Roger Smith winter forecast -- mild mild cold

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Roger, I was wondering what your latest thoughts are? Still calling for a cold/stormy February and possibly a cold spring.

In the book Historic Storms of new England by Sidney Pearley. he mentions that the winter of 1801-1802 started out abnormally warm, with true cold not arriving until February 21st in New England. Perhaps a similar pattern this year?

[uncle W]

Roger, I was wondering what your latest thoughts are? Still calling for a cold/stormy February and possibly a cold spring.

In the book Historic Storms of new England by Sidney Pearley. he mentions that the winter of 1801-1802 started out abnormally warm, with true cold not arriving until February 21st in New England. Perhaps a similar pattern this year?

sounds like 1949-50...the real arctic air hit NY on 2/20 with near record cold shots into March...

[Roger Smith]

No changes in theoretical reasoning since last update, expecting a gradual change to colder pattern in the northeast U.S. during February eventually delivering one or perhaps two memorable snowstorms. The most likely "events" from my theory would be southern max (about 18th-19th), new moon (22nd-23rd) and a complex of events around the 25th to 27th. The events earlier in the month, while somewhat promising, may not find a strong enough pool of cold air in place for an epic snowstorm but there could be one or two events similar to the past weekend's local 4-6 inch snows. These events will be around the 3rd, 7th-8th and 10th-12th in two waves.

Sorry for the backwards forecast but I wanted to get to the good stuff right away.

I should add that in the expected pattern, one or more of the early Feb storm events mentioned could give a heavy snowfall in the Great Lakes region and freezing rain in the Ohio valley, flooding rains in TN and severe weather in the southeast.

[mattb65]

No changes in theoretical reasoning since last update, expecting a gradual change to colder pattern in the northeast U.S. during February eventually delivering one or perhaps two memorable snowstorms. The most likely "events" from my theory would be southern max (about 18th-19th), new moon (22nd-23rd) and a complex of events around the 25th to 27th. The events earlier in the month, while somewhat promising, may not find a strong enough pool of cold air in place for an epic snowstorm but there could be one or two events similar to the past weekend's local 4-6 inch snows. These events will be around the 3rd, 7th-8th and 10th-12th in two waves.

Sorry for the backwards forecast but I wanted to get to the good stuff right away.

I should add that in the expected pattern, one or more of the early Feb storm events mentioned could give a heavy snowfall in the Great Lakes region and freezing rain in the Ohio valley, flooding rains in TN and severe weather in the southeast.

This forecast is still looking spot on based on current medium and longer range data from the models. Hope the latter periods pan out.

[weathafella]

Congratulations Roger Smith.

[Roger Smith]

Living the dream (and Pythium, you're fired just kidding).

[Organizing Low]

great job Roger

keep it up.

[Met1985]

Great job Roger!

[mempho]

OK... so it's February now... and it's were around a plus 20 departure... where's this cold again?

X

[Roger Smith]

Any shift now appears likely to start around the end of next week, but the real cold and snow are probably beyond the current GFS end zone, not that we expect the 15-16 day GFS to verify all that strongly. I'm sticking to the idea of the biggest east coast winter storms being fairly late in February and possibly one in March as well. Lunar dates this winter are the same as 1993 (many other factors in my research model are totally different but not that one).

I would concede that it is tough climatologically speaking to get a pattern reversal after a snow-free winter much later than mid-February since warmth moving north in early March is often held back by feedback from snow cover. So we do need to see a good snowfall event by 20-23 February to get a decent end to the winter to set up, otherwise it could be a series of lake clippers.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Any shift now appears likely to start around the end of next week, but the real cold and snow are probably beyond the current GFS end zone, not that we expect the 15-16 day GFS to verify all that strongly. I'm sticking to the idea of the biggest east coast winter storms being fairly late in February and possibly one in March as well. Lunar dates this winter are the same as 1993 (many other factors in my research model are totally different but not that one).

I would concede that it is tough climatologically speaking to get a pattern reversal after a snow-free winter much later than mid-February since warmth moving north in early March is often held back by feedback from snow cover. So we do need to see a good snowfall event by 20-23 February to get a decent end to the winter to set up, otherwise it could be a series of lake clippers.

The flip in February 1950 apparently didn't come until between February 15-20, at least in Toronto. Came earlier in Ottawa.

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=XX&StationID=5097&Month=2&Year=1950&cmdB1=Go&Day=0

[Roger Smith]

Maybe my title should be MILD MILD MILD/MILD/COLD.

This current warmth is the N Max event (occurs late 2nd) which in 1950 by closest analogy was Jan 29th. Note the widespread records in 1950 on Jan 25-26. The lunar signal seems to be modulating this warm regime in a similar way date-adjusted. This would imply coldest weather around 24th of this current month.

The 1967 analogy that formed part of my theoretical basis for the forecast has earlier dates and here again, record warmth around the northern max on 25th. In fact despite the fact that it is now 45 years ago (sigh) I can still remember that day, maintaining a backyard weather station in Georgetown ON where it reached 58 F (61 F downtown Toronto which was the record until 2005 or whenever that was recently) ... then the next day the Chicago blizzard came in and changed heavy rain and ice pellets to heavy snow, thunder-snow and the regime changed rapidly, one more slight burst of mildness and a snowfall, then sub-zero (F) cold, which I also remember because being relatively young I had not felt weather that cold before. As you can probably guess I was a high school senior at that point. There was never a lot of snow on the ground in Feb 1967 but it stayed snappy cold well into March and there was one more outbreak of extreme cold at the spring equinox, then it turned very warm at the end of March. That was a very strange winter all round, we had some huge temperature variations but not a lot of storminess really considering that fact. Other than the Chicago blizzard and a medium-sized storm in late December 1966, there were no really actionable snowfalls just 1-2 inchers, but it snowed on April 5th (give or take a day, I remember it was a few days after hitting 70 F at the end of March -- you won't see that in the Toronto records because they lake breezed out). Then it snowed in May at a track meet that I attended. Go figure.

June 1967 had some extraordinary rainfalls in Ontario as well. My rain gauge caught about seven inches but the climate summary had some reports well into the 12-15 inch range not that far away.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Maybe my title should be MILD MILD MILD/MILD/COLD.

This current warmth is the N Max event (occurs late 2nd) which in 1950 by closest analogy was Jan 29th. Note the widespread records in 1950 on Jan 25-26. The lunar signal seems to be modulating this warm regime in a similar way date-adjusted. This would imply coldest weather around 24th of this current month.

The 1967 analogy that formed part of my theoretical basis for the forecast has earlier dates and here again, record warmth around the northern max on 25th. In fact despite the fact that it is now 45 years ago (sigh) I can still remember that day, maintaining a backyard weather station in Georgetown ON where it reached 58 F (61 F downtown Toronto which was the record until 2005 or whenever that was recently) ... then the next day the Chicago blizzard came in and changed heavy rain and ice pellets to heavy snow, thunder-snow and the regime changed rapidly, one more slight burst of mildness and a snowfall, then sub-zero (F) cold, which I also remember because being relatively young I had not felt weather that cold before. As you can probably guess I was a high school senior at that point. There was never a lot of snow on the ground in Feb 1967 but it stayed snappy cold well into March and there was one more outbreak of extreme cold at the spring equinox, then it turned very warm at the end of March. That was a very strange winter all round, we had some huge temperature variations but not a lot of storminess really considering that fact. Other than the Chicago blizzard and a medium-sized storm in late December 1966, there were no really actionable snowfalls just 1-2 inchers, but it snowed on April 5th (give or take a day, I remember it was a few days after hitting 70 F at the end of March -- you won't see that in the Toronto records because they lake breezed out). Then it snowed in May at a track meet that I attended. Go figure.

June 1967 had some extraordinary rainfalls in Ontario as well. My rain gauge caught about seven inches but the climate summary had some reports well into the 12-15 inch range not that far away.

Roger, i recall you once discussing your memories of the winter of 1974-75, which was an "odd" winter in southern and eastern Ontario, much like this one. As I've mentioned in another thread, this winter has been quite similar to that one, except for the fact that November 1974 was cold and December 1974 had more snow (in Ottawa at least). However, December and January have been remarkably similar to 1974-75 temperature wise. take a look at this:

December 1974: http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?StationID=4337&timeframe=2&Month=12&Year=1974&cmdB1=Go&Day=0

December 2011:

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=ONT&StationID=30578&dlyRange=2000-10-19|2012-01-04&Year=2011&Month=12&Day=1

Note the nearly identical mean temperatures

January 1975:

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?StationID=4337&timeframe=2&cmdB1=Go&Month=1&Year=1975&Day=0

January 2012:

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=ONT&StationID=30578&dlyRange=2000-10-19|2012-01-30&Year=2012&Month=1&Day=01

Note the almost identical mean temperatures and amount of snowfall!

Also note that April 1974 saw the major torando outbreak in the US midwest, just as April 2011 did. Both were La Nina years.

[Roger Smith]

It is true, the winter has been similar. Where I lived at that time (central Ontario) we didn't get much snow in Dec 1974, it fell off to the east of us. And Jan 1975 was a mild month with one or two big dumps of snow. Feb 1975 was bland and there was a three-day rainstorm about the 20th, then March was cold with snow and we had a huge snowstorm on April 2-3, I have never seen one quite as bad before or since. Almost all the years we have mentioned go into a kind of backward spring at some point, but I suppose since we are speaking about mild winters the average of their springs when you get a large enough sample would probably have to go into reverse mode to keep the years themselves average. Yet another somewhat similar winter would be 1971-72, and another very backward April. You could also look at 1991-92 and 1992-93 as broadly similar (so far).

[Lee]

It is true, the winter has been similar. Where I lived at that time (central Ontario) we didn't get much snow in Dec 1974, it fell off to the east of us. And Jan 1975 was a mild month with one or two big dumps of snow. Feb 1975 was bland and there was a three-day rainstorm about the 20th, then March was cold with snow and we had a huge snowstorm on April 2-3, I have never seen one quite as bad before or since. Almost all the years we have mentioned go into a kind of backward spring at some point, but I suppose since we are speaking about mild winters the average of their springs when you get a large enough sample would probably have to go into reverse mode to keep the years themselves average. Yet another somewhat similar winter would be 1971-72, and another very backward April. You could also look at 1991-92 and 1992-93 as broadly similar (so far).

Those winters were very similar to this one in this area as well. 92-93 being as you said, even though mild, was not as close as the other's. This one has reminded me of the mid-70's winters the most.

73-74 was horrible throughout while 74-75 produced a decent synoptic snowfall in March.

71-72 was my favorite analogue until recently of which 74-75 became more viable i.m.o.. 71-72 winter produced a 8 inch event here mid February.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Ovrall, I see this winter as being a blend of 1949-50 and 1974-75, particularly in terms of temperature.

By the looks of the models though, this February might end up milder than both of the above.

Roger, I'm rooting for you and a possible pattern change around the 20th, but I'm close to giving up on this winter!

[Roger Smith]

Well the GFS (or KOD for "kiss of death") model is showing some fairly intense cold shots later this month, they look rather passive so far and without much snow cover might not drop temperatures very far below normal ... but with all that high pressure in Europe, there's some chance of a retrograde period developing and the arctic vortex dropping southeast almost over your head there, so ... at least there's hope if not wild optimism. Anyway, if 1975 is your standard of a bad winter, I would say the April blizzard was like a whole winter season wrapped into one week, I would trade that for almost any winter of my lifetime except maybe 1978 if I had a chance to go back to one event in a time machine. (restricted to events I lived through, of course I would choose the blizzard of 1888 otherwise).

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Well the GFS (or KOD for "kiss of death") model is showing some fairly intense cold shots later this month, they look rather passive so far and without much snow cover might not drop temperatures very far below normal ... but with all that high pressure in Europe, there's some chance of a retrograde period developing and the arctic vortex dropping southeast almost over your head there, so ... at least there's hope if not wild optimism. Anyway, if 1975 is your standard of a bad winter, I would say the April blizzard was like a whole winter season wrapped into one week, I would trade that for almost any winter of my lifetime except maybe 1978 if I had a chance to go back to one event in a time machine. (restricted to events I lived through, of course I would choose the blizzard of 1888 otherwise).

I'm still hoping for at least some cold weather mid month. I've heard that that latest Euro weeklies are favourable.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

Any updates Roger? It is starting to look stormier, as your forecast said.

[Roger Smith]

I would say there's a slightly better than 50-50 chance of a "big storm" for the northeast before the end of the winter. The GFS is already signalling a high energy peak near the end of February which matches a peak on 26-27 Feb in my research. The signal so far is too mild for a snowstorm, more like a sharp cold front, that might give the best snowfalls in the Great Lakes region. Before that, we're going to need to see one of the energy peaks get some forcing to avoid another wimpy 1-3 inch snowfall non-event. Those peaks are around the 18th and 22nd. But I currently like the chances best for the final event, and if not there, early March ... nothing much happened in Feb 1888 as far as my historical records show, but temperature trended negative. As bland as this winter has been, there is probably no sound reason to say there cannot be a big storm at the end of the road. I was reading on another thread the observation that you don't want the flow to become too strong, which seems sound, but we do need it to become less flabby, basically the set-up at present time is about as expected but it's a bit too flat to do the business. That makes it a bit too easy for short waves to spread out the gradient and produce either non-events or flabby fronts without much forcing. I think all of the available planetary snowfall has been dumped in Alaska, the Balkans or Hokkaido, so I guess you need a "k" in your place name to get snow. Kankakee should get a major dumping then.

[Tropical]

Roger,

Any ideas for how spring will shake down?