Volcanic Winter

No, it’s not. “True cold,” or rather just cold with historical precedent in our latitude would feel intolerable to the masses after our continual winter torches and shortening cold season. I think about this stuff often (both historical climate shifts as well as change in geologic timescales), and it’s really interesting stuff. Especially how perceptions change over time; imagine tomorrow’s high were to be 8 degrees. People would be freaking out and assume it’s unprecedented, not that it was ever wholly common per se, of course.

Can we take a mulligan on this one?

I’ll take my lumps if we don’t see snow for a while, but I will literally get down on all fours and beg to avoid a protracted torch. A couple days of 50+ yeah, of course that’s unavoidable. At the very least, let’s stay in the game please.

It’s interesting to me how recent cold outbreaks the past several winters have the cold predominantly spilling into the plains and moderating east. I suspect that’s part of why we haven’t even approached record setting BN temps in a long while, though I know the metro area record lows will probably never be broken. At least in NJ I know some days go as low as -30 which, being honest, I absolutely can’t even fathom ever happening again. The question I have is if we see a set up again similar to say 1989 where the axis of arctic cold is centered squarely on the east, is it still possible for us to reach low single digits or negative degrees? Will we ever see another high max barely reaching double digits or is this a feature of the past?

It just appears that the storm track set up shop to our west, with the east end of the trough being too far west. IMHO I believe we’ve been over thinking this a bit. We had the ingredients but the trough axis wasn’t lined up properly for us to snow because the storm track is supporting cutters instead of coastals. And I think that ties into what’s been discussed about the 50/50 ridge from the extra warm SST’s. Simplest explanation is that pushed back on the trough and messed up the storm track for us keeping us on the torch side.

Thanks for highlighting the evolution and refinement of knowledge. Take a look at the period before and during the 1970's.

Canada is wonderful, go for it!

As someone mentioned, the GFS is a totally different storm evolution. That’s all or nothing. I’m most interested in seeing if the GFS continues as such an extreme outlier; would certainly keep things spicy. Seriously though, this is WAY better than last Dec even if it ends in disappointment. I’ll take the seasonable cold and trackable threats to rainy torch city any day. The extreme -PNA was soul crushing last year. Already ahead IMO.

Always appreciate your summaries, Don.

You’re worried, dude. So am I, for the record.

Trend wasn’t the right word, but a step toward a more inland track.

Doesn’t that imply a trend towards the other models?

It would, if nothing else, be refreshing for the models to lock in a favorable outcome and then never waiver (outside of expected track adjustments, of course).

So that’s what I was asking, why or how are Niñas after Niños so good for us? How does the ENSO state from the previous year influence the patterns of the current state? Is it just a statistical finding or is there theory behind it? Edit: Nevermind Liberty, just got to your follow up reply, appreciate it. Of course if anyone else wanted to chime in, thanks.

I’m here for it. I dare it to make me break out my down parka.

Ideally we want a weak Niño which is better for snow than neutral, right? And I think I’ve read a Modoki is even better, and that a Niña following a Niño is good as well? What would be the mechanism for the latter question; how would the ENSO state from a year prior impact a new Niña? Or is it just something that emerged statistically? Apologies for the barrage of questions, this is very interesting.

Can't El Nino also hurt us if it's too strong? I feel like we'll be at risk of swinging from a persistent Nina to a powerful Nino like 2016 and just torch anyway. Of course I'm probably, hopefully wrong.

Hmm, I'm already at 26. Not bad for the coast. Jealous of them, though. For sure.

My wife and I were in Iceland last month and went to the Northern region for the first time. Re: discussion in the main Dec thread I mentioned I’d share some pics if anyone is interested. It’s absurdly beautiful there, and going mainly to the north, were able to hike in quite a bit of wintry-ness. https://imgur.com/a/2PJs7CB (First three aurora pics were in Reykjavik, the latter one is the northern capital Akureyri. Of course the strongest auroras over our two week trip there occurred while we briefly stayed in the cities, lol) Edit: Accidentally added that road video, doesn’t really show anything lol. And last two pics are of Fagradalsfjall, the volcano that erupted for a second time in a year a few months ago - was dormant since the Middle Ages

It’s an absurdly beautiful country (especially as a geology nerd, along with Hawaii it’s the pinnacle of basaltic volcanism on earth). I’ll post some pics of the north later in the banter thread. Edit: Imgur album here https://imgur.com/a/2PJs7CB

Hard to answer without being long winded. In short: I vastly prefer cold weather to warm and I’m saddened by the way our Decembers have trended. The rate of warming is most during December IIRC and every torched day is a reminder of where we’re heading. What I would do or not do differently doesn’t factor into it, though my wife and I are hikers but prefer cold weather / winter hiking. We just got back from a two week hiking trip to the northern part of Iceland, our fourth time there. We live in a part of the country with pronounced seasonality; reminders that we’re losing part of our historical winters makes me sad. Doubly and triply so when that falls on the biggest holiday, partly derived from Yule - a strictly winter affair.

At this point I don’t care about anything other than not torching for Xmas and Xmas Eve. Give me at least seasonable cold and I’ll be grateful. Looking good that least we’ll hopefully hit that mark. Glorious snow would be a bonus, but I’ll take the cold and run with it as a step one. Lots of winter ahead of us to get the ducks in a row properly.

Yeah, we’ll see I guess. Would be nice to catch a break and have the models trend toward favorable and then finally lock in instead of seeing them trend unfavorable and that always being a metaphysical certitude. I admit it’s probably cognitive bias, or at least explainable by the Niña background state. Still, frustrating.

Isn’t the 23rd looking trackable? Saw a few posts about it but haven’t been able to look myself.

I think Bluewave pondered this a couple weeks ago when I asked, but I do wonder how much longer elevated SST’s will help us rather than start to hurt. Eventually it’s going to be too much thermal energy offshore and we’re going to be too warm at the coast. Did someone mention that the elevated SST’s has to do with rising overnight lows and dew points?