Stormchaserchuck1

Look at this +NAO (again)! 2024 has been the year of +NAO's. I think this is our 8th bout, after having a total of 3 in the last 4 years.

The interesting thing is that the WPO does have a tendency to reverse to a slight -EPO signal. This is the wild card variable to a warmer Winter in the NE/Great Lakes. Dec-Jul 2023-24 was among the most +WPO times on record. This is 8 months before (notice the slight -epo) And this is 8 months after Before again- So there is a little bit of a tendency for the +WPO to reverse for the cold season. This also goes along with with the slight -epo/+nao correlation that has been occurring since 2013. -EPO patterns last 7-12 days, so it's very possible that we will get some cold shots in the midst of a warmer Winter.

Things like the PDO and NAO will probably be on top of the list of known drivers. The interesting thing is, the roll-forwards I have been doing never showed a La Nina map, except for maybe February, with the warmest Winter temp anomalies always being in the Midwest and Great Lakes.

This is the problem with La Nina though Maybe the enhanced trades models are predicting will deepen the subsurface again, but without the SOI really catching up, it's possible that the deeply negative subsurface we saw before will not able to sustain itself through the Fall and Winter.

Here are the 7 highest Natural Gas years since 1995 We are currently (August) #2 lowest, since 1995, behind only 1998 [98-99] (2.1 vs 1.8). But the Crude Oil/NG spread (which takes out things like inflation) is the lowest right now for August all-time.

Natural Gas is also really low right now.. lower even than last year. Since 1995, these are the 5 matching years to what we have so far The Winter H5 map is a really strong signal. 2.12.. Last year at this time it was 2.5, and last year even qualifies as a top 5 lowest. If you think it's going to be a cold Winter buy up those Natural Gas Futures!

Minus means "opposite". Since the satellite data goes back only 75 years, it gives more examples. You are basically looking at a core reading, and focusing also on the opposite reading over that area, and what it produced. Now averages may not always be perfect, so there is some lesser value in the method, but when you get both sides of a signal giving a strong roll forward, you know you have something with higher confidence than just the few matching examples.

Look at how muted the PDO is here in this composite of Strong ENSO events, based around the region along the equator where the coldest waters usually are. Looking back, El Nino and -PDO was the easiest call ever last Winter (because they aren't necessarily that correlated).. the combo put the core ridge in N. America exactly where it happened. I think raindancewx has mentioned this in the past. PDO's will also feedback to more west-based events, historically. I have also seen some evidence that when subsurface ENSO waves don't translate to the surface, in +years time the PDO will match (-pdo to warm subsurface waves and +pdo to cold subsurface waves). That makes some sense, because the two things happen at matching longitudes. The data is also somewhat limited here.

1959 (59-60) 1963 (63-64) 1965 (65-66) 1978 (78-79) 1994 (94-95) 1996 (96-97) 2003 (03-04) 2004 (04-05) 2009 (09-10) 2014 (14-15)

Maybe it becomes a borderline Cat 4. It looks very nice on satellite. I think Cat 3 is a given.

+AO looks to continue at least through the end of August There is a window for recurve in there, but the GOM seems most at risk by potential systems.

Yeah, peak cold waters are at 125W to 100W.. so that's where I would say the target area would be. La Nina is a cold weather pattern. -PDO is a warm weather pattern.

So.. we had a record N. American ridge December 2023 through August 3rd. I went through the entire dataset, and found 20 top analog, which matched the signal general: Here's what they look like rolled-forward... November: December: January: February: Nov-Feb Total: The February map having +5-6F temps for 20 analogs (+ and -), 20/75 of the whole dataset is pretty strong. You can see the progression into a SE ridge historically.

Yeah, PDO is about -3 right now. A short time ago, it went to the lowest monthly reading since 1954. I've found the PDO has the strongest yearly correlation with the Fall pattern (Sept-Nov), holding a >0.6 correlation in NW Canada! (That's usually a warm US composite).

These are the good ones I like to use. Monthly climate composites: https://psl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/composites/printpage.pl Daily climate composites: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/composites/day/ Correlation composites (correlate any index and any time period): https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/ US climate division data: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/ Put a (-) in front of years to do an opposite map.

I think that what we are seeing is an over-active mid-latitude High pressure, giving us a lot of La Nina events, vs something that is "organic". That would explain the +WPO tendency too, and the Southern Hemisphere's version of it. A "true La Nina" should be east-based, like we saw with this Super Nino's of 72-73, 82-83, 97-98, 15-16, and 23-24. I think that because the PDO is so negative (probably around -3 right now), a lot of the seasonal climate models are pushing for more of a west-based La Nina, where I'm saying if it was an organic new event, and independent of the mid-latitude cell, it should stay east-based. Otherwise, your forecast for a -PDO is the same as this coming La Nina.

Waters were almost neutral close to South America.. 2010-2011 was greatest anomaly in the western ENSO regions, which I'm saying is a different kind of event. The east-based Super events also seem disconnected from the PDO, so it may even be a function of the mid-latitude cells that you get trade winds over the western ENSO regions in a lot of these "varying Weak-Moderates"

Yeah, you have to think the mean is skewed though if El Nino's are pushing on the trades much stronger than La Nina's. Neutral is probably some kind of Weak La Nina, because you still have all that upwelling and cold water temps running along the equator to Peru. The normalization of those water temps to match the northern and southern Hemisphere's should not be a +5-6c El Nino, while the greatest La Nina ever is -2c. You would have to think over a long enough climo period, you would have matching max deviations on both sides.. The top maps match what a cold weather pattern should produce here in N. America. I just don't think you are going to get 17c mean water temps along the coast of South America anytime soon.

2012-14 was the last time. And it was the only time since 1992-94. 1959-63 was the last time we had 3 or more straight year of Neutral.

Minus Super El Nino's.. How come Strong La Nina's don't do this? It's because the strong equilateral winds in the Pacific ocean naturally cause more upwelling in the east than the west. Because of this, Strong La Nina's haven't historically gravitated toward east-based or been of the same deviated magnitude as these El Nino's, but if they did this is what it would look like. Just a lesson in ENSO climatology.

I have a feeling that we are in the same pattern though, and that the Northeast and Great Lakes are too cold in that composite.. If these +NAO's continue, that is what we will likely see unless the La Nina goes Moderate+ and overpowers the +nao/-epo correlation that I have noticed. I'm counting on that at least a minor pattern change has taken place with 7 +nao bouts so far this year (possibly related to the Solar Max).. but I can easily visualize another Winter where we are breaking 50s to near 60 a lot down here. Last years "bursts" were pretty strong including hitting 80 on the coldest day of the year.. hard to not run that forward, or think it may take a few years to change the pattern.. but I'm being a little riskier with those analogs/forecast, and those thoughts are me going colder.. It may just go back and forth a lot, with us usually being on the east side of storm systems..

These are analogs I came up with if we have a +NAO, and -PNA, and run that N. Pacific ridge north into Alaska, making it a negative or neutral EPO/WPO (unlike the last 5/6 Winters). Plus 49-50, 56-57, 71-72, 72-73, 73-74, 81-82, 84-85, 88-89, 08-09, 16-17, 17-18, 21-22 Minus 57-58, 69-70, 76-77, 79-80, 86-87, 97-98, 03-04, 09-10

I know locally it doesn't seem like things are too much warmer vs when I was a kid. For all this panic about +2 anomalies, humans sure can possibly do much more damage than that.. We are also surrounded by Space that is absolute zero. I'd say the rate of warming to concern is less than our capacities. Also Russia and Canada are pretty much empty. There is a jet stream shift north though, that is occurring with more south wind. Hard to say if that is something independent of technological revolution effects.

Nice write up.. something I found lately is they were doing an analysis of sea-level rises from 2011 to 2022, and it looks so +NAO! Like +0.7 correlation in the south, and -0.5 correlation in the north. I wonder if the CPC's calculation (which has been disconnected from 500mb pattern the last few Winters) factors in stuff like that. It would explain the super positive consecutive streak they have, where since 2013, 16/16 Winter monthly NAO's > 1.11 have all been positive! While I think in reality, we have seen a split between + and - Winter monthly NAO's. The problem too is a super -PNA pattern may pop ridging in the south part of their NAO measurement, making it seem +nao. I like to look at the independence of the region, because that has effects coming from a specific point of happening. This may be a super +NAO Winter per CPC's calculations, but we may get some Greenland ridging at times.. Another thing too, is with a strong 10mb vortex, the effect isn't always a pure +AO. Sometimes that strong Stratosphere vortex, like a tornado, will hit the lower atmosphere and actually flex the meeting point between the mid-latitude cell and Polar cell. This could amplify High pressure that is RNA, or even sometimes south-based -NAO, like your maps of +qbo's shows. This has especially happened since 2008.

00z GFS long range has a ridge stretched from the US across the central-N. Atlantic. That's a big area of >594dm on the ensemble mean. I am watching this period, as enhanced La Nina conditions are projected to pick up, possibly strengthening the N. Pacific ridge, sustaining that strong ridge across North American to the Atlantic downstream. Waves off of Africa could have a favorable setup for long track, and westward moving storms.