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Winter 2011-2012 Kickoff Thread | December 2011


earthlight

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Today's 12 Z run of the ECM shears out the system for the 19-20th time frame..At 204 hrs there is a low pressure developing over TX with cold air over most of the country... At 210 hrs it starts to move east.. but by 222 hrs it just shears out so nothing but light moisture along the gulf stretched out west to east.. Another low which was off the coast of Southern CAL then moves east and is in the SW/TX region by 240 hours...temps at 222 hrs which is 18 Z sunday are only in the 30s and at 240 hrs they are in the 20s! So the moral of the story is this run has changed by shearing out the system but it is still cold ..though at 240 you do see a SE Ridge...

Also the 12 Z ECM is beginning to show the breakdown of the + AO

By building positive height anomalies over the pole and greenland....

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So do you think we'll have a 2001-2002 or 2007-2008 style non-winter/blowtorch or will it be slightly better or even god forbid worse? (widespread 60s and 70s in January and February? Flowers blooming in January. If this winter is truly going to suck, then might as well break records.

That's what I'm saying. I always want to go for the records, so if we aren't going to be snow/cold might as well blow out records in the other direction.

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This pattern only supports lakes cutters and/or warm swfevents.

We need to get through the next 10-15 days and hope it improves drastically.

last year winter lasted from December 26 thru Feb 2nd or so....that was it (and it was a GREAT 5-6 weeks). I would GLADLY trade December for February and part of March

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also at the end of the run, the NAO could not be in worse shape. More positive than ever.

f240.gif

i dont think its as bad as what you're suggesting. Kinda looks like Jan-Feb 1994...I agree its bad for the mid-atlantic and SE...but its avg for us up here....

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last year winter lasted from December 26 thru Feb 2nd or so....that was it (and it was a GREAT 5-6 weeks). I would GLADLY trade December for February and part of March

I see this posted a lot and it annoys me.....all of december was great. We had a ton of cold in the first half of the month, with little snow, and followed it up with more snow and cold.

I would trade December 1-10 this year for December 1-10 last year in a heartbeat. Too often people associate good winters with only copious amounts of snow when in reality, large amounts of cold can make a winter great as well.

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Snow is always better. I'll take a warm winter with snow than a dry and cold one.

I see this posted a lot and it annoys me.....all of december was great. We had a ton of cold in the first half of the month, with little snow, and followed it up with more snow and cold.

I would trade December 1-10 this year for December 1-10 last year in a heartbeat. Too often people associate good winters with only copious amounts of snow when in reality, large amounts of cold can make a winter great as well.

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So do you think we'll have a 2001-2002 or 2007-2008 style non-winter/blowtorch or will it be slightly better or even god forbid worse? (widespread 60s and 70s in January and February? Flowers blooming in January. If this winter is truly going to suck, then might as well break records.

Well... I don't know for sure.. but what I can say is way back in the spring of 1997, I did a paper comparing 500 mb patters across the Pacific and North America... comparing the epic 1995-1996 winter to the 1996-1997 winter and it almost is looking like a similar type situation in terms of the pattern I was seeing during those winter seasons.... where we went from pretty epic to pretty pathetic... but winter is really just getting started and we all know how quickly thing can change.. We could still have a good winter this year. I just hope we start seeing some signs of changes soon.

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Well... I don't know for sure.. but what I can say is way back in the spring of 1997, I did a paper comparing 500 mb patters across the Pacific and North America... comparing the epic 1995-1996 winter to the 1996-1997 winter and it almost is looking like a similar type situation in terms of the pattern I was seeing during those winter seasons.... where we went from pretty epic to pretty pathetic... but winter is really just getting started and we all know how quickly thing can change.. We could still have a good winter this year. I just hope we start seeing some signs of changes soon.

The pattern this month is quite similar to 1996-97 so far with the trough generally centered in the center of the country and the air masses really losing their cool punch as they come east. November though really did not resemble November 1996 at all.

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last year winter lasted from December 26 thru Feb 2nd or so....that was it (and it was a GREAT 5-6 weeks). I would GLADLY trade December for February and part of March

When the high sun angle would cause the snow to melt that much faster? Yuck. One of the great parts of last winter was the expansive snow cover. It pisses me off when a huge snowfall melts in 3 days.

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I wouldn't mind that either though I'd rather mid Jan to mid Feb. I hate the late feb/march sun angle issues especially when its light until 7:00 starting in early March now

seriously it pisses me off so much that they changed when they put the clock forwards now the sun angle in march is worse

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seriously it pisses me off so much that they changed when they put the clock forwards now the sun angle in march is worse

lol. i hope you are not serious. the time of the day has no effect on sun angle. no whatter how you change what time it is the suns angle will still be the same.

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I don't see it. The ridge that builds in around Day 7 barely touches Greenland before it is shunted off to the East again by the PV swinging back around into the Davis Straight.

Yeah, I like to use the Euro ensembles at that range. That vortex still is hanging tough.

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Gradient type pattern. We do fairly well with these type of patterns.

You've got to keep the systems weak though. The tendency here early on is for them to want to be too strong, the result is strong cutters. We need weak waves or lows with highs centered overhead or in Quebec early and we have at least a chance for snow to rain events. The problem starts with the progressive nature of the pattern oput west, if we can get shallow troughing on the West Coast instead of the weak ridging or progressive troughs we can get enough shearing downstream so that these systems are not able to start digging across the southern Plains because once that happens you wind up with deep cutting lows.

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You've got to keep the systems weak though. The tendency here early on is for them to want to be too strong, the result is strong cutters. We need weak waves or lows with highs centered overhead or in Quebec early and we have at least a chance for snow to rain events. The problem starts with the progressive nature of the pattern oput west, if we can get shallow troughing on the West Coast instead of the weak ridging or progressive troughs we can get enough shearing downstream so that these systems are not able to start digging across the southern Plains because once that happens you wind up with deep cutting lows.

Is there some kind of STJ influence that is causing these systems to dig the way they have? It seems storms are forming pretty far south for a La Nina.

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