And we begin

[Orangeburgwx]

Current QBO readings ( as of Sept. Found this on NOAA).. Ignore the -999s...

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50mb:

[Absolute Humidity]

Current QBO readings ( as of Sept. Found this on NOAA).. Ignore the -999s...

30mb:

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50mb:

image.jpg

You want that Sept Oct Nov -QBO avg to be between -8 and -16 to be ideal. Below -20 can be bad, but certainly not always.

[Orangeburgwx]

You want that Sept Oct Nov -QBO avg to be between -8 and -16 to be ideal. Below -20 can be bad, but certainly not always.

What do you mean by "bad".... Too hot or too cold??

[Absolute Humidity]

What do you mean by "bad".... Too hot or too cold??

Bad as in warmer less snow. Its a case of too much of a good thing. Strong easterly or -QBO's in the fall months can inhibit vortex displacement thus leading to less arctic outbreaks in winter. Inversely, strong easterly QBO in the winter months can aid in PV displacement. However, I've found that during years of high SCE, strong fall time QBO's have less impact on winter time. Of course their are many many other factors to consider.

[DTWXRISK]

 CORRECT   and there is GOOD new on the  QBO front...

 

 

You want that Sept Oct Nov -QBO avg to be between -8 and -16 to be ideal. Below -20 can be bad, but certainly not always.

[DTWXRISK]

 OK   lets  talk about the  QBO so far this Autumn.   Al   Joseph over at wxmidwest  has done  some GREAT work on the  QBO  values  ... and whether they are rising or falling as you go into the Winter months .

 

 this  first image  shows the   CURRENT   QBO  values   from  1 JAN 2014  to 27 oct 2014.  THis chart is easy enough to read.... the  QBO is read at  30mb level  and I have  drawn  in a    THICK  black  line to show  30 mb.  At the bottom of the graph...  you can see the months and  the  COLOR  scale
 

 

 To ease  comprehension I have  ENLARGED   the  last 60 days    As you can clearly  see  On Sept  1 and OCT 1   the  black line JUST  touches the dark Green  ....which stands for values  of   -20 to -29. And because  the Black line  barely touches  the  Dark green areas  it  is safe to read thai as  Low -20s values

 

As you see in  the enlargement  the  dark green area is   COMPLETELY  gone as  we  near NOV 1. This is SIGNIFICANT ....  because it means that   the  QBO  as we head into  winter ....  is rising to weak  negative values or Neutral .

 

There is a good correlation between  weak  East  QBO or NEUTRAL   enhanced Blocking patterns in the   cold season months 

[DTWXRISK]

here....  IF  my estimate  is  correct and  the trend continues  then the  DEC 1   reading... which will come out   DEC  3 or 4 ..could be  around -10.00... and  would likely be in the ideal range  JAN FEB MARCH 2015

 

[GaWx]

 

As you see in  the enlargement  the  dark green area is   COMPLETELY  gone as  we  near NOV 1. This is SIGNIFICANT ....  because it means that   the  QBO  as we head into  winter ....  is rising to weak  negative values or Neutral .

 

There is a strong correlation between  weak  East  QBO or NEUTRAL   enhanced Blocking patterns in the   cold season months 

 

Regarding the strong corrrelation of weak east QBO/neutral QBO to blocking, what type of blocking? NAO? AO? Both? Other? Do you have any specifc analog winters in mind?

[Jonger]

The best SAI year on the graph was a November furnace:

 

 

 

I'd take that analog all day long.... Dec 2009 was really good here, winter basically kicked in around Dec 3rd and ended around Mid March, abruptly. 

[DTWXRISK]

GaWx
 There is a tendency to think   -AO or  -EPO  or -NAO with weakly  east or Neutral  QBO  but that is not correct.  From what i can see   weakly  east or Neutral  QBO favor blocking patterns   somewhere ...  but  it might be over  Europe  or Russia or  Siberia  just as  easily  as  -AO  or -NAO 

[Absolute Humidity]

OK   lets  talk about the  QBO so far this Autumn.   Al   Joseph over at wxmidwest  has done  some GREAT work on the  QBO  values  ... and whether they are rising or falling as you go into the Winter months .

 

 this  first image  shows the   CURRENT   QBO  values   from  1 JAN 2014  to 27 oct 2014.  THis chart is easy enough to read.... the  QBO is read at  30mb level  and I have  drawn  in a    THICK  black  line to show  30 mb.  At the bottom of the graph...  you can see the months and  the  COLOR  scale

 

qpf.jpg

 

 To ease  comprehension I have  ENLARGED   the  last 60 days    As you can clearly  see  On Sept  1 and OCT 1   the  black line JUST  touches the dark Green  ....which stands for values  of   -20 to -29. And because  the Black line  barely touches  the  Dark green areas  it  is safe to read thai as  Low -20s values

 

ENL.jpg

As you see in  the enlargement  the  dark green area is   COMPLETELY  gone as  we  near NOV 1. This is SIGNIFICANT ....  because it means that   the  QBO  as we head into  winter ....  is rising to weak  negative values or Neutral .

 

There is a strong correlation between  weak  East  QBO or NEUTRAL   enhanced Blocking patterns in the   cold season months

DT, That's the most awesome, comprehensive visual of QBO I've seen. Its great to see it decline below -20. Just curious, do you know if the monthly values given by ERSL are monthly averages or are the just a daily value at end of month?

[GaWx]

GaWx

 There is a tendency to think   -AO or  -EPO  or -NAO with weakly  east or Neutral  QBO  but that is not correct.  From what i can see   weakly  east or Neutral  QBO favor blocking patterns   somewhere ...  but  it might be over  Europe  or Russia or  Siberia  just as  easily  as  -AO  or -NAO 

 

 Dave,

 Thanks. So, would the weakly east or neutral QBO combined with El Nino possibly favor it to be more of a -NAO and/or -AO type blocking vs. if it weren't an El Nino? Also, do you know if having a +PDO tilts the type of blocking toward -NAO and/or -AO?

[Harry]

I'd take that analog all day long.... Dec 2009 was really good here, winter basically kicked in around Dec 3rd and ended around Mid March, abruptly. 

 

I would not wanna gamble with that pattern again. As far as a i am aware that was the snowiest winter ever around here during a mod/strong Nino with such a negative AO/NAO to boot. Reasons why patterns like that typically favor i-95 vs the GL. We got very lucky..

[DTWXRISK]

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

 

if  you look at  some of the great  Eastern US Winter   you will see   WEAK or near Neutral  QBO  vakues   DJF

 

 for example  the great  winter of  1957-58...     the  DJF  vakues were  +7.35  +5.25   + 4.10

 

1960-61...      -11.26.....  -5.47.....   -0.62 

1977 -78 ...     +1.69...+3.21     +6.07

1978-79....      +1.46.....+1.86.....+4.12

1992-93........  +8.19.....+9,63   ....+10.81

1993-94.......   -6.00     -7.84      -9.84

1995 -96......    -4.57     -5.,79.....   -6.90 

2002-03......    -0.50       -1.39      -1.43
2003-04....     -11.38    -4.84.....  +2.61 

2004-05  .....  +2.45   -0.69.....    -0.96 

2006 -07   .....+6.21  ...  +2.61  ....+ 2.43 

[DTWXRISK]

  My  view    is that   weak / Moderate El Nino and w eak east / Neutral  QBO     do favor -AO  and -NAO 

 Dave,

 Thanks. So, would the weakly east or neutral QBO combined with El Nino possibly favor it to be more of a -NAO and/or -AO type blocking vs. if it weren't an El Nino? Also, do you know if having a +PDO tilts the type of blocking toward -NAO and/or -AO?

[Harry]

  My  view    is that   weak / Moderate El Nino and w eak east / Neutral  QBO     do favor -AO  and -NAO 

 

04-05 comes out screaming in agreement. Thus note when the AO/NAO went negative..

[Absolute Humidity]

04-05 comes out screaming in agreement. Thus note when the AO/NAO went negative..

2003 - 2004 almost fits like glove regarding a low end strong -QBO moving toward weak - neutral into Met winter. That winter also featured - AO -NAO couplets during J and F, that December, despite being toasty featured one the best snow storms of my life, Dec 5-6th.

[GaWx]

 Since it is now so late in the month, I assume it is pretty trivial in importance and mainly only of interest for the index related stats. Anyway, fwiw, the GFS/Euro model consensus does give a decent amount of snow to some of the bare areas in Manchuria and also northern China below Mongolia, between now and 10/31. I could see these areas contributing as much as ~0.5 msk of new SC to the sub 60N SCE and helping to counter other sub 60N losses that are liable to occur. Regardless, we appear to be looking stellar for the final SAI!

[Absolute Humidity]

Here you go

[Absolute Humidity]

For comparisons 2009 week 42 was 10.85, msk week 43 was 15.99 msk.

[Harry]

2003 - 2004 almost fits like glove regarding a low end strong -QBO moving toward weak - neutral into Met winter. That winter also featured - AO -NAO couplets during J and F, that December, despite being toasty featured one the best snow storms of my life, Dec 5-6th.

 

I wouldn't use it as a analog though considering there was probably some leftover ( Hangover )  effects of the mod nino etc of the year before. On THIS front those mid/late 70s analogs ( 76-77/77-78 ) might be the best we have as far as analogs go with enso/QBO/snowcover.. Thus -QBO rising/weak nino.  Note.. I use the old ONI chart and thus how i get a weak nino. If we were using that we would be in a weak nino.

[Absolute Humidity]

I wouldn't use it as a analog though considering there was probably some leftover ( Hangover )  effects of the mod nino etc of the year before. On THIS front those mid/late 70s analogs ( 76-77/77-78 ) might be the best we have as far as analogs go with enso/QBO/snowcover.. Thus -QBO rising/weak nino.  Note.. I use the old ONI chart and thus how i get a weak nino. If we were using that we would be in a weak nino.

Yeah but those years were not particularly strong easterly QBO, they never fell below -20 during the fall. 03, 04 had a strong -20 fall avg then rose during the winter months as could be the case this fall winter as DT pointed out.

[Harry]

Yeah but those years were not particularly strong easterly QBO, they never fell below -20 during the fall. 03, 04 had a strong -20 fall avg then rose during the winter months as could be the case this fall winter as DT pointed out.

 

One of those what is more important? QBO ( -QBO ) , ENSO+lag, or snowcover?

 

Not the greatest of fall ( Sept/Oct ) precip matches either.

 

ME? I wouldn't use it.

[CoastalWx]

GaWx, if we drop a bit in the last few days, it shouldn't matter if this massive SAI this year set the wheels in motion. That number is high enough to make a few days worth of losses trivial. Very trivial.

[DaculaWeather]

Added the 28th to the loop: http://www.daculaweather.com/4_sample_loop2.php

 

[das]

Are you sure?  One of the only places visible is the North Eastern part of the Nordic regions and there is no snow there.

 

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2014301.aqua.4km.jpg

 

Again, the differences in the maps have to do with resolution.  The NESDIS maps are encoded at 4km so they pick up on snow/no-snow differently than Rutger's 200km plots or NATICE's 24km plots.  There is indeed snow in Scandinavia although it is hurting.  Here's a super hi-rez snow temperature VIIRS image from 2am EST last night.  It's at 1km resolution and tells the story well.  Grey is cloud cover, brown is clear land and colors are pixels returning snow.  Reds, yellows and oranges are above freezing (melting, corroborating the above freezing overnight temps in the post by weatherdude) and the few blue pixels in the far NW are below freezing snow temps.

 

[DaculaWeather]

2nd highest week 43 ever.

 

[das]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

 snow loses  in Scandinavia   is  100%  irrelevant  

 

Agree.

 

If you want to get a good idea on the daily "health" of the snowpack where it really matters, there are ways to check.  Here's the larger VIIRS snow temp map of Eurasia.  Sorry for the large file size.  Again, from 2am last night.  As well, here's the folder to get them from in the future:  ftp://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/smcd/emb/snow/viirs/snow-fraction/images/north-east/

 

[millwx]

A public kudos to Tom Estilow! He is my Rutgers contact and has - as you saw up-thread - updated the weekly charts. If you are unaware, they only update those at the beginning of the next month. He only updated them now because I requested he do so. Moreover, he contacted me to let me know he got them updated. What a fantastic response I've gotten from him! I cannot speak highly enough of the work the Rutgers team - and Tom in particular - has done. I can also tell you that they performed their update pretty much immediately (which may be obvious)... as soon as their data feed was restored.

 

EDIT:  For the record, since I haven't seen anyone point it out... the all-important (in my view) Week 42 number from Rutgers was 16.24 million square kilometers of coverage for Eurasia.  That's a massive third place ranking... behind 1976 and only a small ways behind 1978.

 

...and since the historical weeks do not match us, my analysis up-thread shows that adjusting the weeks to even everything out does improve the signal.  So... interpolating for "the week starting 10/18" comes in at 17.62 million square kilometers of coverage.  That moves us PAST 1978!  ...into a colossal position of #2 on the list (since 1966), behind only 1976.  If we don't have a significant -AO this winter it will be perhaps the most epic of all snow cover fails.  I'm not counting on that... I expect an impressive -AO for DJF.

[Orangeburgwx]

I love this time of year.....days are getting shorter and the temps are getting colder.... Wish everyone in the south a white. Christmas!!!