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December Med/Long Range Disco


WinterWxLuvr

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Why?

Here's the QBO for 1965-1966

1965   -1.03   -2.26   -1.98   -3.44   -7.10  -12.01  -16.00  -18.19  -20.03  -20.13  -19.74  -21.27
1966  -21.90  -17.14  -11.07   -2.33    2.16    5.42    7.47    7.63    9.23   11.00   11.74   13.26
I've bolded the values for Dec 1965 and Jan 1966. They weren't very different from those this year. A negative QBO like we have now increases the chances of a SSTA somewhere down the road. That's about the only thing you can say. There have been reallyy good snow years with a strongly negative QBO and really bad years. The QBO by itself is less important that the QBO and the solar cycle and whether you have a nino or nina.

Good point..Doesn't a strong negative QBO incubate the Pacific jet?

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Agree. I've been seeing shades of last winter on the models as well. About 1/3 of the euro ens members have a decent track for the 28-29 deal. I'll be in Dover so it will prob snow in my yard and rain in Dover. Lol.

Looks like the same support for the next one in line but too far out to over think and split hairs. I'm fairly optimistic that one of these overunning deals works out. It's kind of ironic that it's not a big storm pattern at all but still could be a big qpf pattern.

From the looks on the ensembles it would seem the overunning/gradient pattern continues for a while but the bullseye will move around. Prob moves further north in early Jan but it's anyone's guess.

I understand your point about decembers being bad here but it's been bad just about everywhere in the eastern half. Not sure I saw many calls for that.

 

Almost every December sucks, especially for us in the city and closer in, and every year we collectively meltdown, but I think we are actually more level-headed than usual. It doesn't take much to change the tone and attitude here.  Even in 2010, which was a massive underperformer given the cold and the block, the small mid-month clipper changed the atmosphere here.  Then of course there was boxing day 10 days later which reversed it. But a 1-3" area wide event will change the way we feel, in my experience.  January is a different story.  Not a great snow month for us until the 2nd half, but given the hype going into this winter, if much or most of January isn't blocky and cold, it will be an epic failure for me and most people who did long range outlooks.  

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Don did follow that post up with another saying that he wasn't ready to write off winter. Far too early for that....

 

What?! Blasphemy -- what will the annoying weenies who are melting down have to hold at night if not for someone canceling winter already?!

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Don did follow that post up with another saying that he wasn't ready to write off winter. Far too early for that....

He didn't. Just the looming signs of a potential +AO was the gist. I think all of us are guilty putting too much stock in things that haven't happened yet. Blocky Nov enticed out minds to believe blocky Dec. Santabomb reshuffling things and a big response with the AO/NAO. Since it hasn't worked well, it's too easy to jump on signs of a +AO. Models did ok during the crappy Dec pattern showing the way out. Which is happening as we speak. But the last week or so the d10+ range has been really jumpy. So much so that latching on to a long lead idea every day is a recipe for a trip to the shrink.

We're going to get some cold and a wintry period. My wag is it lasts a bit longer than the ensembles advertise. I'll defer on where we go from there.

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IAD is officially +0.0 as of this morning for December.  More days have seen - departures however.  Being that we previously anticipated the period around xmas to be much colder, instead it now looks to be perhaps the warmest period of the month relative to normal.  If the cold does not deliver post 12.28, we could build up a pretty significant + anomaly for the month, which isn't entirely representative of the first 3 weeks of the month at all. 

 

I am fearing the appearance of a SE ridge in January.  Yes, under some conditions it can be helpful to nudge storms our way if not too strong and a source of cold air close by, but in the overall pattern we've established this month that thing could become a virtual heat pump and overwhelm the pattern pretty easily.  

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Good point..Doesn't a strong negative QBO incubate the Pacific jet?

I'm not sure what you mean by incubate.   If I understand the QBO correctly it's biggest impact on the westerlies is through helping modulate the arctic oscillation though I think it does have some impact on the subtropics.  Below I've attached two links on the QBO.  It also plays a role in the brewer-dobson circulation which helps transport ozone northward and ozone is one way to warm the stratospheric polar vortex.  Maybe HM will chip in on the subject.  He knows more about it than I do.  I just think negative qbo argument I've seen recently concerning the pattern is a simplistic. 

 

 

http://people.nwra.com/resumes/dunkerton/pubs/rgeo.39.xx.179.pdf

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JAS-3297.1

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I will find you and then I will murder you.

 

Seriously..i kinda like this one, although like Bob said...sfc temps aren't ideal.

I'm not sure why it's so dang hard to simply get surface temps below freezing so far.  With 850 temps near -5C, I'm just going to ignore that.  

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I'm not sure what you mean by incubate. If I understand the QBO correctly it's biggest impact on the westerlies is through helping modulate the arctic oscillation though I think it does have some impact on the subtropics. Below I've attached two links on the QBO. It also plays a role in the brewer-dobson circulation which helps transport ozone northward and ozone is one way to warm the stratospheric polar vortex. Maybe HM will chip in on the subject. He knows more about it than I do. I just think negative qbo argument I've seen recently concerning the pattern is a simplistic.

http://people.nwra.com/resumes/dunkerton/pubs/rgeo.39.xx.179.pdf

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JAS-3297.1

Thanks..I'll take a look. By incubate I mean strengthen I guess.

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Lol, I can't believe how cold it is at the sfc. Hr 186-onward is below freezing.

 

For me, the cold is the most encouraging thing about the picture the GFS paints.  You can paint all the precip across the region you want, but without the temps in place, it's just more cold rain.

 

ETA: or, in the case of tomorrow, warm rain.

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