GaWx

From Eric Webb, he’s clearly on the 2013-4 and seems excited:

Today I estimated that a significant portion of the E US (at least the area from Chicago to much of the SE) will end up ~5-6 warmer than normal for the first half of Jan. With that, the chance of Jan overall coming in cold is low and warmer than normal overall has a better chance. So, the cold month string will be broken most likely. Plus Dec was mainly NN from the SE to the SL area meaning Dec’s cold didn’t even come close to covering the entire E US.

Here’s a link to the last video from Michael Clark, done on 12/30 in which he was highly confident and even smug: From this 12/30 video, he posted a forecast map for 12/31-1/15 showing most of the E US (Minneapolis to SL to ATL eastward) BN. Instead it is headed toward solidly AN. I project Chicago, ATL, and RDU will end up ~+5 to +6 for 12/31-1/15. He forecasted Chic at -3 to -4 and ATL/RDU at -1 to -2. BAM is headed toward a miss of -6 to -9 for 12/31-1/15 in a good portion of the E US! @donsutherland1

I think it’s BAMwx having been colder than the models and now being forced to backtrack.

Bamwx backtracking today for the medium range:

Thanks, snowman. Yeah, Eric Webb of course knows this and thus isn’t at all saying that a full blown Nino pattern will set in by Feb. But he is as I already posted excited about E US potential in Feb as he’s been saying in recent days that a 2014 type of Feb is becoming increasingly possible. We’ll see but at least he’s laying this out and not being shy. Any guess yet as to the strength of the upcoming El Niño assuming it actually does occur?

1. The good news is that this is very old news as regards the models. 2. In addition, for the SE this for the most part will likely not be nearly as warm as the late Dec torch nor as long. 3. This refers to today through Monday. But in reality the warmth ends with a transition by Sat night.

From Eric Webb this morning: The is one of the most impressive mid-winter collapses of La Nina I’ve ever seen. If you’re still in a Nina, you are definitely not supposed to see westerly wind bursts drive this deep into the Pacific, with or without an MJO event

Per WxBell’s version of the GEFS’ mean PNA, the trend of the last few days for both the length and strength of the midmonth +PNA has been a sharp increase: watch as the midmonth green line above 0 on each of these images gets longer and peaks higher: - 0Z 1/2 run: <1 day >0 (Jan 12th); max amp +0.1 (Jan 12th) - 0Z 1/3 run: 3 days>0 (Jan 11th-13th); max amp +0.5 (Jan 12th) - 0Z 1/4 run: 4.5 days>0 (Jan 10th-14th); max amp +0.7 (Jan 11th) -0Z 1/5 run: 6 days>0 (Jan 9th-15th); max amp +1.2 (Jan 13th) -18Z 1/5 run: 8 days>0 (Jan 9th-17th); max amp +1.7 (Jan 14th) Here are those 5 images in a GIF:

1. I just present what I see, whether something I want or not on whatever I’m presenting. 2. It’s the best we have for long range guidance. Nothing in the long range does great because that’s beyond the models’ abilities. 3. EW is a tool and nothing near a crystal ball. But it often gives a halfway decent idea of what’s to come. Look at what it showed last year on this day, which all verified pretty well:

After the +PNA leaning week of 1/12-18, which gives the SE NN/coldest anomalies of E US, today’s Euro Weeklies continue with the idea of a stronger than avg gradient N to S. The -PNA returns ~1/17 and the week of 1/19-25 has the SE with NN in NC to slightly AN GA and it has moderately BN in New England. The subsequent 3 weeks all warm due to a continued -PNA and warm to NN NE and modestly AN SE though one can see the CADdies in the SE are helped on certain days thus keeping them only barely AN in the means. The Weeklies now go through Feb 15th. So far, they’re showing no sign of a cold Feb anywhere. But hopefully that will drastically change! I sure hope it’s prog of a -PNA 1/17-2/15 is going to be dead wrong!

The 12Z GEFS and EPS did go colder than 0Z/6Z late in the runs. However, it and 12Z EPS still go to a -PNA late. Hopefully those will change within the next few days. Otherwise, the best the SE can reasonably hope for imho are just short cold periods/ups and downs as any sustained cold stays to the north (strong gradient pattern N to S).

1. But Jan as a whole may not end up cold if the -PNA returns midmonth. If not, that breaks the cold streak. 2. My Feb post didn’t say anything about March.

Back to the Jan PNA, this 24 hour change of the GEFS mean does show how quickly forecasts can change: 24 hours ago (1/4 forecast): rose to neutral Jan 10th but that was it as it then aimed slowly downward afterward with only 4 members staying +PNA to the end: Today (1/5 forecast): rises to neutral Jan 9th and quickly goes to a +PNA for a week, a significant + change. However, the mean then heads back down to neutral. That being said, note that there are more members (~10/33%) that stay + to the end (1/19) vs only 4 yesterday. What that 1/3 of members is doing is the kind of thing we need going past midmonth to have a good shot at a +PNA Jan like numerous analogs had been suggesting has a high chance:

So, unless the +PNA hangs on instead of switching back within a week like the ensembles show, we’d likely not end up with a BN Jan. But we can still look ahead to Feb., which has some encouraging signs: 1. There are long range model progs that the MJO will be headed into 8 near the start of Feb: 2. Though the CFS AAM outlook often jumps around and thus can’t be trusted, the latest does have a reversal to an El-Ninoish +AAM very late in Jan. 3. Webb is now optimistic about Feb. And @40/70 Benchmarkremains optimistic about a cold Feb.

Looking at the bigger picture of the 100% of -ENSO -PNA Decs since 1983-4 that switched to a +PNA for Jan: none of them did what the ensemble means are showing, which is a 6-7 day long +PNA that starts Jan 9-10 but unfortunately then turns back to a -PNA for the rest of the runs. That would seal the deal for no +PNA for Jan as a whole, which obviously is not at all what I would want to see and would be a first for -ENSO since 1983-4. So, either the ensemble means very soon change their tune for 1/16+ to not go back toward a -PNA or the chance of getting a +PNA Jan is “cooked” using the term some of you guys like to use. Being that 1/16 is still 11 days out and considering the -PNA model bias, there’s still time for that to change. But if we don’t see this start to change within the next few days, the chance of getting a +PNA Jan will drop dramatically. Reflecting on milder E US forecasts, NG is way down this morning (-6%).

I just got an enjoyable walk in this evening with mid 40s, calm winds, and some cool looking fog that had formed especially over the warmer water with RH.% in the 90s.

Jan update of MJO through Jan 2nd: finally heading back the other way inside the circle. So the first two days of Jan are on or inside circle. 12/29-1/2 were in phase 5:

I’m looking forward to a NN averaged week next week which should include some BN (assuming it verifies), with its largely Canadian airmass influenced chilliness…great for walking…always welcomed! The upcoming mid-week to weekend of semi-torching to torching won’t be too fun for that .

OND RONI -0.92 OND ONI -0.55 So, OND RONI was 0.37 lower than OND ONI. That difference was a similar 0.35 for SON meaning the difference has been pretty steady for awhile.

Ji/Mitch I agree that folks are making too big of a deal about phase 6 and BAMwx’s map is much too cold as I said. My own research looked at phase 6 including phase 6 inside the circle and it was as I said not nearly as cold as that BAMwx’s map for all cases averaged out (-2 at GSP vs BAM’s -6 to -7). Based on the latest ext GEFS, phase 6 is currently forecasted to last 9 days (14th-22nd) while it lasts 7 days on the ext EPS (14th-20th). So, both have 7 days (14th-20th) in phase 6. But of course they’ll likely not verify exactly and may end up not close. And even if close, the variance of temperatures for Jan La Niña phase 6 is large. @mitchnick

Taking what Webb said and looking ahead to where the Feb MJO may start (fwiw since that’s in the low skill 4 week away period and the models recently have done poorly much earlier than that), the latest forecasts of the extendeds look seemingly favorable for early Feb as they’re showing it going into phase 8 then: coldest Feb phases are 8-1-2-3 1/3 ext GEFS: 1/3 ext EPS:

Taking what Webb said and looking ahead to where the Feb MJO may start (fwiw since that’s in the low skill 4 week away period and the models recently have done poorly much earlier than that), the latest forecasts of the extendeds look seemingly favorable for early Feb as they’re showing it going into phase 8 then: coldest Feb phases are 8-1-2-3 1/3 ext GEFS: 1/3 ext EPS:

Ji, With it still being a solid La Niña on a RONI basis (was still -1.0 in Dec and is only slowly warming), wouldn’t a weak southern stream be favored much of the winter?

As I said, I think BAMwx is significantly too cold in the means (which is what their map is supposed to represent). That pink area of -6 to -7 in the SE is, in reality (based on actual data that I analyzed) more like -2 along with much variation. And I didn’t analyze it for the entire E half of the US, which would take too long. If I get time, I could add a city like Baltimore, however, just to get an idea for this forum’s area.