LRC to suggest another big storm next weekend?

[extremewx52]

I have been following Lezak's Recurring Cycle (LRC) since last winter when I first heard of it.  After the Midwest blizzard on December 19-21 came ~51 days after Superstorm Sandy, myself (and many others in the field) recognized this as the cycle length for this winter.  I have spent the past month telling all my co-workers we would have another blizzard on or around February 9 and here we are.

 

For anyone who is not aware of the LRC, it is a cycle that begins when longwave trough/ridge patterns develop at the onset of the cold season.  The cycle is typically 40-60 days and is usually different each year.  Once the cycle length is established, it typically remains the same for the rest of the season.  While there has been no peer-reviewed publication (that I am aware of) on this topic, it is being recognized more and more in the meteorology field.

 

Today I chose to examine the cycle even more closely. First, I believe there is a lost first leg of the cycle which began with the severe weather outbreak on September 7-8 as well which has not been talked about much in most blogs/forums I have read on the topic.  Second, an interesting point that I hope to point out is that each initial system this year was followed by semi-big storm 7-10 days after the first. This seems like it will likely occur again with both the GFS and ECMWF indicating another big storm system on the east coast next weekend.  Here are some maps to support this theory.

 

September 7-8, 2012 - Manhattan Tornado

 

51 days later

 

October 29-31, 2012 - Sandy

 

51 days later

 

December 19-20, 2012 - Midwest Blizzard

 

51 days later

 

February 8-9, 2013

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

10 days after September event

 

September 18, 2012 - East Coast Severe Weather

 

9 days after Sandy

 

November 7-8, 2012 - East Coast Nor'Easter

 

7 days after Midwest Blizzard

 

December 26-27, 2013 - East Coast Nor'Easter

 

8 days from now???

 

February 17-18, 2013

 

Over the next week we will have to see how this plays out.  I am interested to hear if anyone else has followed this cycle and has anything to add. In the mean time, I am throwing it out a prediction for a severe weather/tornado outbreak 51 days from now between March 31 and April 2 across the southern states. April Fools Day outbreak anyone?

[SquatchinNY]

Very interesting read.

[Ellinwood]

Not to dismiss LRC completely, but I think many of the proponents of it do a lot of cherry-picking of systems that "fit the cycle." If someone ever did a study of when it worked, when it didn't and how strongly correlated it is, that would be a huge step for this theory. I find the lack of any peer-reviewed work (or any thorough, published research) off-putting.

[usedtobe]

Not to dismiss LRC completely, but I think many of the proponents of it do a lot of cherry-picking of systems that "fit the cycle." If someone ever did a study of when it worked, when it didn't and how strongly correlated it is, that would be a huge step for this theory. I find the lack of any peer-reviewed work (or any thorough, published research) off-putting.

 

I agree someone need to to a comprehensive study and not use anecdotal type evidence.  Until that happens its hard to give it much credence. 

[extremewx52]

I definitely agree. I am curious to see if any significant advances in research on the topic will materialize in the coming years, because for now it is cool to look at, but has no meteorology to support it's existence.

[wxmeddler]

It certainly is interesting, the repetition seems like is more than just random chance. However, they're are way more questions than answers at this point. Like, what are the effects outside of North America? Are their different wavelengths from season to season and what are their correlations to other known teleconnections? For now, until a peer review paper dives into it, I'm putting it down as a oddity.

[PottercountyWXobserver]

Very interesting! Eventhough there isn't any peer review papers, I find it rather interesting of the consentency of the pattern so far. As others have said, it could be cheery picking of any event, however some kind of criteria should be set to measure upon. Also would be nice if you can find any other working example over the years that fits this theory. If you can find some kind of correlation, your theory might have some validity to it, but explaining the meteorology behind seems difficult. Best of luck, let us know if you are going to do some case studies. So if you are expecting something around April fools day, what follows it 8-10 days later? Late winter snowstorm April 8-9th? Because that would fit climatology fairly well for some NE locations. One quick question, why does it have to be 50-52 : 8-10 day intervals, and is it always 50 or will it vary from year to year? and when does the intervals reset, summer months or does the inverval keep the trend through the whole year?

[Ellinwood]

Very interesting! Eventhough there isn't any peer review papers, I find it rather interesting of the consentency of the pattern so far. As others have said, it could be cheery picking of any event, however some kind of criteria should be set to measure upon. Also would be nice if you can find any other working example over the years that fits this theory. If you can find some kind of correlation, your theory might have some validity to it, but explaining the meteorology behind seems difficult. Best of luck, let us know if you are going to do some case studies. So if you are expecting something around April fools day, what follows it 8-10 days later? Late winter snowstorm April 8-9th? Because that would fit climatology fairly well for some NE locations. One quick question, why does it have to be 50-52 : 8-10 day intervals, and is it always 50 or will it vary from year to year? and when does the intervals reset, summer months or does the inverval keep the trend through the whole year?

Here's a further explanation:

 

The Lezak's Recurring Cycle (or LRC) is a theory developed by Gary Lezak. Gary noticed back in the 1980s that storm systems seemed to have similar characteristics unique to that year. Quite simply a storm in February looked very similar to one that had occurred earlier in that season, say in December. As the years went by Gary started paying closer attention to the weather patterns and he came up with the LRC.

The LRC (Lezak's Recurring Cycle)

A unique weather pattern sets up every autumn between October 1st and November 10th

"Long term" longwave troughs and ridges become established over the northern hemishpere

The pattern cycles and repeats over and over again until it slowly weakens and falls apart during the mid summer months

The part that got me when I first looked into the LRC is that "Gary noticed it back in the 1980s." So this theory has been around that long and there's still no published research regarding its validity? That raises a big flag, IMO.

From Lezak's site (http://www.weather2020.com/):

In the 1980s I discovered that weather patterns set up in a unique way every fall and they develop a cycle for the following 12 months.

[PottercountyWXobserver]

Here's a further explanation:

 

The part that got me when I first looked into the LRC is that "Gary noticed it back in the 1980s." So this theory has been around that long and there's still no published research regarding its validity? That raises a big flag, IMO.

From Lezak's site (http://www.weather2020.com/):

 

Thanks for that Ellinwood, well hopefully Extremewx52 can add more to this discussion, would like to see what else he can bring to the table. A full explaination would at least be an interesting read even if there is no published research. It does seem like a red flag if it has been that long without any recognition.

[extremewx52]

Last year I could claim a cycle of 43 days. The Henryville Tornado Outbreak happened on March 2, 2012 and was then followed by the Kansas tornado outbreak on April 15, 2012.  Looking before that there was a mid January tornado outbreak 43 days before that on Jan 18, 2012.  43 days before that was an early season 6-8 inch snowfall from the plains to upper great lakes.

 

Now, this brings up the issue of whether or not I am picking events.  There were several other tornado outbreaks in the last few weeks of January that I intentionally ignored because they did not fit the cycle. Also, when I look up other blog posts about the cycle in past years I have seen several people claim different patterns and none of them will share the example I just shared.

 

This is a topic that I know little about, but I wanted to bring it up to encourage discussion.  If there is a significant tornado outbreak within a day either way of April 1, then I may have to do further research on the topic.

[JoMo]

The LRC winter forecast explains the reasoning and pattern for this winter:

 

http://weatherblog.kshb.com/winter-forecast-2012-2013/

 

 

A local meteorologist uses his own version of the LRC. I really didn't believe it until he was forecasting a 30% chance of snow 3 days out based on nothing but the 'pattern' and none of the models were showing anything at all. The models caught on the next day and it did snow.  So, I do think that there is something to it.