And we begin

[GaWx]

I hadn't seen that paper get any play and its 18 months old now...NOAA hasn't changed their dataset though. If it was obviously faulty, they probably would. There was a recent paper that came out trying to show that the increase in Antarctic Sea Ice was a spurious internal trend as well, but NSIDC thought it was baseless. (even issuing a statement about it)

 

I guess the only way to know for sure is to ask someone who works with the Natice/NOAA dataset. The 1982-2011 trend is massively positive in October snow cover. That would be a really egregious error by the NOAA datset if the entire thing was spurious. That would also probably be a blow to Cohen's work showing that more positive AO period from the 1980s/1990s was in part due to reduced October Siberian snow cover.

 

 Thanks. Here are some estimates I made (posted earlier) based on the Rutgers/Natice based October Eurasian SCE data of October increases that I've been finding to suggest a good correlation to DJF -AO:

 

Year: Oct. SCE increase/DJF AO

 

1976: 16.75/-2.6 (2nd lowest AO)(Nino)

2009: 16/-3.4 (lowest AO)(Nino)

2012: 15.5/-1.1

2003: 14/-1.0

1970: 13.75/-0.5

1968: 13.75/-2.3 (3rd lowest AO)(Nino)

 

These are the six highest SCE increases since 1967. Note that they include the three lowest DJF AO's since 1950-1, two in the -1 area, and none greater than the ~-0.4 DJF mean/median. This data, alone, tells me that there is likely a significant correlation between Oct. Eurasian SCE increase and -AO, especially if there is a Nino. Note that these years are balanced between three early years (1968-76) and three late years (2003-2012). Note that two of the late years, 2009 and 2012, are well past the next ones down the list (1.5-2.0 higher). So, even if there really is a +bias for later years and an adjustment were made, 2009 and 2012 would still likely be near the top imo.  So, I'll continue to assume that Judah's theory has credibility until if/when I'm convinced otherwise.

[GaWx]

"The conclusion that October SCE has not experienced

significant increases over Eurasia in recent years does not

undermine the arguments presented in Cohen

et al" (2012) linking Arctic moistening, Eurasian snow anomalies and

The conclusion that October SCE has not experienced

significant increases over Eurasia in recent years does not

undermine the arguments presented in Cohen

et al (2012) linking Arctic moistening, Eurasian snow anomalies and extratropical winter cooling."

 

 

So, even the authors of this paper say that their conclusions don't undermine Judah Cohen's conclusions.

[ORH_wxman]

 

"The conclusion that October SCE has not experienced

significant increases over Eurasia in recent years does not

undermine the arguments presented in Cohen

et al" (2012) linking Arctic moistening, Eurasian snow anomalies and

The conclusion that October SCE has not experienced

significant increases over Eurasia in recent years does not

undermine the arguments presented in Cohen

et al (2012) linking Arctic moistening, Eurasian snow anomalies and extratropical winter cooling."

 

 

So, even the authors of this paper say that their conclusions don't undermine Judah Cohen's conclusions.

 

 

 

It might not undermine Cohen's stuff, but it would certainly have to weaken it. Looking at one of the graphs in the paper, their reanalysis shows much lower snow cover even in years like 2009.  

 

 

I searched for more explanations or possible responses to this paper, but came up empty-handed. It seems as if NOAA hasn't even ackowledged it. Which is strange considering the paper came out in early 2013.

 

The only real acknowledgement of the 2013 paper posted I found was in Cohen's 2014 paper on winter extreme weather where he mentioned it in passing:

 

Satellite-based data indicate a positive trend in Eurasian snow cover during October over the past two to three decades

6,37, though the veracity of these satellite-based increases has recently been questioned57. A proposed physical mechanism to explain increased snow cover is that a warmer Arctic atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which enhances precipitation over the Eurasian continent.

 

 

http://epic.awi.de/36132/1/Cohenetal_NGeo14.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[millwx]

FYI, I spoke with Rutgers yesterday. Obviously, their outage is due to the NatIce outage. They did, very kindly, however, update Week 41 in their data table (not the one linked on their front page... you'll need to dig a bit... if u can't find it let me know and I'll post the link... I'd post it here now, but it's not convenient at this moment). They recognize that Week 42 is more important and would've updated that for me as well, except it's not complete (due to the NatIce outage).

I'll ask the contact there (he's a very nice guy... polite and accommodating) if he can get Week 42 posted once the NatIce outage is fixed. Normally, they don't update the weeks until the month completes (notice their main page weekly links are only up thru Week 40... the last week to include a portion of September).

Also, for those tracking this, the NatIce outage appears to be a broader NESDIS issue as OSDPD's (or whatever they're called these days... sorry, I'm old school NESDIS... worked there for 13 years) SST website is also down. This must've been some massive hardware failure. In my 13 years there I've rarely (never?) seen a network outage of this severity. Given my experience there, these web servers should be on completely different systems as the incoming data servers, which also have backups. So, there should be no data loss. NatIce should be able to retrieve and process the past couple days of data without issue. I can't guarantee that; I don't know their systems... I'm merely speaking from my experience there.

As for when they'll be back up... I suspect later today. There was a notice on the NWS status feed about an emergency network switch replacement scheduled for this morning. While they did not identify that as in reference to NESDIS - so, my assumption here could be wrong - I imagine, given the "emergency" nature of the maintenance and the fact that it's network related, that this is the NESDIS web fix. So, *IF* my guess is correct, NatIce should be back in business by late this morning or early afternoon. Don't know if they need to reprocess the snow data (they may have it all housed on another machine/network), but assuming they do, since this is a wider NESDIS outage, I'd guess the snow data will be fully reprocessed and updated by later this afternoon. Just my guess. We'll see. After that, I'll see if I can get the Rutgers contact to generate the Week 42 numbers for us (don't think he'll get the map for us tho... so, we'll need to stick to dailies on that, which is fine really).

EDIT: The link for Week 41 numerical data is here: http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/table_area.php?ui_set=2 ...of course, there's been significant growth this week (Week 42). So, we really need that update. Week 41 for 2014 Eurasian is good but not terribly "impressive". Anyway, kudos and thanks to the Rutgers folks for posting this early simply at my request.

[GaWx]

Millwx,

Thanks for doing all of that. I'm educatedly guessing that week 42 (ends 10/20/14) will be somewhere near the very impressive 16.5-17 msk range although the 10/20 map is still not available.

[millwx]

Millwx,

Thanks for doing all of that. I'm educatedly guessing that week 42 (ends 10/20/14) will be somewhere near the very impressive 16.5-17 msk range although the 10/20 map is still not available.

 

Well, according to the NWS notice (which, like I said, MIGHT not be referencing the NESDIS outage, but I was assuming so), the network switch replacement was to be done between 14:15Z and 15:15Z today (10:15 and 11:15AM EDT).  Well, that time has passed and NatIce still down.    Of course, it's just past that time, as I'm posting this.  So, hopefully they'll be back up soon.  But, if not, it means the network switch replacement didn't work, or has nothing to do with the NESDIS outage... and, so, I have no idea when they'll come back online.  *sigh*  Here's hoping they return to service very soon.

 

Update:  NWS just issued a notice saying the network switch "maintenance" will occur between 2:15PM and 3:15PM today.  I guess there was a delay.  So, we've not yet passed the repair time.  I still don't know for sure if this is even related to the NESDIS outage (NWS and NESDIS are NOT in the same organizational hierarchy in NOAA; so, why would NWS be issuing these updates? ...on the other hand, NESDIS doesn't have their own standard message stream for this type of thing - satellite outages are also reported on this message stream... another NESDIS function, for example; and since this *sounds* like the NESDIS problem - "emergency" and "network" problem, I suspect this is in reference to the NatIce & OSPO outage).  Patience until around/after 3:15PM & we'll see if we're back in business then.

 

Update #2:  And the emergency network maintenance has been delayed, yet again, until late tomorrow morning.

[DaculaWeather]

DUE TO NESDIS CONTINUING NETWORK ISSUES...NCEP HAS NOT RECEIVED A
FULL FEED OF SATELLITE DATA FOR INPUT INTO THE NUMERICAL MODELS
SINCE 22/0000Z...POTENTIALLY IMPACTING THE MODEL FORECASTS.
NESDIS AND NCEP ARE INVESTIGATING THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ISSUE.
ONCE THE SITUATION IS RESOLVED ANOTHER MESSAGE WILL FOLLOW.

[griteater]

Overall, the 12z Euro looks good to me for more snowfall south of 60N in central and eastern Eurasia over the next week.  

[weatherdude]

DUE TO NESDIS CONTINUING NETWORK ISSUES...NCEP HAS NOT RECEIVED A

FULL FEED OF SATELLITE DATA FOR INPUT INTO THE NUMERICAL MODELS

SINCE 22/0000Z...POTENTIALLY IMPACTING THE MODEL FORECASTS.

NESDIS AND NCEP ARE INVESTIGATING THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ISSUE.

ONCE THE SITUATION IS RESOLVED ANOTHER MESSAGE WILL FOLLOW.

 

 

So I wrote to the Senior Duty Met at NCEP and asked him if this has impact on the Euro and Canadian models or just the NCEP model suite, the answer back said he did not know and apologized for not being more helpful. I am quite certain that the ECMWF depends on our satellite data for model initialization data for North America and surrounding ocean areas, and that NCEP uses Meteosat data in the US global models, but I can't say I know this for a fact. 

 

Is there anyone on here that can speak to this with more than an assumption or best guess? Is the important Euro model impacted by this outage? 

 

THANK YOU!

[icebreaker5221]

So I wrote to the Senior Duty Met at NCEP and asked him if this has impact on the Euro and Canadian models or just the NCEP model suite, the answer back said he did not know and apologized for not being more helpful. I am quite certain that the ECMWF depends on our satellite data for model initialization data for North America and surrounding ocean areas, and that NCEP uses Meteosat data in the US global models, but I can't say I know this for a fact. 

 

Is there anyone on here that can speak to this with more than an assumption or best guess? Is the important Euro model impacted by this outage? 

 

THANK YOU!

 

Yes, all the models are missing the data.  For example, you can see the AMV data void over NA for today's 12Z run of the ECMWF:

http://old.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/monitoring/coverage/dcover!AMVs-WaterVapor!12!pop!od!mixed!w_coverage!latest!/

[DaculaWeather]

NCEP WILL PROVIDE NESDIS SATELLITE DATA THAT WE RECEIVE FROM THE
DDS ON OUR FTP SERVER TO HELP ALLEVIATE SOME OF THE NESDIS
NETWORK IMPACT..

THE PATH ..ALL ALPHA NUMERIC LOWER CASE.. FOR THIS DATA IS;

ftp://ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data1/nesdis/

THE DATA IS CURRENTLY POPULATING.. PLEASE BE PATIENT IF YOUR DATA
HAS NOT UPDATED YET..HOPE THIS HELPFUL..


DUE TO NESDIS CONTINUING NETWORK ISSUES...NCEP HAS NOT RECEIVED A
FULL FEED OF SATELLITE DATA FOR INPUT INTO THE NUMERICAL MODELS
SINCE 22/0000Z...POTENTIALLY IMPACTING THE MODEL FORECASTS.
NESDIS AND NCEP ARE INVESTIGATING THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ISSUE.
ONCE THE SITUATION IS RESOLVED ANOTHER MESSAGE WILL FOLLOW.

SHRUELL/SDM/NCO/NCEP

[weatherdude]

Yes, all the models are missing the data.  For example, you can see the AMV data void over NA for today's 12Z run of the ECMWF:

http://old.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/monitoring/coverage/dcover!AMVs-WaterVapor!12!pop!od!mixed!w_coverage!latest!/

Outstanding! Thank you very much, that is exactly what I was looking for.

[griteater]

Tweet from Michael Ventrice about Eurasian snow over the past week - https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/524975438612135936

[millwx]

So I wrote to the Senior Duty Met at NCEP and asked him if this has impact on the Euro and Canadian models or just the NCEP model suite, the answer back said he did not know and apologized for not being more helpful. I am quite certain that the ECMWF depends on our satellite data for model initialization data for North America and surrounding ocean areas, and that NCEP uses Meteosat data in the US global models, but I can't say I know this for a fact.

Is there anyone on here that can speak to this with more than an assumption or best guess? Is the important Euro model impacted by this outage?

THANK YOU!

I used to work directly in this field... Doing exactly this... products which eventually flow into the NWP models. I can tell you that this will affect the Euro model MORE than the NCEP models. That's because there is (or at least was... perhaps this has since changed) a philosophical difference of opinion on utilizing the satellite data. Both sides raise excellent points. NCEP believes/d the satellite data quality (signal to noise) was too low for the type of accuracy needed in NWP. So, they give/gave satellite data low weight. The ECMWF countered that it's better than no data at all in data sparse areas (like over the oceans). So, they give/gave satellite data far more weight.

If these philosophies are still in place then this missing data feed will more severely impact the Euro than the GFS (or other NCEP models).

[Festus]

Hadn't seen this link posted yet so here's NOAA's Winter '14 - '15 outlook issued 10/16.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20141016_winteroutlook.html

[weatherdude]

I used to work directly in this field... Doing exactly this... products which eventually flow into the NWP models. I can tell you that this will affect the Euro model MORE than the NCEP models. That's because there is (or at least was... perhaps this has since changed) a philosophical difference of opinion on utilizing the satellite data. Both sides raise excellent points. NCEP believes/d the satellite data quality (signal to noise) was too low for the type of accuracy needed in NWP. So, they give/gave satellite data low weight. The ECMWF countered that it's better than no data at all in data sparse areas (like over the oceans). So, they give/gave satellite data far more weight.

If these philosophies are still in place then this missing data feed will more severely impact the Euro than the GFS (or other NCEP models).

Very interesting indeed. Thanks Millwx!

[Mike.Ventrice]

A bit different to snow cover, but a similar take home message. Currently working on the code to compute snow coverage %.

 

https://twitter.com/WSI_Energy/status/525354266471714816

[das]

 

Omsk, Russia (Population 1 million) will have to do some digging out after near-blizzard conditions

 

Conditions at: UNOO observed 20 October 2014  21:00 UTC Temperature: -3.0°C (27°F) Dewpoint: -4.0°C (25°F) [RH = 93%] Pressure (altimeter): 29.29 inches Hg (992.0 mb) Winds: from the NW (310 degrees) at 26 MPH (23 knots; 12.0 m/s)

gusting to 43 MPH (37 knots; 19.2 m/s) Visibility: 0.25 miles (0.40 km) Ceiling: indefinite ceiling with vertical visibility of 600 feet AGL Clouds: obscured sky Present Weather: BLSN +SHSN  (blowing snow, heavy snow showers) UNOO 202100Z 31012G19MPS 0400 R25/0800V1000D +SHSN BLSN VV006 M03/M04 Q0992 25490538 TEMPO 30017MPS 0200 +SHSN BLSN VV002 RMK QBB180 OBST OBSC QFE736

 

 

Fairly decent cover and depth across a large part of the southern tier (click link to show image then click pic for full res):

 

https://9yizja.bl3302.livefilestore.com/y2pS1tAbhl_V9j2uBGPT8XmgAGfljwVVGuzJTJ9kpPhDvq9-Z51ZwxLO9ucL5vO-ytkviSn6VLlKQD__5HokWixdo_BcauRXcgJpjYbuhRTrWo/multisensor_4km_ea_snow_ice_map_syn_fulres_2014292.png

[das]

Decent gains the last 10 days.  Loop is from 01 Oct.

 

[ORH_wxman]

Decent gains the last 10 days.  Loop is from 01 Oct.

 

output_qwwVYC.gif

 

 

Is that data from the Natice site? The site is still currently down when I just checked it but perhaps there is snow cover data now feeding into other avenues now.

[griteater]

das - thanks for posting.  The closest comparison I see on the Rutgers maps is from Oct 1978 which was one of the highest snow extents on record for this timeframe (Oct 23)...Oct 1976 was higher.  Week 42 in Oct 1978 ended on the 23rd

 

[das]

Is that data from the Natice site? The site is still currently down when I just checked it but perhaps there is snow cover data now feeding into other avenues now.

 

It's from NESDIS Sat App & Research.  Most of their snow maps are multisensor products from a broad range of remote sensor types including MetOp AVHRR, MODIS and even VIIRS and DMSP.  It's by far my favorite snow map site in the public domain:

 

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/snow/HTML/snow.htm

 

Eurasian stuff is in the right column, halfway down.  

 

For those interested in some of the backing technology, there's some detail on page 8 and 9 on this thread from back in the Eastern days:

http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?/topic/206750-fall-snow-cover-and-the-winter-pattern/page__st__140

[griteater]

It's from NESDIS Sat App & Research.  Most of their snow maps are multisensor products from a broad range of remote sensor types including MetOp AVHRR, MODIS and even VIIRS and DMSP.  It's by far my favorite snow map site in the public domain:

 

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/snow/HTML/snow.htm

 

Eurasian stuff is in the right column, halfway down.  

 

Eurasian daily snow extent graph on that site shows coverage at 16.70 mil sq km as of Oct 23.  Oct 1978 had 16.99 mil sq km as of Oct 23...and again, 1978 is one of the highest on record for this date.

 

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/snow/plots/daily_snow_extent/multisensor_4km_ea_snow_extent_by_year_graph.png

[DTWXRISK]

 The  last week of October  shows  2   BIG events....  and fairly far south  as well... last week of OCT   could  have  very good finish 

 

[DaculaWeather]

BIG difference...

 

 

[DaculaWeather]

THis is as far back as these go but here's 2011-2014

 

 

 

 

[Mike.Ventrice]

So I've found a surprising result after reading through Judah Cohen's 2011a paper about the Snow Advance Index. The proper lat/lon thresholds are 0-60N, 0-180E. After computing the snow-cover % (# of snow covered grid points/total # grid points), the resulting image is quite shocking. 2014 is clearly not as high as 2009 and 2012.  We are also seeing a reduction in the slope of d(snowcover)/dt... Most of the anomalous snow is in the 55-90N band... similar to 2006. I'm not sure what this means exactly, such that the snow-covered forcing is north of the Cohen region. Will need to do the research on this at a later time.

 

[Mallow]

So I've found a surprising result after reading through Judah Cohen's 2011a paper about the Snow Advance Index. The proper lat/lon thresholds are 0-60N, 0-180E. After computing the snow-cover % (# of snow covered grid points/total # grid points), the resulting image is quite shocking. 2014 is clearly not as high as 2009 and 2012.  We are also seeing a reduction in the slope of d(snowcover)/dt... Most of the anomalous snow is in the 55-90N band... similar to 2006. I'm not sure what this means exactly, such that the snow-covered forcing is north of the Cohen region. Will need to do the research on this at a later time.

 

 

 

That graph doesn't mesh with the observations at all. You sure that's the graph for 0-60N, 0-180E?

 

cfbaggett's graphs are for 0-60N, 0-180E, and they don't match that graph either. But it's pretty easy to see from Dacula's last post that the snow cover south of 60N is easily the most extensive it has been since 2011... by a long shot. Just eyeballing, it looks like an area equivalent to about 22 of the 5°x5° boxes south of 60N have snowcover on the 2014 plot, whereas it's more like 11 of them in 2012 (and fewer the other years). Which matches with cfbagget's graph, but not yours. What is the source of data for your graph?

[Mike.Ventrice]

That graph doesn't mesh with the observations at all. You sure that's the graph for 0-60N, 0-180E?

cfbagget's graphs are for 0-60N, 0-180E, and they don't match that graph either. But it's pretty easy to see from Dacula's last post that the snow cover south of 60N is easily the most extensive it has been since 2011... by a long shot. Just eyeballing, it looks like an area equivalent to about 22 of the 5°x5° boxes south of 60N have snowcover on the 2014 plot, whereas it's more like 11 of them in 2012 (and fewer the other years). Which matches with cfbagget's graph, but not yours. What is the source of data for your graph?

You sure the graph doesn't mesh with the obs? Bc there looks like a sharp gradient of snow cover in that image Drac put up, with little snow south of northernmost Mongolia latitude. 2012 had a ton of snow south of 60N with anomalous less snow cover north of 60N.

The data being read is what the GFS is initialized with on 1.0 degree grids. If you shift the latitude boundary north to 90N, then this year clearly has the most snow cover when compared to the other years in the analysis. This is just following Cohens threshold.

[Snow_Miser]

I agree with Mallow. Snow extent is larger south of 60 N this year than 2012 according to the observations Dacula posted.