October Pattern Index! Predicting Winter AO from October, with 90+% accuracy?

[Ginx snewx]

Final winter AO was actually 0.188 or near +0.20. Very close to neutral.

It will be interesting to investigate why this method failed this year.

Yes I changed it, total opposite than predicted outcome

[ORH_wxman]

I do find it interesting that blending the Cohen methods actually would have worked out well this year. Taking the robust SCE and combining it with the SAI which argued for solidly positive AO...weight the SAI a bit more due to its higher skill and you end up with an AO near neutral on the slight positive side. That is what this winter's AO turned out to be.

 

 

Though I guess technically we aren't done with the Cohen verification yet...his method includes March for the winter total. It appears that March will be somewhat positive through mid-month.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I don't think anything went wrong.  The EPO happened.  The +AO pattern was mostly intact but displaced quite a bit by the EPO ridge going poleward and bleeding over the Canadian Arpichelago bending down around GIS.

 

This displace the North Atlantic Vortex furhter SE and you could say it formed a bit of a bootleg neutral or -AO at times. 

 

I do recall at least one time where there was a more typical Anti Cyclone over the pole but most of the winter it was a displaced +AO look. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

You can see some pretty stout correlations between the EPO and AO states. 

 

The -EPO has relaxed and is forecasted to go positive for at least a little bit here and low and behold the AO goes back positive.  Its not always there but even without crunching numers you can see the EPO's pull on the AO pattern/index when it would explode poleward with blocking.  That was based from the Pacific ridge and not the polar vortex in the arctic.

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

Here is a great example of what I am referring too.

 

 

 

[ORH_wxman]

I don't think anything went wrong.  The EPO happened.  The +AO pattern was mostly intact but displaced quite a bit by the EPO ridge going poleward and bleeding over the Canadian Arpichelago bending down around GIS.

 

This displace the North Atlantic Vortex furhter SE and you could say it formed a bit of a bootleg neutral or -AO at times. 

 

I do recall at least one time where there was a more typical Anti Cyclone over the pole but most of the winter it was a displaced +AO look. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I disagree...the strong poleward EPO- was not indicative of a strong +AO pattern. This was by and large a neutral AO winter. Having the strong vortex displaced southeast was a result of blocking in the arctic.

 

 

 

 

 

I think examining what may have been wrong would be more educational to this method of forecasting rather than pretending nothing went wrong.

[The_Global_Warmer]

No one is pretending nothing went wrong.

[skierinvermont]

Well now I really want to see some published work. My first reaction from what I recall of the statistics is that a bust this big would be exceptionally unlikely if the correlation were real. Could be some tuning of the results?

[ORH_wxman]

Well now I really want to see some published work. My first reaction from what I recall of the statistics is that a bust this big would be exceptionally unlikely if the correlation were real. Could be some tuning of the results?

 

 

Or some sort of curve fitting...but yes, it would be nice to read an in-depth peer review on this akin to Cohen's work.

 

Hopefully we will get the chance.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Going back to 1979.  Here are the other winters with a neutral AO.

 

One is not like the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Isotherm]

Here was the problem in my opinion -- many people were sweeping the EPO under the rug back in November as if it was not an important factor to the winter. There were strong indications in the autumn that the cold season was liable to feature a potent NPAC ridge up into Alaska, and usually when the EPO is moderate to strongly negative, the AO is not far from neutral. See winters like the following: 1983-84, 1993-94, 2008-09 -- all featured negative EPO signals with the predominate AO signal either near neutral or slightly positive. It's exceedingly rare to have a strongly positive AO in concert w/ a strongly negative EPO. That to me was a major red flag that this was going to fail back in November.

 

It's really best to take the totality of all the signals combined, not simply isolated one correlation. And when you combine the indicators from this past autumn -- 1) High snow cover extent,  2) poor SAI,  3) Favorable signaling for NE PAC ridging,  4) Analogs for similar -EPO/+AO years, you end up with the total picture of a slightly positive AO.

 

And because many bought into the strongly positive AO regime and underemphasized the EPO signaling, numerous forecasts called for a warm winter nationwide. This was of course the opposite of what occurred.

[Isotherm]

Additionally it was not entirely due to the poleward EPO. There was a Scandinavian block throughout much of the winter -- higher than normal heights in the eastern Arctic to the north of Europe. And this coupled w/ the strong -EPO forced the PV into Canada, much like 1993-94. The presence of that Scandinavian blocking feature demonstrates a major flaw in the reasoning of the October pattern index.

[CoastalWx]

The Pacific ruled the roost this year. Once the recurving Typhoons kick started the -EPO, there was no looking back. The WPAC convection for the most part held firm and helped sustain the pattern. 

[The_Global_Warmer]

What takes it even further.

 

They nailed the compact negative anomalies. The North American side was near perfect.  Europe was off.  The negative anomalies ended up over the North Atlantic and not Central Europe.

 

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/41639-seasonal-winter-20132014-forecast-based-on-opi-index/

 

 

My defense of it is that it's not just predicting a "number".  It predicts a predominant pattern.  And it nailed our side of the globe.  Even had the right pieces in Europe but in the wrong spot.

 

I am not knowledgeable enough to know why.

 

From the careful analysis map, the primary October pattern characteristics are:

 

1)      central axis of the vortex (black line) moderately inclined, joining Labrador and eastern Siberia; the axis position and OPI value are output of “Telemappa Next Generation” software;

 

2)      very low elliptical component index of weake stationarity and intrusiveness of the planetary waves.

 

Also, in virtue of near correspondence between average October pattern and circulation model characterizing the focal cold event of the following winter (“key event” in which the planetary waves activity is more intense in the winter), from the above reanalysis map and in refer the montly axis (black line), is possible infer featured of the most relevant winter events. In our case you notice a Pacific wave (wave 1) translated, compared to the usual position, on the eastern sector of north Pacific (Alaska gulf) and the Atlantic wave (wave 2) in symmetrical position respect to the axis (black line) positioned on the eastern Atlantic (United Kingdom - Scandinavia).

This planetary waves configuration (wave 1 – 2) suggest a compact Polar Vortex condition and weake planetary waves intrusiveness (in particular for wave 2) also in the most strong activity pahses. On the other hand the high OPI value, as well as the large negative anomaly centered from noth Scandinavia and Kara sea, support the thesis of a favorable circulation schema in which the Altlantic wave (wase 2) isn’t intrusiveness on high northern latitudes however in AO neutral/positive context. About location of the Pacific wave (wave 1), it result centered into western eastern pacific sector (Alaska gulf).

This configuration should favor a strong advection of cold arctic air masses to the central-eastern areas of the American continent during the increased activity of the planetary wave.

 

 

This was the OPI prediction for North America.

 

 

 

This is how 2014 shook out.

 

 

 

 

This is what they had for Europe.

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

Interestingly there seems to be a bit of a similarity here.  1956-57 is one the closest years to this one in terms of the -EPO.  Except and even more anomalous -EPO.

 

it also had a very similar neutral AO.  Of all of the neutral AO years going back to 1949.  This one most closely resembles 2014 in the Atlantic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ORH_wxman]

My impression is that is not what they predicted for a N.A. pattern. They were showing what the pattern would look like during "increased activity of the plantery wave". I.E. how we get our cold.

 

A considerable positive AO (something in the +1.6 range of the prediction) would not look like that.

[Absolute Humidity]

More over, they predicted there would be two planetary waves resulting in this:

[Absolute Humidity]

The first was to occur during mid December and the second in early to mid February with each instance of cold intrusion lasting about 10 days. One could argue the opposite happened with only two brief warm ups in late December and mid January.

[billgwx]

The link I have for monitoring OPI goes nowhere: http://app.til.it/opi

[WxMidwest]

Time for an update on how the OPI, Al Marino proprietary NAO forecasting method, and Cohen's method are doing.  I can't post them all at one time and I don't want to lose the post.  I am starting with the NAO and will get to the rest as soon as I can.  I can say all of them appear to be a bit off.  But one of them is horribly wrong.

 

 

First the NAO prediction called the TRIPOLE METHOD by Al Marino:

 

Prediction for DJF: -0.77.

 

December: +0.95

January: +0.29

NAO index through January: +0.64

 

 

So far this method is actually on pace to bust harder than any other year in it's history and it's not even close.

 

Through January the prediction was off by 1.41.

 

On top of that the NAO is averaging almost right at +1.0 for the month of February through the 18th.  Forecasts call for it to stay positive the rest of the month.  Mostly between +.5 and +1.0.

 

I am not sure what to make of it.  I have said before that my gut told me this was a big scam.  However I do not know Al Marino and I do not want to call him a fraud without an explanation from someone or Al himself about how this is possible after 33 years of amazing accuracy a bust at least twice as bad as the nearest "wrong" forecast.

 

 

Math guys what are the odds or probabilities of this given what the data set showed over the last 33 years?

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, I'm Al Marinaro (Not Marino), I have been doing statistical met analysis / models for years, and even admitted on my blog that the NAO model has failed big time the last few years and given reasons why on my blog. I don't know who's talking about the "TRIPOLE METHOD" it has nothing to do with the ATL Tripole. No I'm not a fraud, I'm actually a published & M.S. degreed atmospheric scientist who likes to experiment with new ideas and share them with the public. Now, DT thought it was interesting so he chose to publicize which is fine, but there are not any silver bullets in the long range ever. 

 

This NAO model BUSTED, I have no problem admitting that, but it had nothing to do with malicious/fake behavior. Lets get that straight. If you want to confirm this, talk to Jon Davis, DT,  LC, Matt Rogers, Jim Angel, the entire MRCC, and others about my legitimacy within the Midwestern & LR Met Community. I don't mind getting flack for a crappy model, but do your research before you start calling people frauds.

 

Please note, I have made many successful LR forecasts using the GWO model (most of the forecasts are in my blog and twitter @wxmidwest)that I had (unfortunately that data is gone now from ESRL), and during EL Nino years I have an October North PAC SLP box "AKA. The Box" that can be used as an indicator for the NAO rather well for DJFM that I discovered in the mid 2000s and has been pinned on this board and previous wx (Eastern) boards and has worked for 2006-07 and 2009-10.

[Huffwx]

Never knew you posted here. Don't sweat these know it alls.. if weather was an exact science, most mets would be unemployed. 

First of all, I'm Al Marinaro (Not Marino), I have been doing statistical met analysis / models for years, and even admitted on my blog that the NAO model has failed big time the last few years and given reasons why on my blog. I don't know who's talking about the "TRIPOLE METHOD" it has nothing to do with the ATL Tripole. No I'm not a fraud, I'm actually a published & M.S. degreed atmospheric scientist who likes to experiment with new ideas and share them with the public. Now, DT thought it was interesting so he chose to publicize which is fine, but there are not any silver bullets in the long range ever. 

 

This NAO model BUSTED, I have no problem admitting that, but it had nothing to do with malicious/fake behavior. Lets get that straight. If you want to confirm this, talk to Jon Davis, DT,  LC, Matt Rogers, Jim Angel, the entire MRCC, and others about my legitimacy within the Midwestern & LR Met Community. I don't mind getting flack for a crappy model, but do your research before you start calling people frauds.

 

Please note, I have made many successful LR forecasts using the GWO model (most of the forecasts are in my blog and twitter @wxmidwest)that I had (unfortunately that data is gone now from ESRL), and during EL Nino years I have an October North PAC SLP box "AKA. The Box" that can be used as an indicator for the NAO rather well for DJFM that I discovered in the mid 2000s and has been pinned on this board and previous wx (Eastern) boards and has worked for 2006-07 and 2009-10.

[jdrenken]

First of all, I'm Al Marinaro (Not Marino), I have been doing statistical met analysis / models for years, and even admitted on my blog that the NAO model has failed big time the last few years and given reasons why on my blog. I don't know who's talking about the "TRIPOLE METHOD" it has nothing to do with the ATL Tripole. No I'm not a fraud, I'm actually a published & M.S. degreed atmospheric scientist who likes to experiment with new ideas and share them with the public. Now, DT thought it was interesting so he chose to publicize which is fine, but there are not any silver bullets in the long range ever. 

 

This NAO model BUSTED, I have no problem admitting that, but it had nothing to do with malicious/fake behavior. Lets get that straight. If you want to confirm this, talk to Jon Davis, DT,  LC, Matt Rogers, Jim Angel, the entire MRCC, and others about my legitimacy within the Midwestern & LR Met Community. I don't mind getting flack for a crappy model, but do your research before you start calling people frauds.

 

Please note, I have made many successful LR forecasts using the GWO model (most of the forecasts are in my blog and twitter @wxmidwest)that I had (unfortunately that data is gone now from ESRL), and during EL Nino years I have an October North PAC SLP box "AKA. The Box" that can be used as an indicator for the NAO rather well for DJFM that I discovered in the mid 2000s and has been pinned on this board and previous wx (Eastern) boards and has worked for 2006-07 and 2009-10.

 

 

Al,

 

The last time I checked, meteorology isn't an exact science in multiple instances.  When everything points to what you believe to be obvious, weather nature throws a wrench in the obvious.  Don't worry about the naysayers!  The world of meteorology is constantly reminded about how we have computer models from various nations attempt to predict how our earth will react to various phenomenon.  Yet, how did we forecast prior to the advent of these vary models?  My research team has coined the term "organic forecasting" in that we utilize tried and true pattern recognition techniques that have been around for years, along ones that we are currently researching. Ironically enough...the same poster attacked my research also.

 

Never knew you posted here. Don't sweat these know it alls.. if weather was an exact science, most mets would be unemployed. 

 

#preachit Alan!