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A change to a wintry pattern emerging after November?


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"It's a ways out..." "Too bad it's..." - There is decent global consensus for a consistent blocking pattern that we have not seen since mid February 2011. I'm not going to worry about p-types at this point - but for the love of french toast - we need solid, consistent cold this winter to quell the insect/pollen coup that makes outdoor enjoyment impossible in the spring and summer. The prospect of frequent blocking is all I'm interested in for the immediate future.

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"It's a ways out..." "Too bad it's..." - There is decent global consensus for a consistent blocking pattern that we have not seen since mid February 2011. I'm not going to worry about p-types at this point - but for the love of french toast - we need solid, consistent cold this winter to quell the insect/pollen coup that makes outdoor enjoyment impossible in the spring and summer. The prospect of frequent blocking is all I'm interested in for the immediate future.

Amen, Mr. Bevo.

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"It's a ways out..." "Too bad it's..." - There is decent global consensus for a consistent blocking pattern that we have not seen since mid February 2011. I'm not going to worry about p-types at this point - but for the love of french toast - we need solid, consistent cold this winter to quell the insect/pollen coup that makes outdoor enjoyment impossible in the spring and summer. The prospect of frequent blocking is all I'm interested in for the immediate future.

Not to mention certain posters that poo-poo anything if it doesn't give them the exact whether they want for their own back yard.

News flash, sometimes storms will miss you and give you nothing but rain. Sometimes you'll get the jackpot. You just have to be patient and wait.

The pattern does seem like it really wants to go back to significant blocking like it did with Sandy. I welcome it even though it's not even December yet. Of course there will be those that say "oh but it's cold rain for me" or "it's too early for this pattern", but accept the weather you get and enjoy it anyway. Here in Knoxville we missed two very good storms two or three winters ago and got nickel and dimed. However Knoxville has been locally nailed where other places have not been. I was in MS in March of 1993 and only saw 6", while some places got more than a foot and some places only got rain. I still enjoyed it.

I go along with the consensus, and the consensus does look pretty good even this far out. There's possibly something on the horizon close to the end of the month for at least TN and KY, and this is just a prelude to a classic blocking pattern since the cold air might bleed south a little for overrunning moisture. For a good cold pattern you want persistent blocking so that the cold just bleeds down and keeps coming. You may not want a strong cold shot like December of 1989 that only lasts for a few days and leaves, and that's all you get for the winter.

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If you want to see how you can have a -AO/-NAO and keep most of the country abv normal throughout the period, see the 0z GFS. That is all.

please explain for newbies! i thought -NAO/-AO values pretty much meant cold!? i cant call up any models on this cruddy internet connection either.

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it does; that is the problem with this model run.

unfortunately even if i saw the model i wouldn't even really know what to make of it. i'm trying to learn how to do it all with just the internet and this site...but what is wrong with it? i'm on a phone connection so i cant get the maps to pull up. however, i'm sure as an admin you dont want to waste your time explaining probably basic things...haha.

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The Pacific pattern is the ultimate problem for us..at least in my very humble opinion.

If we can get the PDO to resume rising and get back to slightly + in time for the bulk of the winter and if we can at least keep ENSO near the high end of positive neutral, the Pacific would then become better than avg. for the SE US. That would be in the, say, B+ range if I were assigning a letter grade. That along with good blocking would be a nice combo for this winter. If we could somehow attain a moderate to strongly +PDO along with high end positive neutral ENSO, we'd be looking at as good as A- in Pacific. However, getting the PDO to rise that much would be extremely difficult. If we could

get up to -0.50 for DJF averaged PDO along with high end neutral +, I'd then call it around a B-. A B- Pacific along with good blocking (-NAO/-AO) would be a nice combo overall for the SE.

Edit: Currently, I'd say we're only near a C since the PDO looks to have slipped down to near the -1.25 area. Then again, last winter's avg. Pacific was no better than about a D-.

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12z Euro Ensembles in general agreement with the 50/50 PV low situated over SE Canada. That'll lock in our greatly desired -NAO. Also agrees with the PNA ridge as well.

8QoX5.gif

This is not a great look and the 00Z models are following in behind it...The 00z Euro ens mean looks like crap after this brief cold spell. Also don't like the continued dry look of the Euro...I am not selling this winter yet....but all this talk of historic winter or 2010 redux are really out of hand. We are due a near normal winter...something on par with 2004 but can't rule out 2005/2007 either.

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One model run goes to crap, and already the doom and gloom train has left the station... whistle.gif

I don't know if it's doom and gloom, just right now it's late November and more likely it won't get super cold and stormy. As Mr. Bob said the better bet is just a normal winter...but with last winter we're all on pins and needles looking for something good early on.

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I don't know if it's doom and gloom, just right now it's late November and more likely it won't get super cold and stormy. As Mr. Bob said the better bet is just a normal winter...but with last winter we're all on pins and needles looking for something good early on.

Yep everyone has last winter in the back of there minds that is haunting them. I will gladly take average.

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Honestly I have been sucked in to the "general blocky" pattern for this winter talk, considering the models showing the strong blocking and the NAO wanting to go negative. But that's optimisim for later in the year. The whole beginning of December talk I've been alot more skeptical and not really expecting anything.

Now I'm hearing though that even with the potential blocking, we may not have the PNA, EPO, PDO, NCAA, TLC, etc to get the cold air here. I guess I just need to lower my expectations. In my mind though if we don't really have a good pattern, we're not likely to get anything. It took the great pattern of 09-11 to get around "average" snowfall for those two years in CLT. I'm guessing a "normal" pattern will yield below average snowfall. Again that's not based on any science, just my observations of past years.

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laugh.png I have not been on that overly optimistic happy train to begin with thank you very much!

I'm right there with you. There was really nothing to be excited about when the gfs is the only one showing a robust cold outbreak for December. Then whenever it shows it, it's in that same time frame. 384 hours. :D Then six hours later its gone.

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Honestly I have been sucked in to the "general blocky" pattern for this winter talk, considering the models showing the strong blocking and the NAO wanting to go negative. But that's optimisim for later in the year. The whole beginning of December talk I've been alot more skeptical and not really expecting anything.

Now I'm hearing though that even with the potential blocking, we may not have the PNA, EPO, PDO, NCAA, TLC, etc to get the cold air here. I guess I just need to lower my expectations. In my mind though if we don't really have a good pattern, we're not likely to get anything. It took the great pattern of 09-11 to get around "average" snowfall for those two years in CLT. I'm guessing a "normal" pattern will yield below average snowfall. Again that's not based on any science, just my observations of past years.

Just remember everyone cashes in at some point. CLT while having some good snowfall in 09 - 10 kind of got screwed on the really big ones. It seemed to hit just to our south, north, east and west. We can have a "normal" pattern and still get one awesome storm like March of 09...it just depends on where the band set up and eventually we have to hit paydirt sometime. Patterns typically repeat so hopefully we can lock in a good one and just it reset and start all over again in the really cold months.

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Some folks need to get out of weenie-panic mode and relax, It's November! The pattern going forward looks much better than it did last year. This might not be another Dec 09, or Dec 10 but it does look like it holds potential. With the way things are looking for the overall winter period I could see an average to slightly above snowfall for most. Not epic, but not a disaster like last year. JMHO

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If we can get the PDO to resume rising and get back to slightly + in time for the bulk of the winter and if we can at least keep ENSO near the high end of positive neutral, the Pacific would then become better than avg. for the SE US. That would be in the, say, B+ range if I were assigning a letter grade. That along with good blocking would be a nice combo for this winter. If we could somehow attain a moderate to strongly +PDO along with high end positive neutral ENSO, we'd be looking at as good as A- in Pacific. However, getting the PDO to rise that much would be extremely difficult. If we could

get up to -0.50 for DJF averaged PDO along with high end neutral +, I'd then call it around a B-. A B- Pacific along with good blocking (-NAO/-AO) would be a nice combo overall for the SE.

Edit: Currently, I'd say we're only near a C since the PDO looks to have slipped down to near the -1.25 area. Then again, last winter's avg. Pacific was no better than about a D-.

Thanks, Larry. I'll take anywhere in the B range, or for that matter anything above laster year's disaster in the Pacific (and Atlantic). I hope it improves, because I do think the Atlantic pattern will also be much more favorable for us than last year, which in and of istelf should lead to more wintry chances for us southern snow weenies than last year.

But in the meantime, I am not too excited about the medium range prospects of wintry precip around these parts. Maybe the pattern will continue to evolove and deliver the goods closer to Christmas. santa.gif

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Just remember everyone cashes in at some point. CLT while having some good snowfall in 09 - 10 kind of got screwed on the really big ones. It seemed to hit just to our south, north, east and west. We can have a "normal" pattern and still get one awesome storm like March of 09...it just depends on where the band set up and eventually we have to hit paydirt sometime. Patterns typically repeat so hopefully we can lock in a good one and just it reset and start all over again in the really cold months.

Since 2004, I don't know of anywhere that's had worse luck with snowstorms than CLT

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Since 2004, I don't know of anywhere that's had worse luck with snowstorms than CLT

2004 was the big daddy for sure. After that it's just been painful to watch everyone else luck out. I'll never forget what could have been in Jan(?) 09 if the changeover to sleet wouldn't have happened so soon. That was a real heart breaker as we had like a 1/4 of an inch of sleep on top of 3 inches of snow. Meanwhile folks to our north and east got hammered.

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I very roughly estimate that KATL, on average, gets 0.75" of liquid equivalent that falls as S, IP, or ZR in Dec-Mar. I roughly estimate that half of that is ZR. The median for total DJFM wintry precip, is probably more like 0.40" (because so many have relatively little while a few have really large amounts). So, I roughly estimate that about half of the DJFM's will have 0.40" or less falling as wintry precip. In a bad winter, that could easily be less than 0.10" and even 0.00". In a very few great winters, that has been as much as ~3" or even a little more (from huge ZR events or multiple major ZR events).

On average, KATL gets an avg. of about 18" total liquid equivalent in DJFM. So, with the median wintry pecip. being ~0.40", no more than ~2% of the total liquid equiv. falls as wintry precip. in half the KATL winters. I bet that places like RDU don't even get more than ~5% falling as wintry in half of all winters. In a typical very good winter where KATL gets one major S/IP storm (about one in four) and there is, say, 0.75" liquid equivalent, that still is not much more than 4% of the total liquid for DJFM.

My point for areas like much of N GA is that almost always there will be only a very small % of the total precip. falling as S, IP, or ZR, including most great winters. The vast majority of systems are going to produce just plain rain. So, patience is so badly needed for wintry precip lovers around here.

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