GaWx

A half hour ago I finished walking at the park in 35 invigorating degrees. To sort of borrow a phrase from DT, yes, I was the only sick, twisted cold wx freak out there walking. But I was bundled up and had extra energy giving me an extra spring in my step. Winds were calm with clear skies allowing for Gainesville, FL-like ideal radiation. I could even see some cool looking steam fog over water. Dewpoints were only a couple of degrees lower. Today’s high was only 45, which is 20 below normal.

Today is the 9th day in a row of highs below 60 at SAV and below 50 at GSO, extending the record! Before this SAV had never even had this for Dec 1-7 going back to 1874. GSO had had a 7 day period one other time.

Today’s Euro Weeklies for the 4 weeks Dec 22nd through Jan 18th continue to look bad (mild) especially in the SE and MidAtlantic. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The hope is that they’re just pain wrong. But that’s just a hope: 12/22-28: 12/29-1/4: 1/5-11 1/12-18:

There’s a college football thread for those who don’t know and are interested that could use more discussion like this:

After a big drop yesterday of 7%, natural gas prices are again sharply lower today (down 5% for a 2 day total of 12%) on warmer E US prospects for at least late this month. It’s very rare for NG to drop that much in early winter with cold looking to dominate for the foreseeable future, which as we know is not at all the case after about a week of intense E US cold per model consensus. Week one’s intense cold is already built into the price. It’s usually changes in prospects for week 2 into early week 3 that drive daily changes in NG prices. That’s because week one is normally already priced in and typically doesn’t jump around too much. And beyond early week 3 is usually too far out in fantasyland/too little forecasting skill that far out to have too much impact.

1. Where’s “Star” located? 2. No index ever even comes close to guaranteeing anything. That’s nothing new to us. 3, However: The period Dec 3-17, which is prior to the days his maps are showing, is currently looking to end up much colder than normal in the majority of the E US, including a top 3-5 coldest of the last 50 years in many places. That would jibe well with phase 8’s cold E US tendency.

Per the quite fallible model consensus: The -WPO looks to easily be the strongest in Dec since 2013. Other strong -WPO (sub -1.00) Decembers: 2013, 2010, 2009, 2005, 1999, 1995, 1989, 1980, 1976, 1975, 1966, 1961, 1956, 1955, and 1954. So, Dec of 2025 has a good shot at making the top 20% strongest -WPOs. How was the subsequent Jan WPO for these 15? Negative WPO Jan: 2011, 1996, 1981, 1977, 1976, 1962, 1957, and 1956 (8 of the 15) Neutral WPO Jan: 2010, 2000, 1955 Positive WPO Jan: 2014, 2006, 1990, 1967 So, these strong -WPO Decembers were somewhat biased toward -WPO Jan with twice as many -WPO Jans as +WPO Jans The current model consensus *fwiw* suggests there’s a good chance we don’t end up with a -EPO for Dec as a whole with a lean toward fairly neutral to potentially +EPO when averaged out. How often have there been strong -WPO Decs without a -EPO? - -EPO Dec: 2013, 2009, 2005, 1989, 1980, 1976 - neutral EPO Dec: 2010, 1995, 1966, 1956, 1955 - +EPO Dec: 1999, 1975, 1961, 1954 So, Dec EPO was pretty balanced for strong -WPO Decembers Monthly WPO: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/wp.data

I forgot to mention that there’s a dedicated thread for today’s storm. For documentation purposes, you may also want to post your results in there: Today here I just got an invigorating walk in with low 40s and just enough breeze to give it a nice bite. Today’s high of only 51 (normal is 65) means that every day so far this month has had a high only in the 50s. We already had had the first time in recorded history (back to 1874) of no high reaching 60 for Dec 1-7. Now it’s also the first time for that for Dec 1-8 and tomorrow is going to make it the first time for Dec 1-9! Rainfall so far this month is over 2”, which is way above the normal of 0.75” for Dec 1-9. For the first time since at least Thursday we had no rain.

How often has your area received 6” or more from a single storm?

For the record regarding the main indices for today’s wintry event: - The prior -PNA rose to the more favorable neutral PNA (-0.1) - AO -1.9, one day after a short-term minimum of -2.2 was hit - NAO -1.2, one day after a short-term minimum of -1.3 was hit - MJO likely was inside the circle phase 8 (probably won’t know for sure for a couple of days) - +EPO - -WPO

Good points. But if there were a clearly identified long time model bias, adjusting for that would obviously make sense.

The questions are whether or not and, if so, how long these same model misses will continue. It isn’t black and white. Nobody knows including you and me.

Today’s Euro Weeklies for week 3+ are still lacking cold domination to return to most of the E US south of the N tier with a solid -PNA dominating through mid Jan along with no -NAO or -AO. If this verifies, it would likely be pretty mild in much of the E US and nothing like we’ve been experiencing the last 2 weeks. However, models the last 3 weeks have been too warm in the E US with too much SER and missing much of the -NAO and -AO. Also, Midwest snowcover is well above avg, there’s the potential lag effects from the 11/28/25 SSWE, and the MJO remains favorable for E US cold. Are the weeklies/models finally getting their act together or are they going to continue with the same errors? Opinions?

A big reason the models have been much too warm in the E US are the horrible NAO/AO progs with this one from just 11 days ago having it go + just 1 week later: 11/28 AO prog for today: ~+1 Today’s AO verified way down at ~-2 (strong -AO) meaning a +3 miss: There was a similar big miss for the NAO: 11/28 NAO prog for today slightly positive (~+0.2): Today’s NAO verified way down at -1.2 (strong -NAO), meaning a +1.4 miss:

OTOH: The natural gas market, which is down sharply (6%) currently feels the prospects for a warmer pattern Dec 16th and beyond have increased. Check out the 0Z EPS HDD, which is on left chart, as it shows HDD plunging from mainly AN through 12/14 to BN 12/16-21 along with a trajectory suggesting more BN HDD (meaning warmer than normal E US). We’ll have to see whether or not this will finally verify well as the EPS has been too warm for the last 3 weeks as it has continually been correcting colder as the periods get closer: