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2014-15 winter outlook


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There are definitely some positive forces in play this year that point to the possibility of a decent winter season if you like cold and snow.

 

Since the invention of the internet, there has never been a winter that has not been portrayed on weather boards, as having a decent chance of being cold and snowy.  According to obscure language use statistics, since 1990, the use of the word "epic" has increased by over 2000%.

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 In his free video, JB shows a map with a prediction from WxBell of a very cold SE winter. He has much of the SE US near or even colder than 4 below normal. In all of the years of following JB, I can't recall a forecast quite that cold for the SE. However, IF there really ends up being a weak Nino fall/winter peak, a +PDO, and a -NAO, I could see this or even colder than this actually happen. Perhaps he is already thinking somewhat along those lines.

 

 For KATL, he's going for a little colder than 4 below normal. How cold is that? Well, that would be very close to a top 10 cold winter there (going back to 1879-80). The very cold winter of 2009-10, which was the coldest by a good margin since 1977-8, was 4.4 below average. So, JB is going for something similar to 2009-10 in terms of cold. He's also going for well above average snowfall including ~150% of norm at ATL/RDU:

 

http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-august-9-2014

 

 

2/23/12: 12 Coldest (back to 1879-80) KATL Winters’ ENSO

 

    Winter……DJF Temp Anom…ENSO

1) 1976-7……….…..-7.6…………WEN

2) 1977-8…………...-6.2…………WEN

3) 1904-5……………-5.8………...WEN

4) 1962-3……………-5.8…………WLN or NN

5) 1935-6……………-5.7………….NP

6) 1963-4……………-5.7…………*WEN or MEN

7) 1939-40………….-5.5…………WEN

8) 1901-2…………...-5.4………….NN

9) 2009-10………….-4.4…………SEN

10) 1885-6………….-4.3…………WEN

11) 1894-5.............-4.3..............WLN

12) 1969-70…….…..-4.1………….WEN

 

 Note how many weak El Ninos are listed. Also, note 1963-4, specifically. On the previous version of the NOAA ONI table, it was considered weak. However, it has been revised as moderate. Regardless of the specifics, the general idea is that weak Nino's have been associated with more very cold ATL (and SE) winters per instance than any other ENSO state. However, it still needs the help of a +PDO and -NAO to give it the best shot at being very cold per history. Now, 2004-5 and 2006-7 were mild overall. I suspect that the +NAO was a major reason. Then again, Feb. of 07 was quite cold and the NAO did drop to -0.47 that month.

 

*Edit: Also, notice the relative absence of La Nina (only two WLN and one was later revised to NN) and the strong tendency toward weak ENSO, in general (WEN, WLN, NN, or NP).

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*Edit: It isn't necessarily true that the weak Nino forcing, itself, causes the big cold. Rather, it may very well be that having a weak Nino allows for the best chance for all factors, combined, to allow for the big cold and may allow it to be amplified somehow.

 From 2012: To further illustrate my point, there have been 26 DJF's since 1899-1900 with a known +PDO/-NAO/-AO. Note these KATL stats for these +PDO/-NAO/-AO winters:

 

1) 6 Weak Nino: all 6 had neg. anomalies that averaged a very impressively cold -5.0 F. A whopping 5 of 6 very cold.

2) 10 mod. to strong Nino: 8 had neg. anom.'s and 2 had pos. anom.'s. The ten averaged -1.3 F. Only 1 of 10 very cold.

3) 6 neutral ENSO: 3 had neg. anom.'s and 3 had pos. anom.'s. The 6 averaged -1.2 F. 2 of 6 very cold.

4) 4 Nina: 2 had neg. anom.'s and 2 had pos. anom.'s. The 4 averaged -1.3 F. 1 of 4 very cold.

 

 In summary, whereas the 6 weak Ninos averaged a very cold -5.0 F and 5 of 6 were very cold including the 2 coldest on record, the 20 others averaged only a modestly cold -1.3 F or about 25% of the weak Nino's negative anomaly magnitude and only 4 of 20 were very cold. So, it is quite evident to me that the weak Nino state, itself, is associated with a strong tendency toward cold winters at Atlanta that tends to pile onto the cold that tends to already be associated with +PDO/-NAO/-AO and is unlike any other ENSO state including stronger Ninos. In other words, nothing comes close to beating the weak Nino/+PDO/-NAO/-AO combo coldwise.

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*Edit: Before anyone tries to attribute west based (vs. east based) as being the most important factor for cold Nino winters, note that the very cold 1976-7 and 1969-70 were east based while the mild 2004-5 was west based. 1977-8 and 2009-10 were west based while 1963-4 was neutral based. My point is that I don't see a clearcut correlation for cold unlike what I see for weak. OTOH, I suspect there may be a good correlation of heavier precip. for west based.

West based appears to be the most likely for this winter assuming there is a Nino. For combo of heavier precip. and cold, I suspect that west based might be best.

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West based appears to be the most likely for this winter assuming there is a Nino. For combo of heavier precip. and cold, I suspect that west based might be best.

To the first bolded.....sigh....I keep waiting and waiting and waiting for it to happen  :(   

 

To the second bolded.....strongly agree :D  

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GaWx that was a fantastic post. Sadly, I think the Niño is a bust but just an opinion. However, it is very likely that given the conditions in the NPAC/GOA region that an El Niño may not even be necessary to produce the winter we're hoping for. Moisture return out of the Gulf of Mexico is very impressive at this point also. One can only hope that this rapid reloading pattern continues into the winter also. I hate being too optimistic but I haven't seen things going this well for an awesome winter in a long time. I think fall will be a short-lived season this year also. Anyhow, those are just my thoughts for the moment. All signs point to cold and snowy for any state east of the Rockies!

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I'm with Larry on this one. I think we'll end up with a weak Nino. To top it off, the PDO has been positive for this entire year and don't see it changing anytime soon. 

 

Much colder than normal with above normal precip is my SWAG. If we can get some decent blocking this year on top of the weak Nino, it could be a winter to remember. 

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Great post, GaWx!

 

I posted in Mountains thread since it's somewhat an IMBY post, but I thought I would give my 2 cents by linking it to years GaWx listed.

 

I was just looking at records for Asheville and noticed that the airport itself has not recorded a single day above 90 degrees in 2014. Last time that occurred? The summer of 2009 (KAVL got 39 inches that upcoming winter, which is 3rd all time snowiest year). Also worth noting that the year of 2013 only had one day breaking the barrier of 90 degrees as well and we actually managed a good CAD winter despite the fact it was historically average at around 16 inches.

 

The top two snowiest years in AVL history isn't on GaWx's list of winters although 1894-95 (8 days of 90 degrees), 1935-36 (6), 1939-40 (12), 1963-64 (6), 1969-70 (20), and 1977-78 (17) are all great snow years breaking the average mark of 16 inches. Just by eyeballing the chart, it's might be safe to say anything above late-teens days of 90+ was a hot summer for AVL and most of these years GaWx listed (with the number of days) had slightly-below summer at least for that area. However, it's not necessary you need cool summer to get good winter as summer of 2010 proved with 19 days of 90+ degrees weather and winter of 2010-11 having 20 inches of snow, but that's another story. 1969 and 1977 are another good examples, with these years having 17 inches and 22 inches respectively. I might do some number crunching on Excel at some time before October to see if there's any trend between days with 90+ degrees and how much snow that following winter AVL received. Hopefully this post doesn't scream too much "IMBY" but the bottom line is there might be something about cool summers leading to good winter at least for the mountains (and usually rest of Southeast). It's all about how patterns come together, as GaWx just posted, but it's promising :)

 

List of years with number of 90+ days: http://www.weather.gov/media/gsp/Climate/AVL/newAVL90degdayperyr.pdf

 

Yearly snowfall for AVL: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gsp/climate/newAVLmonthlySNobs.htm

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We need to get a full winter this year.  Last winter was heavily back-loaded.  It was an epic, historic February/March.  The winter up until January 28th was horrendous, though.  It was still a great winter, of course, but this winter could be even better if we get wintry weather from December until March. :)

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 Fwiw, the brand new Euro weeklies suggest a warming in Nino 3.4 from ~0 to +0.1 C anomaly this week to near the low end of weak Nino (say ~+0.5 C to +0.6 C) during the first week of Sep. At the same time, they show a weakening of the Nino 1+2 warmth (i.e., they're showing a transition from east based toward neutral based for the warmth). Also, they show the +PDO holding pretty firm. These weeklies have been pretty consistent.

 IMO, if this were to verify (looking ahead toward winter), this would be a good trend for cold potential as it shows a trend toward at least a weak Nino by autumn along with the continued +PDO.

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We need to get a full winter this year.  Last winter was heavily back-loaded.  It was an epic, historic February/March.  The winter up until January 28th was horrendous, though.  It was still a great winter, of course, but this winter could be even better if we get wintry weather from December until March. :)

 

Epic.  Most overused word on the board.

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