December-winter is finally here!

[CoastalWx]

December is pretty much on hiatus until the NAO turns negative.

[Typhoon Tip]

Yeah the EPO can solve a lot of problems...but...

 

I think part of the reason the -NAO is more important in El Nino (esp December) is because we are more likely to have a GOA trough...we had a monster ridge there last year that poked stright up into the EPO domian. So with a GOA trough, even if there is EPO ridging north of AK, the cold delivery needs an extra push south...with a +NAO, that push isn't there. Of course, we tend to talk about these things as if they are all independent when they really aren't.

 

Yes ... a good statement by Will, folks --  I've oft' maintained that "it" is about balancing teleconnectors in a scope of relativity.

 

I easy words ... that means that a -EPO year can be more or less cold producing based upon what other mass fields are doing to either constructively, or deconstructively interfere. 

 

And that is true all over the planet at all times, always...  That's the "art" (if you will..) in deciding what is/should be most factor-able in the equation of forces guiding weather patterns and anomalies ... in other words:  the weather.

[CoastalWx]

Euro has an impressive mild rainer with a cut-off underneath us early next week. Jeez, that would be ugly!

It's a good thing we are locked in this winter pattern. Season in seasons.

[CT Rain]

It's a good thing we are locked in this winter pattern. Season in seasons.

 

November is more of a winter month than December. 

[Typhoon Tip]

My personal hypothesis?   

 

...any year where blocking about the 55th parallel takes place during a modestly warm ENSO = bonanza!

[weathafella]

I've seen worse euro runs.

[powderfreak]

For now back to seasons not in season I guess.

What's your average snow depth on December 1st? Or towards the end of November?

You may want to discuss with climo what "seasons in seasons" is.

[Damage In Tolland]

It's a good thing we are locked in this winter pattern. Season in seasons.

 

Can always tell when the pattern starts getting to you and you start worrying. It's not working out how you thought,,and you are def. uneasy now. You start to troll and make posts like you have today. Couple of wintry chances over the next 5-7 days. Maybe they work out, maybe they don't. I'm not worrying, nor should a  met

[weathafella]

I'm starting to feel a December 1991 vibe.

[dryslot]

We may manage to sneak in a few more events up here until we can lock in a colder pattern

[CoastalWx]

Can always tell when the pattern starts getting to you and you start worrying. It's not working out how you thought,,and you are def. uneasy now. You start to troll and make posts like you have today. Couple of wintry chances over the next 5-7 days. Maybe they work out, maybe they don't. I'm not worrying, nor should a met

That's a good one, but no not really. Just shows you how foolish those proclamations are. I find it more fun to troll those who fear torches. It's definitely something that grows more fun every year.

[Damage In Tolland]

We may manage to sneak in a few more events up here until we can lock in a colder pattern

You'll do fine up there. Hopefully you do. Anyone south of central NH is going to need a bit of help for the next 10 days or so

[Damage In Tolland]

That's a good one, but no not really. Just shows you how foolish those proclamations are. I find it more fun to troll those who fear torches. It's definitely something that grows more fun every year.

I'm serious...when you don't like what you see and get pissed off...you start trolling others as a dealing with it mechanism. You do it every year. Personally I don't think it looks nearly as awful as you do

[Typhoon Tip]

Euro has an impressive mild rainer with a cut-off underneath us early next week. Jeez, that would be ugly!

 

It would be ... for pure winter heads... For those it is a good thing the Euro has been showing almost nil continuity from run to run for it's middle ranges.  

 

Based upon that recent N/S it may be a clad gamble to assume it will look a goodly bit different on the next run.  

 

Also, for those using the Euro; there's periodic polar highs translating N of the NE pretty much out to the end of the run once we get today's snow eater out of the way.  That's not "warm" in the llvs around here. 

[ORH_wxman]

I'm starting to feel a December 1991 vibe.

 

That actually wasnt a bad month over the interior...at least where I was. We had a white Xmas...a few snow events. The winter turned to hell though in January not to return again until almost the spring equionox, lol.

[powderfreak]

Can always tell when the pattern starts getting to you and you start worrying. It's not working out how you thought,,and you are def. uneasy now. You start to troll and make posts like you have today. Couple of wintry chances over the next 5-7 days. Maybe they work out, maybe they don't. I'm not worrying, nor should a met

Haha see I read it the other way...he knows it's not going to be pretty and knows there's nothing anyone can do to change it, so him and Ryan like to have a little fun making the weenies squirm a bit.

We got a good wintery month out of November...that wasn't going to run straight through March. Take the warmth in the first half of December, let the atmosphere reorganize it's self and hope it goes bonkers after that. Better than this pattern happening in January.

[weathafella]

That actually wasnt a bad month over the interior...at least where I was. We had a white Xmas...a few snow events. The winter turned to hell though in January not to return again until almost the spring equionox, lol.

Boston had a decent month or at least where I lived in Winchester. Jan and feb ha some decent cold Interspersed with torchy cutters. Snow was paltry after December until as you mention later in March.

[Damage In Tolland]

Haha see I read it the other way...he knows it's not going to be pretty and knows there's nothing anyone can do to change it, so him and Ryan like to have a little fun making the weenies squirm a bit.

We got a good wintery month out of November...that wasn't going to run straight through March. Take the warmth in the first half of December, let the atmosphere reorganize it's self and hope it goes bonkers after that. Better than this pattern happening in January.

Absolutely..though again..it doesn't look "warm" to me over the next 10-14 days. In fact,, could see today being the warmest. Like I said I'm ok..We just went thru about 3 weeks of fairly deep winter..so  it's fine if we have to avg more twds normal..Normals now are in the low 40's and again..we can eek out wintry events now this time of year with marginal atmospheric conditions..esp away from the coast. Doesn't mean we will..but the pattern to me doesn't look terrible..unless one is trolling trying to upset people

[NJwinter23]

It's not surprising that models are warm given the classic Nino-look matches our El Nino...but it is still a bit surprising to see the GEFS as warm as it is given its MJO forecast. I'm wondering if the Nino forcing without blocking (especially this time of year) is so strong that it can even override an amplified MJO passage into phases 7-8-1. Sometimes the tropics don't win out.

 

I still expect that the MJO would have some influence and the megatorch doesn't last all that long, however. With the +PNA perhaps some can get lucky and sneak a storm in. And as Dave's post in the main forum suggests, an MJO that strong really should have more of an impact than is being implied on the models.

 

The Euro doesn't recurve that Typhoon -- the rest of the guidance does, though. We'll see. 

Well Doug, the Tropics are still technically winning out if its Nino forcing thats overwhelming the pattern. 

 

I'm wondering if I just mis-timed the tropical progression/influences in general the last week or so. Been on the train for a -epo driven cold shot in mid-dec for a while now, but that hypothesis needs to be adjusted with the overwhelming agreement on classic Dec nino look across the pac/north america by 11-15 day...Ventrice posted this Euro forecast of VP-200 back on Wed and it made me pretty uneasy about those initial expectations. Looks like you could argue we have some west pac/dateline forcing right now from lead KW that is helping maintain some better alaskan blocking this week than originally forecast 10 days ago (hence the colder week being realized here).. then that forecast pushes -VP 200 across the entire Pacific basin and that would appear to support the powerful extended pac jet, broad low pressure anomaly into the GOA that guidance has now into mid-Dec

 

 

My guess is at least that long until a real regime change. The +NAO is really hurting the pattern...it is usually more pronounced in an El Nino than La Nina when we can get away with a +NAO.

 

We'll see how much things change though over the next week in the mid-month look...I don't have a lot of confidence in the 11-15...really not for the past 2-3 weeks. They've been poor. But the warmup over the CONUS looks real...it's the duration that is the question...the longer the duration, the more likely it is that we will be affected locally. Initially, we are a bit shielded from the warmer weather, but mid-month and beyond, we may not be if we don't see a flip.

 

I'm sort of kicking myself today. The +NAO in Dec has been a pretty well accepted forecast for weeks now, and I dont think I gave it enough credit. We were always kind of relying on more Pacific driven cold if it was going to come in Dec. I think a year like 1986 deserved a little more credit as an analog here given how well it worked for November

 

 

P.S. I still believe the immediate East Coast manages to stay normal to cooler even through this nino-esque pattern as we hone in closer...just the widespread -epo cold shot thoughts by mid-dec need to take a back seat for the time being.

[CoastalWx]

Haha see I read it the other way...he knows it's not going to be pretty and knows there's nothing anyone can do to change it, so him and Ryan like to have a little fun making the weenies squirm a bit.

We got a good wintery month out of November...that wasn't going to run straight through March. Take the warmth in the first half of December, let the atmosphere reorganize it's self and hope it goes bonkers after that. Better than this pattern happening in January.

It's his coping mechanism. Of course, most vendors had December above normal. The funny thing is that you can sneaky a marginal 850 -1C event in too. It doesn't mean snowless. Too much GOA troughing and too +NAO. You gotta east one of those off. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening for a couple of weeks at least. We'll see what the weeklies do.

[jamesnichols89]

Euro has an impressive mild rainer with a cut-off underneath us early next week. Jeez, that would be ugly! 

 

There has been an overall change in the guidance with regards to this cutoff.  The GFS, CMC and EURO all show the cutoff, but also show a northern stream disturbance initially out of Manitoba diving southeastward into the Great Lakes.  GFS is colder with the cutoff and would be mainly snow for even the coastline, EURO and CMC are warmer however.  We will have to monitor the changes the models will continue to make, especially with regards to the +PNA spike occurring in this time period.

[Damage In Tolland]

And everyone is not on the "torch" warm train either..as Tip alluded to

 

Adam Moyer ‏@AdamPHLWx  40m

40 minutes ago

I'm still not sold that that 11-15 day period is anywhere near as warm as model projections would have you believe

[CoastalWx]

Well Doug, the Tropics are still technically winning out if its Nino forcing thats overwhelming the pattern.

I'm wondering if I just mis-timed the tropical progression/influences in general the last week or so. Been on the train for a -epo driven cold shot in mid-dec for a while now, but that hypothesis needs to be adjusted with the overwhelming agreement on classic Dec nino look across the pac/north america by 11-15 day...Ventrice posted this Euro forecast of VP-200 back on Wed and it made me pretty uneasy about those initial expectations. Looks like you could argue we have some west pac/dateline forcing right now from lead KW that is helping maintain some better alaskan blocking this week than originally forecast 10 days ago (hence the colder week being realized here).. then that forecast pushes -VP 200 across the entire Pacific basin and that would appear to support the powerful extended pac jet, broad low pressure anomaly into the GOA that guidance has now into mid-Dec

vp 200 12-1-14.PNG

I'm sort of kicking myself today. The +NAO in Dec has been a pretty well accepted forecast for weeks now, and I dont think I gave it enough credit. We were always kind of relying on more Pacific driven cold if it was going to come in Dec. I think a year like 1986 deserved a little more credit as an analog here given how well it worked for November

I saw that. I wasn't exactly on board since models have been underestimating the blocking north of AK like you said, but the forcing craps out and spreads across the basin. If we have a basin wide event, I wonder if we see waves just moving across and no real steady state area of convection?

[CoastalWx]

Ah yes, the "find anything in twitter to make you feel better" stage.

[CoastalWx]

Kevin it's not a torch pattern here, it's just a real blah pattern of bootleg high pressure and no cold.

[Damage In Tolland]

Ah yes, the "find anything in twitter to make you feel better" stage.

Well from guys whose job it is to study and forecast the long range..I certainly give them their fair credence..right or wrong. Someone who tweets out that november was cold, but the first few weeks of Dec look very mild without actually looking at things doesn't get much

[NJwinter23]

I saw that. I wasn't exactly on board since models have been underestimating the blocking north of AK like you said, but the forcing craps out and spreads across the basin. If we have a basin wide event, I wonder if we see waves just moving across and no real steady state area of convection?

 

And to reiterate a late edit in that previous post, I still think we manage to break off cool spells in the East, probably more so than an ens mean will capture in the 11-15 day...I do not change my expectations for a rockin/cold jan-feb either

[CoastalWx]

Well from guys whose job it is to study and forecast the long range..I certainly give them their fair credence..right or wrong. Someone who tweets out that november was cold, but the first few weeks of Dec look very mild without actually looking at things doesn't get much

Well this is a classic December look. Don't forget, it's always about location too. This sort of Aleutian low/GOAK low is more like GOAK with lower heights through AK. That opens up the Pacific and takes no prisoners. If you have higher heights over AK or just north, or the low more over the Aleutians, it would be a cooler pattern.

[CoastalWx]

And to reiterate a late edit in that previous post, I still think we manage to break off cool spells in the East, probably more so than an ens mean will capture in the 11-15 day...I do not change my expectations for a rockin/cold jan-feb either

I agree, that's why I was telling Kevin it's not a torch, but there isn't any real cold. You'll have 1045 highs to the north, but source region may not be great. To me, this pattern looks like one that is more favorable for interior snows, especially well inland.

[Damage In Tolland]

I agree, that's why I was telling Kevin it's not a torch, but there isn't any real cold. You'll have 1045 highs to the north, but source region may not be great. To me, this pattern looks like one that is more favorable for interior snows, especially well inland.

Now we're on the same page. Thank you..and much better than the troll posts