Winter 2014-2015 Pattern Discussion Thread I

[packbacker]

Just going on solar flux alone, we are right on the edge, or into, what is considered solar max conditions over the past 2-3 months.  Solar Flux has to be used in conjunction with the QBO though.  Solar max with a +QBO is good for SSW's.

So the strongly -QBO isn't helping then?

[Cold Rain]

HM and Ed O'Toole who replies on HM's twitter feed are both very strong on the subject

I was reading Allan's exchanges with HM on Allan's twitter. It was pretty encouraging.

[SnowGoose69]

The increased solar activity we had could be why the AO has failed to really follow typical tendencies based on all the October data we had....the NAO forecast busted severely last winter too...I forgot the forecaster DT always shows the NAO forecasts from but the guy tends to be very good, last winter was one of his worst busts and he is not doing too hot so far this year....in fairness to him the pattern we had last winter really makes it hard to have a -NAO though.  The other reason the AO may be failing so far could be an atmospheric memory coming off a long La Nina stretch, sometimes El Nino winters that come off a long duration of Ninas or neutral periods can behave more La Nina like.  2010-11 behaved very much like a Nino despite being a  Nina...2011-12 though finally behaved Nina like...I joked last week we will bust this winter and watch 2015-16 be the epic winter some thought this one would be

[packbacker]

I disagree on the SAI for last year.  It wasn't perfect, but by my estimation the SAI called for a slightly to moderately positive AO last winter.  The DJFM AO last winter was +0.4.  The DJF AO was +0.2.  The OPI on the other hand did bust badly.

 

On nino, the 3.4 SST on Trop Tidbits have climbed recently to +0.9...and PDO is strongly positive.  On the other hand, the WSI Nino index has fallen...lot of complexity there.

Looks like SCE was high but SAI was low but he did predict a +AO and warm east.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/11/20/judah-cohens-winter-outlook-a-downer-for-east-coast-winter-weather-lovers/

[KChuck]

With all the wild swings back and forth in the models, only one thing has become crystal clear to me.

BEARS HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA

+1,000,000 !

[griteater]

So the strongly -QBO isn't helping then?

 

Best QBO/solar combo for -AO is -QBO during solar min.  

 

In terms of the strength of the -QBO, I did see this from Sam Lillo where he indicated that, per climo, there does appear to be a weakening of wave activity when the QBO is peaking at 30mb, which is what we have this winter....which is all kind of lol in terms of bad timing (i.e. wave activity disrupting the strat PV)...anyway, all this is getting pretty deep...is there a model run we can look at?

 

https://twitter.com/splillo/status/544216211282989058

[packbacker]

The increased solar activity we had could be why the AO has failed to really follow typical tendencies based on all the October data we had....the NAO forecast busted severely last winter too...I forgot the forecaster DT always shows the NAO forecasts from but the guy tends to be very good, last winter was one of his worst busts and he is not doing too hot so far this year....in fairness to him the pattern we had last winter really makes it hard to have a -NAO though.  The other reason the AO may be failing so far could be an atmospheric memory coming off a long La Nina stretch, sometimes El Nino winters that come off a long duration of Ninas or neutral periods can behave more La Nina like.  2010-11 behaved very much like a Nino despite being a  Nina...2011-12 though finally behaved Nina like...I joked last week we will bust this winter and watch 2015-16 be the epic winter some thought this one would be

Can you imagine if this winter busts, that would be so funny. Another 06/07 possibly...

[packbacker]

Best QBO/solar combo for -AO is -QBO during solar min.  

 

In terms of the strength of the -QBO, I did see this from Sam Lillo where he indicated that, per climo, there does appear to be a weakening of wave activity when the QBO is peaking at 30mb, which is what we have this winter....which is all kind of lol in terms of bad timing (i.e. wave activity disrupting the strat PV)...anyway, all this is getting pretty deep...is there a model run we can look at?

 

https://twitter.com/splillo/status/544216211282989058

Well that's not good, LOL. I thought you were trying to be optimistic :-)

[griteater]

Looks like SCE was high but SAI was low but he did predict a +AO and warm east.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/11/20/judah-cohens-winter-outlook-a-downer-for-east-coast-winter-weather-lovers/

 

Gotcha...but that was his prediction.  So, yeah, his prediction busted, but his SAI to +AO correlation was OK

[GaWx]

  I recently did a study of the dates of the 11 strongest SSW's. Criteria: strong SSW based on a warming to an anomaly of +28+ as per this:

 

 http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/

 

I'm sure others would have different criteria/sources.

 

Dates in calendar order of the strongest SSW's since 1979 starting with Dec.: 7, 12, 17, 23, 23, 29, Jan: 1, 9, 14, 22; Feb.: 9

 

 So, based on this list, late Jan. would be kind of on the late side to get a strong SSW though still quite doable.

 

 Regardless, though it would be helpful, a strong SSW is absolutely not required to get a strong -AO (about half the sub -2 AO months had none that month to two months earlier).

[buckeyefan1]

The increased solar activity we had could be why the AO has failed to really follow typical tendencies based on all the October data we had....the NAO forecast busted severely last winter too...I forgot the forecaster DT always shows the NAO forecasts from but the guy tends to be very good, last winter was one of his worst busts and he is not doing too hot so far this year....in fairness to him the pattern we had last winter really makes it hard to have a -NAO though.  The other reason the AO may be failing so far could be an atmospheric memory coming off a long La Nina stretch, sometimes El Nino winters that come off a long duration of Ninas or neutral periods can behave more La Nina like.  2010-11 behaved very much like a Nino despite being a  Nina...2011-12 though finally behaved Nina like...I joked last week we will bust this winter and watch 2015-16 be the epic winter some thought this one would be

Well said     

[griteater]

Well said    

 

At first glance I would have agreed....but when I did the southern stream analysis in my winter outlook, I found that the 10-11 winter only had 4 southern stream storms (climo is 9 per winter)...but we had a high "batting average" that year as 2 of the 4 were major winter storms in the SE.

 

Maybe what ya'll were more focused on was the AO though...which was strongly neg in Dec-Jan

[mackerel_sky]

Winter Cancel part deux has started! RIP thread UNO !

[EmersonGA]

I seem to recall a lot of similarities between the past few weeks and last December in terms of this board. A lot of people were writing the whole winter off and we see how that turned out.

[buckeyefan1]

At first glance I would have agreed....but when I did the southern stream analysis in my winter outlook, I found that the 10-11 winter only had 4 southern stream storms (climo is 9 per winter)...but we had a high "batting average" that year as 2 of the 4 were major winter storms in the SE.

 

Maybe what ya'll were more focused on was the AO though...which was strongly neg in Dec-Jan

A high batting average this year could make for a memorable winter    

[LithiaWx]

A high batting average this year could make for a memorable winter

Michelle, how about locking this train wreck up? I'm ready for some mojo in thread two to deliver.

[buckeyefan1]

Michelle, how about locking this train wreck up? I'm ready for some mojo in thread two to deliver.

Done