raindancewx

Almost had the entire US within 3 degrees of the analog blend. I consider anything over 3F out to be no-skill or worse, since most places see an average of +/-6F variation for a period of three months. The scale is in increments of 0.55C, so I wrote the conversion in Fahrenheit onto the scale. I had something like 2/3 of the US within 2F of actual observed temperatures in the spot.

Getting there wasn't pretty. But the overall cold signal showed up in the Northwest, and the Southeast was up to +5F where I thought it would be. I mentioned a strong cold signal for TX & NM in my forecast for February back in Sept/Oct. Here is how that went. I saw it in part because major cold snaps in TX in February often repeat back to back. Here is how I did seasonally for about 100 cities. You can see a big +3 to +5 area did show up as I expected. Alright then. Back to skiing. I'll check back in a few weeks on this week.

What are you talking about? The trades are weaker than last year, just like the SSTs, or the SOI, etc and I don't consider that year a moderate either. Certainly not in winter. Go look at the thread last winter, people bitched all winter about that event not being coupled because it didn't do what they wanted or expected. The PDO dropped from +1.0 in Nov-Apr 2016-17 to near 0 in that period for 2017-18. That's a lot more impressive than going from -1 to -2 or -1.5 like we will in the transition from 2020-21 to 2021-22, since we were still cooling off the big El Nino mid-decade. Especially since the PDO is already reversing while it continued to trend negative much later in 2017-18. https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO SOI: Dec/Jan/Feb 2020-21: +16.8, +15.9, +11.3 Dec/Jan/Feb 2021-22: +13.0, +11.7, ? Almost every weak event will get near 25.5C for a month or two like this event did. You have many years that sustain at 25.0C or colder in moderate events for a month or two. The readings this year are not impressive in any way. You can see the trades indirectly with the SOI too: You can dress it up anyway you like but we're likely to hit 15 or more years without a real moderate La Nina at this point. My threshold is always actual temperatures. We're well over 10 years without a 25.5C or colder La Nina in DJF. For the past 60 years, 26.5C in average in Nino 3.4 I don't use ONI. CPC uses a rolling 30-year average for ONI, so you're just saying "WOW we had slight cooling even though the SSTs are 0.4C warmer than in the 1950s! Let's call it a Moderate by ONI". It's pretty dumb, in 70 years, you'll have events now called weak El Ninos as near La Ninas with their current process. Trades are kind of a dumb way to evaluate this stuff anyway. Look at 1988-89. You going to tell me that was a weak La Nina now? You guys have no consistency with this stuff at all. Pick a method and stick with it. On the SOI, MEI, or by SSTs, that's a much stronger La Nina than this one. but it looks like nothing below. The subsurface peaked way colder in that event, below -2.0, and it has all the other measures to back it up. It sure as hell didn't see this crap in early February.

La Ninas that weaken rapidly at the subsurface in Jan-Feb tend to see these major cold dumps into the Southwest. It was a major premise of my forecast, "arrogance" and all that aside. You can see similar things in 1995-96 and others too if you when to look for it. The subsurface is approaching +0.3 or so now in the 100-180W zone. The signal for the cold snap below was evident from at least four different angles when I did my forecast - rolling forward February 2021 like years, ENSO rapid weakening, objective (absolute value) matches locally on temps/precip for 2021, and I also based a lot of it on rolling forward similar temperature/precip patterns nationally in the Summer. It was a fairly common outcome after record SW Canada / NW US heat waves pre-mid July. I don't know about the rest of the NW, but I think Idaho and states northwest of Idaho at least has a shot to verify the cold NW idea in my outlook. If the cold holds on long enough here in February we'll be near average down here too, which is a good outcome for a La Nina in the Southwest. High locally is ~38 or something 2/2021 month to date. Average is 50 ish for early February. I still don't consider this event to be a Moderate. Even on the Jan Null standard most of you guys like with three three-month periods for ONI at/under -1.0, I don't think we'll get there since Nino 3.4 is nearing 26.0C already on the weeklies. It's really quite similar to 2017-18, which I don't think many see a Moderate event. I would say, frankly, that 2017-18 looks healthier in a strictly visual sense with some purples making it quite far on the journey to Jakarta.

Subsurface data finished at -0.2 for January 2022. If you like the subsurface as the pattern indicator in real time, currently much weaker event than last year in the 100-180W zone, when the subsurface was -1.0 or so. The subsurface actually moved a tiny bit above average (warm) in the most recently weekly update from CPC. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt Sunspot data has been interesting. Up to over 40 sunspots/month since July. Still trending up pretty rapidly. My winter forecast assumed there would be some kind of major cold dump into New Mexico / Texas in February. It's a bit early, but we could have a high of 28F or something - that's very cold. After today, the first week of February looks very cold with highs in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, when average is about 50. Some of our mountains will get 20 inches of snow or more with the coming system. I did flag it in mid-January using the massive Rex Block by Kamchatka, but no one cares. Even mentioned it would be a cold system. The joke is the "benchmark" for the NE has a translation spot in the North Pacific at 17-21 days out, and so the big system for New England was there a few days before the setup below.

By the American definition, this isn't really a La Nina at the moment. All the cold is 120W and east. Still pretty consistent with my "Nino 3" La Nina winter idea really. Have to see if the cold by Nino 3 spreads west again or just thins like the western areas. Last year the cold pushed all the way to 160-165E.

Ta Da. (For what it's worth, the big Nor'easter forecast showed up in the Bering Sea too in early January, not that anyone looks at that stuff).

There it is boys. I want a cookie Chinook.

Almost all major east coast snowstorms are followed by huge, snow-pack destroying warm spells within about two weeks. That gels pretty well with what I expect to happen in February nationally. Have to see how it goes. For my purposes, largest square mile coverage x highest average snow cover is the correct measure for snowstorm magnitude. Cyclically, this storm time frame showed up in October for January at two harmonic / MJO cycles of +45 days. Might show up again in April or even late March as the pattern changes with ENSO/seasonal progression changes. Impulse timing has been fairly similar to 2020-21, even though temperatures are very different, so if you look back, NYC had the big system sometime around 2/1/21 if I remember right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2021_nor'easter

The subsurface and SOI blends (now looks like it might be +1 or so for January) for Nov-Jan imply a look pretty similar to February 2001 for February 2022 in aggregate. Could change still if the subsurface warms a lot more by 1/31 or if the SOI unexpectedly crashes negative, but it looks very positive through 1/31, with low pressure by Darwin and high pressure by Tahiti uninterrupted. At a +1 January SOI, 1999-00 is your closest SOI match for February. For the subsurface, 2017-18 (one of my main winter analogs) had major weakening from January to February as this year is seeing. The 2011-12 La Nina has been similar for a while now below the surface, and also had a huge weakening in January following a brief, weak resurgence of the cold pool in December. Older years like 1984-85 are in there too though, and quite cold.

Nino 4 is probably going to return to positive (warm) departures in the next month on the weeklies, even with the 30 year sauna base period CPC uses. I don't think we go directly to an El Nino in March, but the fact remains, we're six weeks ahead of the subsurface returning to Neutral v. 2021. It took til 3/10/21. Already there at 1/24/22. This is pretty consistent actually with the rapid warming the Euro plume has shown since the Fall. I was examining this today - most of the US is +5F for 60% of this winter so far when compared to the 60 years ending last winter. The orange zone is generally +7 or more. Memphis had the warmest 60-year departure for the whole country of the 100 or so sites mapped below. I went +3 to +5 for the South, which I thought was pretty warm, but we could blow that away if February is hot in the South after a normal-ish January.

Nice little ice storm for South TX looks like. Reminds me of 2017-18 when it snowed in Brownsville.

I was looking at the monthly SOI readings back to the 1930s earlier today. If we hold on around -7 in January, that's really unusual after very positive readings in Nov-Dec. One of the top years that shows up as a match for February is 2019. Really hope people in Montana don't have to go through that level of bullshit cold again.

In terms of US weather, I'd expect a VEI 5 eruption at this latitude to mainly be important to what it does to Nino 4 and the West Pacific Warm Pool, and maybe the Indian Ocean Dipole. It's probably not a true volcanic winter, but it probably is enough to cool off the ocean in the vicinity of the eruption, in time. On Tropical Tidbits, you can already see a little speck of blue in the area where the eruption was for ocean temperature anomaly change. Those 30C waters by Indonesia getting knocked down a peg by next year would really improve the odds of a cold start to winter for the US in December, since those waters seem to force pseudo MJO five conditions regardless of what the actual RMM index says.

The great "moderate" (not) La Nina of 2021-22 is pretty dead. Almost no actual cold in Nino 3.4 (120-170W) below the surface. Still pretty cold in Nino 3, but that's on death watch too, even though it will take longer to warm up. The tentative SOI matches for Nov-Jan, assuming January remains around -7, are actually pretty interesting for February. Also, on the weekly data, Nino 4 is now running a full degree above last year. It's not really in a La Nina state anymore.

You guys crack me up with the comments. Keep 'em coming! I reckon you guys have 70,000-100,000 posts between you two. Why not actually spend some time enjoying the weather instead of just being snarky? I spent my little three week vacation from the site skiing and snowshoeing every day just about. This is what I was referring to for snow. Year represents the period ending January 16th. So 1962 is July 1961-January 1962. Caribou Snow, July 1-Jan 16 1962: 23.6 1975: 56.2 x2 2002: 30.2 2018: 64.1 2021: 40.0 Blend: 47.8” Actual: 43.0” Boston Snow, July 1-Jan 16 1962: 13.8 1975: 7.0 x2 2002: 6.6 2018: 22.9 x2 2021: 17.5 Blend: 14.0" Actual: 12.2" New York City, July-Jan 16 1962: 7.8 1975: 1.5 x2 2002: 0.5 2018: 17.5 x2 2021: 10.5 Blend: 8.1" Actual: 6.8" Philadelphia, July-Jan 16 1962: 8.6 1975: 1.0 x2 2002: 0.0 2018: 12.7 x2 2021: 6.6 Blend: 6.1" Actual: 4.6" Baltimore, July-Jan 16 1962: 11.4 1975: 2.0 x2 2002: 0.0 2018: 5.2 x2 2021: 1.6 Blend: 3.9” Actual: 3.0" Washington DC, July-Jan 16 1962: 4.2 1975: 2.9 2002: 0.0 2018: 2.7 2021: 0.0 Blend: 2.2" Actual: 12.1" Richmond, July 16-Jan 16 1962: 13.1 1975: 0.0 2002: 7.7 2018: 6.1 2021: 1.0 Blend: 4.9" Actual: 3.0"

Deepest reds start at +7F. Been a warm first half of winter. Well over half the lower-48 is more than +3 or hotter for the first half of winter.

The 7th deepest red is getting near 170W. None of the blues are deeper than the 6th deepest. I've been expecting this event to weaken pretty rapidly in February. Think it will be over in March. SOI is more likely than not to finish January negative as an example of a real-time response to the warmth advancing. The 90-day SOI has dropped below +8 too. Date Tahiti (hPa) Darwin (hPa) Daily Contribution 30 day Av. SOI 90 day Av. SOI 16 Jan 2022 1009.09 1007.55 -14.46 2.47 7.12 15 Jan 2022 1007.03 1007.60 -24.40 3.32 7.51 14 Jan 2022 1008.50 1005.95 -9.70 4.71 8.00 13 Jan 2022 1011.05 1005.35 5.14 5.64 8.43 12 Jan 2022 1013.14 1008.60 -0.32 6.01 8.61 11 Jan 2022 1011.99 1008.45 -5.04 6.46 8.80 10 Jan 2022 1007.84 1008.35 -24.11 7.04 9.02 9 Jan 2022 1007.02 1008.30 -27.74 8.33 9.43 8 Jan 2022 1008.45 1008.65 -22.65 9.56 9.77 7 Jan 2022 1011.09 1008.10 -7.63 10.53 9.97 6 Jan 2022 1012.63 1006.80 5.75 11.13 10.08 5 Jan 2022 1012.95 1006.50 8.67 11.33 10.17 4 Jan 2022 1011.63 1006.30 3.40 11.59 10.23 3 Jan 2022 1011.64 1006.80 1.09 12.00 10.27 2 Jan 2022 1011.96 1007.80 -2.11 12.36 10.40 1 Jan 2022 1013.42 1008.00 3.82 12.84 10.62

The storm this week for the East & South confirms two of the snow ideas in my forecast from October: 1) I wrote "most storms not cold enough for all snow" for the East Coast - kind of obvious, but people forget, 2) All analogs featured fluky snow deep into the South, despite record SE warmth at times, mostly in January. I had mid-Dec to mid-Jan as the timing target for fluky southern snows. Also mentioned significant ice storms were likely just north of the area of warmest anomalies in the Southeast. If you look at January 1962, the temperature profile has resembled early January so far nationally. That's a pretty snowy month in places like Nashville, Memphis, etc, as it looks like this month could be. Memphis had 5.0 inches in January 1962, top ten January for snow in the past 90 years as an example, with 2-4 forecast, on top of 0.5 so far. More generally, my weighted analog blend of 1961-62, 1974-75 (x2), 2001-02, 2017-18 (x2), 2020-21 is within 2-3 inches of observed totals for July 2021-January 14, 2022 so far in Boston, NYC, and Philadelphia, so this is probably going to be one of my better snow forecasts, as I had the West pretty snowy at times too.

The PDO is starting tor revert toward neutral. -2.00 in December is still incredibly low on the Nate Mantua method historically. https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO 2020-11-01T00:00:00Z -1.12 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z -0.9 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z -0.16 2021-02-01T00:00:00Z -0.54 2021-03-01T00:00:00Z -1.17 2021-04-01T00:00:00Z -0.91 2021-05-01T00:00:00Z -0.94 2021-06-01T00:00:00Z -1.18 2021-07-01T00:00:00Z -1.87 2021-08-01T00:00:00Z -1.12 2021-09-01T00:00:00Z -1.53 2021-10-01T00:00:00Z -2.55 2021-11-01T00:00:00Z -2.52 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z -2.0

Here is a comparison of the 12/13 Rex Block (12/31 storm) and the forecast 1/14 Rex Block by Kamchatka. Expecting a pretty cold storm and a weak low underneath it sometime in the 1/31-2/3 period.

Mid-Dec to Late-Dec period of active Western storminess looks like it will come back. This is a pretty substantial rex block forecast in the short term for Kamchatka that will translate to storms for at least California and Arizona in the 1/31-2/3 time frame. Here is December 13 for comparison ahead of the big system around 12/31, with a similar rex block in a stormy period for the West.

The real time stats for ENSO indicate rapid weakening at the moment. We've gone from -1.1 below the surface to -0.8 or so. Nino 1.2/3 are warming rapidly. SOI for January is around -6 currently. I think you'll see Nino 3/3.4/4 reach their coldest readings at the surface this week to two weeks from now before warming pretty quickly. Last year peaked at 25.28C in November 2020. This event may peak at 25.5C or something in January, or when CPC inevitably revises December. Should be another DJF without a 25.5C average (-1.0C v. 1951-2010) in Nino 3.4. Last one was 2010-11. The subsurface is now warmer than last year in mid-January, looks like.

Cracks me up to see people so happy with the snow in the East today and in recent days. It's extremely common for the East to get snow after a wet West December in week two of January if you look at the history. I think three of my five analogs had snow for the NE on 1/7.

Bye bye.