to one source.

This shows some pretty bad forecasts. Late December is the first set of images and the latter is as we close in on mid month.

I am honestly on the fence with it. Typically we only see a full destruction of the SPV 1-2 times a decade. I have a feeling we may have to wait but hope I am wrong.

Never mind they are both standardized. For some reason the CFS forecast looks lower than the other chart. Figured I would also add these two to show the progression better and the overall potential impacts.

Seems as though I was off a bit on overall progression of near normal for the region. Warmth extended a little bit longer than previously expected. As for the AAM maybe it is because it is standardized that it is different from the CFS forecast of showing around -1.

We shall see coming up here overall it may not be needed but it would have been a nice feature to have to get a more sustained pattern to set up.

What an interesting pattern the 00z GFS showed up to 240hrs @ 10mb The 500mb maps were also very interesting, of course one run but don't think I have seen tropo/strato connection in this way with multiple 500mb lobes developing especially one still sitting in the Beaufort Sea/ CAA before. This would probably be considered a minor wave 2 event but not a whole lot of warming taking place which is something that is lacking in completely taking down the SPV.

The issue isnt we should be doing the measuring. The issue is a reliable source for measuring there have already been 2 incidents of bad measurements in the few events we have had. When the the surrounding area is about 2.5-3" and there is clearly 2.5-3" on the ground but only 1" is reported it starts to skew climo data not in a good way. When we get paid to do virtually everything climo wise for the airport but snow is a no go it really doesn't make much sense. We still calculate the snow to liquid it doesn't take away from our duties considering for many many years it was never an issue. The numbers dropped from -1.1 (-1.2 at peak) to now -.8 becoming less coupled everyday.

Yea it is a fascinating climo around here. Yea I was on shift when we got that .2" lol did not expect the season to be just horrid. Unfortunately Baltimore may have some snow total issues for storms in the future. We are no longer measuring as weather observers it is across the airfield now, measured by EMS.

Snowiest winter near me occurred twice since 1990. 1995-96 and 2009-10 topped at around ~72" on the season for both. 95-96 had 30" in one storm, im sure you can figure out the storm, and 09-10 had back to back nearly 2 foot storms in less than a week. Just 3 years ago we set our lowest snowfall ever recorded of .9" We average around 26"