La Niña/Winter 2016-17 Discussion

[swamplover56]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

And the CFS is now showing a healthy La Niña through winter

A couple weeks ago didn't you distrgard what the cfs was showing when it didn't fit your agenda saying it was a terrible model? 

[swamplover56]

On July 21, 2016 at 3:12 AM, snowman19 said:

The CFS is so horrible and an outlier that it's not even worth looking at. It is so out to lunch and in a world all to its own, that yesterday, it was showing an El Niño developing

 

[snowman19]

4 hours ago, swamplover56 said:

A couple weeks ago didn't you distrgard what the cfs was showing when it didn't fit your agenda saying it was a terrible model? 

It is a terrible, awful model yes, in fact it had been showing an El Niño developing, now it is even catching on, just used it to show how every model is jumping all over as this Niña develops and the trade wind burst takes effect

[Dsnowx53]

17 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The strong trades have not even had a chance to really kick in yet and the Niña is already having a profound effect on the atmospheric pattern, look at the AAM. It's gone very negative. The coupling has already begun on the long wave pattern. The positive feedback loop has started.  Very strong trades projected on the models throughout this month. As far as this event not being a modoki, it can't possibly get more modoki looking than it is right now. This is anything but an east based Niña, in fact the exact opposite. Make no mistake about it, there will be a La Niña. Btw, the weekly readings have hit Niña status in region 3.4

 

 

We've had enhanced trade winds for weeks, and look what has happened at the subsurface. That was the point of Bluewave's post. There's something else going on. 

 

And before this period of enhanced trade winds, we were never able to consistently establish strong trade winds, and they would then weaken. It hasn't been enough to truly establish the Bjerne's feedback hypothesis. The thermocline is certainly not heading towards a Nina. (apply the opposite of this feedback with cold conditions instead of warm)

 

[Dsnowx53]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

It is a terrible, awful model yes, in fact it had been showing an El Niño developing, now it is even catching on, just used it to show how every model is jumping all over as this Niña develops and the trade wind burst takes effect

 

Every model? The Euro monthlies show neutral conditions, and the POAMA shows neutral heading into this coming winter.

 

We may peak at a weak la nina in the fall, with like a -0.7 trimonthly or something. But I think this winter will be negative neutral, as I don't think the feedback loop has been strong enough to keep anything going, and the -IOD will weaken as we approach winter.

[Dsnowx53]

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Overview

[Dsnowx53]

The IOD also rose pretty quickly, and is expected to continue to rise slowly. That fits the recent weakening trends with this La Nina.

 

 

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, Dsnowx53 said:

The IOD also rose pretty quickly, and is expected to continue to rise slowly. That fits the recent weakening trends with this La Nina.

 

 

I disagree that Niña conditions are weakening. It hasn't officially established itself yet trimonthly in the SST sense and even without the SSTs the atmosphere is coupled and responding (-AAM). A Niña failure at this point would be totally and completely unprecedented. To forecast La Nada at this point is forecasting something that has never happened before in recorded weather history. This latest trade wind surge is projected to be very strong and last throughout the entire month. Give it a chance to play out. The subsurface has warmed some yes, but it is still more than cold enough to support a healthy Niña event. Right now, a weak to low end moderate modoki (central Pacific) La Niña event is looking like all but a certainty going into the upcoming winter

[Dsnowx53]

5 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I disagree that Niña conditions are weakening. It hasn't officially established itself yet trimonthly in the SST sense and even without the SSTs the atmosphere is coupled and responding (-AAM). A Niña failure at this point would be totally and completely unprecedented. To forecast La Nada at this point is forecasting something that has never happened before in recorded weather history. This latest trade wind surge is projected to be very strong and last throughout the entire month. Give it a chance to play out. The subsurface has warmed some yes, but it is still more than cold enough to support a healthy Niña event. Right now, a weak to low end moderate modoki (central Pacific) La Niña event is looking like all but a certainty going into the upcoming winter

 

 

By weakening trends, I meant going forward with model forecasts towards winter, not necessarily now. I do think we'll have a weak Nina trimonthly for ASO with -0.7 or something like that, but honestly that's as far as I'm willing to go at this point.

[snowman19]

The POAMA is now showing the most textbook modoki La Niña look you can get: 

[Morris]

Latest values:

Nino 1.2: +0.5 (+0.4)

Nino 3: -0.5 (+0.1)

Nino 3.4: -0.5 (-)

Nino 4: +0.1 (-0.1)

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

[Dsnowx53]

 

[Morris]

 

[Yanksfan]

39 minutes ago, bluewave said:

All the models updating for early August including the new Euro have a cold neutral or weak La Nina at best now.

You can see how the subsurface was going into La Nina in the late spring but has warmed since.

 

 

So it looks like this event if it ever comes to pass, won't be the main driver for the winter of 2016/17. For snow enthusiasts like myself that is certainly good news, but other drivers will be at play now. As long as the +PDO holds up we'll be fine that should give us a productive winter. Now if we can only get a -AO/-NAO in place, snow weenies will be jumping for joy. That weather driver however has alluded us the past several winters, so I'm cautiously optimistic to this point.

[snowman19]

14 hours ago, Morris said:

 

Goodbye +PDO. We are rapidly switching to a -PDO, classic cold ring developing: 

[snowman19]

13 hours ago, bluewave said:

All the models updating for early August including the new Euro have a cold neutral or weak La Nina at best now.

You can see how the subsurface was going into La Nina in the late spring but has warmed since.

The last winter with a big warm blob south of Alaska like we have now and neutral cold ENSO was 13-14.

Be interesting to see how things progress the closer we get to the winter.

 

 

 

The subsurface is still more than sufficient to support a weak to low end moderate La Niña. This is a textbook and I mean textbook modoki La Niña: 

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Goodbye +PDO. We are rapidly switching to a -PDO, classic cold ring developing: 

The PDO going negative is a prime example of ENSO (La Niña) forcing on the atmospheric pattern and in turn the SSTs. Uber strong North Pacific High dropping the PDO and -AAM are the direct result of Niña coupling/feedback. 

[Isotherm]

I'm leaning +NAO right now based upon an important indicator I look at; this positive signal may either strengthen or weaken depending upon the evolution of some of the mid/late autumn indicators. The question is - can a conducive Pacific regime compensate for that signal, if it occurs. Much can change, but it's possible we'll be dealing with a lower GWO/AAM state with retrograded tropical forcing and probably some degree of Aleutian ridging. If we remain closer to neutral rather than weak Nina (or greater intensity), the probability of higher geopotential heights near the W Coast would increase. At this juncture, I'm not impressed with what I'm seeing for cold/snowy winter potential. We'll see how things progress. 

[nycwinter]

does it matter you could not have had worse conditions for a snowy winter pattern last year and we had our biggest snowstorm in nyc history plus the first time we got to below zero since 1994..i believe in now casting instead of long range prognosis

[Isotherm]

1 hour ago, nycwinter said:

does it matter you could not have had worse conditions for a snowy winter pattern last year and we had our biggest snowstorm in nyc history plus the first time we got to below zero since 1994..i believe in now casting instead of long range prognosis

 

 

I disagree. The pattern was very anomalous due to record breaking blocking in the high latitudes which descended equatorward in mid January, while concurrently, the super Nino induced +AAM/sub-tropical jet provided the vigorous short wave cutting underneath. Probabilities were significantly increased for a major or greater snowstorm in late January, and many of us thought the potential for a HECS was higher than average before winter began.

Additionally, this same, highly energized, meridional pattern continued to some extent in February due to +MT/AAM surges and the concomitant Western ridging which forced the transient / downstream Arctic outbreak in New England/Northeast in February with the sub zero readings. However, the flow was so incredibly fast such that the troughiness in the East was precluded from maintaining itself for protracted periods. 

But the pattern in January was actually very favorable for a historic event when coupling the high latitude blocking episode with the super-charged STJ/AAM/Nino. One of those vorts was able to separate itself from the succession of s/w's, and intensify under the Canadian block in the Mid-atlantic. 

[snowman19]

5 hours ago, Isotherm said:

I'm leaning +NAO right now based upon an important indicator I look at; this positive signal may either strengthen or weaken depending upon the evolution of some of the mid/late autumn indicators. The question is - can a conducive Pacific regime compensate for that signal, if it occurs. Much can change, but it's possible we'll be dealing with a lower GWO/AAM state with retrograded tropical forcing and probably some degree of Aleutian ridging. If we remain closer to neutral rather than weak Nina (or greater intensity), the probability of higher geopotential heights near the W Coast would increase. At this juncture, I'm not impressed with what I'm seeing for cold/snowy winter potential. We'll see how things progress. 

Isotherm, here is an excellent article on the La Niña and QBO relationship during winter. Positive or Negative QBO makes a huge difference. Thoughts on this article: http://ionlyusethegfs.blogspot.com/2012/04/qbo-aleutian-high-relationship.html?m=1

[Isotherm]

20 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Isotherm, here is an excellent article on the La Niña and QBO relationship during winter. Positive or Negative QBO makes a huge difference. Thoughts on this article: http://ionlyusethegfs.blogspot.com/2012/04/qbo-aleutian-high-relationship.html?m=1

 

Snowman -- thanks for the link. I have read of this relationship and believe the hypothesis that the person presents is valid. I researched a bit further, and it may be difficult to discern chicken / egg relationship, namely, which variable causes the other, given there appear to be a number of patterns occurring contemporaneously. The ENSO / walker cell / tropical forcing seems to be very important insofar as determining the relative positioning and strength of the Aleutian-Pacific High (and poleward extent). However, do the QBO downwelling wind stresses cause the ENSO-tropical forcing related orientation or vice versa? I think there's likely a feedback effect and some modulation occurring in both directions, but it does appear that the QBO wind stresses have some observable impact on convective behavior in the deep tropics. What's also interesting is that a significant percentage of the poleward Aleutian high / +QBO winters were +NAM/+NAO/Strong Vortex, so the resultant tropospheric reflection was poleward Aleutian high, concomitant trough in the Plains/Rockies/Midwest, and ridging in the SE US. There definitely doesn't seem to be a NAO/AO associated relationship and the positive QBO (negative) in tandem with the strong (weak) Aleutian high seems independent of the NAO-AO. This is why the author of that blog also mentions to monitor the oceanic cycles, solar activity, and other variables which effectuate NAO/AO fluctuations. 

There's also a connection to the orientation of the cold ENSO event, namely, west / east oriented nature, and its associated relationship with tropical forcing and consequently mid latitude North Pacific High placement. Very interesting stuff for sure. We'll have to see where the cards fall as we approach the winter season; still a number of uncertainties.

[snowman19]

On August 11, 2016 at 1:10 PM, Isotherm said:

 

Snowman -- thanks for the link. I have read of this relationship and believe the hypothesis that the person presents is valid. I researched a bit further, and it may be difficult to discern chicken / egg relationship, namely, which variable causes the other, given there appear to be a number of patterns occurring contemporaneously. The ENSO / walker cell / tropical forcing seems to be very important insofar as determining the relative positioning and strength of the Aleutian-Pacific High (and poleward extent). However, do the QBO downwelling wind stresses cause the ENSO-tropical forcing related orientation or vice versa? I think there's likely a feedback effect and some modulation occurring in both directions, but it does appear that the QBO wind stresses have some observable impact on convective behavior in the deep tropics. What's also interesting is that a significant percentage of the poleward Aleutian high / +QBO winters were +NAM/+NAO/Strong Vortex, so the resultant tropospheric reflection was poleward Aleutian high, concomitant trough in the Plains/Rockies/Midwest, and ridging in the SE US. There definitely doesn't seem to be a NAO/AO associated relationship and the positive QBO (negative) in tandem with the strong (weak) Aleutian high seems independent of the NAO-AO. This is why the author of that blog also mentions to monitor the oceanic cycles, solar activity, and other variables which effectuate NAO/AO fluctuations. 

There's also a connection to the orientation of the cold ENSO event, namely, west / east oriented nature, and its associated relationship with tropical forcing and consequently mid latitude North Pacific High placement. Very interesting stuff for sure. We'll have to see where the cards fall as we approach the winter season; still a number of uncertainties.

Thanks, real good disco. Looks like the models are coming into good agreement that this La Niña will be a modoki/central Pacific event, strength is another matter, but I still think a weak to low end moderate  peak is the most probable

[The Plowsman]

What? We've gone neg for at least last two in CNJ!

[Morris]

Latest values:

Nino 1.2: +0.1 (-0.4)

Nino 3: -0.7 (-0.2)

Nino 3.4: -0.6 (-0.1)

Nino 4: -0.1 (-0.2)

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

[snowman19]

19 hours ago, Morris said:

Latest values:

Nino 1.2: +0.1 (-0.4)

Nino 3: -0.7 (-0.2)

Nino 3.4: -0.6 (-0.1)

Nino 4: -0.1 (-0.2)

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

This is the first time since early 2014 that region 4 is below normal

[snowman19]

Substantial drop in the July PDO number. Went from +2.03 in June to +1.25 in July

[Morris]

Latest values:

Nino 1.2: +0.5 (+0.4)

Nino 3: -0.5 (+0.2)

Nino 3.4: -0.5 (+0.1)

Nino 4: 0.0 (+0.1)

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

[snowman19]

This pic will probably end up in some met textbook on ENSO, but here are the latest SSTS over the tropical Pacific. Absolutely classic La Niña Modoki: 

[HailMan06]

The Niño regions just don't seem to be conductive to Niña development. I'm expecting cold neutral on a trimonthly basis at its coolest.