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Winter 2015-2016 speculation and discussion


AlaskaETC

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always hard to tell what's up with his half months

 

I'll attempt to translate

 

December: Warm

January:  Normal, unless the pattern change is delayed, in that case warm

February:  Cold and Snowy, unless that pattern change is delayed, in that case warm

March: Cold and Snowy everywhere north of Interstate 64, spring to the south

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More likely we just got unlucky in what was a pretty good pattern overall.

Yup. And being further east actually helped that winter catching the sw edge of the NE clobberings.. I ended up with slightly above avg snowfall, which means you probably still had more than me with below avg snowfall lol.

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Can't find my totals from that year but I'm pretty sure we broke 30.

I have 31.25" in my record.  It included, of course, the psuhoffman storm in Jan. of 12.5" and another nice one on 2/21-22 of 6".  A late season ending storm on 4/1 totaled 1.5" which is rather unique in itself.  Technically that is still below the average here of     ~ 35".

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Yup. And being further east actually helped that winter catching the sw edge of the NE clobberings.. I ended up with slightly above avg snowfall, which means you probably still had more than me with below avg snowfall lol.

 

 

Can't find my totals from that year but I'm pretty sure we broke 30.

 

 

I have 31.25" in my record.  It included, of course, the psuhoffman storm in Jan. of 12.5" and another nice one on 2/21-22 of 6".  A late season ending storm on 4/1 totaled 1.5" which is rather unique in itself.  Technically that is still below the average here of     ~ 35".

19.5 here, so not great but not horrible either, about 7 inches or so short of average.

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It wasnt a bad winter. Cold with lots of threats and a few decent snows. Would have been a good year if that dec storm was 100 miles west.

You're right.  It was close.

 

There was also the storm on Jan 7 (I think) that looked good all the way up until the morning of.  Didn't turn out to be much.

 

There was another in Feb I believe that had great potential and came up a bit lame.  I do remember posting that it was very close to being a great winter.

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As the strong El Niño continues and the powerful polar vortex maintains an AO+ regime that has seen the first 7 days of December experience AO values of +1 or above, some historical context might be helpful. Since 1950, there have been 9 El Niño events that saw AO+ values for all of the first seven days of December: 1951-52, 1953-54, 1972-73, 1979-80, 1982-83, 1986-87, 1994-95, 2004-05, and 2006-07. The 1972-73 case was the only one in which the AO averaged > 0 for all three winter months (December, January, February).

 

Below is the percentage of cases for which the AO averaged > 0 during the above El Niño cases:

 

December: 100%

January: 67%

February: 33%

 

 So, even as it might take awhile for sustained blocking to develop, the first seven days of December do not provide basis to assume that there won't be such blocking this winter.  As noted on numerous occasions, the AO cannot reliably be forecast for more than a few weeks time, so one will need to continue to monitor the data. However, past El Niño cases that started out in similar fashion to winter 2015-16 did, in fact, wind up experiencing blocking, especially toward that latter part of winter. 

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Some good news on the Euro monthlies (J-M) just out today.

 

Per PB GFI in the NE forum:

"Euro monthlies in . J-M No change at 2m N./E + 1 + 2 

NYC + .05 +1

500 MB looks good"

 

and

 

"The 500 mb pattern is great and that` what you want to see  . GOA NEG S of the Aleutians 

POS PNA / NEG EPO Trough in the SE with the ridge on the W shores of HB ."

 

I asked him about temps down around BWI/DCA and he said "-.5  to + .5 N" (Celsius)

 

From the SE forum, MichaelJ said:

"Bastardi said this AM that the Euro JFM newly issued forecast is very similar to Weatherbells. Don't think he is allowed to show it yet so I have nothing to show you here, just repeating what he said."

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Mitch...sounds like the Euro monthlies are in pretty much in line with many of the other long-range looks.

 

I don't know if I'd go so far as to buy 40/70's feelings on the Mid-Atlantic verbatim (when he said he thinks we'll be looking back at this winter with nostalgia), but it seems like we have reason to still be reasonably optimistic come the second half of the the winter.

 

I do like this, too (caveats that it's from the NE forum):

 

JFM on the EC seasonal looks similar to last month. If anything, maybe a hair cooler and wetter. If that depiction worked out, I would highly doubt a ratter. 

 

We just need to be patient.  Easier said than done, but it's all we've got for now.

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I got curious about comments regarding Feb etc and had some free time today so I made a thing. Basically broke down Dec-Mar above and below avg snow in DC during 'strong' Ninos.  Also, DJF.

 

http://www.ianlivingston.com/past-weather-patterns-highlight-the-difference-between-snow-boom-or-snow-bust-during-a-strong-el-nino-in-d-c/

 

Here's a Dec image and the above avgs by mo.

 

 

December-Strong-El-Nino-500mb.png?zoom=1

 

 

===

Dec-Mar-Strong-El-Nino-Above-Avg-500mb.p

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Nice work, Ian.  My takeaway from that is that our snow odds are dependent on the exact position of the high heights in Canada.  We want the ridging toward Labrador/Greenland rather than farther west over Ontario and into the Canadian prairies.  I was a little surprised that many of the above average snow patterns have a -PNA.  I'd guess a +PNA is more transient during the larger snow events but averages negative in the means?  The December pattern for above average snow was a little surprising.  It looks like total crap with a big +AO/+NAO/+EPO. 

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Nice work, Ian.  My takeaway from that is that our snow odds are dependent on the exact position of the high heights in Canada.  We want the ridging toward Labrador/Greenland rather than farther west over Ontario and into the Canadian prairies.  I was a little surprised that many of the above average snow patterns have a -PNA.  I'd guess a +PNA is more transient during the larger snow events but averages negative in the means?  The December pattern for above average snow was a little surprising.  It looks like total crap with a big +AO/+NAO/+EPO. 

The sample size kinda sucks even going back to 1800s so there are probably some questionable findings. But actually a straight blend of the total years has worked about as well as anything so far this go. They strongly favored a warm December.. and have continued to look rather similar to the Euro monthlies.

 

Only two of the Decs were well above average and they were both large storms in a sea of nothing mostly. 1957 had two events, but 11.4" of the 12" total came Dec 3-4 (mostly on the 4th). 12/12/82 was the only event of the month at 6.6". 

 

Looks like one had a decent PNA the other not.

 

edit: misread on PNA stuff, yes did seem more common than expected throughout. can look up some other storms at some pt.

K4nk9xd.gif

 

WoT3nQ3.gif

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First reason I did this was because I wanted to compare Feb. To me Feb actually looks closer to below normal snowfall for the month at DC than above. In some ways Jan seems almost more upside potential compared to the past look, per the current Euro monthlies. Straight up they (Jan-Mar) all seem at least slightly closer to below normal looks than aboves, with the Jan caveat noted.

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The January AN snow map certainly doesn't jump out to me as an exciting pattern.  It has a -NAO, but it looks like it's merged into a weak west Atlantic/Bermuda high. Kind of looks like what the GEFS has been advertising down the line, at least in the CONUS and Canada.  Probably chalk that up to small sample size. 

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The latest 45 day euro ens run continues the wet theme with higher probability wintry chances holding off until after the first week of Jan. Makes sense given the way things have gone so far. 

 

Ens mean precip for 45 days in now over 6" for the area. Temps don't really start looking good until the 10th of Jan and beyond. I have no idea how useful the product is. First year I've seen it. Just relaying what it shows. 

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