December Med/Long Range Discussion Part 2

[PaEasternWX]

2 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

That's what IP bans are for -  unless his ISP uses dynamic IP addresses or if he uses a VPN. 

Regardless - back on topic...I'm pretty icky on this pattern as many others have stated. But December has never really been a regular success of our area. We'll wait and see if things look better as we get deeper into the winter. 

So far please no hate but it seems like this winter is better than last albeit slightly. BWI and DCA already have a trace recorded while last year at this time they had nothing. Too early to call "cancel" but I agree it is looking bleak .

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

45 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If making the factual statement that this pattern is awful for the interior of their forum is trolling then fine, but regardless of what Zucker or anyone else says your not going to do well in snow if that is accurate.  I lived up near you for several years, I went to Penn State, I know PA climo, and I know exactly where you are, and you should not be happy with what is coming.  If you think the map below is a good look for you your stupid.  Unfortunately I can't fix stupid. 

 

Wow, that is just plain butt-ugly (the map, not your comments, I mean!).  Unless, of course, you live in the INTERIOR mountain west?   Maybe we can score a tropical system moving through a weakness of the subtropical ridge that's centered over Florida!

 

15 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

That's what IP bans are for -  unless his ISP uses dynamic IP addresses or if he uses a VPN. 

Regardless - back on topic...I'm pretty icky on this pattern as many others have stated. But December has never really been a regular success of our area. We'll wait and see if things look better as we get deeper into the winter. 

True enough that December for the past few years has been...craptastic.  But the concerning aspect this year is that even toward the end of the month there are almost no indications of anything hopeful to hang our hat on entering January.  At least not yet at this point; the upcoming pattern just looks locked in.  Maybe someone else knows, but I honestly cannot remember if there were no positive signs even going into January last winter, as we were enduring record warmth toward Christmas.  Perhaps it was early in January that we saw hints of things at least changing somewhat.  Of course, last winter was a very strong Nino, this year is quasi-neutral or weak Nina, so can't draw too much of a parallel I suppose.

On a slightly different and brighter note, remember what happened 7 years ago today!

[gymengineer]

4 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

True enough that December for the past few years has been...craptastic.  But the concerning aspect this year is that even toward the end of the month there are almost no indications of anything hopeful to hang our hat on entering January.  At least not yet at this point; the upcoming pattern just looks locked in.  Maybe someone else knows, but I honestly cannot remember if there were no positive signs even going into January last winter, as we were enduring record warmth toward Christmas.  Perhaps it was early in January that we saw hints of things at least changing somewhat.  Of course, last winter was a very strong Nino, this year is quasi-neutral or weak Nina, so can't draw too much of a parallel I suppose.

On a slightly different and brighter note, remember what happened 7 years ago today!

Ian wrote a summary of the LR and MR modeling heading into the blizzard: http://www.ianlivingston.com/blizzard-of-2016-the-art-of-sniffing-out-a-long-range-snowstorm/

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

37 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

Ian wrote a summary of the LR and MR modeling heading into the blizzard: http://www.ianlivingston.com/blizzard-of-2016-the-art-of-sniffing-out-a-long-range-snowstorm/

Thanks for that reference and link (a good read)!  So it appears the beginning of January last winter, there were signs of things improving.  Of course, that was heading into a classic set-up.  Not sure we'll see that this year, but at least hope we see something much less hostile in the offing going through January at the beginning of the New Year!

[mdsnowlover]

from anthony maesllo met

find it pretty cool how this is the 12z 500 analysis producing record cold. .. As the AO heads towards +5

 

 

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, mdsnowlover said:

from anthony maesllo met

find it pretty cool how this is the 12z 500 analysis producing record cold. .. As the AO heads towards +5

 

 

Record cold over the Midwest and snow here are two very different things. 

[Ji]

any hope in the weeklies? I think this jan 15 date is a weenie myth lol

[mitchnick]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

any hope in the weeklies? I think this jan 15 date is a weenie myth lol

they don't come out until the evening

[mdsnowlover]

4 minutes ago, Ji said:

any hope in the weeklies? I think this jan 15 date is a weenie myth lol

that is date MJO goes into phase 7, also per JB and DT

[mdsnowlover]

28 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Record cold over the Midwest and snow here are two very different things. 

i never said anything to counter that, comments made are by anthony maiesllo not me,

[psuhoffman]

12 minutes ago, mdsnowlover said:

i never said anything to counter that, comments made are by anthony maiesllo not me,

I wasn't saying that as an attack on you, or him for that matter. I have great respect for HM but I'm not sure that observation has any bearing on our chances of snow 

[psuhoffman]

33 minutes ago, mdsnowlover said:

that is date MJO goes into phase 7, also per JB and DT

While there is some solid thought behind the idea the mjo could be ready to enter a helpful phase around that time it's highly speculative. Predicting the mjo 25 days away seems a bit ambitious. This pattern has to break sometime so mid January is as good a guess as any. I think that might even be rushing it. This has the feel of something we're going to be fighting for a while. The timing sucks. Go into the tank earlier like last year and you have lots of time. Get a more transient pattern and we could get a few more pattern shake ups before winter is over. The problem with this is if it kills most of January we might only have one more shot to roll the dice. There is no guaruntee the next pattern is great. We could go from crappy to slightly less crappy. In that case were screwed. We just have to hope either this breaks down faster then expected or that we get a better window later and take advantage of it. 

[mdsnowlover]

34 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I wasn't saying that as an attack on you, or him for that matter. I have great respect for HM but I'm not sure that observation has any bearing on our chances of snow 

it wasnt supposed to be, it was a comment on the record +5 nao that is within a days reach according to a graph on HM twitter account, and the voluminous cold polar vortex that is so spread out, that I posted here, 

[mdsnowlover]

30 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

While there is some solid thought behind the idea the mjo could be ready to enter a helpful phase around that time it's highly speculative. Predicting the mjo 25 days away seems a bit ambitious. This pattern has to break sometime so mid January is as good a guess as any. I think that might even be rushing it. This has the feel of something we're going to be fighting for a while. The timing sucks. Go into the tank earlier like last year and you have lots of time. Get a more transient pattern and we could get a few more pattern shake ups before winter is over. The problem with this is if it kills most of January we might only have one more shot to roll the dice. There is no guaruntee the next pattern is great. We could go from crappy to slightly less crappy. In that case were screwed. We just have to hope either this breaks down faster then expected or that we get a better window later and take advantage of it. 

good post and ty

[mdsnowlover]

interesting from anthony maiesllo

It's not great, but it's something to watch (for winter fans) from days 7 to 10 for a wave 2. But squeezing a buzz saw might be meaningless.

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[Bob Chill]

Weeklies suck until close to Jan 20th then a week or two of normal winter before starting to suck again. Lol

[CAPE]

Just now, Bob Chill said:

Weeklies suck until close to Jan 20th then a week or two of normal winter before starting to suck again. Lol

Yeah its way out there but some hints of improvement with an AK ridge. Nothing at all happening with NA blocking- maybe a neutral NAO for a time. Kinda meh, but at least a glimmer of hope down the line.

[Ji]

18 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Weeklies suck until close to Jan 20th then a week or two of normal winter before starting to suck again. Lol

sounds like we are getting a jan 25,2000 type snowstorm

[Bob Chill]

Just now, Ji said:

sounds like we are getting a jan 25,2000 type snowstorm

I'm in. Start a thread 

[psuhoffman]

16 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Weeklies suck until close to Jan 20th then a week or two of normal winter before starting to suck again. Lol

It probably will snow a little at some point. A fluke here or there. But I'm not even that optimistic that we get a much better pattern that has any legs later this winter.  It's just a gut feeling more then anything else but I've done enough of this game to know this is how the really bad ones look right around now. This could eat up the large majority of out winter then if we don't get lucky with whatever shakeup we get late it could be one of our total dud years. Our luck has to run out eventually. I know you said we probably don't end below 10" at all 3 airports but honestly that's the kind of winter I'm a little nervous we are facing at this point. Just a bad bad feeling about this.  It's so ugly looking at everything from the current sst anamalies to the PV and epo... That I don't even have the stomach to do a technical write up about it. It's too depressing. We need so much to change and some of these things are just getting entrenched and are things we struggle to kick out of historically.  Maybe I'm just trying to not get my hopes up and playing reverse psyche with Mother Nature. This probably belongs in the panic thread. Carry on analyzing the train wreck hoping to find a scrap in the flaming pile. 

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It probably will snow a little at some point. A fluke here or there. But I'm not even that optimistic that we get a much better pattern that has any legs later this winter.  It's just a gut feeling more then anything else but I've done enough of this game to know this is how the really bad ones look right around now. This could eat up the large majority of out winter then if we don't get lucky with whatever shakeup we get late it could be one of our total dud years. Our luck has to run out eventually. I know you said we probably don't end below 10" at all 3 airports but honestly that's the kind of winter I'm a little nervous we are facing at this point. Just a bad bad feeling about this.  It's so ugly looking at everything from the current sst anamalies to the PV and epo... That I don't even have the stomach to do a technical write up about it. It's too depressing. We need so much to change and some of these things are just getting entrenched and are things we struggle to kick out of historically.  Maybe I'm just trying to not get my hopes up and playing reverse psyche with Mother Nature. This probably belongs in the panic thread. Carry on analyzing the train wreck hoping to find a scrap in the flaming pile. 

I just keep looking at day 11 and then flipping ahead to day 35. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

[psuhoffman]

35 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

I just keep looking at day 11 and then flipping ahead to day 35. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

I only glanced but to me it looked pretty bad at the end too. After a one week mini transient break it reloads the torch pattern. 

[psuhoffman]

16 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Latest Gfs individual ensemble 500s for around day 10 -12 don't look horrid....maybe a little window of opportunity 

That is better although transient but wait to see some support from subsequent runs or other guidance before buying. 

[BristowWx]

I saw the extended forecast write up from Mt Holly.  Yikes.  It looks like something I would write for the Panic Room.  I need to focus on drinking more to lessen the pain of each model run.

[CAPE]

41 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I only glanced but to me it looked pretty bad at the end too. After a one week mini transient break it reloads the torch pattern. 

How much can you really expect to glean 40-45 days out though? It all gets more smoothed out with time. Hard to say it looks torchy. I just focus on the general h5 look. I see a more persistent AK ridge going forward on the weeklies, which is better than the Aleutian ridge/AK trough look that has been so predominant.

[CAPE]

10 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

I saw the extended forecast write up from Mt Holly.  Yikes.  It looks like something I would write for the Panic Room.  I need to focus on drinking more to lessen the pain of each model run.

Yeah that is depressing lol.  But its perfectly laid out in great detail in that AFD.. Not like there is much doubt at this point what we are up against over the next few weeks. Its not pretty. Mid 60s are a real possibility for Xmas and or early next week.

[BristowWx]

5 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Yeah that is depressing lol.  But its perfectly laid out in great detail in that AFD.. Not like there is much doubt at this point what we are up against over the next few weeks. Its not pretty. Mid 60s are a real possibility for Xmas and or early next week.

Not Xmas.  But the day after for mid 60s.  Just my though based on the 2m temp look.  Mid 50s perhaps.  

[frd]

I find Cohen's commnets on his latest blog interesting .

To me it appears he is saying his seasonal SAI is not so seasonal anymore but short-term. He states that since the robust snow cover and advance was almost too good and because of that he is stating below that the atmospheric response to the SA in October has ended.  If you read the most relevant parts of his update below,  he seems to think that warmth and a strong PV may remain ( granted with flucuations ) with his emphasis on uncertainty, mentioning the West QBO to a degree a recovery in sea ice resulting in a decreased oppurtunity for a SSW in the months ahead.

http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Impacts

It is my opinion that any atmospheric response to extensive snow cover across Eurasia in the month of October has now ended.  The most direct impact of the extensive snow cover was a weakening of the PV, which resulted in cold temperatures first across Northern Eurasia in November followed by cold temperatures across northern North America in December.  With the conclusion of that cycle, the PV is recovering and is predicted to swing into the stronger than normal category.  This will likely result in an overall milder patter as we close out the month of December.  I did think that the cold pattern might persist just a little longer but that idea is not supported by the latest polar cap geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) shown below.

With the signal from the extensive snow cover ending, there is much uncertainty in any long-range predictions, at least for me.  Instead I am relying more heavily on sea ice extent anomalies in the Barents-Kara Seas for predicting variability in the PV.  Sea ice extent was likely record low in the Barents-Kara seas earlier this fall but the sea anomalies don’t look as impressive to me this week.  Still based on low sea ice in the Barents-Kara Seas, I anticipate further perturbations to the stratospheric PV this winter.  Also the atmospheric circulation looks to me more favorable for increased poleward heat flux than it has for the past several weeks.

We run daily at AER an experimental 30-day forecast model of the strength of the stratospheric PV.  The model is predicting a significant weakening of the PV during the second week of January.  The model is known to be overly sensitive to PV weakenings, but last winter it did anticipate the timing of PV weakenings even if it did predict the amplitude incorrectly.   Also I did inquire more about the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) while I attended AGU last week.  The QBO is clearly in its westerly phase this winter.  Also a westerly QBO favors a relatively stronger PV and inhibits sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs).  Therefore a full reversal of the zonal winds might be difficult this winter (referred to as a major mid-winter warming), and instead might favor more of a PV stretching or elongation as occurred earlier this month and occurred repeatedly in the winter of 2013/14, also a QBO west winter.

[CAPE]

10 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

Not Xmas.  But the day after for mid 60s.  Just my though based on the 2m temp look.  Mid 50s perhaps.  

Yeah probably low to mid 50s for Xmas day with some showers.

[CAPE]

9 minutes ago, frd said:

I find Cohen's commnets on his latest blog interesting .

To me it appears he is saying his seasonal SAI is not so seasonal anymore but short-term. He states that since the robust snow cover and advance was almost too good and because of that he is stating below that the atmospheric response to the SA in October has ended.  If you read the most relevant parts of his update below,  he seems to think that warmth and a strong PV may remain ( granted with flucuations ) with his emphasis on uncertainty, mentioning the West QBO to a degree a recovery in sea ice resulting in a decreased oppurtunity for a SSW in the months ahead.

http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Impacts

It is my opinion that any atmospheric response to extensive snow cover across Eurasia in the month of October has now ended.  The most direct impact of the extensive snow cover was a weakening of the PV, which resulted in cold temperatures first across Northern Eurasia in November followed by cold temperatures across northern North America in December.  With the conclusion of that cycle, the PV is recovering and is predicted to swing into the stronger than normal category.  This will likely result in an overall milder patter as we close out the month of December.  I did think that the cold pattern might persist just a little longer but that idea is not supported by the latest polar cap geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) shown below.

With the signal from the extensive snow cover ending, there is much uncertainty in any long-range predictions, at least for me.  Instead I am relying more heavily on sea ice extent anomalies in the Barents-Kara Seas for predicting variability in the PV.  Sea ice extent was likely record low in the Barents-Kara seas earlier this fall but the sea anomalies don’t look as impressive to me this week.  Still based on low sea ice in the Barents-Kara Seas, I anticipate further perturbations to the stratospheric PV this winter.  Also the atmospheric circulation looks to me more favorable for increased poleward heat flux than it has for the past several weeks.

We run daily at AER an experimental 30-day forecast model of the strength of the stratospheric PV.  The model is predicting a significant weakening of the PV during the second week of January.  The model is known to be overly sensitive to PV weakenings, but last winter it did anticipate the timing of PV weakenings even if it did predict the amplitude incorrectly.   Also I did inquire more about the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) while I attended AGU last week.  The QBO is clearly in its westerly phase this winter.  Also a westerly QBO favors a relatively stronger PV and inhibits sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs).  Therefore a full reversal of the zonal winds might be difficult this winter (referred to as a major mid-winter warming), and instead might favor more of a PV stretching or elongation as occurred earlier this month and occurred repeatedly in the winter of 2013/14, also a QBO west winter.

Dude seems to just make it up as he goes along.