Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 8

[raindancewx]

I'm pretty sure this the highest our snowpack has been in a long time - almost all the mountain ranges are near normal to above normal now, and February doesn't exactly look warm here either.

A lot of my analogs had the intense cold centered on Montana - that looks pretty good so far. Florida is absolutely roasting this winter.

[Quixotic1]

Storms are really moving!

[bubba hotep]

Wow, very impressive storm!

[raindancewx]

This was a pretty interesting read from Larry Cosgrove earlier, regarding February. He's been pretty consistent since November in thinking it could be a crazy month.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/weatheramerica/lqwBkN3XVkM

Here is what we do know. The hue and cry over La Nina has given way to the realization that ENSO is as neutral as can be. The Madden-Julian Oscillation continues to each ever slowly eastward, now resting in chaotic fashion over the Maritime Continent and western equatorial Pacific Ocean. As long as the MJO is percolating and feeding both the polar and subtropical jet streams, apparent weather in North America will be mostly cold, and quite often stormy. Snow cover is most dense through northern/central Eurasia but is at near normal levels in Canada and the U.S. The January Thaw influence in reducing the continental snowpack has so far been fairly limited, especially over the West Coast and Intermountain Region.
Put these trends together, and the weather map for February 2017 looks similar to December, but with the cold dome set a bit more to the south and east. The colder transition occurring during the new week should last until the first day or so of the new month, so January mean temperature anomalies will not look as warm as is the case between January 1 - 20. Precipitation is again a tough call, if only because of the tendency for systems to avoid the West Coast and dig into Baja California before ejecting. In a -EPO scenario, the disturbances would eject through Texas, pass through the Deep South, and ride along the Atlantic shoreline. That more suppressed south and east trajectory will favor more snow at lower latitudes, probably affording the Eastern Seaboard cities their first chance at significant snowfall. The potential for such an event is sooner than you might think.
If you accept the CFS series depiction of the 500MB flow, but avoid the warm bias of the 2m temperature anomaly forecast, then the skew of a warm/dry West vs. cold/stormy Central, East alignment is evident. Alaskan blocking signatures occurring in tandem with -EPO or +PNA styled ridging can help to deliver far-flung cold intrusions that can reach Mexico and Florida. A potential for a deep closed 500MB low in western Ontario also allows for an active storm track with the cold air. I can see the possibility for the Old South and Mid-Atlantic states falling under a mild/moist regime around February 4 - 7 with a brief resumption of a subtropical high across Cuba and the Bahamas. But another hammer of cold event should return soon after. The western states, much of the time under ridging, may finally take on a milder and drier pattern. This after a major assault of storminess and cold from disturbances digging south from Alaska.

[Quixotic1]

Runs like today are why I don't buy subscriptions.  Ugh.

[bubba hotep]

The 12z Euro EPS says maybe there is some hope beyond Feb 7 +/- but things look dry and dull until then. Winter is rapidly slipping away from us. 

[raindancewx]

Have you guys seen this? A meter of snow in the Sahara. 

 https://t.co/Kbh5hSeuwz

The 1978-79 analog seems to be working...in the Sahara.

[bubba hotep]

6 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Have you guys seen this? A meter of snow in the Sahara. 

 https://t.co/Kbh5hSeuwz

The 1978-79 analog seems to be working...in the Sahara.

That is really cool. How is the 1st week of Feb looking out there? I'll be in Santa Fe around the 6th for a few days. 

[Snowless in Carrollton]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Have you guys seen this? A meter of snow in the Sahara. 

 https://t.co/Kbh5hSeuwz

The 1978-79 analog seems to be working...in the Sahara.

Hard to believe that before this winter they hadn't seen snow since 1979. They are at the same latitude as Dallas and 3500' in elevation !

[raindancewx]

2 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

That is really cool. How is the 1st week of Feb looking out there? I'll be in Santa Fe around the 6th for a few days. 

I have a long standing theory that there is some kind of major storm here around Feb 1 give or take a couple days, but it isn't showing up anywhere on the models, so may be wrong. Santa Fe will likely be in the 40s during the day and pretty cold at night. The mountains will be pretty. Been a top ten January out here for precipitation. There is more snow coming tonight into Tuesday morning.

All the ski resorts have a lot of snow right now. Even Ski Cloudcroft which is south of Ski Apache and only 9,100 feet up has a 28 inch base. Ski Santa Fe has 80 inches right now.

We seem to be having a bastardized version of the wet & warm weak La Ninas, cold Neutrals out here. Super wet, not really cold. Unfortunately, I think the wetness is going to break for a while in February. I'm starting to think this may be the year we end our decade of dry BS Marches in Albuquerque though. 

[bubba hotep]

5 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I have a long standing theory that there is some kind of major storm here around Feb 1 give or take a couple days, but it isn't showing up anywhere on the models, so may be wrong. Santa Fe will likely be in the 40s during the day and pretty cold at night. The mountains will be pretty. Been a top ten January out here for precipitation. There is more snow coming tonight into Tuesday morning.

All the ski resorts have a lot of snow right now. Even Ski Cloudcroft which is south of Ski Apache and only 9,100 feet up has a 28 inch base. Ski Santa Fe has 80 inches right now.

We seem to be having a bastardized version of the wet & warm weak La Ninas, cold Neutrals out here. Super wet, not really cold. Unfortunately, I think the wetness is going to break for a while in February. I'm starting to think this may be the year we end our decade of dry BS Marches in Albuquerque though. 

Thanks! I'm pulling for a big storm. We missed a storm last year but had plenty of snow and it was really cold.

[raindancewx]

I've been trying to figure out what to expect in Spring but the AMO/PDO/ONI configuration doesn't really support any huge areas of anomalous cold/warmth at the moment. Looks fairly wet again in the West, dry in the mid-south, with the exception of maybe April.

[bubba hotep]

The models are building cold in Western Canada in the longer range but they are all showing a stubborn SW ridge and that look makes it hard to get cold down to Texas. If that ridge is persistent, then we might see all the cold slide off to the NE. Our chances of any type of winter weather look bleak through the 1st week of February.  

[bubba hotep]

Not surprising, given the MJO looks phase 4ish for early Feb:

[raindancewx]

I think this might be the first wet March in New Mexico/Arizona since 2007. Look at January temperature anomalies ahead of the 20 wettest Marches v. the last two years (El Ninos) and then this year. The composite "super warm SE, coolish West" signal is readily apparent in 2017, and that is the signal for a wet March here.

[bubba hotep]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

I think this might be the first wet March in New Mexico/Arizona since 2007. Look at January temperature anomalies ahead of the 20 wettest Marches v. the last two years (El Ninos) and then this year. The composite "super warm SE, coolish West" signal is readily apparent in 2017, and that is the signal for a wet March here.

That is interesting, I would guess that a lot rides on how fast the low frequency nina background state breaks down heading into the spring. 

[bubba hotep]

It doesn't get much uglier in the long range than the 12z GEFS...

[raindancewx]

My original idea for February, the first image was for it to be cold in the middle of the country. Still like that, but it's probably centered further north than I had it.

[bubba hotep]

3 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

My original idea for February, the first image was for it to be cold in the middle of the country. Still like that, but it's probably centered further north than I had it.

That is probably a safe bet with SSW being the wild card. I think we see another big -EPO nina like cold shot around Feb 7 - 10th but how fast we warm up depends on the AO/NAO. If we can get some blocking, then maybe the first map holds but, if not, then the 2nd map is a good bet. 

[bubba hotep]

Here is the D10 12z Euro EPS:

th 

That is basically a textbook example of the -5 day big -PNA loading pattern (basically the look 5 days before PNA would bottom out). This is Feb '89 3 days before a massive la nina cold snap in Texas (I don't remember why I didn't do -5 days but oh well, this looks a lot like the 12z Euro EPS at D12)

And then the Pacific jet retraction associated with that period:

Once again, this matches up pretty well with the 12z Euro EPS from today. 

Here is the constructed MJO analog:

 

The thing to notice is the suppressed convection out near the Dateline in the D6-15 period and the Indian Ocean convection. How that convection progresses through the IO makes or breaks the upcoming period. MJO or faster progression and winter is over, slower progression and that teleconnects to big -EPO. Basically, everything is coming together for a big cold dump b/w Feb 7 - 10th +/-, if the MJO plays nice. 

[Quixotic1]

Nice work Bubbahotep!  February and March of 89 were keepers.  Both had surprise events that kept me out of work/school for a few days.

[raindancewx]

I'm pretty sure February will have some incredible cold shots in the middle of the country.

Generally speaking when August is cold here it tends to be very cold in the middle of the US in Feb...and it was cold last August. It tends to be very cold East of the Rockies when Albuquerque is cold in August (see image).

For what it is worth, the local NWS agrees with you on the progression, they think it is coming sometime late week one of February with changes in the Gulf of Alaska.

 

[Roy]

Sure hope it gets colder and stormy. Not much time left at this point since it takes a few weeks for patterns to evolve. We will be switching gears to thinking about severe weather before too long. interesting data being posted though.

[Quixotic1]

Reports of IP in N.Texas.

[raindancewx]

Nice and cold here. My forecast from October had 2-3 major 5-10 day cold snaps of 5-15F below normal in New Mexico after Jan 15th, so far so good. 1/24 to 1/28 is going to be around 10F below normal for most of the state. Will wipe out much of the warm anomaly for the month here.

[bubba hotep]

3 hours ago, Quixotic1 said:

Reports of IP in N.Texas.

It was warm and sunny in DC today... what a wasted winter. I was really pulling for a big EC winter storm this week but instead it was cold rain and now beautiful weather. What a waste  

[raindancewx]

Do any of you follow Weather Trends 360? They have a pretty impressive track record for timing long-range precip/temp anomalies. They have 6"+ snow in March in Albuquerque. Almost the entire country 1-5F below last March (when it torched). Texas drier than last March. They have NM >=2x wetter than last year...but that isn't saying much, it basically didn't rain or snow the entire month. I've put the image below. Snowline is into the Texas Panhandle in March.

 

[Quixotic1]

3 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

It was warm and sunny in DC today... what a wasted winter. I was really pulling for a big EC winter storm this week but instead it was cold rain and now beautiful weather. What a waste  

Yeah.  It's a bust so far.  Maybe we can pull a 2008 type week out of there.  That was another weak Nina after a Nino.  It was really warm.  Had one storm come through at night and gave us a few inches of paste after a 60 degree day and it was gone by noon as temps rebounded into the 50s.  Had a bigger thundersnow event the same week where tarrant and Denton had up to 9" and Dallas got 1".  Here in Collin we got about 3" but if it had been colder we could have been like Tarrant.  Then it was gone.  Severe season was good though.

honestly the QBO should have been taken in as a greater factor.  It's strange behavior maybe should have indicated how things were more zonal rather than meridonal.  Showed just how strong the Nino was last year.

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Do any of you follow Weather Trends 360? They have a pretty impressive track record for timing long-range precip/temp anomalies. They have 6"+ snow in March in Albuquerque. Almost the entire country 1-5F below last March (when it torched). Texas drier than last March. They have NM >=2x wetter than last year...but that isn't saying much, it basically didn't rain or snow the entire month. I've put the image below. Snowline is into the Texas Panhandle in March.

 

I haven't heard of them but it looks reasonable.  It has to be better than last year because we torched.  Hope you make out well though!

[bubba hotep]

14 hours ago, Quixotic1 said:

Yeah.  It's a bust so far.  Maybe we can pull a 2008 type week out of there.  That was another weak Nina after a Nino.  It was really warm.  Had one storm come through at night and gave us a few inches of paste after a 60 degree day and it was gone by noon as temps rebounded into the 50s.  Had a bigger thundersnow event the same week where tarrant and Denton had up to 9" and Dallas got 1".  Here in Collin we got about 3" but if it had been colder we could have been like Tarrant.  Then it was gone.  Severe season was good though.

honestly the QBO should have been taken in as a greater factor.  It's strange behavior maybe should have indicated how things were more zonal rather than meridonal.  Showed just how strong the Nino was last year.

I haven't heard of them but it looks reasonable.  It has to be better than last year because we torched.  Hope you make out well though!

Yea, I basically never look at the QBO but it does seem to fit in with the overall pattern so far this winter. It looks like Nov & Dec were both the most positive readings for those months ever in the data that I can find. 

[aggiegeog]

Surprise decent freeze for most of North and East Texas this morning. Many locales in mid 20s which is 5 to 10 degrees below the forecasted low from last night. A few warm spots as usual with traditional cooling and a couple spots in the low 20s.