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2013-14 MA Winter Disco - 'cause it's never too early.


Bob Chill

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Looks to me like he went 23-30" :)

He could be right. I think he has 1 good analog. 61/62. Which hM has mentioned many times. It was our least snowy of a 9 year stretch but we still made climo and it was a cold winter if not frigid. Anyone would take that winter. I think 81-82 is a bad analog. It was smack in the 1st few years of massive PDO flip. 62-63 is one of our coldest on record. At least at DCA. Might be coldest at DCA. So not sure about that or 67-68. Hope he is right. Cold isn't the worst guess. We are like 55-45 warm cold. And we just has 3 in a row. 08-11. Snow I am dubious about. 20" is ambitious

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He could be right. I think he has 1 good analog. 61/62. Which hM has mentioned many times. It was our least snowy of a 9 year stretch but we still made climo and it was a cold winter if not frigid. Anyone would take that winter. I think 81-82 is a bad analog. It was smack in the 1st few years of massive PDO flip. 62-63 is one of our coldest on record. At least at DCA. Might be coldest at DCA. So not sure about that or 67-68. Hope he is right. Cold isn't the worst guess. We are like 55-45 warm cold. And we just has 3 in a row. 08-11. Snow I am dubious about. 20" is ambitious

 

 

61-62 is a top 5 in much of VA-- Jan was very nice stand alone, even taking out the historic March storm. LYH had  17 inches in January alone with 20 inches winters total by Jan 31st. 

 

I'd jump on that analog any day-- A January with a 4, 5 and 7 inch event-- hand me the contract. 

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I think 17-23 is a risky call. If our mean is famine bumped up by a few feasts, it may even make more sense to go 25+ statistically than something in between those numbers.

Of course, 10 is a much more likely call.

It is a risky call. I guess a neutral following a neutral leaves open the possibility of doing better than expected but if you go all the back to the winter of 88/89 and look at the yearly snowfall records at BWI there is little reason to believe anything close to the higher end of the prediction will verify. If we take out 95/96, 2002/2003, and 2009/2010 that leaves 22 winters since 88/89. BWI barely averages 12 inches a year during that span. This is now becoming a sad reality for snow lovers in the region. Hopefully we can break the 1 out of every 7 year big winter with nothing in between cycle that we have experienced since 78/79. Another alarming trend  is that you take out 2002/2003 and 2009/2010 which of course were both solid nino's BWI did not reach at least 20 inches in any year starting from 2000/2001 until current.

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20 miles east of Jon-Jon won't see anywhere near 100 inches.

Yeah, you're probably right, maybe the lower end with 50 would be pushing.

Got me thinking about that and so I started looking, thought well

Moorefield is about 25 miles east as the crow flys, maybe 40

by car. I found this, have NO idea where they got these numbers.

Moorefield averaging more than Davis?????? There is some

awfully screwy numbers in this.

 

http://www.usa.com/rank/west-virginia-state--average-snow--city-rank.htm?hl=Moorefield&hlst=WV

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Yeah, you're probably right, maybe the lower end with 50 would be pushing.

Got me thinking about that and so I started looking, thought well

Moorefield is about 25 miles east as the crow flys, maybe 40

by car. I found this, have NO idea where they got these numbers.

Moorefield averaging more than Davis?????? There is some

awfully screwy numbers in this.

http://www.usa.com/rank/west-virginia-state--average-snow--city-rank.htm?hl=Moorefield&hlst=WV

Yeah. Those numbers aren't accurate at all.

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I don't think I've ever seen a snow map that I felt was accurate. I guess there's just too many variables and not enough data.

True. A REALLY correct one would likely look more like a topo map IMO.

EDIT-

Oh look! It is 'snowing' up at the airport again and temps in mid 40's..... :whistle:

I'll guess fog and less than 1/8 mile vis.

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It is a risky call. I guess a neutral following a neutral leaves open the possibility of doing better than expected but if you go all the back to the winter of 88/89 and look at the yearly snowfall records at BWI there is little reason to believe anything close to the higher end of the prediction will verify. If we take out 95/96, 2002/2003, and 2009/2010 that leaves 22 winters since 88/89. BWI barely averages 12 inches a year during that span. This is now becoming a sad reality for snow lovers in the region. Hopefully we can break the 1 out of every 7 year big winter with nothing in between cycle that we have experienced since 78/79. Another alarming trend  is that you take out 2002/2003 and 2009/2010 which of course were both solid nino's BWI did not reach at least 20 inches in any year starting from 2000/2001 until current.

 

BWI has had several winters with close to 20", especially in the mid 2000s.

 

Also, if you're going to take out a few great winters and make up a new snowfall average starting from an arbitrary year, then it would only be fair to also exclude sh*tty years like 97-98, 01-02, etc. It's kind of like saying "if it weren't for those three KU storms, 09-10 would have only had 14.5"

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BWI has had several winters with close to 20", especially in the mid 2000s.

 

Also, if you're going to take out a few great winters and make up a new snowfall average starting from an arbitrary year, then it would only be fair to also exclude sh*tty years like 97-98, 01-02, etc. It's kind of like saying "if it weren't for those three KU storms, 09-10 would have only had 14.5"

My point was that since 95/96 there has only been one non nino year that went above 20 inches at BWI and that was 99/2000, so any snowfall forecast for 20 or more inches for this year have an extremely low probability of verifying. As some point as you know we will get a winter that defies this trend and for all of sakes we would love it to be this year, but it most likely will not be until we get out of this phase of the PDO.

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I was looking at the SSTA map and noticed that really, the central and western portion of ENSO 4 is probably in a weak NINO state and just to the west of ENSO 4 starting at 170E it warms even more, which you can see nicely on this map

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif

maybe that warm water in western 4 and beyond is what is causing us to experience NINO "like" condition recently and over the foreseeable med/long range

I know that area is west of the traditional ENSO areas of the equatorial PAC we look to for textbook NINA and NINO conditions, but in light of otherwise neutral conditions in ENSO 3.4 and central/eastern ENSO 4, the warming just to the west is just enough to tip the scale in favor of typical NINO conditions for us

just saying... 

 

p.s. officially last week ENSO 4 as a whole was +.3C so I wouldn't be surprised to see that rise with tomorrow's weekly update at this link:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

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I'm encouraged by multiple signs going into this December. Even early Nov but this month and snow don't really go hand in hand even if temps are cold.

Globals have been showing all kinds of looks in the last week. Clipper potential, overrunning, and even a coastal. Some serious cold for this time of year is on the table too.

Let's see if the closed Ull tracking the country can do anything. Prob not but they are always interesting. Maybe it will end up being a catalyst to get some real blocking going on for early Dec.

I think it's significant that a closed low may take a south track from CA to TX. Definitely Nino'ish. Some very cold 850's building in the are of Canada that is our typical source region.

It would be a breath of fresh air to kick off met winter with fair odds and trackable events. I'm gaining some confidence and I'm kinda gun shy after getting beat to a pulp last 2 years.

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I think regardless of the conclusion to November and what happens around the Thanksgiving holiday (not to discredit what may happen then.) I feel if the high moves in quicker in the D9-11 range, something could result especially for the interior. However, that is just when the best pattern is starting to rear its head. Early december as Bob Chill stated above has a substantially better look than many would have probably expected a few weeks ago. I like mitchnick's observation of the El nino regions, because more and more are speculating an el nino set up could evolve later in the winter. That quasi nino look now early on is a good indicator that if the proper SST's set up, we can patch the ENSO anomalies enough to make the southern jet come to life and be effective with a good PNA ridge in the west. The GoA is also key to see if we can get a ridge, and although it hasn't been mentioned, I definitely wouldn't mind seeing a -EPO just for the sake of assisting otherwise improving teleconnection patterns for early december. 

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If only that 1032 H moved in quicker ;)

But def looks like last few days of November (Thanksgiving?) could be intriguing. Also, nice post Bob

Climo can't be overlooked. A nice miller A is still usually rain in Nov. Hard to forget average highs are still in the mid 50s leading into tday.

I agree about the period being interesting. IF we're going to get snow in Nov, we need something to draw down seriously below normal temps first. That part could happen before we close the month. Just need to have something drive into it. The d9-10 storm needs help leading in. If we are to focus on anything it should be getting a nasty cold batch of air for this time of yeart down our way before worrying about a potential coastal.

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Climo can't be overlooked. A nice miller A is still usually rain in Nov. Hard to forget average highs are still in the mid 50s leading into tday.

I agree about the period being interesting. IF we're going to get snow in Nov, we need something to draw down seriously below normal temps first. That part could happen before we close the month. Just need to have something drive into it. The d9-10 storm needs help leading in. If we are to focus on anything it should be getting a nasty cold batch of air for this time of yeart down our way before worrying about a potential coastal.

This weekend is still uncertain. There's a chance it could bring down some pretty chilly air.

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UVV, the paranoid side of me after recent years has me cautious about a false signal. Matt already commented on not forgetting that. We really need something to buckle the flow and get some blockiness going on going into Dec or we can easily step back into an rPNA with no block and heights all pumped up around here.

Every day that goes by keeps confidence growing of a potential "real" early season pattern but it's all on paper lol.

The Pac seems to want to be out friend instead of our enemy this year so far but we'll need more help than that until we get later into Dec. Then climo can catch up

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