Met Winter 2016-17 Banter

[BxEngine]

16 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

It will end in April, so that we will get cold rains and be cooped up inside

Dont even joke about that damnit...by april im thinking about only golf lol

[JerseyWx]

47 minutes ago, Dan76 said:

 

Great stuff.  Every time I hear that Norfolk Southern Jingle, I think of this.

How a Bill Becomes a Law is still my favorite.

[NJwx85]

Getting rain squalls here.

[mophstymeo01]

Moncton, New Brunswick or St John's, Newfoundland will do quite nicely too.

I checked a bunch of places on the east coast and you're far better off in Caribou Maine than you are in the Canadian Maritimes.  Caribou averages close to 300" of snow per year, while the Maritimes' average is only a little above 100"  Another positive about Caribou is they have some of the least levels of allergies of any city.

My wife would kill me if I even suggested moving there. Alas . . .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Paragon]

14 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Again: https://mobile.twitter.com/EdValleeWx/status/831931970582171663/photo/1 Spring is coming, embrace it. It's the only spring you have, mr fireman

C'mon, you know as well as I do, there is no such thing as "spring"- there is winter, summer, and a short transition between the two.

[Paragon]

13 hours ago, BxEngine said:

Dont even joke about that damnit...by april im thinking about only golf lol

I want 90s by the end of April.

[Paragon]

17 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Caribou averages just under 109" snow per winter.

Its snowiest winter was 2007-08 with 197.8" snow:)

Don, my tired mind got confused the other night because wiki lists Canadian snowfall like this "(cm) in" and US snowfall like this "in (cm)" so I mistook cm for inches in the US snowfall totals.  I was actually surprised for how little snowfall Caribou gets for how far north they are.  

The snowiest place east of the Mississippi that I could find is Houghton, Michigan on the Keweenaw Peninsula.  Lots of lake effect snow there downwind of Lake Superior.

[Paragon]

18 hours ago, snowman19 said:

Yep. The EPS is an all out blowtorch for next weekend going into the final couple of days of February the following week

Lee Goldberg and Bill Evans are both talking about a return to much colder weather in the last few days of February.

Not that it matters much at this point unless we get a big storm.

[Paragon]

20 hours ago, bluewave said:

The raging Pacific jet this winter continues to be one of the big stories with models hinting at a -6 SD storm event for SOCAL and Baja.

Could be the first time since 2010 that the the pressures over parts of SOCAL drop below 1000 mb. You can see the major downstream

ridge amplification in response over our area. Looks like the major MJO action is helping to shift an already more southward than normal

PACJET for La Nina even further south.

Daily contribution to SOI calculation-23.58

 

 

 

BW, what's the main reason for the raging Pacific jet?  Is this something we should be expecting more of in upcoming years?

[Paragon]

16 hours ago, Juliancolton said:

Ah, you're right, good call. Still... my records show 9.6" in March '15 which is not exactly a banner month for snowfall. The cold was definitely memorable, though. Ice yachts on the Hudson deep into meteorological spring.

I think our snowcover was 20" though.  There was one really big storm that I remember (big for our March experience I mean).

[JerseyWx]

2 hours ago, Paragon said:

I want 90s by the end of April.

Lol that's a little extreme.  I'm fine with mid to upper 70s.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, Paragon said:

BW, what's the main reason for the raging Pacific jet?  Is this something we should be expecting more of in upcoming years?

The strength, weakness, or location  in any given year is a function of many variables like ENSO state and if or where these anomalous upper air blocks set up.

[Paragon]

1 minute ago, JerseyWx said:

Lol that's a little extreme.  I'm fine with mid to upper 70s.

lol I know but the good thing about 90s in late April is that the humidity and dew points are usually lower.  I don't mind going to cooler weather come June.

[Paragon]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

The strength or weakness in any given year is a function of many variables like ENSO state and if or where these anomalous upper air blocks set up.

Funny thing is, SoCal is having such a rainy season this year, so it seems this is an atypical pattern, a combination of ENSO, PDO and a few other factors interacting with each other.

Question: have we had a significant number of winters where SoCal gets a lot of rain, the PacNW gets a lot of snow, and the east coast also gets a lot of snow?  I would think that's a pretty rare pattern.  Was 1966-67 the last time that happened?

 

[JerseyWx]

1 minute ago, Paragon said:

lol I know but the good thing about 90s in late April is that the humidity and dew points are usually lower.  I don't mind going to cooler weather come June.

Yeah, that is true.  You can really begin to feel the humidity increase in May.

[bluewave]

24 minutes ago, Paragon said:

Funny thing is, SoCal is having such a rainy season this year, so it seems this is an atypical pattern, a combination of ENSO, PDO and a few other factors interacting with each other.

Question: have we had a significant number of winters where SoCal gets a lot of rain, the PacNW gets a lot of snow, and the east coast also gets a lot of snow?  I would think that's a pretty rare pattern.  Was 1966-67 the last time that happened?

 

The West Coast has been in a very extreme pattern since 2013 swinging from record drought to record rains. 13-15 were the very dry years due to the record

long duration blocking ridge. The super Nino STJ was forced further north last winter producing the wettest on record for seattle which usually sets records

during La Nina years. Now the anomalous 500 pattern is directing the jet further south into California with the heavy precip closer to super El Nino years.

[Paragon]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The West Coast has been in a very extreme pattern since 2013 swinging from record drought to record rains. 13-15 were the very dry years due to the record

long duration blocking ridge. The super Nino STJ was forced further north last winter producing the wettest on record for seattle which usually sets records

during La Nina years. Now the anomalous 500 pattern is directing the jet further south into California with the heavy precip closer to super El Nino years.

So interesting that the 500 pattern is counterbalancing the jet pattern in the west and yet the result in the east is the same as if it had been a stronger La Nina.  Just like last year it counterbalanced the el nino in the west and yet we had a textbook strong el nino pattern in the east, from the warm december to the big snowstorm in the middle of winter.

 

[bluewave]

4 minutes ago, Paragon said:

So interesting that the 500 pattern is counterbalancing the jet pattern in the west and yet the result in the east is the same as if it had been a stronger La Nina.

 

The only antitode to the default milder La Nina pattern here is strong blocking like we saw during the 10-11, 00-01, and 95-96 winters.

[Paragon]

4 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The only antitode to the default milder La Nina pattern here is strong blocking like we saw during the 10-11, 00-01, and 95-96 winters.

Yes, and we've gotten away from stronger Atlantic blocks.  I remember someone mentioned a connection to the AMO.  Perhaps there is a linkage there, as we've also seen the AMO go into its colder phase starting after Sandy.  After Sandy most of our blocks have been Pac driven.

[bluewave]

14 minutes ago, Paragon said:

Yes, and we've gotten away from stronger Atlantic blocks.  I remember someone mentioned a connection to the AMO.  Perhaps there is a linkage there, as we've also seen the AMO go into its colder phase starting after Sandy.  After Sandy most of our blocks have been Pac driven.

Something happened in March 2013 with the record -AO that was part of a shift to more Pacific blocking from the Atlantic.

Haven't see any research yet on what drove this pattern shift.

[donsutherland1]

3 hours ago, Paragon said:

Don, my tired mind got confused the other night because wiki lists Canadian snowfall like this "(cm) in" and US snowfall like this "in (cm)" so I mistook cm for inches in the US snowfall totals.  I was actually surprised for how little snowfall Caribou gets for how far north they are.  

The snowiest place east of the Mississippi that I could find is Houghton, Michigan on the Keweenaw Peninsula.  Lots of lake effect snow there downwind of Lake Superior.

No problem. Some of the lake effect areas receive tremendous amounts of snow (>200" annually).

[bluewave]

The wild times continue out west.

 

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOS ANGELES/OXNARD CA
524 AM PST Thu Feb 16 2017

The storm looks to be the strongest storm to hit Southwest
California this season. It is likely the strongest within the last
six years and possibly even as far back as December 2004 or
January 1995. Rainfall amounts between 2-6 inches for the coast
and valleys are expected with up to 5-10 inches for the south-
facing foothills and coastal mountain slopes. As a result of the
heavy rain and antecedent moist soil conditions, a flash flood
watch remains in effect for Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los
Angeles Counties from Friday morning through Saturday morning.

[Paragon]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

The wild times continue out west.

 

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOS ANGELES/OXNARD CA
524 AM PST Thu Feb 16 2017

The storm looks to be the strongest storm to hit Southwest
California this season. It is likely the strongest within the last
six years and possibly even as far back as December 2004 or
January 1995. Rainfall amounts between 2-6 inches for the coast
and valleys are expected with up to 5-10 inches for the south-
facing foothills and coastal mountain slopes. As a result of the
heavy rain and antecedent moist soil conditions, a flash flood
watch remains in effect for Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los
Angeles Counties from Friday morning through Saturday morning.

I wonder what this means for that dam.

[bluewave]

11 minutes ago, Paragon said:

I wonder what this means for that dam.

The Euro prints out another 12 inches of precip for the mountains east of the dam over the next week.

[Paragon]

16 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

No problem. Some of the lake effect areas receive tremendous amounts of snow (>200" annually).

I'm actually really fascinated about areas near sea level (under 500 feet elevation) that get over 200" of synoptic snow.  They seem to be really hard to find- especially in North America.  Most of our 200"+ totals either seem to be in lake effect regions or mountainous areas of the west (which are some of the snowiest regions in the world- like the areas around Lake Tahoe, Mt. Baker, Paradise Ranger Station, Stampede Pass, etc.)

Turns out to find near sea level areas getting over 200"+ synoptic snows, you have to be up near Valdez or Yakutat Alaska or out in the Far East in a place like Sapporo, Japan or the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.

[Paragon]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The Euro prints out another 12 inches of precip for the mountains east of the dam the next week.

They'd better get that hole fixed and quickly.

I was hearing about how environmentalists warned them a decade ago that something like this could happen.

[bluewave]

7 minutes ago, Paragon said:

They'd better get that hole fixed and quickly.

I was hearing about how environmentalists warned them a decade ago that something like this could happen.

Yeah, just about all environmental engineering challenges or failures were warned about well in advance when people didn't want to listen.

[Paragon]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, just about all environmental engineering challenges or failures were warned about well in advance when people didn't want to listen.

Or the companies just didn't want to go through the expenditure to find workarounds (this is the case with wastewater injection causing quakes in Oklahoma, for example.)

Or superfund site clean up expenditures...... don't get me started lol.

 

[Morris]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, just about all environmental engineering challenges or failures were warned about well in advance when people didn't want to listen.

That's what happens when alarmists go overboard and claim that the drought is permanent due to climate change and having the liberal climate-change believing state leaders take them literally.

[Paragon]

4 minutes ago, Morris said:

That's what happens when alarmists go overboard and claim that the drought is permanent due to climate change and having the liberal climate-change believing state leaders take them literally.

Droughts can't be "permanent" anyway.  If the climate changes, there is a new normal, therefore what would have been considered a drought years ago, no longer is.