ORH_wxman

Our sample size is poor on these things which is really the inhibiting factor. I’m fairly skeptical of a big winter at the moment for reasons Webb says, but I’m also not projecting nearly as much confidence as some of these people because we’re talking about a very limited sample of similar ENSO events…and so far, this one is not behaving atmospherically like any of the SST analogs. Will that end up mattering? I don’t know the answer to that and my guess is most LR forecasters don’t either.

The funny thing is most of the long range guidance didn’t show much of a -AO/NAO in December last year. The month still sucked but it was “for the wrong reasons”. That’s part of the problem with seasonal forecasting….the AO/NAO are stochastic enough in nature that guidance can’t really predict them accurately which makes it a problem being accurate in the winter pattern for the northeast.

There’s been almost a hiatus in the last week or so. Not quite like 2013’s 10 day hiatus but definitely a slow down big enough to put 2023 back into the lower melt years post-2007. There’s a good amount of vulnerable ice though in the ESS/Chukchi/Beaufort so my guess is this is still going to be more of a “middle of the pack” type season. I’ve been on vacation the past week but will give a numbers update when I return.

Might get an airmass of yore this weekend/early next week. Pretty impressive cP airmass there.

Update: On 7/23, NSIDC area was 4.85 million sq km. Here's how other years compared on the same date: 2022: +550k 2021: +210k 2020: -460k 2019: -290k 2018: +180k 2017: +50k 2016: -50k 2015: +150k 2014: +460k 2013: +90k 2012: -340k 2011: -250k 2010: +240k 2009: +560k 2008: +590k 2007: -90k Area loss has been pretty strong so far this month putting us slightly below the 2007-2022 mean. We may be able to sneak into the top 5 if strong losses can continue into August.

Yep, wasting that block was a huge downer....but it's happened before and will happen again. Kind of reminded me a bit of the December 1987 pattern where we wasted an awesome NAO block too. It's the reverse scenario of when we get hammered by storm after storm despite a +AO/NAO and -PNA...sometimes we end up lucky but times like last December, we get the shit sandwich instead.

Yeah you caught the tail end of them IIRC before they died....I think towns like Groton/Pepperell/Townsend/Dunstable had 2-3"

Yeah the arctic cold behind the Buffalo blizzard wasn't that great by the time it got to New England....one of the worst cold deliveries for us is W or WSW. Works a lot better further west.....that said, ORH with its recent 2F warm bias ASOS still put up a 14/5 on Xmas Eve which is no slouch....it's not record-breaking, by any stretch, but a windy 14/5 day isn't going to earn many high marks amongst those who hate brutal cold. It was sort of the nail in the coffin for a shit-sandwich sensible wx solution in that pattern though....screws us by cutting the storm west, but do it in a manner where the brutal arctic cold behind it is hitting DC and Richmond VA long before it hits us as to minimize any chance of intriguing anomalies....but still be cold enough to find it excessively annoying to walk outside. We probably wouldn't mind a still/calm Christmas Eve morning at 5F where a snow packed sidewalk is squeaking under our feet and woodstove smoke rising straight up until it hits an inversion 100 feet up, but of course we don't get that kind of 5F morning on Xmas Eve last year....we get a windy 5F with bare ground and maybe a rogue frozen puddle in the driveway to remind us we had a driving rainstorm 24 hours earlier....like I said, a shit sandwich. I think a few lucky souls to the north of Rt 2 had that rogue snowsquall hit them with 2-3" though....

Yes agreed...and that is going to be true of any variable as well. Like for example, usually we aren't overly concerned about a -PNA in New England....EXCEPT when it's going nuclear that it's digging for oil in Cabo San Lucas, then we can start worrying which is what happened to us in Dec 2021 and even parts of last winter. Yeah this is an incessant problem with our geography when it comes to winter forecasting (hell, throw summer heat domes in as well where they "shunt" south at least excuse imaginable).....we don't have very strong correlations with any single index like, say, the northern plains, PAC NW, or SE does. We have a conveniently non-dominant blend of indices that seem to affect us and we have to figure out which one is going to be the most impactful at any given lead time....all while using tools that can't really predict these indices very well more than 10 days out. And the coup de grâce is sometimes we identify the correct pattern at good lead time and STILL fail to get the sensible wx to materialize that we'd expect in such a pattern (take the big NAO block from last December as an example)....we first narrowly missed a Dec '92 redux on 12/16, and then a nuance with the PV lobe dropping into western Canada pulled the rug on our East Coast KU threat and turned it into a Buffalo blizzard on 12/23-24. Hey, at least we froze our asses off with the cold front for a couple days....yay. I will say this though....learning to forecast in New England is great. It makes many other areas a cakewalk by comparison.

I don't think the old norm was good either....there's a reason people who were right 55-60% of the time in seasonal forecasting were basically considered elite (and really still are). We've seen two very similar ENSO events in the past behave very differently. Weak east-based El Nino in '76-'77? How about the coldest winter over the northeast since 1917-18. Ok, lets a take a more favorable weakish or low-end moderate modoki Nino in '94-'95....I don't have to tell you how shitty that winter was, lol. I remember the hype around that one too.

Update: On 7/16, NSIDC area was at 5.42 million sqkm. Here's where other years were on the same date: 2022: +420k 2021: +130k 2020: -300k 2019: -420k 2018: +370k 2017: +220k 2016: -100k 2015: +180k 2014: +360k 2013: +190k 2012: -480k 2011: +60k 2010: +150k 2009: +490k 2008: +610k 2007: -170k

Yeah I can’t remember how many times it screwed me over back around 495 which doesn’t usually happen. You’ll see it a couple times per winter but not almost every storm…lol.

Looks like this morning’s MCS screwed us for this afternoon despite the good dewpoints. Satellite looks like a lifeless wasteland for convection around here.

I’m still going to be amazed by that in like 30 years if I’m still around. Just storm after storm after storm where we had a high over the Grand Banks…I think one storm had a good high (Jan 23rd I want to say? And that high built in kind of late so it was a rain to snow deal) Even a high retreating over Nova Scotia would’ve been adequate on a few of those events. At least you get good front enders sometimes on those highs even when it doesn’t stay 100% snow.

Yeah I’d be shocked if your area was worse than last year. The only silver lining to such a shitty season is that even a merely run-of-the-mill subpar season will feel like a decent winter in comparison. Even in my area, I’d be surprised if we were as bad. I had something like 33” which was the lowest since probably ‘99-00 here.

It’s interesting looking at the historical climo of legit hurricane landfalls in New England. We had a VERY active period in the middle 20th century where we had 6 legit New England landfalls in roughly 50 years (and that doesn’t count close misses like the 1944 NYC hurricane or Gerda swiping ACK in 1969). But we had a similar lull to now back between the 1890s and the 1938 storm where we went over 40 years without a landfall and prior to that was very active in the 1850s-1890s. I always joke with Scott (CoastalWx) how the media is going to lose their proverbial shit when we have another active period for New England and east coast landfalls in general. The further away we get from that active middle 20th century period, the more the population becomes blissfully unaware of it.

I did make a prediction for NSIDC extent back in my prediction post (I went with 4.8 million sq km). Extent is a little harder to predict because compaction makes a big difference unlike area where compaction wouldn’t change a whole lot. In the short term (0-96h), the pattern is pretty good for compaction but the longer term ensembles aren't…however, things can always change in the arctic pretty quickly beyond 5 days. I personally forecasted a bit higher extent than I might normally would for a 3.1 million sq km area prediction (4.6 or 4.7 million sq km would be more in line with 3.1 area) due to the stronger buffer in the Chukchi region this year and lower area in Hudson Bay which melts out fully anyway…the latter was driving down the area numbers in late June. The mean pattern in August will likely have a big say in the final extent. If we get a lot of high pressure over the basin (esp skewed a bit toward North American side), then we’ll see a lot of compaction and lower extent…but if we see a lot of low pressure, it will keep the ice dispersed and the extent will stay higher by the time we get to the min in early or mid September.

What is the based on? I'll take the over.

Yes and this is what the prediction was for the minimum too based on the data at the end of June...very mundane middle-of-the-pack type season in the post-2007 world.

Update: On 7/12, NSIDC area was 5.91 million sq km. Here's how other years compared: 2022: +350k 2021: -380k 2020: -400k 2019: -580k 2018: +160k 2017: +280k 2016: -270k 2015: +140k 2014: +380k 2013: +230k 2012: -590k 2011: -110k 2010: +20k 2009: +580k 2008: +390k 2007: -140k

There will be diurnal variation on anything that gets sunlight. The question is the magnitude. The FL Keys sensors were near 7F (over 3C) variation. Ct River is much more modest variation of ~1C.

Or using the water treatment plant on deer island to measure BOS snowfall.

If they are sticking these sensors in a shallow lagoon with the sand not far below them, those water temps are going to be pretty normal in the summer. It only takes one idiot over at a news stations to equate these readings with more offshore buoys to fire up the hype machine. It’s like using Maple Hollow in the winter to talk about how cold it got in CT one morning.

Maybe it's super shallow...that's the only way you could get a 7F diurnal range, and also have the readings that high to begin with.

I’d love to see what type of production we get from that type of pattern in the modern day juiced SST environment. My guess is it would be really good.