raindancewx

Closing in on three full months without precipitation here. I was pretty worried about my analog blend for the month, but anomalies went toward the analogs over time. On the 20th, when the Northern Plains were +15, my "near average" idea for ND/MT/MN near Canada looked terrible, but since the 20th, an incredible correction began toward the analogs, in both the Northern Plains & Southeast where the signs were wrong v. what I forecast through 20 days. Will be curious to see how the final anomalies look

I'm rooting hard for the ongoing SOI crash. Currently down to -3.1 for Dec 1-27. Over +10 in Nov and Oct. Think it will may end up lower than that by month end. It isn't correlated super strongly with January precipitation, but it is fairly strongly correlated with January-March. Current reading (-3.1) would be 1.32", +/-1.25" at 95% certainty using the Dec SOI readings for 1931-2016 against Jan-Mar 1932-2017.

Anyone want to guess when we'll get some weather down here? Last measurable precipitation was October 5th - longest dry streak here since 1956. European ensembles seem to be hinting at January 4th or so. It's been neat watching the cold return to the Northern Plains - the high in Bismarck for Dec 1-20 was 42.5F, but for Dec 1-26 its down to 35.4F, cold is slaughtering huge amounts of the heat, but suspect the Northern Plains end up at +4 to +6 anyway, the mean December high for Bismarck for 1951-2010 is 26.1F, so 30/31F is still pretty warm. Obviously the deeper into the month you get, the harder it is for daily anomalous heat/cold to change the monthly anomalies. We're going to end up at 52F/53F with no meaningful snow for the mountains or valleys since October in NM, going to be a horrible May-June for fires without a huge turn around. The huge heat in the Northern Plains / AZ/CA with a cold NE is often a strong wet signal down here for March, which would be nice. Hasn't been wet (+20%) in March against the means sinc 2007.

I was playing with Nino 1.2 temperature correlations earlier today - its interesting that it isn't working this December. Long-term trend, and pretty strong at that - is for the Northern Plains to be cold in December if Nino 1.2 is cold in November. It's trending colder there now at the end of the month, but Bismarck looks like it will be +5 or so by the end of the month nonetheless. The areas that are coldest in Mexico this month should also be warmest - pretty strong trend. The yellows/blues are pretty strong relationships for ~68 year period. The super hot November, centered on NM/CO makes a lot of sense looking at the composites, cold Nino 1.2 Oct = hot November for that area for 1948-2016. I was pleasantly surprised to see NM is near the 0 mark for February's correlation to March, it seems like cold Nino 1.2 has the strongest temperature impact here in November, then it fades to no impact by March, before gaining in power again.

This is just for fun...but all five Decembers here without rain/snow at at were followed by cold Aprils here, and the composite is cold nationally, literally no one above the +1F threshold for April highs against 1951-2010. I'm sure something will get screwed up, but its interesting nonetheless.

I'm rooting for the cold forecast to come into the Northern Plains to fail to some degree. In La Nina years, the December mean high in Bismarck (27 La Ninas from 1930-31 to 2016-17) is 24F. When the high is above 24F in Bismarck in La Nina Decembers, tend to get snow down here in March. Mean high for Dec 1-20 in Bismarck is 42.5F, the models have it falling to the low 30s by the end of the month with highs in the teens and single digits.

Have to do some more replications, but using the extended data for Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, and the PDO, can just about replicate winter precipitation for Albuquerque for last year. Harder to do then it looks, not many years with negatives in Nino 3.4 that are positive in Nino 1.2 like last year. PDO Data: http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest.txt (N-A is Nov-Apr PDO value) Nino 1.2 (1951-2000 base, constant anomalies): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/gcos_wgsp/Timeseries/Data/nino12.long.anom.data (DJF mean used) Nino 3.4 (1951-2000 base, constant anomalies): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/gcos_wgsp/Timeseries/Data/nino34.long.anom.data (DJF mean used) ABQ N-A DJF DJF Precip Year PDO 3.4 1.2 DJF 1942 0.01 -1.21 -0.01 1.61 1982 0.95 2.33 2.80 2.59 1983 1.45 -0.76 -0.13 0.75 1983 1.45 -0.76 -0.13 0.75 1983 1.45 -0.76 -0.13 0.75 1984 0.75 -1.11 -0.65 2.39 1984 0.75 -1.11 -0.65 2.39 1984 0.75 -1.11 -0.65 2.39 1997 1.24 2.27 3.71 1.80 Mean 0.98 -0.25 0.46 1.71 2016 1.06 -0.29 0.43 1.90 Blend for the current winter would be 1934, 1934, 1954, 1985, 1996, 1996, 2007, assuming +0.25 for the PDO in Nov-Apr, -0.65C for Nino 3.4 in DJF, and -0.80C in Nino 3.4 in DJF. Would imply it gets much wetter at some point, correcting hard toward average. If I'm not cold enough for the PDO, Nino 3.4, or Nino 1.2, would be drier.

^^ It's possible, but for the 90-day period of winter, we're 21% (19/90) through, and the anomalies are around +12F or more in places in the Northern Plains. I think of it like this, to be even average, you solve for x, where x is the departure value for remainder of winter to get the northern plains to average: (0.21 * 12) + (0.79*x) = 0 2.53 + 0.79x = 0 -2.53 = 0.79x x = -3.2F So it has to be over 3F below normal (-3.2F) the rest of the winter just for them to get to normal. I had ND at +0F to +1F for the winter, but even that's pretty hard.

I enjoy reading Weatherbell's seasonal outlooks, but going to be pretty hard to get to this: Given this: Warmest area of the country right now is the place they thought would be coldest.

It's kind of incredible looking on Ryan Maue's new page to see how cold the European thinks it will get here around Christmas. High of 22F would be 24F below normal here. High is forecast at 12F in Santa Fe, with a low around -10F. Those are not common readings out here for areas that are populated.

I don't know if it will continue, but the SOI has had a major drop to negative values over the past four days, first big, somewhat extended drop since June/July. Usually when the SOI runs counter-cyclically to the predominant ENSO mode you get some crazy stuff. I'd say it won't really weaken the La Nina too much but it will weaken its effects if that makes any sense.

The latest GFS has the entire West, Mexico to Canada covered in snow in the next ten days.

Hoping the storms in the long range verify - the analogs had it very warm through about Dec 15 here, before a split showed up mid-Dec to mid-Jan - either very cold or very warm. The dry/warm years tended to go cold, the dry/wet years tended to stay warm...so we'll see!

This was my favorite picture of the snow in TX - snow literally covering Harvey debris in Rockport, TX less than four months after it hit.

Going to be very interesting seeing how the high temperature anomaly for December finishes in Albuquerque - January is heavily favored to have the coldest anomaly here in low-solar La Ninas, and to a lesser extent in low-solar years generally. Signal is less strong for whether Dec/Feb ends up warmest. I went -1.5, +0.0, +1.3 for Dec, Jan, Feb, between a warm Nov/Mar because assumed it would snow in December, but the raw analogs had -0.8, -1.2, +0.1 for the three months.

Monterrey, MX supposedly this morning.

Could've sworn I said somewhere I thought there was a shot at a blue norther interacting with the STJ, that's kind of what has happened, but can't find it. If the MJO stays active, and I think its magnitude is correlated to some extent to the QBO and Solar Conditions - this setup should return later in the winter, but probably further to the north, which could be a good set up for Amarillo, Dallas and Eastern NM. Neat to see #houstonsnow trending on Twitter. Lots of people saying its their first time seeing snow falling ever in San Antonio and Houston.

I love watching people deep in TX/MX and the South react to rare snow. It's neat to see. The 2008-09 winter was an analog that I used for my winter outlook, and it snowed in Houston & New Orleans - so not too surprised to see it. It was a low solar La Nina, after a La Nina, two years after an El Nino, and with impressive Gulf of Mexico hurricanes. https://twitter.com/deweythoms/status/938942069116194816 Accumulating snow in San Antonio https://twitter.com/mattbonner_15/status/938934812106162176 https://twitter.com/damaya14love/status/938932177663922176 Snow in Austin https://twitter.com/KHOULauren/status/938953217521672195 Snow in College Station, TX

Its amazing seeing snow forecast at short ranges SW of Brownsville TX in MX, and also by New Orleans, Houston and other places that almost never see it.

This setup is early days of "pattern b" to me. One of the three patterns my analogs had for the winter. The precip by El Paso and up the entire East Coast is consistent with it.

King NAM has snow for much of TX, NM and NE MX.

It has snowed some in the northern mountains, its the valleys and central areas that are lacking. We're in a top-30 dry stretch for consecutive days without precipitation in Albuquerque back to 1892. The record is 109 days, currently at around 60. Would assume the streak ends way before 109 days though.

It snowed a lot in Mexico in the 1960s...and the best objective match to Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, and Nino 4 SSTs in November was a blend of 1966 (x3) & 2007 (x2). So I'm on board with Mexico getting some real, accumulating snow this week.

King NAM and the latest GFS each have some snow in West TX and SE NM. Hoping it trends North.

Didn't really "design" my analogs for November, but the years I picked for winter (in Oct) did pretty well for the month. Anomalies will be closer once the maps become available only for high temperature departures, which is all I care about, lows are just about always way warmer than older years now.