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Carvers Gap

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  1. Carvers Gap
    Changing wavelengths prevent a bad pattern from locking-in often during shoulder season. Once the winter season settles-in, those drivers have a lot more strength. This is an ugly pattern coming up, but I think folks have been fairly warned for some time that multiple indices soured a couple of weeks ago. This warm-up and its duration should be no surprise. Nino winters generally start warm, sometimes very warm. That is in my notes from June about winter. Can't get more warning than that. LOL. Now, some don't like the 12z EPS. Looks good to me as it lowers heights in the East. We will get a temporary cold shot I think during the second week of January followed by more warm. What is tough is that we all think about last year and worry about a repeat. These Nino winters can and do flip on a dime, and they don't care about past statistics. I fully expect a flip to happen similar to what happened during fall. It gets old repeating that flips do happen, especially last year when it didn't happen at all. That said, I still suspect we see a very sharp reversal at some point...but make no mistake, we have plenty of warm weather before we get there. But it is always wise to remember, some of our best winters were had after VERY warm starts to winter, even including large portions of January. Might happen and might not this winter...but I can just about guarantee we will see multiple( great winters during the future that begin warm.
  2. Carvers Gap
    LOL. No surprise at all....not that the EPS is much better during d10-15. Unless we get a surprise, IMHO at least a couple of more weeks before we leave this hostile pattern.
  3. Carvers Gap
    And the 18z GEFS is why I will never share a foxhole with that model during a model war. It caved to yesterday's EPS. Today's 12z EPS doesn't look so bad. They kid of sort of switched roles today...The EPS has made a natural progression to an eastern trough while the GEFS just flip flopped. I actually thought the 12z EPS looked quite decent. Now, the 18z GEFS should bring back some pretty bad memories. Going to be a while before we get out of this pattern.
  4. Carvers Gap
    So, the moral to that story^^^^, the Atlantic is our only hope. Like that Star Wars tip of the hat?
  5. Carvers Gap
    Looks like the Indian Ocean has re-fired...lots and lots and lots of convection. That usually signals anomalous warmth over the eastern US down the line. At this point, really getting tough to find any indicators outside of the ENSO state that favor cold in the East. That said, I do think ENSO is a trump card...beats all others. The MJO looks like both the American and Euro suites now like the idea of the MJO moving into phase 7 and stalling. The EPS today did look a bit better. The GEFS is its usual and biased Arctic self. Overall, I think whatever cold shot we get in early January is now appearing as if will be a relaxation of the current warm pattern for eastern NA vs being a new base state cold pattern. I still think we see winter...but man, really don't like seeing what is going on in the Indian Ocean. That sunk us last winter. I have said that the current warm pattern would last 3-5 weeks. I think we see cold by the end of the first week of January...then the warmth returns for a significant amount of time. I think by the end of January, we will see maybe two weeks of seasonal weather...the rest warm....just kicking around that idea. January is a transitional month during Ninos and makes for a wicked tough month to get a handle on things. If the MJO verifies...isotherm's forecast is money. My confidence in seeing significant, sustained cold prior to February is pretty shaky. I don't like banging the warm drum...climatology based on ENSO is about the only thing we have going for us. The EPS, while it looks better, blocks cold from entering NA with low pressure at high latitudes. So, we finally get the block...no source region - at least on today's model run.
  6. Carvers Gap
    Some baby steps by the 0z EPS this AM...still a warm pattern but one can see how we might get out of it. The thing that concerns me right now is that the trough inexplicably really wants to go into the West on the Euro Weeklies even after we cool down in early January. The Weeklies are likely swinging wildly after week four, but we are at the time of year where the Euro Weeklies have some weight. The GEFS is way out on a limb. I think this AM one could make a case that the EPS maybe moved towards the GEFS a hair. That said, just when you think one model caves...everything goes haywire. The GEFS is a much different solution and is juxtaposed the EPS. In the end I think the slower EPS is probably the right way to go, and that the GEFS has sniffed out a potential pattern change OR instead of a pattern change... just that the western trough/eastern ridge pattern relaxes for a week or so. So right now(fingers crossed), looks like the first week of January is a transitional period...and the second week of January cold. The third and fourth week of January are up for grabs. Again, we need to really hope the GEFS is correct. It is quicker by four or five days regarding the pattern change...but it has cried wolf for about four weeks so difficult to trust it.
  7. Carvers Gap
    I did see that...I would personally clean up his statement by saying the EPS has a hard time seeing cold regarding its 2m temp pattern any time of the year and also during shoulder season. Its 500 pattern is very understandable given the nature of the convection in the eastern IO. The GEFS is at the time of the year where it whiffs pretty badly. I have noted, and USAF in the MA forum noted this tonight, that the GFS/GEFS sniffed out the cold in November first. That said, it is a completely different time of year. I think we turn cold by the second week of January as I think the GFS/GEFS is too quick and is an outlier among global models and their ensembles right now. Bottom line: In the d10-15 one model is going to be badly, badly incorrect on a pretty epic level - and I am not sharing a foxhole with the GEFS in a model war. The GEFS has a chance of being right, but let's not forget that it has basically been cold for all of December during d10-15 and been woefully wrong. TRI sits at +2.7 for December....not in torch territory but pretty close. The GEFS never saw it coming.
  8. Carvers Gap
    Man...if the GEFS/GFS combo could score a coup just one freakin' time during mid--winter, this is the one!!! That is a ball of fire in the North Atlantic at 500. I am with you, John. Let's just get this over with...LOL. Totally agree that some truly great winters have had wicked warmth in December.
  9. Carvers Gap
    The 12z EPS and GEPS maintain an eastern ridge throughout their runs...IMHO was a major step back today, especially for d10-15. If there is any silver lining, the EPS looks nearly identical to the Weeklies which lift the trough out during week 2 temporarily and allow for a pretty severe cold shot. Basically, the trough in the West connects to one over central Canada as depicted on the EPS. The Weeklies then "yank" that trough out of their very quickly during week 1. It is a very fast transition. So what we want to see in the coming days is a progression like that. I was worried when I didn't see the model moving up the eastern trough on the EPS...now it is just gone. Let's hope the Weeklies are correct. The GEFS is out on a limb. It has been handling the MJO very differently. I frankly discount the model right now as an outlier. That said, I think it is just too quick. The progression is right, but too quick which is common for it...but it might be tipping its hand in a positive way. One of my concerns is that western trough set-up seems to often take several weeks to break down. I said 3-5 weeks from this past Monday...and I think we switch-up around the second week of January. That said, if today's EPS is correct...I have concerns that the time for a cold transition is closer to 5 weeks than three weeks. Major break(for the bad) in continuity today.
  10. Carvers Gap
    Pretty cool. I think the reason that works is because severe wx during winter indicates sharp wavelengths where the ridges and troughs really dig. Pretty cool somebody figured that out years ago, likely without a weather map within 100 miles of them. The saying goes(at least how it was shared with me) that thunder in the western North Carolina mountains during winter means snow will fall within ten days(some say 14 days). There are some other interesting "sayings" as well...if snow is on the ground for three days, it is waiting for another(snow). I don't know about the second rule...but the thunder deal is pretty interesting. I am pretty sure that the blizzard of '93 was preceded by a very severe tornado outbreak across E TN about twenty days earlier. While that doesn't follow the rule exactly(occurred three weeks later), it might be around that time that I noticed that rule might actually have some merit. But hey, congratulations on the snow!!!
  11. Carvers Gap
    I would just grab some 10/30/50 mb maps and take a look.
  12. Carvers Gap
    BIG rumbles of thunder IMBY...maybe that Saturday system has some merit? LOL. That rule is going to be severely tested this time around. Ten day clock has started tickin'.
  13. Carvers Gap
    I think I had to unfollow Hugo because he was posting so much. LOL. Either that or my mind filters him out. Been several folks posting about it today on multiple platforms.
  14. Carvers Gap
    One last little note...it appears that the PV which was forecast to tighten-up may actually get split. That is another change. I had 3-5 weeks for the warm-up, and I still like that time range(which began yesterday). Today, it looks like the three week time frame looks correct...but I wouldn't be surprised if models are rushing that a bit. Some epic winters have seen flips after warm Decembers and which were followed by warm starts to January. But who knows? That is what makes this interesting.
  15. Carvers Gap
    No way. We are stronger than that in the TN Valley forum. Warm Decembers during an El Nino winter is par for the course. Keep an eye on the that SOI. That drop means there is about to be a ton of movement within the atmospheric circulation pattern. That drop is exactly what we did not have last year. Sitting around -15 today. It the SOI was positive, I would be done...but it is not. Way, way out there the Weeklies do hint another cold shot later in January(no way I trust that...just saying). I could see a deal where we get one really good cold shot in early January that sort of lingers, warms up a bit, and then get another shot during late January and early February. I agree with tnweathernut...no way I would throw in the towel in mid-December. January could be AN for temps because the first week of January might tilt the scales a bit. The rest of the month might be seasonal or even slightly BN. I still take Nino climatology FTW from mid Jan through February. January is a tough month to forecast during a Nino winter, because it depends on when the transition to winter occurs. Again, this is not last year, but it is remarkable the comparison. Also, remember the tucked-in trough that we are seeing occurred during February last winter and not December. When that thing went into place last February, there was not time for a shake-up. The coupled Nino pattern this year will really fight any trough staying for months on end in the northwest, especially during the second half of winter. We had a winter with Nina and Nino characteristics last winter...not this winter as evidenced by the copious amounts of rain. All of that said, the warm Pacific does favor a really amped jet which does favor a northwest trough...I think we get our share of winter, but that will have to be heard from. Last year was a weird year. And these three years are not the same in relation to each other though there are some similarities. Many forget that most of December 2017 was very cold. It spilled into the following January. December itself finished AN because of a warm spell mid-month. From the last week of December to early January, we had a stretch of 7 days where we didn't event get above freezing. It was just bone dry due to a La Nina. Lastly, warm winters do not always equate to bad snowfall years. Cold helps for sure, but some of our biggest snows happen in relation to warm patterns(just prior, just after, or even right in the middle). Warm air means extra juice! And we always need to remember that our latitude wants it to rain most months....we live in the sub-tropics.
  16. Carvers Gap
    Indeed, just looked at the Euro Weeklies. The trough lifts out of the West and opens the door for very cold temps during the second week of January on the EC for about a week. That is short-lived as the western trough reloads. If the Weeklies are to be believed(big if), the eastern ridge is around most of winter with some cold shots breaking it down from time to time. The good thing is that the Weeklies show a window for very cold air by the second week of January with the first week being a transition.
  17. Carvers Gap
    What is on the ensembles d10-15 is nearly the exact same setup that the West had which produced record snows last February. Pretty uncanny. I do think the trough gets kicked out by the second week of January, but that is just an educated guess. Christmas week looks very warm in the East. I will add that I don’t really see the “somewhat less crappy” pattern moving up in time on modeling either. Pretty much stuck at d14-15. That trough that tucked into the northern Rockies last winter was there from February to June. Hopefully the eastern Indian Ocean convection dies down as some have predicted. Otherwise, Isotherm’s toasty forecast looks like money. I do think it is growing more likely that January might be above normal for temps.
  18. Carvers Gap
    For those who harken back to last winter, both the 0zEPS and 6zGEFS have a quickly eroding(or even absent?) NAO in the LR with an EPO ridge that is far enough west that a western trough tucks under the EPO ridge...allowing for it to snow in the mountains outside of Los Angeles. That may very well correct eastward at some point. Normally, I don't keep an eye on the weather in Los Angeles...but the band is headed to Pasadena. Within the next week or so, I might be asking you all to see what you think about the weather out that way regarding the Rose Bowl parade.
  19. Carvers Gap
    I waffle back and forth on the EPS MJO...it has been less than stellar this year. However, it was much better than the GEFS last year as winter settled in. I lean EPS right now. GEFS has whiffed on the cold December it has had depicted in the LR. Hopefully things change soon. Every day that pattern in the Pacific holds is a problem that just gets that much bigger.
  20. Carvers Gap
    The dropping SOI likely means the MJO hustles through any warm phases as well. The SOI drop, if it maintains, is a big deal.
  21. Carvers Gap
    Also, the GEFS/GFS is trying to push into cold phases. IMHO, the EPS/Euro is handling the MJO better though they did miss badly a few weeks ago. However, now that we are leaving shoulder season, the EPS will often run circles around the American model. And a good rule of thumb about the MJO...if we are talking about it, the pattern is not great. LOL.
  22. Carvers Gap
    And?
  23. Carvers Gap
    He has not been hyping cold this past week - been pretty warm. He basically said the MJO is a major problem right now. The IOD is a good indicator, but looking at the actual satellite is even better. If there is a bunch of convection over there...it likely gets into MJO regions 4-6.
  24. Carvers Gap
    I will add that my most hated winter patterns are super Ninos and moderate to strong La Ninas. The 90s had some very strong Nino winters that were warm and rainy end to end. Three winters ago I think was a solid La Nina - very warm. And I forgot one thing...the QBO is likely going to be in a position to help in the Atlantic very soon. I have a feeling that has already begun with a few pseudo bouts of blocking over Greenland - pseudo meaning short- lived. In my mind a true block locks and holds and not transient like has been modeled. The number one predictor of bad winters...latitude. We can actually have very different drivers each winter and still get to the same destination which is a dud winter. We live about as close to the equator as one can get and still get snow at this elevation. It wants to rain here for most of the year no matter what the condition. We get about a 4-6 week period most years where rain is not a given but still probable.
  25. Carvers Gap
    Again, I have been fairly detailed about the Pacific problems. SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific are non Nino-ish and have a slight Nina characteristic. The Typhoon Tip discussion about having poor gradients between the Modoki Nino and the rest of the Pacific ocean is not good. Normally, the rest of the Pacific needs to be cool enough so that the warmer SST temps in ENSO regions don't wash out. The warmer temps in the NW Pacific are also an issue. The convection in the eastern Indian Ocean are problems. Also, we can't fail to mention the AMO in the Atlantic is positive. Those are a lot of warm signals. The only thing that I can find that points to cold is the Modoki look in the Pacific. But those cooler temps in the eastern equatorial Pacific have a direct correlation to a SER. What could change? If the eastern Indian Ocean settles down, the MJO will likely move into favorable phases - not even close right now. IMHO, if that one thing happens...we get a decent stretch of winter. That single area was likely responsible to last winter's dud. The SOI seems to indicate that the atmosphere is coupled with the Nino - it was largely not last year. I get that we are saying this is three straight winters. It is not, but that argument tempts me often as well. There are definitely a lot of similarities to last winter which was a weak Nina. Two years ago is a totally different ballgame. I think most folks this season have said, "December is gonna be warm. January will be a transition." The snowistas among us(me included) will always hope against a warm month and look for a way out. After all, many are here to hunt snowstorms. That is exactly how I got started. I am beginning to wonder if the "cold November analog"(equating to cold winters) package does not work right now with a warmer than normal Pacific. Seems like cold in November has become a signal for a very warm December. All of that said, I still think we get plenty of winter. The SOI was a major warning last winter as it was positive. The winter behaved as a La Nina. Right now, this December is straight out of the Nino playbook - warmish and rainy. The very things that drive the pattern to be warm in December will force it to turn cold during the second half of winter. I warned in my winter ideas last June(just look in the summer thread) that the West would likely be cold in December. But make no mistake, we are going to have to go through some warm weeks to get to the heart of winter. The SOI right now is our friend. If it was positive...I would be very pessimistic. Sometimes, if one watches certain indexes you can get a jump on modeling. It is one of the reasons I have been saying it is going to get warm. Just one look at the eastern Indian Ocean on satellite...one pretty much knew a warm pattern was inbound. That is forecast I think to begin to settle down.
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