GaWx

Well, I just added something to my last post that may cheer you up. The models are actually suggesting a good chance this moved right back into 8 either yesterday or today! So, we might go right back to celebrating as early as tomorrow!

Talk about a turnaround! After one day of glee and bigtime celebration due to our immense accomplishment of getting phase 8 back, it’s already gone. The MJO moved into phase 7 two days ago. Turn out the lights, the party’s over (well as of two days ago at least). But the good news is that the models are suggesting a good chance this moved right back into 8 either yesterday or today! So, we might go right back to celebrating as early as tomorrow!

Todays Euro Weeklies are still not great by any means but they are a bit colder/less mild during 3 weeks of the 4 weeks starting with week 2: 12/29-1/4 yesterday 12/29-1/4 today 1/12-18 yesterday 1/12-18 today 1/5-11 was also a little colder today **Edited for corrections needed in my captioning because I had “today” and “yesterday” reversed. Today’s are less mild as I said.

I have it by luck on my phone as I happened to start saving a few in Dec of 2021 and Jan of 2022 I think because of long range hints on the CFS (of all models, which I also saved a bunch of…so kudos to the CFS then!) starting to show very long range big colder changes in late Dec and especially Jan. Since then, I happened to have saved a lot near and after the 2/16/2023 SSWE, which showed that the -NAO/-AO were initially way underdone/missed. Since then I’ve saved a bunch during the winters. I’m not aware of these being available to the public.

On 12/26/21, when the PNA had been negative all month/way down at -1.8 that day and Baltimore (among others) had just had a miserably mild 68F Christmas high with very mild to continue through New Year’s, this (see image below) was the 12/26/21 GEFS two week PNA forecast, which went to 1/9/22: still down at -0.6 on 1/9/22 and no clearcut sign that 1/9/22 was going to be the start of a 38 day long +PNA as well as Jan ending up the snowiest month by far there since Jan of 2016 along with it being the coldest month since Jan of 2018: @donsutherland1 *Edit: The main points are: - The models can’t see out that far with notable skill and that includes forecasting the PNA/general patterns - -ENSO -PNA Decembers since 1984 all transitioned to +PNA Jans

-Actually, Dec of 1996, indeed, was still another -ENSO strong -PNA that transitioned to a +PNA in Jan after a 1.8+ rise. -Dec of 1999 had a neutral PNA. So, that isn’t in this group. *Corrected for typo…Dec of 1999

I’m very curious to see what happens in Jan with the PNA based on -ENSO strong Dec -PNA analogs like 2021, 2013, 2010, 2008, and 1984 whose Jan PNA all rose 1.8++ from Dec. That’s still well beyond what models can see with any notable degree of skill. My GEFS PNA forecasting images for Dec 2021-Jan 2022 displayed that well.

Yeah, way out in fantasyland! This reminds me of this Euro storm from last January in not as far out fantasyland: While this was gone on the very next run, this turned out to be when the historic 1/21-2/2025 Gulf coast/deep SE winter storm occurred.

Hey Don, This is somewhat related and something I happened to compile yesterday about big NC snowstorms during -PNAs. First, note that the -PNA for the 2010 storm was only weak (-0.3). Also, what’s interesting about the list below of big NC snows during a -PNA is that only one of the 7 most -PNA 6”+ storms there were during a -NAO! Anyone know why or is this likely just from randomness? It’s a somewhat decent sized sample of 7 and 4 of the 7 had a moderate to strong +NAO as opposed to just a weak +NAO: 6”+ storms since 1950 at GSO and/or RDU: most negative PNA:-1.1: 2/12-13/2014 (moderate +NAO)-0.8: 1/22-24/1954 (moderate +NAO)-0.8: 3/2-3/1960 (neutral NAO)-0.7: 1/6-7/2017 (moderate +NAO)-0.5: 3/9/1960 (neutral NAO)-0.3: 12/26/2010 (moderate -NAO)-0.3: 2/24-26/2015 (strong +NAO)Daily PNA: https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.pna.index.b500101.current.ascii Daily NAO: https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.nao.index.b500101.current.ascii

The -NAO continues to be very strong for late this month per the 0Z GEFS and EPS:

This Euro storm reminds me of another at 9-10 days out released on 1/12/25 that caused social media to get way out of control and even caused me to be texted in the middle of the night from an Atlanta friend due to his Facebook feed from this as if it were credible: But this did turn out to be when the historic Gulf coast/deep SE winter storm occurred (1/21-22/2025).

Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please? The results are in and we did it. The MJO went back into phase 8 on Dec 15th, the coldest day of the season to date! Let the celebrations begin! The weenies are gonna party like it’s Feb 1899!

Natural gas closed up nearly 4%, easily its best day since Dec 5th. This is largely based on today’s forecast speculation that the forecasted dominant warmth may not be as widespread, intense, and/or long lasting in the E US as thought yesterday thanks largely to the newly forecasted strong -NAO.

The model consensus is currently forecasting the strongest -NAO on Christmas as well as surrounding days since way back in 2010! In stark contrast, these 6 had a strong +NAO: 2011, 13, 15, 16, 23, and 24.

12Z GEFS strong -NAO that starts in just 5 days (12/22) and is the strongest -NAO for days 5-16 averaged out on any GEFS run back to at least Oct 31st: Compare this to the 0Z 12/12/25 run: 12/22-28 were 0 to +0.5 instead of -1 to -2