Countdown to Winter 2017-2018 Thread

[512high]

On ‎7‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 5:47 AM, moneypitmike said:

On the topic of the winter countdown, we've lost half an hour of daylight so far and are closing in on the 2:00/day rate when it becomes readily apparent.

 

62.6

I too like that we are losing about a minute of daylight!, but  i have a question for you all, I heard the "long range" for Fall, looks like warm normal to above normal for the Northeast, any early guess what that may mean going into winter? or way too early???, or can that mean a strong Nina? Hope everyone's summer is going well

 

Philip

[40/70 Benchmark]

http://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2017/07/preliminary-profiling-of-winter-2017.html#!/2017/07/preliminary-profiling-of-winter-2017.html

I am still thinking warm-neutral to weak el nino.

[SnowHole413]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

http://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2017/07/preliminary-profiling-of-winter-2017.html#!/2017/07/preliminary-profiling-of-winter-2017.html

I am still thinking warm-neutral to weak el nino.

I would agree with your upcoming winter research, good work

[weathafella]

Complete crapshoot this year.  I don't see anything compelling for big, little, or in between.  So as of now my thoughts are who knows?  

[40/70 Benchmark]

38 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Complete crapshoot this year.  I don't see anything compelling for big, little, or in between.  So as of now my thoughts are who knows?  

My EARLY feeling is that the -QBO will keep the perennially hostile Atlantic/arctic a bit more in check this season, which is key with a meek ENSO signal....so it could be decent for at least the north.

If we can get the weak nino, then all bets are off.

We can go big.

[NorEastermass128]

6 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

My EARLY feeling is that the -QBO will keep the perennially hostile Atlantic/arctic a bit more in check this season, which is key with a meek ENSO signal....so it could be decent for at least the north.

If we can get the weak nino, then all bets are off.

We can go big.

5" and I double what I saw last season. 

[powderfreak]

45 minutes ago, NorEastermass128 said:

5" and I double what I saw last season. 

That boggles my mind. 

[NorEastermass128]

59 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

That boggles my mind. 

I'm a survivor. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

12 hours ago, powderfreak said:

That boggles my mind. 

True. The 30" blizz the year before though and then that....we living in extremes maybe. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Mixed sentiments ... 

I can see and attempt to pseudo-scientifically back reasons for the winter to go snowy and cold, or just about equally the other direction. 

For one, Climate Change just managed to cleave off a Delaware-sized ice-float from Antarctica DURING THEIR WINTER. That sort of event is never going to be considered here.  But it matters?  yup -

It matters because the general ambit of climate modeling has been unilaterally hammering for decades really ... that GW (in addition to that word 'warm') is really about upheavals. Increased frequencies of larger/relative SD events.  That means in lay-terms ... considering a given location's climate: cold waves and hot waves and big storms, droughts to floods and back, becoming more likely to occur. And everywhere suffers, too.  

I was just talking to this smokin' smooth-legged hottie at Seranto's Brick Oven Pizzeria last night while awaiting a double-roni' and sausage pie ... who happened to be from Brazil.  About ~ 1/3 of the way through our conversation ...she gave it up that she was married ... And just think, without my even asking mind you! (it's never ceased to amaze me just how effective I am at dredging spousal status out of strange women like that but that's beside the point).  Anyway, she was complaining about the cold summer here. She was on year 17 since her pre-Trump migration, and was saying that this was one of the coldest summers she could remember.  Her appearance was ...maybe 34 years of age tops.

But, she was lightly lamenting that her parents and old circle of relations from southern Brazil (as in Southern Hemisphere Brazil; keep in mind, Brazil straddles the Equator). were suffering an unusually cold, and snowy, winter.  Yup, that's right!  Folks don't always realize but Brazil has 'highland' regions in the south of the continent, right at about the terminus for cold outbreaks from the southern polar regions. I'm not sure of the following statement, but seems from her description that it would be the equivalent to having shallow mountains in southern Texas.. Anyway, she was saying that snow in the air is not that uncommon in their version of winter, but this year they have been standing in ankle deep snow on more than one occasion, and have been dealing with unusual cold in between.  

It's conjecture standing in line 'thinking about a pie,'  ...granted, still, these are more valid evidences than not regarding the 'frequency of unusual events' model.  I'd include the freak 300% of winter normal snow falling on pretty much just SNE in just 4.5 weeks back in Feb 2015 right in there with them.  Not to mention, everything else..

Why this parlays toward this winter in my mind is that all the old frames of reference and referral in this seasonal outlook business, those methods have or are, breaking down.  They have to be by math.  I mean the logic of unusual events existing in time, dictates that the preceding signals have to have been less informative. 

I'm just not sure we have crossed over the threshold of chaos so far that the preceding signals have been rendered ENTIRELY useless.  I don't believe so ..but, even at a percentage of increasing uncertainty and disruption of normal correlations, there's going to be pissed off head scratching when things are being scrutinized next spring. 

Otherwise,

(a neutral ENSO) + (a multi-decadal based expecation of -AO ) + (the -QBO phase) + (what I suspect will be a lower frequency turn out in TC's in the Atlantic Basin, despite the clad indicators...)

/ 5 = cold and stormy over eastern North America. 

But that would be a linear arithmetic approach.  If scaling the above large, globular scaled factors for their individual significance (if any...) that equation could certainly reveal that any one of them is more dominant than the others...  In which case, the simple n-terms/x becomes more polynomial in mathematical handling. Personally, I've always believed that the polar-ward index tendencies were vastly more important than much of the science of prediction either a, has given credit to, or b, just doesn't understand enough to factor in. I think it's the latter in the case of NCEP because they've come out and admitted in recent years that the stochastic nature of the NAO (and they may as well extend this omission to the EPO as well; that was 2015 incarnate) makes that harder to anticipate for region from the Lakes to the OV and NE regions..   In fact, I more than less put those factors from left to right, order of importance the way I see things. 

So from all this ...I'm on the fence. I think we are getting enough proof of oddball events everywhere to become less certain of the previous "stable environment" correlations, that this immediate above paragraph's connotation are skewed a bit.  Last winter was weird in its own rite.  We were plagued by a kind of 'under the radar' over-abundance of heights along the 35th parallel, which every time the N-stream buckled and tried to increase meridional flows and storms, the resulting static gradient was so high that the balanced wind velocities shredded and sheared as a perpetual off-set to storm intensities.  It wasn't a very well behaved relative to it's lead signals and frankly ...I think I'm the only one that noticed the over-abundance of tropospheric wind.

[Ginx snewx]

There are scientific papers about correlation with Brazilian winters and the Eastern USA

Scientists do not attribute the iceberg to climate change. Its that kind of hyperbole that makes it hard for scientists to convey real threats from climate change.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/07/climate_change_isn_t_to_blame_for_the_iceberg_that_broke_off_antarctica.html

Is this a climate change signal? This event has also been widely but over-simplistically linked to climate change. This is not surprising because notable changes in the earth’s glaciers and ice sheets are normally associated with rising environmental temperatures. The collapses of Larsen A and B have previously been linked to regional warming, and the iceberg calving will leave Larsen C at its most retreated position in records going back over a hundred years.

However, in satellite images from the 1980s, the rift was already clearly a long-established feature, and there is no direct evidence to link its recent growth to either atmospheric warming, which is not felt deep enough within the ice shelf, or ocean warming, which is an unlikely source of change given that most of Larsen C has recently been thickening. It is probably too early to blame this event directly on human-generated climate change.

[SnowHole413]

My early thoughts on this winter is probably somewhat to simple for you guys. I see a continuation of this cool and wet theme we have been witnessing for the past few months. 

It might just be me but I feel like since that march blizzard we had, the overall theme since then was cool and wet.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

21 minutes ago, Powderboy413 said:

My early thoughts on this winter is probably somewhat to simple for you guys. I see a continuation of this cool and wet theme we have been witnessing for the past few months. 

It might just be me but I feel like since that march blizzard we had, the overall theme since then was cool and wet.

 

This is actually very good, friend -

I mean ..we have a term in this business; it's called persistence.   

We gotta be careful with persistence, too, though.  Persistence does not equate to forever ..heh.  Often when in a persistent sort of pattern, it gets harder and harder the longer it persists to envision a different scenario.  It's like the Stockholm Syndrome of weather...  we start sympathizing with the abductors..  The genius is in identifying whatever it is, and when, that will come along and rescue - at last disrupt the system significantly enough to herald in the new paradigm. 

Personally I would almost argue that a near neutral ENSO is insufficient (from that source alone), in modulating the going status of things.  Of course, Summer's usual wave numbers and nebular flow could also be masking the real status. Brian and I joked about his the other day when we mused that when the wave lengths seasonally lengthen we'd replace that trough with a ridge around Halloween 

...But, barring that uncertainty for a moment, the present persistence of SE Canadian trough in the means appears (to me) to be a bigger systemic issue than mere local hemispheric scaled luck.  Weird words that mean, it 'seems' like that could maintain if we don't have a way to change it before we put this summer to bed ...also in that the next scalable factor in the EPO/AO/NOA arc may favor the negative phase states.   That may leave a residue for cold tendencies...But, I still can't let go of the notion that climate disruption more and more plays a role in extreme event frequencies ...which then in turn can confuse the hell out of things...

[40/70 Benchmark]

21 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

This is actually very good, friend -

I mean ..we have a term in this business; it's called persistence.   

We gotta be careful with persistence, too, though.  Persistence does not equate to forever ..heh.  Often when in a persistent sort of pattern, it gets harder and harder the longer it persists to envision a different scenario.  It's like the Stockholm Syndrome of weather...  we start sympathizing with the abductors..  The genius is in identifying whatever it is, and when, that will come along and rescue - at last disrupt the system significantly enough to herald in the new paradigm. 

Personally I would almost argue that a near neutral ENSO is insufficient (from that source alone), in modulating the going status of things.  Of course, Summer's usual wave numbers and nebular flow could also be masking the real status. Brian and I joked about his the other day when we mused that when the wave lengths seasonally lengthen we'd replace that trough with a ridge around Halloween 

...But, barring that uncertainty for a moment, the present persistence of SE Canadian trough in the means appears (to me) to be a bigger systemic issue than mere local hemispheric scaled luck.  Weird words that mean, it 'seems' like that could maintain if we don't have a way to change it before we put this summer to bed ...also in that the next scalable factor in the EPO/AO/NOA arc may favor the negative phase states.   That may leave a residue for cold tendencies...But, I still can't let go of the notion that climate disruption more and more plays a role in extreme event frequencies ...which then in turn can confuse the hell out of things...

That was my initial inclination as I started reading these posts....neutral ENSO is no way to run a major regime shift.

Have to wonder if a whopper this cold season does the trick-

[Baroclinic Zone]

100" or bust for me.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Tough to predict snowfall around here.Could be a horrific winter with a 30 inch blizzard mixed in. 

Never hurts to go average

[weathafella]

2 hours ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Tough to predict snowfall around here.Could be a horrific winter with a 30 inch blizzard mixed in. 

Never hurts to go average

By definition, any winter with a 30 incher is NOT horrific.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

3 minutes ago, weathafella said:

By definition, any winter with a 30 incher is NOT horrific.

Nope. With the frequency of larger storms over the last decade to 15 years, it's been tough to do. We've had some big snow producers in some pretty poor background patterns.

[SJonesWX]

8 hours ago, weathafella said:

By definition, any winter with a 30 incher is NOT horrific.

the snowpack retention crowd (including myself) would beg to differ.

[weathafella]

16 minutes ago, SJonesWX said:

the snowpack retention crowd (including myself) would beg to differ.

How can you call 70% or more of climo horrific?   Yes you can call it sub par but horrific is reserved for winters like 2011-12 and 2001-02.  That's horror!

[tamarack]

3 hours ago, weathafella said:

How can you call 70% or more of climo horrific?   Yes you can call it sub par but horrific is reserved for winters like 2011-12 and 2001-02.  That's horror!

2003-04 might qualify here, though the frigid January added to that winter's impact.  Over half our snowfall came in two Dec events, 24" and 13", but that month also had 3 major rain events and 38" snow left only a 10" pack going into the new year.  We had just one more event larger than 4.5" and the winter finished 16" BN.

[SJonesWX]

3 hours ago, weathafella said:

How can you call 70% or more of climo horrific?   Yes you can call it sub par but horrific is reserved for winters like 2011-12 and 2001-02.  That's horror!

I agree with you comparing it to 01-02 and 11-12. but for me it's all about the pack. while we can snowmobile on 30", if nothing else falls and it doesn't stick around, then it is horrific since the season comes and goes quickly.

editing to add some more stats in NH where I ride:

09-10 80% climo snowfall (~50") no riding

11-12 80% climo snowfall (~50") no riding

15-16 35% climo snowfall (~35") no riding

and finally this past year, even with 150% climo snowfall (~100"), there was very little riding due to horrific snowpack retention.

[weathafella]

8 minutes ago, SJonesWX said:

I agree with you comparing it to 01-02 and 11-12. but for me it's all about the pack. while we can snowmobile on 30", if nothing else falls and it doesn't stick around, then it is horrific since the season comes and goes quickly.

editing to add some more stats in NH where I ride:

09-10 80% climo snowfall (~50") no riding

11-12 80% climo snowfall (~50") no riding

15-16 35% climo snowfall (~35") no riding

and finally this past year, even with 150% climo snowfall (~100"), there was very little riding due to horrific snowpack retention.

The last snowpack retention SNE year was 2010-11.  I exclude 2014-15 because that year was crazy but even that was bare ground until late January.

[40/70 Benchmark]

I count the second half of 2015 as the most amazing period of my life, snowfall and retention wise.

[ORH_wxman]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

The last snowpack retention SNE year was 2010-11.  I exclude 2014-15 because that year was crazy but even that was bare ground until late January.

Yeah but 2015 had deep snow even on the coastal plain into late March (and over interior into April)...so it kind of made up for having a lot of bare ground until January 24th. I think we saw like 60 consecutive days with over 20" on the ground...that is sick. In 2011, it got blasted away by early/mid March with a couple cutters in there.

I can understand the aesthetics of preferring early January snow pack over mid March snow pack...I prefer it too, but I still won't scoff at deep snow in mid-March as a skier (and for anyone who rides)...and 2015 was huge...it wasn't like having a slushy 3 inches of glop hanging on in shady areas...it was like still a legit 2 foot pack and it stayed cold that month.

[ORH_wxman]

2013-2014 wasn't a terrible pack winter...it was really up and down in Dec/Jan, but it did get going in February for sustained pack. It was a bit better up in NNE late that winter...I remember going up to Sunday River and driving up on March 23rd, 2014...they had about 50 inches on the level once I got to about Bridgeton and beyond.

[CoastalWx]

The atmosphere over the Pacific is still in Nina mode. So while models are going neutral give or take, it will be interesting to see how the atmosphere adjusts heading into Fall. 

[Typhoon Tip]

6 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

The atmosphere over the Pacific is still in Nina mode. So while models are going neutral give or take, it will be interesting to see how the atmosphere adjusts heading into Fall. 

yeah.. it's like La Nina hang-over. 

as the sun lengthens and the hemisphere slowly starts to cool this autumn, the usual R-wave structuring comes into more and more coherence.  This sort of "triggers" the new paradigm to usurp the previous dynamic and finally take over.  As last winter ended, the atmosphere was sort of left in a state. We need the gradient to come back; which is intrinsically going to be guided by the immense pop-cycle headache of heat source and sink distribution...etc, etc.

I think you are right about the Pac tho - this trough and/or NW flow that's dimmed summer heat this year seems well-enough teleconnected -

[CoastalWx]

6 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

yeah.. it's like La Nina hang-over. 

as the sun lengthens and the hemisphere slowly starts to cool this autumn, the usual R-wave structuring comes into more and more coherence.  This sort of "triggers" the new paradigm to usurp the previous dynamic and finally take over.  As last winter ended, the atmosphere was sort of left in a state. We need the gradient to come back; which is intrinsically going to be guided by the immense pop-cycle headache of heat source and sink distribution...etc, etc.

I think you are right about the Pac tho - this trough and/or NW flow that's dimmed summer heat this year seems well-enough teleconnected -

Mike Ventrice has a pretty good tool that looks at various signals. So far the atmosphere is still Nina. I like that product because it seems to work well and is a nice way of looking at ENSO instead of SST anomalies. 

[uncle W]

I'd like to see a cold Christmas with snow instead of 70 degrees and sunny for a change...