raindancewx

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 04DEC2019 22.5 0.1 25.3 0.2 26.9 0.3 29.4 0.9 11DEC2019 23.1 0.5 25.5 0.4 27.1 0.5 29.5 1.0 18DEC2019 23.3 0.4 25.5 0.3 27.2 0.6 29.5 1.1 25DEC2019 23.6 0.3 25.5 0.2 27.0 0.4 29.5 1.0 01JAN2020 23.7 0.1 25.7 0.3 27.2 0.7 29.6 1.2 08JAN2020 24.3 0.2 25.9 0.4 27.1 0.5 29.3 1.0 15JAN2020 24.2-0.2 25.6-0.1 27.0 0.4 29.2 0.9 Given how warm the subsurface is below Nino 3.4, you have to expect a warmer Nino 3.4 in February, above the average +0.2C warming that takes place from Jan to Feb. The western subsurface does look pretty cold, so the models showing +0.5C to +0.8C in Nino 3.4 through Feb/Mar and then a La Nina next winter are probably right. I'm fairly confident that the periods of extreme Eastern warmth in the Fall/Winter are going to show up again in the Spring. Will be interesting to see how that evolves. I'll link my Spring Forecast here around February 10th if anyone is curious. Winter to date has looked a lot like 1953-54, 2003-04, 2004-05 as a blend warmed up a degree, with the heat core somewhat SE, and it's not a bad SST match either in the Nino zones.

It still looks to me like the pattern is repeating, almost verbatim from Fall at a 3.5 month lag. The very very cold air dumping into Montana lately is consistent with what happened about 10/1. In other words...the mid-Oct to mid-Nov part of the pattern is likely coming in February. The January SOI hanging out around 0, were it to continue, supports something like a 1937/1993/2005 blend for February 2020, which is fairly similar to how mid-Oct to mid-Nov looked, but colder West. Real question is: When will Philadelphia have its first inch of snow?

The SOI for January is back down to -0.6. Right now, the top blend for February is 1937, 1993, 2005. Will change by the end of the month...but it's not likely to be super positive or negative this month. SOI Nov Dec Jan 1936 -13.8 -0.7 8.8 2004 -7.7 -10.1 1.2 1992 -6.9 -6.6 -9.2 Blend -9.5 -5.8 0.3 2019 -9.5 -6.7 -0.6 Cold West / average East pattern if the SOI finishes around 0 in January. The top six objective matches are 2004-05, 1939-40, 1967-68, 1979-80, 1987-88, 1963-64.

My formula attempts to account for the ratio using the (40-Temp) portion. The colder it is, if you look historically, the less impact the East wind thing has. I've done a lot of testing on that formula - it tends to be within an inch of what it reported at the airport. This is one the better write ups about it. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/weatherpapers/011/index.html For the November storm, the numbers were like this - should say the 'precip' value is a double weighted 3-km NAM, double weighted Euro, and single weighted GFS value for snow divided by five, i.e. 'modeled precip'. I know you have to look at soundings to make sure there is nothing weird going on, but assuming there isn't, you can use it pretty cleanly. Snow = (40-Temp)x(Precip as Snow*(1-EW/50) Snow = (40-30)x(0.6*(1-((1020+1024)-(1017x2))/((50) Snow = (10 x 0.6) x (1-(44-34)/(50) Snow = (10 x 0.6) x (1-(10/50) Snow = (10 x 0.6) x (1-0.2) Snow = (0.6) x (0.8) Snow = 4.8". The airport got 4 inches.

This may be a similar situation to mid-November when a storm from the Polar Jet came through Colorado, while a storm from the Subtropical jet came through New Mexico, at slightly different times, but only a day or so apart. In other words...GFS is right to hammer Colorado and the Euro is right to bring a lot to New Mexico. That's happened in the recent past in this pattern. I'm inclined to believe there is at least one more big storm for NM before the end of January. Very strong signal for a wet January here after a wet November. We're half way there after yesterday. I'm increasingly eyeing Feb 25-Mar 7 as a pretty volatile period for the Rockies, probably with heavy snow. Some things that I consider relatively independent support a big March: 1) 1992-93/2004-05/2018-19 have all been fairly close at times to the Fall/Winter pattern. Some pretty notorious March storms in those patterns. 2) The patterns have been operating in repeat mode nationally at about a 3.5 month lag, so the H2 November storminess should come back about March,for two weeks. The 1/16 storm in New Mexico roughly corresponded timing wise to the 10/4 storm in New Mexico. The idea is 9/16-10/15 is roughly January, so 11/16-12/15 is roughly March. 3) There have been unusual and fairly severe transitions between extreme dry air and wet air (by NM standards) during transitional phases of the national pattern. Going from a 57F / 3F dew point to snow 32F/ 30F is not super common as a 24-hour transition without a strong cold front...but it just happened, and has occurred several times already since October. 4) There is a late peak or at least a big secondary +ENSO peak coming in through the subsurface. There was a big peak in October preceding the November madness late in the month. 5) Since Fall 2007, March has been wet exactly one time in New Mexico (2019), and it hasn't been cold in any year. April has seen more snow than March in Albuquerque since 2010, a month that is often only freezing or colder for something like six-ten hours at most with frequent highs in the 60s-80s, while March has 20-40 hours below freezing even in a warm year, with much colder highs. There has been a lot of dumb luck non-sense for March snow. The consistent lows <=freezing to date (62 for 10/1-1/18, 34th most since 1931-32) and very dry air alternating with rapid transitions to wet air should help out with allowing March snow. Years with snow in Nov, Dec, and Jan are fairly rare here, but they tend to have snow more often in March (21/25 cases) compared to other years (37/63 cases) at statistically significant level. It's only snowed 3"+ twice since 1900 in March in a low solar year, but even ~3% events happen sometimes. The dry monsoon years prior to El Nino are often a bit better for March snow too.

The official site had 0.15" as snow, all freezing or below, and reported 0.7". I had 1.5", and my co-workers on the west-side of town had around 3 inches. The airport has had 5.3" to date, which is above the average through 1/16. I've had 7.5" in November, 0.3" in December, and 2.0" total in January, about 10 inches total - same elevation as the airport, due north, with some snow shadowing here too. We do get more snow up here, but I still find their totals to be kind of funky most of the time. For the airport totals I try to use this formula: Snow = (40-Temp)x(Precip as Snow*(1-EW/50), where East Wind is air pressure in MB in Amarillo + air pressure in Colorado Springs - ABQ air pressure x2 In this case... Snow = (40 - 31) x (0.15)*(1-(9/50) = Snow = (9) x (0.15)*(0.82) Snow = 1.1 inches The East wind score went from roughly 14 to 5 over the duration of the event where at least parts of the city were getting snow. My assumptions had been more like this for the airport going in - Snow = (40 - 34) x (0.25) x (1-(5/50) = 6 x 0.25 x 0.9 = 1.4 I don't doubt they got around an inch, just seems a touch low for 0.15" liquid equivalent, with temperatures below freezing when all of it accumulated.

There is SOI support (crash 1/10-1/12) for a big storm passing through the SW around 1/22-1/23. Models likely have the right general idea. I'd expect something around 1/25 too.

I think this El Nino may last deep into 2020, and then turn into a La Nina that peaks late in winter 2020-21 or early in Spring 2021. I'm expecting the cold water below the surface to end the El Nino from West to East, meaning we'll have Modoki La Nina / East-based El Nino forcing for a time later in 2020 (colder Nino 4, warmer Nino 3.4/1.2)

The thing that drives me nuts about Albuquerque is the airport does BS-y things with snow numbers, and precip in general. So they reported 0.09" of liquid equivalent as snow through about 5 pm. That number somehow is only 0.2 inches of snow. Despite temperatures 30-32F the entire period of accumulating snow. It was almost 60 yesterday, but it seems like it should be at least 0.5 inches. Visibility was under 2 miles for much of the snow Most of the city likely got far more precipitation too, although that's partly a snow shadowing issue. They'll probably update the snow total to something more reasonable later. The model precip was way overdone for sure, some of the models had 0.3-0.7" in the city, with half as snow. It's more like a 0.1-0.3" storm I'd say. The band in Arizona is likely to bring some additional precipitation, probably as snow. I've got one inch at my house a 6 pm, which is consistent with about 0.10" liquid so far.

I'm a big fan of the 3-km NAM at this range. Let's hope it verifies. Main issue for me will be if it gets cold enough. Dew points are low teens. But still in the upper 40s at almost 10 pm which is not ideal. I think we'd wet bulb to 36F or so at the moment, not quite cold enough/dry enough for snow. But the cold does seem to making the climb over the 7,000 pass into the Rio Grande Valley.

The 12/1-1/15 average high is 45.2F in Boston. Correlation implies 42.0F now for the season, +/-2.8F, at 90% certainty based on 1931-32 to 2018-19 errors from hindcasting. Winters with a high of 39.2F-44.8F in Boston average 31 inches of snow: DJF Tmax Tmax Snow 1931-1932 42.4 18.4 1932-1933 44.2 40.6 1936-1937 42.7 9 1946-1947 40.6 19.4 1948-1949 42.1 37.1 1949-1950 41.4 32 1950-1951 42.3 29.7 1951-1952 40.6 31.9 1952-1953 41.7 29.8 1953-1954 41.8 23.6 1959-1960 40.5 40.9 1971-1972 40.6 47.5 1973-1974 40.7 36.9 1974-1975 41.1 27.6 1975-1976 40.8 46.6 1982-1983 41.3 32.7 1984-1985 39.4 26.6 1988-1989 40.3 15.5 1990-1991 43.2 19.1 1991-1992 40.5 22 1994-1995 40.9 14.9 1996-1997 41.7 51.9 1997-1998 40.8 25.6 1998-1999 41.5 36.4 1999-2000 40.3 24.4 2001-2002 44.5 15.1 2005-2006 39.9 39.9 2006-2007 40.1 17.1 2007-2008 39.4 51.2 2011-2012 44.7 9.3 2012-2013 40 63.4 2016-2017 42.5 47.6 2017-2018 39.6 59.9 2018-2019 41.1 27.4 Average 41.3 31.5

This decade should feature some pretty extreme weather from both natural climate cycles and the Earth warming. I have a couple thoughts for the decade overall: 1) It's increasingly rare to have a season that isn't warm or wet. At a local level, I think the wet signal is as likely to be dominant as the warm signal in any given season. You don't always have a warm/wet season...but it's pretty rare to not have at least one now. Looking back at my last 30 winters (1989-90 to 2018-19) in Albuquerque, using the 1951-2010 averages for highs (which are much less impacted by Earth warming than the rapidly rising lows), and precipitation, I think only four winters weren't warm or wet or both - 1989-90 (cold/dry), 1996-97 (cold/dry), 2009-10 (cold/dry), 2012-13 (cold/dry). I think this is a good generalization to the US overall. 2) Data mining is useful for re-creating tropical inputs not available in the old days (MJO, OLR, etc). I find that re-creating near exact matches to precipitation patterns for an extended period is quite predictive for several months in a specific location, even if the analogs used for the composite are 50-100 years old. Precipitation patterns likely tell you about the position of highs/lows and MJO input, and how it is all interacting. 3) The AMO is fairly likely to go negative this decade, but it will be a 'warmed up' cold phase. I think the flip could be as early as this year, but more likely mid-decade. I'd expect to see more snow deeper into the SW, SE, and Mexico, like in the late 1950s and 1960s as this transitions happens. 4) Old analogs are likely to still work in El Nino years and Neutral years if the AMO/PDO match too, but are not likely to work in La Nina years. A lot of La Nina years in the old days had extremely cold Nino 3.4 and Nino 4 values, which have not been witnessed in recent La Ninas, and were surrounded by cold in the subtropics. The strong El Ninos in the 1930s-1950s act a lot like weak El Ninos today, due to similar SSTs since CPC uses a sliding scale that changes every five years for ONI. A strong El Nino in 1930 had SSTs around 27.5-28.0C, not much warmer than 2018-19. The strong La Ninas used to have SSTs below 25.5C and low SSTs around them - even the strongest La Ninas now don't typically get surrounded by cold SSTs. The strongest El Ninos did have fairly warm SSTs surrounding them in positive PDO years. 5) The solar cycle is a pretty big wild card. Long-term, low solar promotes cold in the interior West on an annualized basis, since we have the most sunlight and dry air, and are furthest away from ocean moderation even though it is more of a cold signal in the East in mid-Jan to mid-Apr. Low solar has some impact on precipitation timing and development too, at least if you look at it statistically. Certain "high solar" events are not likely to appear much, or at all, this decade. If we're going to get a tendency where 40% of winters are El Nino/near El Nino (27.0C+), and 70% of years are low solar, I think we'll see some pretty shitty winters in the NE corridor for snow totals for a little while. The low solar + El Nino thing tends to not work out for the immediate coast for snow. It can be a great pattern during La Nina though. 6) I'm expecting a major volcanic eruption (VEI of 4 or higher) in the tropics by the end of the decade. If this coincides with the AMO flip, you will see a fairly prolonged return to slightly better sea ice extent in the Arctic (1997-2006 levels) during September, and you'll see some increased frequency in -NAO months during Nov-Apr compared to the last 10-20 years. I'm sure some of you will disagree with this. I could be totally wrong, but that's my sense of the background trends for the decade.

Winter Weather Advisory for me means Albuquerque should be ahead of the combined snow total for NYC, Philly, Baltimore & DC again if the advisory verifies. Currently pretty close - 4.6" v. 5.0". The new Jamstec has El Nino / near El Nino conditions lasting for another full year, with an extremely hot Spring for the US. The ideal El Nino Modoki look in Sep-October for severe eastern cold has crashed pretty hard since, which coincides well with the rapid warm up in the East since the severely cold start to November.

Looks like a nice storm for New Mexico.

Starting to look like a good precipitation event for New Mexico on Thursday. Lots of mountain snow. Might get some snow in the valleys too if the 12-km NAM is right.

Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 04DEC2019 22.5 0.1 25.3 0.2 26.9 0.3 29.4 0.9 11DEC2019 23.1 0.5 25.5 0.4 27.1 0.5 29.5 1.0 18DEC2019 23.3 0.4 25.5 0.3 27.2 0.6 29.5 1.1 25DEC2019 23.6 0.3 25.5 0.2 27.0 0.4 29.5 1.0 01JAN2020 23.7 0.1 25.7 0.3 27.2 0.7 29.6 1.2 08JAN2020 24.3 0.2 25.9 0.4 27.1 0.5 29.3 1.0 On the weekly update, subsurface warmth is actually higher than last January now (+0.7 and rising) https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf SOI has been positive but is correcting negative. Date Tahiti (hPa) Darwin (hPa) Daily Contribution 30 day Av. SOI 90 day Av. SOI 13 Jan 2020 1009.89 1005.85 -2.68 -5.49 -5.34 12 Jan 2020 1009.84 1005.45 -1.03 -5.78 -5.46 11 Jan 2020 1010.04 1004.25 5.56 -5.87 -5.52 10 Jan 2020 1011.34 1003.85 13.57 -6.09 -5.49 9 Jan 2020 1011.90 1005.60 7.97 -6.37 -5.59 8 Jan 2020 1011.88 1006.40 4.10 -6.72 -5.72 7 Jan 2020 1012.42 1006.75 5.00 -7.01 -5.90 6 Jan 2020 1014.76 1006.20 18.61 -7.02 -6.06 5 Jan 2020 1015.24 1006.70 18.52 -7.40 -6.28 4 Jan 2020 1014.00 1006.95 11.50 -7.88 -6.57 3 Jan 2020 1011.65 1008.60 -7.34 -8.54 -6.82 2 Jan 2020 1011.06 1010.15 -17.42 -8.42 -6.97 1 Jan 2020 1011.94 1008.85 -7.16 -7.54 -6.99

If you buy these two images as similar, and recognize Dec looked like 8/16-9/15, the "exciting" part of the pattern, late November, should return around week 4 February to week one March. Timing wise, should gel with the final push of the subsurface warmth to the surface in Nino 3.4 if you look at the animation.

The idea in my winter forecast for this pattern was that the seasonal totals for the SW (NM, AZ, CO, UT) would more or less be above average, but it would be a smaller than normal number of storms that got us there. November saved Fall here, with close to two inches of liquid equivalent Nov 16-30, pushing Fall to +30% here for moisture. The precipitation pattern is essentially 1953-54, but occasionally, 1992-93/2004-05 interject with wetter storms to break up the dryness. A lot of the super warm mid-January periods in the NE (70ish in Boston) showed up in my precipitation analogs - so I don't think we'll stay quiet too much longer. The event on the Euro below is within five days and keeps trending up. I don't know that I buy the front range getting shadowed yet. The way the moisture is forecast to move through New Mexico still looks wrong on the models to me. As depicted below, the Euro would more or less verify the "wet January" idea I've had since December for New Mexico. It's our driest month here - doesn't take much. Nationally, the US temperature pattern Jan 1-12 looks like Sept 16-27 roughly. So if the November part of the pattern is to repeat, I'm expecting it Feb 25 - March 5.

Looks to me, for the 1872-2020 era of Boston records, the 73F achieved today is the all-time warmest it has ever been in Boston during January. Congratulations on your nicest winter day of all time. You've got 10 hours to get the low below 55F - the all-time warmest January low in Boston - that's pretty likely but it may be closer than it looked initially.

GFS/Euro are starting to show some decent rain/snow for New Mexico on Thursday-Friday, with some help from the sub tropical jet stream. Up to 4.6 inches of snow at the airport officially. I still like January as a big precipitation month for Albuquerque - we'll see how that goes. Elephant Butte Reservoir is 28.8% full right now. After all the snow melted last July, it peaked at 29.2% full. Should easily beat that - maybe with the next big precipitation event this winter. Elephant Butte likely will be the most full it has been since 2002 by Spring or Summer.

Yeah I know. The better shot was today - it was about 50 at 11 pm EST when I looked yesterday. The +30 departures today in the NE are worth ~+0.3 for the entire winter though, which is impressive for one day. You guys have had it easy anyway, Philadelphia is approaching a bottom ten snow total through mid-January at this point. Still only 0.1" officially.

Warmest low temperature back to the 1800s for Boston in January is 55F in 1950. Here's hoping you break the record. 1932 and 1906, two good precipitation matches locally, are up there in second/third place. Weather Channel has a low of 59F on Saturday. That's like late June/early July level lows out here.

ENSO (El Nino, Neutral, La Nina) is kind of a semi-stationary pattern in the Tropical Pacific, which is why it is useful for seasonal forecasting. The MJO is a signal for changes within the season, because it moves around the world, essentially as a coherent band of thunderstorms, and ends up where it started in 30-60 day increments. If the MJO is in the right spot, it can also dry out a region of the tropics. The placement of the thunderstorms changes which areas of the US are favored for cold/warmth, dryness/wetness. The placement can enhance or reduce the dominant effect of an El Nino or La Nina, if that effect is in place. There is evidence of solar changes impacting the MJO too, in some research. More intense MJO patterns can often take over as the dominant force in a pattern for a bit. Like now, with the ~60F lows in January in the Northeast corridor. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-mjo-and-why-do-we-care

Euro has a fairly steep cool down of Nino 4 forecast through July. Nino 3.4 is expected to cool slowly and hang around +0.5C. The PDO has recovered to a pretty positive value on the JISAO/Mantua index. https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO 2018-11-01T00:00:00Z -0.05 2018-12-01T00:00:00Z 0.52 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z 0.66 2019-02-01T00:00:00Z 0.46 2019-03-01T00:00:00Z 0.37 2019-04-01T00:00:00Z 1.07 2019-05-01T00:00:00Z 1.03 2019-06-01T00:00:00Z 1.09 2019-07-01T00:00:00Z 1.03 2019-08-01T00:00:00Z 0.38 2019-09-01T00:00:00Z 0.41 2019-10-01T00:00:00Z -0.45 2019-11-01T00:00:00Z 0.15 2019-12-01T00:00:00Z 0.97