psuhoffman

I am open to any format. But I think we should discuss the advantages/disadvantages to each. The limitations with google are a cap of only 100 participants and a limit to 60 mins per meeting. I am not as familiar otherwise as with other platforms. Zoom also has a cap of 100 and chats are lost when you close. Zoom probably has the easiest interface Imo Microsoft teams has a cap of 300 and saves the chat feature and files shared. There is a way to view multiple participants on Microsoft teams. It’s easier in the app or on desktop. But I do not recommend trying it on a phone through a browser. So if adding an app is an issue this could be a limitation. We are open to ideas and the format is not set in stone.

Ironically the euro was way over amplified the last several days.

Who would be interested in having some mid Atlantic sub forum video chats this winter, especially before a storm threat. @BTRWx's Thanks Giving reached out to me with what I thought was a good idea and wanted to know if I would help. We were thinking Microsoft teams as a platform since it allows 300 participants and saves the chat and files shared to view later. We had discussed maybe a meet and greet meeting at the start of the season then we could hold meetings for specific threats or on the anniversary of major events for anyone that wants to reminisce. Any feedback would be appreciated.

The only disagreement is the NAM state. CFS is showing a -AO/NAO, cansips not.

So what should you learn from that? oh…and -PDO

In simplified terms the enso El Niño La Niña cycle is caused by patterns in the trade winds. la Nina is associated with stronger trade winds which up Wells colder waters and then pushes that colder water west across the enso regions. El Niño is associated with weaker trade winds which allows the waters to warm

That's pretty bad... and almost everyone has admitted the PAC SST's are as bad as they could possibly be across the entire basin. And that is very good reason to be pessimistic about the winter. If we are trying to search for reasons to have hope the north atl isn't the same torch it was in 2011. There are also non SST factors to consider like the state of the NAM and Solar influences. I would be pretty surprised if this ended up being a very snowy winter. It lacks any or all of the variables attributed to past big winters. That said...I probably would have said that heading into 1996 also. Hindsight is 20/20 and in retrospect there were some subtle signs with the north pac SST and QBO that could have hinted...but still that year sticks out as a huge fluke. And maybe in our lifetime something like that happens again. One idea floating around that some calling for a colder snowier winter are pointing towards is the QBO but I am skeptical. Sometimes a mean anomaly map can lie. Yes if you take all strongly negative QBO winters you get a cold correlation, but first if you sort them only by cold enso the correlation is much weaker. There is a map DT made floating around that is in error because he included 2014/15 mistakenly as a la nina year. That skewed the anomaly a LOT. But there is still a slight cold anomaly but its the result of a couple very cold years and then slightly more mild years. The end result is slightly below average temps but with a small data set the predictive benefit of that seems low to me. Furthermore the cold seems very December centered and a cold December can be wasted around here very easily. I do think we likely get a cold December...and probably some snow. But I am skeptical that leads to a snowy winter overall. We could hope for something like the 2006 nina where we got a few snows in December then lucked into that one MECS in February and ended up with a pretty high snowfall total.

Fair question. I think its a combination of a few things. You take what we all see happening and know and go the extra mile. Its a simple fact that snowfall averages have been on the decline in the DC area for the last 100 years. The median is on the decline also. The odds of a single digit snowfall winter are going up. Its getting warmer. All those are facts. We all know that. But you seem to say it like its some kind of new revelation every time. Second, and maybe this isnt accurate, but at times you seem to take it a little too far. Acting like its never going to snow again. (that is an exaggeration on my part) We are losing snow on the margins. We will have more single digit snowfall years. But we will get another HECS at some point. We will probably still get a couple snowy winters every decade. IMO where climo is degrading and hurting us most is in the non good winters. I think a lot of winters that might have been 15-20" struggle to about 10" now. Or a winter that would have been 10-15" is 5-10" now. We are losing snowfall in marginal setups and some winters thats all we get. But that doesn't mean it wont ever snow again. Lastly, you tend to find these "trends" that arent really trends and then when they, predictably, fail to repeat you get discouraged like that is another sign climo is getting worse. Well climo IS getting worse but the fact we went an extra year or two without some overly specific snowstorm total isn't really the best way to measure that.

BWI: 32.7 DCA: 17.5 IAD: 35.2 RIC: 20.1 SBY: 16.1 Measurements in CM

There is really only two pockets of cold anywhere in the NH! That’s becoming a common thing. When the red is 70% of the map and the blue is 10%…well I won’t finish so as not to ruin anyone’s Friday.

Yea the pac sst is just about as bad as it could possibly be across the whole basin! We probably just have to hope last winter was the start of a longer term period of prevalent blocking. That could save us from a total dud. Then we have to hope eventually we can line up blocking with a favorable pacific sst.

Why you hating on dumpsters and fires like that?

We know it’s a Nina. If we disregard 1996 as a fluke all other Nina’s in the last 75 years fall into two categories. Ones with a flat pacific ridge and no blocking which are the mega disasters like 2008 and 2012. Then there are ones which feature some periods of a poleward pac ridge and or blocking. Those feature threats and usually at least one legit snowstorm and if we’re lucky some fight there way to near average snowfall, which is actually a good winter imo since we only hit avg like 25-30% of the time! Luck often decides if it’s 10” v 20” in those years. All that to say I’d take another 2018. We had a cold pac driven period from mid December to Mid January. 3 or 4 legit threats. Got pretty unlucky imo. Then the torch in late January and Feb was made worse because we had struck out in a decent pattern early. But even during the warm month I remember 2 threats that teased and barely missed. Then the epic March pattern. Get that 2 weeks earlier and maybe we get one more storm! Imo a year with the same general number of threats as 2018 is probably the best we can hope for. Just have to hope we get slightly better luck and hit 1-2 more of the chances. But even if we didn’t a 10-20” winter across the region is far from the worst case scenario for a second year Nina!

I think he should look into the STHU index. I will say no other poster has mastered the WTF index as well though.

Put another coin in and spin again

Fwiw that euro qpf looks like a very typical nina winter precip distribution

4 of your 5 analogs are from a 5 year period…and it would be pretty hard to use those to make any substantive forecast. 07-08 and 11-12 were very similar. And 08-09, 10-11, 20-21 all bore similarity. But those two groups of Nina’s bore little resemblance with each other other than they were all below normal snowfall. But that’s kinda a given and probably should be the forecast any year since ~75% are below normal. But one group was very warm with a dominant southeast east ridge all winter and no real hope of frozen. The other group was much colder with a lot of teases but still as typical on a Nina not much payoff in terms of snow. We know a Nina will VERY likely have below avg snow but in terms of deciding if it will be the colder v warmer type those analogs are useless.

You don't know how bad it could have been without luck!

@Maestrobjwa if we apply the average of each climatological period...BWI has had below normal snowfall 22 of the last 30 years. That means ANY year there is a 73% chance that it will be below average. And considering the average snowfall is pretty low...that means there is a 73% chance winter is going to SUCK every year. Most winters in this region suck. That is just climo. The average is inflated by 1-2 really big anomalous snowfall years each decade. Our typical normal climo in a decade is to have 1-2 really huge winters with 30"+ snowfall...one near average winter with about 20" and 7 bad winters with some degree of god awful to just regular old crappy low snowfall. That is what normal is the mid atlantic. I don't fault anyone for not being happy with that...but that is reality. That's why I moved to the northern edge of our region and on top of a freaking mountain ridge...and frankly I am still not satisfied wrt snowfall far too often. But living in and around DC and Baltimore and expecting 20" of snowfall every winter is just not aligned with reality and will leave you disappointed about 75% of the time.

-pna

It’s such a small sample size it’s hard to draw strong conclusions wrt causation. Additionally, since our winters are skewed low wrt snowfall almost any variable will show some correlation to low snowfall. That’s because we are likely to get a crappy winter ANY year since like 65-70% are crap! That said early snowfall obviously is not an indication of a snowy winter either. And since we tend to get pattern cycles plus the effect of pattern drivers changes as the winter jet strengthens it also stands to reason getting a good pattern in October/November probably is a net negative for the odds of getting one in January. But…snow is so rare here I’m on the “take it when you can get it” train. Yea I’d rather a storm in January but I’m not kicking an October snow out of bed either.

Did I miss something?

I should finish my basement and turn it into a winter snow retreat, summer heat escape suite.

This is going great