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Capital Weather Gang 2012-13 winter outlook


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Great job as usual Matt! Great info, well reasoned! My wishcast is wishing that you are wrong and we get a lot more snow. In reality, I think we will be close to normal this year! Whether it is closer on the warmer or on the cooler side, I would go a bit cooler as I think AO and NAO will help.. but not much!

Great job!

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Good write-up. Of course, this always raises the question......how do you like your seasonal snowfall? 1-2 snowfalls, or a handful of small events spread out. If BWI (the reporting location I'm closest to) were to have a winter of 18", I would be pleased with one 6" snowfall and four 3 inchers.

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Solid and easy logic to follow.

I was big time on the warm Dec train early in the fall but I've changed my mind a bit. The pac looks nothing like it did last year at this time. Even the "warm period" that the models were advertising for the next couple of weeks is changing rapidly. It's actually looking like this month is going to end up aob normal as a whole. That's a big change from a long string of aoa months. Is this part of a larger scale and longer term pattern switch irt temps?

You've been looking at the season stuff much longer than I have so I have more confidence in your forecast than anything I try and put together. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

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Solid and easy logic to follow.

I was big time on the warm Dec train early in the fall but I've changed my mind a bit. The pac looks nothing like it did last year at this time. Even the "warm period" that the models were advertising for the next couple of weeks is changing rapidly. It's actually looking like this month is going to end up aob normal as a whole. That's a big change from a long string of aoa months. Is this part of a larger scale and longer term pattern switch irt temps?

You've been looking at the season stuff much longer than I have so I have more confidence in your forecast than anything I try and put together. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Thanks...I know a cold DEC is a popular forecast....I don't really see any stable feature except probably an aleutian ridge....It is low confidence...I could bust easily...I am probably 60/40 in favor of a warmish DEC so that is not high confidence

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Solid and easy logic to follow.

I was big time on the warm Dec train early in the fall but I've changed my mind a bit. The pac looks nothing like it did last year at this time. Even the "warm period" that the models were advertising for the next couple of weeks is changing rapidly. It's actually looking like this month is going to end up aob normal as a whole. That's a big change from a long string of aoa months. Is this part of a larger scale and longer term pattern switch irt temps?

You've been looking at the season stuff much longer than I have so I have more confidence in your forecast than anything I try and put together. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Thanks...I know a cold DEC is a popular forecast....I don't really see any stable feature except probably an aleutian ridge....It is low confidence...I could bust easily...I am probably 60/40 in favor of a warmish DEC so that is not high confidence

FWIW the correlation between cold Novembers and December is pretty much nonexistent

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post-66-0-46794000-1352831326_thumb.png

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Thanks...I know a cold DEC is a popular forecast....I don't really see any stable feature except probably an aleutian ridge....It is low confidence...I could bust easily...I am probably 60/40 in favor of a warmish DEC so that is not high confidence

A lot of the cold Dec forecasts are based solely on wishcasting though. lol

tbh- there really isn't a dominating signal so anyone who puts forth a "high confidence" forecast is taking quite the chance. I totally get where you are coming from when you say things like 60/40 etc. It's exactly how I think irt all seasonal forecasting. I always treat it like "if I HAD to put money on it what would I favor and why" but upsets are more common in weather than college football. lol

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FWIW the correlation between cold Novembers and December is pretty much nonexistent

Quite true. November is a transition month so the signal isn't a reliable as months like December. However, I'm willing to bet there is a correlation with a cold last 10 days of Nov and the following December. Late Nov is when we start to see stable patterns set up. Not always the case but I can't remember a cold Dec following a thanksgiving weekend that didn't require a jacket or long sleeves.

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It's been feast or famine over the last decade. When was our last normal/average winter? Very nice write-up.

MDstorm

Using BWI as an example, you really need to go back to 2003-2004 thru 2005-2006 to see the last run of normal snowfall in consecutive years.

18.3, 18.0 and 19.6. Granted, slightly below normal, but its good enough for me. Before that, 93-94 was closest to a normal winter with 17.3.

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Using BWI as an example, you really need to go back to 2003-2004 thru 2005-2006 to see the last run of normal snowfall in consecutive years.

18.3, 18.0 and 19.6. Granted, slightly below normal, but its good enough for me. Before that, 93-94 was closest to a normal winter with 17.3.

It's too volatile this far south anyway. We've had plenty of normal or near normal precip winters but snow will always be a wildcard. Our enemy is temps. Like many of us say "I'd prefer a cold winter and take my chances with precip". The last decade has had some really warm winters.

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Matt,

Nice job. I think two of the big players will be the AO and the mjo this winter as the latter usually ends up being more active during La Nada winters. Unfortunately, the MJO is not easy to forecast but it is something worth watching closer this year than last.

Wes

Thanks...I am sure we'll be watching the MJO constantly in this forum this winter, praying it doesn't rot in the circle of death during one of the bad phases

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Good stuff, Matt. If it works out as well as the analysis of election polling, we shall have snowfall just below the mean.

Klaus Wolter seems to think that a neutral ENSO state is as good a guess as any.

While it is too early to write an obituary for the short-lived El Niño event of 2012, the odds for a rebound have dwindled since last month. Therefore, we are facing our first ENSO-neutral winter since 2003-04. Furthermore, every 'double-dip' La Niña of the last century has been followed by either one more La Niña winter or a switch to El Niño, so this is even more unusual. Meanwhile, we will have a few months before a return to La Niña becomes a possibility in 2013.
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