Countdown to Winter 2017-2018 Thread

[CoastalWx]

Just now, Ginx snewx said:

not the subject of the convo but ok

Yes it is. 

 

"Meh on winter 05-06 though"

[Ginx snewx]

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Yes it is. 

 

"Meh on winter 05-06 though"

It was pretty stormy at times, not talking about how snowy overall the winter was.. The convo was anecdotally active hurricane seasons tend to be more stormy in SNE. Was not a boring first week of Dec, Jan, or Feb with some pretty -SD pressure storms, that is all I was conveying. Yes it was a meh winter and yes NNE sucked but again glad we didn't live there.

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, Ginx snewx said:

It was pretty stormy at times, not talking about how snowy overall the winter was.. The convo was anecdotally active hurricane seasons tend to be more stormy in SNE. Was not a boring first week of Dec, Jan, or Feb with some pretty -SD pressure storms, that is all I was conveying. Yes it was a meh winter and yes NNE sucked but again glad we didn't live there.

It's always NB.

[Ginx snewx]

Just now, CoastalWx said:

It's always NB.

tell 11/12 that

[ORH_wxman]

2005-2006....pretty meh. We got pretty lucky to get near average snow.

Had the one active period Ginx said from January into early February...but otherwise kind of a dud outside of the one other week in December (Dec 9-16). The 2nd half of February and March might be amongst the worst I've experienced here...bone dry...there was basically nothing to track for nearly 6 weeks. A decent clipper got NNE, but whiffed SNE in late February. March was horrific.

 

 

[Isotherm]

Why scientifically though, should an active tropical cyclone season lead to enhanced ridging in the NATL? Can anyone propose a plausible pathway / causative mechanism? It could be a symptom of another driver, or it may merely be a coincidence. Further, at such advanced lead time, it is difficult to maintain a certain upper level pattern, assuming the pattern which produced +ACE is propitious for positive heights in the NATL. Nonetheless, it is an interesting correlation and we can't always explain all of them (yet at least) with physical mechanisms.

[dryslot]

Mid Jan into Feb was better that year (06), The lakes were not even iced over in early Jan in the central and southern part of the state up here.

[40/70 Benchmark]

All set with 2005-'06.

[dryslot]

11 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

All set with 2005-'06.

Yeah, I'll pass as well.

[ORH_wxman]

Thanksgiving to Xmas in 2005 was pretty good...cold with decent snow. I felt like we left one on the table though in early December...had a couple threats that didn't materialize. Obviously it's hard to complain though when you get a 12/9/05 a few days later.

But in retrospect, once the massive dud period of mid-Feb to late March hit, it would have been nice to front load the winter a bit more.

[Damage In Tolland]

Can we just front load a winter from Nov- Feb and then end it ? Why is that so hard to do?

[ORH_wxman]

7 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Can we just front load a winter from Nov- Feb and then end it ? Why is that so hard to do?

So basically have a wire to wire winter except replace March with November?

 

Sounds so easy!

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, Isotherm said:

Why scientifically though, should an active tropical cyclone season lead to enhanced ridging in the NATL? Can anyone propose a plausible pathway / causative mechanism? It could be a symptom of another driver, or it may merely be a coincidence. Further, at such advanced lead time, it is difficult to maintain a certain upper level pattern, assuming the pattern which produced +ACE is propitious for positive heights in the NATL. Nonetheless, it is an interesting correlation and we can't always explain all of them (yet at least) with physical mechanisms.

I have had my theories about this and there have been papers discussing the possibilities. Poleward dispersion of heat, ocean heat etc being dispersed are some of the players. There is certainly no one to one correlation at all but the possibility exists of some decent correlations.

[powderfreak]

42 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

All set with 2005-'06.

I think the biggest storms for the mountains that winter were in October with 20-30" depths at elevation by the end of the month.  That Wilma hybrid or whatever that dumped a couple feet in the Greens was pretty much the highlight of the winter. 

[Damage In Tolland]

29 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

So basically have a wire to wire winter except replace March with November?

 

Sounds so easy!

Even if it's just DJ and it ends mid Feb. That shouldn't be that hard to accomplish . Tired of waiting for it to snow until Feb

[weathafella]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

All set with 2005-'06.

Puff, puff, pass.

[radarman]

On 9/11/2017 at 9:42 AM, Ginx snewx said:

We winter 

 

by and large this looks rather Nina-ish, particularly in the US and the Pac.  That probably is not surprising given the known correlation of Nina (officially) and nina-like regimes to enhanced Atl tropical activity.

This year, much like in early Sept 04 and 05, relative AAM was low.

 

 

The GWO also spent the bulk of the last 10 days in stage 3, a  state typically associated with Ninas, and known for weak westerlies and ridging dominating the subtropics. 

 

As the GWO waxes and wanes on the lower half of the phase space, we should see periodic troughing dropping into the SW, with generally AN heights in the south central CONUS in the means as the shortwaves drop in.   That's kind of hinted at in the GPH correlations along the CA coast (atmospheric rivers?)

What is particularly interesting is the big correlations to that area S of Greenland. ..

Nina does have a minor correlation to AN heights there, but not tremendous...  Maybe there's your ACE contribution?

 

 

[uncle W]

I like 1967-68 so far...it was pretty cold but snowfall was below average in NYC...

[radarman]

As an aside, a big Thank You! to Nicholas Schiraldi at U Albany for keeping up with the AAM and GWO plots when both ESRL and even some paid services have stopped generating them

[tamarack]

5 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

I think in NNE is was pretty dry. I know they had a big dearth of snow.

Up here snowfall was about average thru January, though pack was crummy due to frequent thaws (Jan '06 was +8.1, my warmest of 19), then the spigot shut down - Feb. 1 onward brought 7.8", less than 20% of average, and only 44% of average precip for Feb-Apr, including my driest March of 19.  That year's 52.8" was my least snowy winter until 15-16, and remains the worst for max depth (11") and SDDs.  Biggest snowfall that winter was 5.9"; I have to go back to 1967-68 (possibly to 62-63) in NNJ to find another winter w/o a 6"+ event.
Statistics can be odd:  In 05-06, only 15% of winter's snow came Feb. 1 on;  the next year, 80% fell during that period.

A decent clipper got NNE, but whiffed SNE in late February.

Yupper - gave us 1.4", the month's biggest snowfall.  (Got fringed by Dec. 9, but still got 2.4" - Feb. 06 loses again.)

And for PF's mt snows, in Maine the elevations got 10-20 wet inches on Oct 25-26, causing some major tree damage, especially in the Moosehead area.

[TheCloser24]

I thought the 05-06 season was a decent winter. Even though there were warm periods, there was a significant winter storm of 6 or more inches of snow in each month from Dec to Mar, especially in CT.

[ORH_wxman]

10 minutes ago, TheCloser24 said:

I thought the 05-06 season was a decent winter. Even though there were warm periods, there was a significant winter storm of 6 or more inches of snow in each month from Dec to Mar, especially in CT.

Some of CT was actually above average snowfall that winter...particularly notable in elevated W CT and elevated SW CT...but even up to NE CT did pretty well. I think Kevin's hood in Tolland had around 70 inches that winter.

 

Not a good pack winter though...most snowfall got vaporized within days of falling. Back in ORH, I had around 70" as well...but terrible pack retention with the lone exception of December where we had snowpack almost the entire month (basically 12/4 onward when we had a 3" event)...I think peak depth was around 17" on January 3rd after a very heavy wet snowstorm...had a good elevation gradient in that one. About 10" of paste fell on top of a 6-8" pack. Shortly after that though, the brutal mid-January thaw occurred with multiple cutters and many days in the 50s...even in between cutters it never really cooled off much. We did get another well-timed 9" event on 1/23...that month was very strange in having the distinction of being a top 5 warmest January on record (+8.2) but still producing over 24" of snow.

[dendrite]

37 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Even if it's just DJ and it ends mid Feb. That shouldn't be that hard to accomplish . Tired of waiting for it to snow until Feb

More reasonable. Only 85% of met winter instead of 100%.

[Ginx snewx]

32 minutes ago, radarman said:

As an aside, a big Thank You! to Nicholas Schiraldi at U Albany for keeping up with the AAM and GWO plots when both ESRL and even some paid services have stopped generating them

Yes, and hey an 04/05 winter works although someone might find something wrong

[Ginx snewx]

Hard to figure in here, some days people like winters with long snow retention other days they say they preen for those 3-4 big snowstorms and are satisfied

[dryslot]

13 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Hard to figure in here, some days people like winters with long snow retention other days they say they preen for those 3-4 big snowstorms and are satisfied

Not a fan of a few big snows then they get vaporized, Retention hound up here for obvious reasons.

[ORH_wxman]

11 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Hard to figure in here, some days people like winters with long snow retention other days they say they preen for those 3-4 big snowstorms and are satisfied

I'm def a pack retention guy...but if you're offering a 3 foot blizzard, I'd probably sacrifice a lot of pack retention to get it.

 

But I'd prob take a 60" winter with great pack retention over an 80" winter with horrible pack retention. That said, it's kind of hard to get 80" winters with bad pack retention...though this past year was kind of close to qualifying...had 78" and the pack retention was pretty meh...though March may have saved it. That glacier didn't melt until several days into April.

 

I'm hoping for some NAO help this year...we talk about the cold source being delievered primarily by the EPO, but the NAO can help "lock" it into place for longer periods rather than just sweeping on out after a few days. If the EPO faucet shuts off but dumps cold air in before that happens...you can have the NAO buy you a lot of time by locking that airmass in place for a week and slowly having it moderate...and hope the EPO flips enough to deliever new airmasses 10 days down the road. We actually saw this scenario play out in January 2009...we had the big EPO cold dump into Canada the 3rd week of December and then the faucet closed off by the final week...but we developed a strong NAO block around that time as well, so we managed to sort of recycle that airmass for about 10-14 days while we "waited" for the EPO to come back...which it did (and just in time too as the NAO was fizzling out) and we continued the extensive cold for almost the entire month of January 2009. But that first 10-12 days of the month we managed to stay somewhat cold by holding in and recycling that initial airmass....thanks to the NAO.

[weathafella]

I'm not pessimistic on this upcoming winter.  Feel like we'll have our share of chances.

[dryslot]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I'm def a pack retention guy...but if you're offering a 3 foot blizzard, I'd probably sacrifice a lot of pack retention to get it.

 

But I'd prob take a 60" winter with great pack retention over an 80" winter with horrible pack retention. That said, it's kind of hard to get 80" winters with bad pack retention...though this past year was kind of close to qualifying...had 78" and the pack retention was pretty meh...though March may have saved it. That glacier didn't melt until several days into April.

 

I'm hoping for some NAO help this year...we talk about the cold source being delievered primarily by the EPO, but the NAO can help "lock" it into place for longer periods rather than just sweeping on out after a few days. If the EPO faucet shuts off but dumps cold air in before that happens...you can have the NAO buy you a lot of time by locking that airmass in place for a week and slowly having it moderate...and hope the EPO flips enough to deliever new airmasses 10 days down the road. We actually saw this scenario play out in January 2009...we had the big EPO cold dump into Canada the 3rd week of December and then the faucet closed off by the final week...but we developed a strong NAO block around that time as well, so we managed to sort of recycle that airmass for about 10-14 days while we "waited" for the EPO to come back...which it did (and just in time too as the NAO was fizzling out) and we continued the extensive cold for almost the entire month of January 2009. But that first 10-12 days of the month we managed to stay somewhat cold by holding in and recycling that initial airmass....thanks to the NAO.

You pretty much stole my thunder with that phrase, I would definitely consider a banner winter if we even had below normal snow but had it on the ground from Dec-March, Rather then above normal snow, And looking at frequent bouts of brown grass, Last winter was an example of the latter.

[SnowHole413]

I've been hearing a lot about how people are only using analogs that are 2nd year Niñas only. My question is, if you have a weak oni influence on the atmosphere is it necessary to only use 2nd year Nina analogs. 

I understand how a strong Nino could lag atmospheric conditions into the next year but if it's a weak one, does it really matter for the following year?