May 2011 NYC metro area obs./discussion

[Allsnow]

I wish the next three months can be like today.

[pazzo83]

I wish the next three months can be like today.

It doesn't get much better than this.

You know we'll pay for it down the road.

[Allsnow]

It doesn't get much better than this.

You know we'll pay for it down the road.

The sky is just beautiful. I agree that we will pay for this nice stretch of weather. Heat or cool/rain it will find a way to equal out.

[TheTrials]

well, the old saying -NAO doesnt affect the sensible weather in May isn't quite true. Blocking is really flexing its muscle in this pattern, similar to 09.

[MJO812]

I wish the next three months can be like today.

Agree 100 percent

[Analog96]

looks like May 12th - 13th offers the best sign of really warm weather. Inland areas have a shot at 80+ it would seem so long as we get a fairly good west to southwest synoptic flow and good mixing. 850 temps are in the neighborhood of 13-15C. That would put us in the upper 70's to lower 80's.

I would think those wanting sustained warmth should wait until around May 22 or so.

[Analog96]

upton is going 50-60% chance pops tomorrow.... I mean.. it's a fairly decent shortwave moving through, but it's also a bit sheared out. In actuality, the amount of vorticity in our area during the day doesn't really increase and in fact heights do begin to rise a bit late in the day. I'm not sure that this is the type of upper level system capable of 50-60% pops, but I could be wrong. It will definitely be unstable with very steep lapse rates, but I don't think it will amount to much more than a lot of building CU and a few widely scattered showers.

I would go with a 30% POP if it was my job to forecast.

[Zir0b]

GFS looks beautiful for the next week.

[pazzo83]

well, the old saying -NAO doesnt affect the sensible weather in May isn't quite true. Blocking is really flexing its muscle in this pattern, similar to 09.

What? Highs in NYC are forecast to be at or above normal for the next 7 days.

[Allsnow]

What? Highs in NYC are forecast to be at or above normal for the next 7 days.

I don't know if he ment it this way, but with the blocking we will be staying normal to a bit above which is great. If the blocking was not there we would prob torch as the midwest is going to be way above normal.

[pazzo83]

I don't know if he ment it this way, but with the blocking we will be staying normal to a bit above which is great. If the blocking was not there we would prob torch as the midwest is going to be way above normal.

Ah well yea if that is the case that makes sense. Hopefully we aren't like 09, though.

[Allsnow]

Ah well yea if that is the case that makes sense. Hopefully we aren't like 09, though.

Yeah you just have to watch for somthing cutting off. Which we have luck out so far. The one for next week looks to be well east of us

[pazzo83]

Yeah you just have to watch for somthing cutting off. Which we have luck out so far. The one for next week looks to be well east of us

Yea I'm not used to that crap. I grew up in VA, so by May we were pretty solidly summer (although even down there this year it has been a bit cool, not much diff from here).

[CooL]

lol

btw, i thought the talk of the 180hr nogaps was only during the winter

[TheTrials]

I don't know if he ment it this way, but with the blocking we will be staying normal to a bit above which is great. If the blocking was not there we would prob torch as the midwest is going to be way above normal.

this.

[IsentropicLift]

lol

btw, i thought the talk of the 180hr nogaps was only during the winter

cut off season should be over by now

The 12z models trended uglier beyond next week, thats for sure.

[CooL]

cut off season should be over by now

The 12z models trended uglier beyond next week, thats for sure.

agreed, cutoffs are cool, but not in May.

Euro looks to be heading in the opposite direction of the gfs, everything looks to stay north of us, but we are near the 200hr range.

[IsentropicLift]

agreed, cutoffs are cool, but not in May.

Euro looks to be heading in the opposite direction of the gfs, everything looks to stay north of us, but we are near the 200hr range.

bring me a massive cutoff low in January where we can cash in on a HECS.

[forkyfork]

The GFS ensembles are suggesting a much cooler weather and a perhaps a storm somewhere over the East Coast in about 10 days.With a huge, deep-layer trough in the East. The -AO,-NAO,+PNA and MJO in phases 7/8 all support it:

it's going to be wrong, just as it's been wrong with the -NAO for the past two weeks

[IsentropicLift]

The ECMWF is also forecasting a negative NAO

[forkyfork]

The ECMWF is also forecasting a negative NAO

i wasn't disputing a negative NAO, just the strength. we're barely inside the range of the forecasts

[earthlight]

The ECMWF is also forecasting a negative NAO

the NAO has much less effect on the pattern this time of year than one would think.

[Shades]

Back outside our immediate windows... had a display of amazing iridescent clouds earlier this afternoon. The angle of the sun and cirrus clouds had to be just right for this to happen over my backyard in Queens. (Although I only managed to capture a few photos... the phenomenon lasted for about half an hour over this same position of the sky, looking southward. Photo's don't do justice however, taken through my cellphone, but it's the only way I could share at the time. Wondering if there are any others in the area who observed the same or similar around/shortly after 12noon?

[Isotherm]

Saw the same thing in my backyard this afternoon. Gorgeous day.

[bluewave]

Cut off lows are very challenging for the models to handle especially the further out that you get.

The Euro has a cut off south of the Canadian Maritimes by around day 5 with the OP and ENS

close.The OP and the ENS diverge by day 10 with different solutions.The ENS look a little more

shaded toward the 0z OP.At this point,I would just blend the GFS and Euro Ensembles.

[nzucker]

I doubt we see any really cold weather with that trough over the East Pacific...

[tmagan]

Back outside our immediate windows... had a display of amazing iridescent clouds earlier this afternoon. The angle of the sun and cirrus clouds had to be just right for this to happen over my backyard in Queens. (Although I only managed to capture a few photos... the phenomenon lasted for about half an hour over this same position of the sky, looking southward. Photo's don't do justice however, taken through my cellphone, but it's the only way I could share at the time. Wondering if there are any others in the area who observed the same or similar around/shortly after 12noon?

Looks like 'sun dogs' to me.

[bluewave]

Back outside our immediate windows... had a display of amazing iridescent clouds earlier this afternoon. The angle of the sun and cirrus clouds had to be just right for this to happen over my backyard in Queens. (Although I only managed to capture a few photos... the phenomenon lasted for about half an hour over this same position of the sky, looking southward. Photo's don't do justice however, taken through my cellphone, but it's the only way I could share at the time. Wondering if there are any others in the area who observed the same or similar around/shortly after 12noon?

Great shots.I wasn't out then but later on there was a circular halo around the sun here.

This site has a good collection of photos:

http://www.atoptics..../halo/crhal.htm

[Dark Energy]

I'd watch for shower or t-storm tomorrow. Potent s/w trof moving thru. These can surprise.

[nzucker]

i wasn't disputing a negative NAO, just the strength. we're barely inside the range of the forecasts

The NAO block has been consistently less impressive/less persistent than modeled since the January 12th Miller B snowstorm. We've heard a lot about the return of the -NAO, but it hasn't really come to fruition except for the 3/24 period, especially against expectations given what transpired in Winter 09-10, December '10, and the various prognostications of the models showing a strongly dipping NAO index. It seems that the index is generally averaging quite positive with a mean trough located over Baffin Island/western Greenland; the only departures from this pattern have been short-lived and also east-based North Atlantic ridges. The GFS severely overestimated the strength of the blocking for early May; instead of a crummy week with highs in the 40s, we got one cool afternoon surrounded by glorious days in the 70F range. The lack of a sustained NAO verifying has meant that the SE ridge has been able to build farther north; April was +1.8F at Central Park and May is running at only -0.1F through today despite all the conversations about "cut-off lows" and "colder weather upcoming." Although I don't think we'll torch, I'm not going to buy a big-time below average pattern until I see it only a few days away, as the models have been much too aggressive regarding the re-emergence of the NAO block, which in reality has faded to unimportance in the late winter/early spring period.

Today was another picture-perfect spring day in Westchester County, with a high of 70.1F after a low of 45.8F. I spent most of the day helping proctor AP History exams, but I did get out in the garden from 4:30-6:00PM before I started my evening job at a local restaurant. I planted two Ichiban eggpplants and one Black Beauty eggplant, all from a local nursery, as well as a few pepper plants of different varieties that I bought from Home Depot. I also was able to transplant two types of heirloom tomatoes, Moonglow and Dr. Wyche's Yellow, from a seed rack in which I had been raising them to the main garden...they look good although still young! My garden is almost done now except for a few obscure peppers and tomatoes that are being mailed to me as seedlings next week, all to be put in containers with a mixture of top soil, potting soil, manure, peat moss, and kelp meal.

the NAO has much less effect on the pattern this time of year than one would think.

A strong -NAO can still cause nasty cold weather in May as late-season Nor'easters are still relatively common at our latitude. When you have a strong -NAO/-AO block as we saw during 2009, you can get some of these coastal rainstorms with highs in the 50s under gray skies and strong NE flow. That being said, the general trend of the NAO and the trough over the East Pacific/West Coast doesn't really support an extended period of below normal temperatures for this region. Even though Canada has been unseasonably cold this spring, most of the remaining arctic air has been pouring into the Northern Plains/Pacific Northwest. Seattle had its 2nd coldest April on record, just behind 1955...Here are the departures in temperatures for the last month:

With these cut-offs locked in to our northeast, it's hard to imagine a heat wave before Memorial Day, but my guess is we're going to see stunning spring weather with highs in the 65-70F range the next 4 days, followed by mid-upper 70s Wednesday and Thursday as the warm front starts to lift north with the next system approaching from the Plains.