cbmclean

Vice-regent is right, always right.

Oh, you've done it now.

Looking at the NAO, at first glance, the 2010s doesn't look too horrible. Definitely skewed positive from about 2013 on. But its deceptive. Most of the blue is in late summer to fall. If you just look at Jan - March, a different and more familiar picture emerges. After the spectacular neg spike of 2010 it has been downwhill, or rather uphill, uninterrupted + since 2015. That graph also clearly shows the state change from the 50s/60s/70s "good ole days" to a much more hostile environment since 1980. Something is clearly different. The big question for us, is it natural variability or you know what?

Looking at the last decade, heavily skewed to + since start of 2017, with the exception of mid-to-late 2019, which obviously has corrected itself. Looking back further: man, from mid 1988 to mid 1993 was UGLY. Conversely, look and drool at the late 1950's to early 1960s. No wonder it was a snow nirvana.

Didn't you say your record low was 18"? That's all I'm rooting for now, everybody band together and carry PSU over the finish line to 19".

After posting I was kind of thinking that it might attract attention from you. Is it actually even possible to reap a SE weenie? We are kind of reaped by default from birth.

Alright, in all serious, I have started to catch myself already looking forward to next year. Just ready to not have the gloom of the three stooges/keystone cops level of pattern mishaps hanging over our heads anymore. Is that a sign of sickness?

The elves who are driving the crappy Atlantic and the gremlins who are driving the horrible Pacific have been pretty locked in this year.

So, have we hit rock bottom yet?

Would you consider that a (relative) fringe.

Something which interests me is how sparsely populated the western forums are. It's like a wasteland out there.

I'm not going to hate on this, because I like cold any where, any time, any how (except when I am at the beach), but inwardly chuckling at the thought of another Jan-Feb fail followed by a random March cold outbreak bringing flurries and cold rain to the SE. You guys can be more enthusiastic.

Thanks for the info.

10 hP is the Stratospheric Polar vortex, right? Does this actually influence our weather in any meaningful way?

Maybe I just missed it, but with one exception, I really don't feel we got too teased. Early December looked "meh" on the LR models, and it turned out to be exactly "meh". I even remember people commenting on how "meh" it was. Then somewhere around the 10th or so, the EPS caught the Pac puke. The GEFS fought for a few days but it still had it figured out 10+ days ahead. And Lo it came to pass. Then the LR guidance foresaw there would be a brief improvement in early Jan, and Lo it came to pass. Some of you guys got some snow. Then the guidance saw the coming of the Pacific Doom Blob 10 - 15 days out, and Lo, it came to pass. The one exception of course was two weeks ago where everybody was seeing a nice pattern flip into a cold EPO-based trough with maybe even a nice STJ undercutting, and we started to salivate. Then, apparently demotiviated by the Raven's loss, the models decided to change tack and call for a Canadian ridge cutting all cold air off from us. And Lo it came to pass (or is in the process of coming to pass). Other than that, the models have just tended to correctly foresee a parade of failures and disappointments.

Just read the aforementioned Istotherm post. Based on his analysis I am concluding that our best case scenarios is to catch some breaks and struggle to a merely bad winter, as opposed to atrocious. It is still very much in play for me to get completely blanked this winter, for the first time since the 90's. By blanked I mean not even laying eyes on a single flake/pellet of frozen precipitation. In 2011-12 I at least saw a few sleet pellets.

There's room for both. If a particular topic post doesn't interest me, I just skim through. Sometimes you learn a neat fact, like how road deicing fluid is sometimes mixed with beet juice. I will admit that I made a snide remark about road deicing discussion in the storm thread, but it was gallows humor about the lightness of the event as opposed to not wanting the discussion to be there.

You can tell an event is blah if the primary topic of discussion in the event thread is the composition and deleterious effects of road deicing compound.

Only when it depicts a dumpster fire.

I know the question below isn't strictly speaking on topic, but I've been looking to find a place to have a quite, reasonable discussion of climate change potential impacts on winter. Maybe this is the place. I am really curious to hear what you guys think about the current drought in North Atlantic blocking. I know that BobChill has mentioned repeatedly that it has gone through decadal trends for the whole period that we have been measuring it, but my lord it seems to be almost impossible to get a -NAO for more than five minutes. Just normal variation or ominous sign of things to come? Or simply not enough data to tell?

Wow I thought this thread had died.

This seems a really ineffective way to run a racket even if you were completely unprincipled. 1. The winter isn't over yet so his 125% could still come true. There are even enough positive or at least neutral signs so that could reasonably say "just wait, winter is on its way". Why try to rewrite history before it is even necessary? 2. And speaking of rewriting history, why even try? He has to know this is the internet age. When you post something online it will never completely disappear. He also has to know that he has an hater club who saved the graphics from his forecast just so they could call him on it later. Isn't it so much easier to spin it at the end by saying there was some unforeseeable factor that threw a wrench in the forecast instead of being blatantly caught in a lie?

Again, I must hasten to add that was not a criticism. I simply assume that if he mentions something on here, there is a good reason. I just wanted to understand the reasoning behind it. I know that he does not require kid gloves, but I do not want the rest of the forum to think I am one of those posters who comes in and gripes to show off how much they think they know.

The following is not an attempt to criticize but an honest attempt to learn. Why do you (by "you" I mean the top-tier knowledgeable weenies as opposed to random posters) analyze the operationals in the long range? It was my understanding that they are effectively useless at that lead. Is it just something fun to do, or is there sometimes some actually useful info buried in the trends etc? I know that PSU has mentioned that since the GEFS is still based on the old GFS, he still looks at the GFS just so he has an idea of what the new core thinks. Is that the only justification?

I have to admit that I am very discouraged. I know that it is too premature to give up hope completely (not yet Reaper), but I cannot escape the feeling that this upcoming respite is really just a relaxation of the crappy pattern, the mirror image of a January thaw.