Winter 2017-18 Disco

[pasnownut]

18 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Missed that on your original post. I would have thought the NAO/AO would play a big part. If I recall correctly there is a strong correlation between low solar and NAO/AO so maybe we have that going for us. Of course watch we get a flare up late fall/early winter to botch things up for us.

they do my friend....from my read what PSU alluded to is that the lead time indicator in forcasting the NAO space is not very long (typically a month out - PSU/Chill or anyone else correct me if I'm wrong).

That makes looking for a notable piece of the winter puzzle to emerge this far out, challenging at best.  You really need another 6 weeks for "first look" at what blocking may emerge/happen.   

 

Nut

EDIT  See Bobs post above as didnt see it while i was typing.

[BristowWx]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

We're all being kinda silly with the winner/loser miller B talk. I mean yea, it could easily be part of our season but when I look at the seasonals all I see is ridging to our NE during DJ. We might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves. It's a rare day when a miller b hits hard without a fairly stout block. Of course we're all rooting for blocking but that piece of the puzzle won't come into focus until close to Dec. 

And its that ridging that I remember as part of the ugly factor last winter.  In fact, I was looking through posts from last winter and it was just painful to read again as if it was just happening....the panic room was hopping like a Vegas casino where everyone was drunk and losing their money.... especially painful reading around the holidays where we THOUGHT the pattern would turn in Jan.   

[pasnownut]

8 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

And its that ridging that I remember as part of the ugly factor last winter.  In fact, I was looking through posts from last winter and it was just painful to read again as if it was just happening....the panic room was hopping like a Vegas casino where everyone was drunk and losing their money.... especially painful reading around the holidays where we THOUGHT the pattern would turn in Jan.   

yeah, like Bob said, at this lead time, smart money is on telleconections, ENSO, and pattern stuff, not where A's and B's set up shop.  Just too early for that.  

[Bob Chill]

10 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

yeah, like Bob said, at this lead time, smart money is on telleconections, ENSO, and pattern stuff, not where A's and B's set up shop.  Just too early for that.  

I don't see any reason to panic and I don't see any reason to hype. Posting doesn't have to be one or the other but that's how we interpret posts most of the time. Either a big winter inbound or a massive fail of epic proportions. lol. 

[pasnownut]

7 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I don't see any reason to panic and I don't see any reason to hype. Posting doesn't have to be one or the other but that's how we interpret posts most of the time. Either a big winter inbound or a massive fail of epic proportions. lol. 

well stated Bob, and while there is no overwhelming signal yet, I cant imagine how great it would be to see and active split flow w/ a nice 50/50 parked up top and a conveyor belt of "fun" incoming.  

Baggy and bulging eye symdrome would overtake this forum from all of the TT/Pivolal model watching, and ensuing analysis....

I may just ask for that for Christmas....

 

Nut

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

well stated Bob, and while there is no overwhelming signal yet, I cant imagine how great it would be to see and active split flow w/ a nice 50/50 parked up top and a conveyor belt of "fun" incoming.  

Baggy and bulging eye symdrome would overtake this forum from all of the TT/Pivolal model watching, and ensuing analysis....

I may just ask for that for Christmas....

 

Nut

It's pretty simple right now. Doesn't have to be complicated. A cold neutral or weak nina seems very likely right now. The only long lead semi-reliable indicator is enso. Not saying that QBO/solar/SAI and all that other stuff doesn't mean anything but it's too early to worry about that stuff. I look at this chart and compare the previous 6 weeks and it's really obvious that the "trend" has been for a nina. Now we have cold water pooling up and streaming west in region 1-2 so the enforces the idea of a nina. We already know what is more likely and less likely during ninas. Some of it is a bit encouraging and some of it is the opposite. The details are too far out of reach to know which way to hedge. 

The PDO is too volatile to worry about but it's starting off looking kinda bad for now. That entire region can be bullied hard once fall patterns start predominating. Right now it looks in between good and bad. How it looks in late Nov is anyone's guess. 

 

There is no big cold pool in the natl off the tip of GL right now. Is that meaningful? It might be?.... It's certainly better than previous years. That cold pool built through the fall last year. It's a chicken/egg argument but either way there seems to be at least "some" correlation between blocking and weather patterns/sstas/trends in the natl during the fall and early winter. No reason to overthink it. I just keep it simple and root for whatever it takes to not build a large cold pool in the natl. 

 

If you look at the end of Oct the last 2 years (I'm just posting last year) you can see what I'm talking about near GL:

 

 

My opinion (and educated guess) is that the natl can be a bit of an early season tipoff for blocking. When cold anomalies are building in that region there seems to be a propensity for a general +AO/NAO state. Certainly not 1:1 but enough to make you wonder. The last time we had meaningful early season blocking was 2010. Take a look at the natl at the end of October:

 

 

It could be a hangover from 09-10's uber blocking event or it could be something else. I've read bits and pieces through the years about the natl cold/warm pool near greenland and what it could "imply" for winter. At the very least, the natl looks half decent in that regard. I suppose it doesn't matter if it's a chicken or egg signal as long as it's not looking like previous years with "anti-blocking" I'll treat it as a net positive with ground truth TBD. 

 

I just summed up all of my early thoughts. lol

 

[psuhoffman]

I decided to actually pull out QBO from an eliminating factor since I am not sure it is as significant a driver as the PDO and Enso which I am very confident have major impact on our pattern.  I am not saying the QBO does not but I am less confident in using it as a determining factor.  The PDO could change, but right now its trending the wrong way so assuming, big IF...the PDO is negative and the Enso is negative this is ALL of the years in the data set post 1950.  I used the average snowfall for the big 3 airports in the data.  Enso, PDO, NAO are all the DJF mean.  QBO and Solar I simply used the January number because they have less variability month to month and I was tired. 

Year	big 3 AVG snow	ENSO	PDO	QBO	NAO	Solar
1950	2.1	-1.4	-1.94	-8.99	0.26	1507
1951	8.2	-0.8	-1.12	-6.01	-0.37	1079
1956	15.2	-0.9	-2.66	-1.01	-0.8	1412
1957	14.8	-0.3	-1.26	-13.05	0.13	2312
1962	25.1	-0.2	-1.71	2.84	-0.36	949
1963	20.5	-0.4	-0.48	-17.35	-2.27	795
1965	17.3	-0.5	-1.3	-1.03	-1.02	786
1967	41.6	-0.4	-0.23	11.03	-0.4	1477
1968	25.1	-0.7	-0.58	-8.38	-0.93	1891
1971	14.7	-1.3	-1.53	-10.67	-1.06	1626
1972	17.1	-0.7	-1.9	8.2	0.07	1148
1974	17.6	-1.7	-1.21	-0.91	0.22	831
1975	14.3	-0.5	-0.56	-16.7	0.11	775
1976	7.6	-1.5	-1.53	9.22	-0.09	747
1989	8.2	-1.6	-0.8	-2.87	1.05	2354
1999	15.7	-1.4	-0.47	3.09	0.33	1426
2000	21.6	-1.6	-1.49	4.85	1.02	1581
2008	6.6	-1.4	-0.78	-12.42	0.38	743
2009	8.2	-0.7	-1.27	10.71	-0.42	698
2011	12.4	-1.3	-0.99	9.18	-0.99	834
2012	2.5	-0.7	-1.34	-16.07	1.05	1331
2013	7.9	-0.4	-0.35	-6.07	-0.33	1271
AVG	14.7

[psuhoffman]

 

So parsing through all that data, just as a first glance, a few things stick out.  All of this has the caveat that if the PDO flips all that is meaningless. 

But assuming the PDO and Enso end up in the expected state, the QBO/Solar seems to have little correlation to the outcome.  There were some good and awful outcomes with both combinations of QBO and Solar.  There seems to be no discernible trend with those.   The avg snowfall is actually a bit higher in +QBO years vs negative.  18.7 to 12.5.  Even if we remove the outlier of 1966-67 the avg is still a few inches higher in +QBO years.  Honestly not sure what to make of that.  Just pointing it out.  

Another thought, if we remove the one outlier of 1967, we end up right back where we were, which is a lot of years ranging from bad to average.  No big blockbuster years and no years with big huge HECS events.  I think that pattern is obvious.  But I am not doom and gloom, several of the years on that list would make most of us happy (probably not Ji and Eskimo).  If we are going to have an "average" snow year, getting there with a ton of small events and maybe a medium one or two mixed in is probably the better way to go.  At least that seems to be the preference of many and that seems to be what our upside potential is in this setup.

There seems to be a slight preference to keep the Enso closer to neutral.  There were more years that turned out "ok" in years with Enso above -1 then in the years when it dropped below 1.  That is not universal as 2000 turned out ok but that seems like a fluke year.  So much was awful that year yet we lucked out with a 10 day period that was epic but unlikely to repeat.  If we look at 5 of the "best" outcomes in the group, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967, and 1968 they all had relatively weak cold enso.  It is also noted they all happened in the same decade.  If we remove the 1960's our odds of a decent snowfall year go way way down.  That may not mean anything or it might mean a lot.  I don't know.  It could just be because the NAO was negative during all of those years.  Or perhaps there is another underlying factor like the AMO that I have not factored into the equation so far with my data. 

Those are just my early thoughts after a quick look at all the data.  Unfortunately it leaves more questions then answers.  I was kind of hoping there would be some clarity to what factors flip the season one way or another and there seems to be little correlation.  That could simply mean that this is a volatile setup where a bunch of small factors can push it from a really bad result to a pretty decent one.  As always I am interested in others thoughts and hope the data can be useful in some way, perhaps to someone better then me at seasonal forecasting. 

 

[CAPE]

2 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

My memory isn't the greatest but wasn't that the one the models were showing 1 to 2 feet through the whole area and DC/Balt north and west were lucky to see a couple of inches? 

Boxing day. I think it was more like a dusting to nothing as you went from I-95 west. It was supposed to be 6-12 through I-95 IIRC. There was a sharp cutoff, and I was on the edge. Places in DE not more than 10 miles to my east did get a foot. OC had 14" I think. Not sure it was even your classic Miller B, but it ended up being pretty epic for SNJ points NE.

[Bob Chill]

@psuhoffman Great stats and post. After reading your post it makes something even more clear....weather can just be weather sometimes regardless of everything else. As long as one's expectations aren't lofty, the upcoming winter looks fine on paper from what we can see right now. I'm prepared for a very frustrating period in Dec. I have a hunch we get locked into a trough west/ridge east for a chunk of time. Pretty standard nina climo stuff though. Nothing fancy or elaborate with those thoughts. 

Would be nice to get an event or 2 in Dec. 2000-10 was a decent period for Dec snow. Other than 2013 (mainly NW of DC), we haven't done well at all since 2010. The 90's were pretty crappy for Dec snow in general also. I can probably speak for the forum again when I say waiting all the way through December for things to start getting "ok" really sucks. It always feels like such a waste. Nina's can be ok for Dec snow. Much prefer an event or 2 in Dec (even if light) then a Jan thaw or whatever. A 30 day thaw in Dec is lame as F. 

[ORH_wxman]

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

Boxing day. I think it was more like a dusting to nothing as you went from I-95 west. It was supposed to be 6-12 through I-95 IIRC. There was a sharp cutoff, and I was on the edge. Places in DE not more than 10 miles to my east did get a foot. OC had 14" I think. Not sure it was even your classic Miller B, but it ended up being pretty epic for SNJ points NE.

It was a Miller A storm, but of the Norfolk to Boston variety. It took kind of a reverse "C" track...which unfortunately left DC in the middle of the snowhole carved out by that track. It was pretty unlucky. It easily could have been a 6"+ storm or even double digits. It was one of two storms that winter which had a pseudo STJ southern stream with it...the other was 1/26-27/11...which actually did hit DC.

[CAPE]

25 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

@psuhoffman Great stats and post. After reading your post it makes something even more clear....weather can just be weather sometimes regardless of everything else. As long as one's expectations aren't lofty, the upcoming winter looks fine on paper from what we can see right now. I'm prepared for a very frustrating period in Dec. I have a hunch we get locked into a trough west/ridge east for a chunk of time. Pretty standard nina climo stuff though. Nothing fancy or elaborate with those thoughts. 

Would be nice to get an event or 2 in Dec. 2000-10 was a decent period for Dec snow. Other than 2013 (mainly NW of DC), we haven't done well at all since 2010. The 90's were pretty crappy for Dec snow in general also. I can probably speak for the forum again when I say waiting all the way through December for things to start getting "ok" really sucks. It always feels like such a waste. Nina's can be ok for Dec snow. Much prefer an event or 2 in Dec (even if light) then a Jan thaw or whatever. A 30 day thaw in Dec is lame as F. 

This.

Its not like I ever expect to see much snow in Dec, but when we start off with the pattern all wrong, and know we are going to waste all of Dec and likely a couple weeks of Jan before we even have a chance, it completely sucks.

[psuhoffman]

40 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

@psuhoffman Great stats and post. After reading your post it makes something even more clear....weather can just be weather sometimes regardless of everything else. As long as one's expectations aren't lofty, the upcoming winter looks fine on paper from what we can see right now. I'm prepared for a very frustrating period in Dec. I have a hunch we get locked into a trough west/ridge east for a chunk of time. Pretty standard nina climo stuff though. Nothing fancy or elaborate with those thoughts. 

Would be nice to get an event or 2 in Dec. 2000-10 was a decent period for Dec snow. Other than 2013 (mainly NW of DC), we haven't done well at all since 2010. The 90's were pretty crappy for Dec snow in general also. I can probably speak for the forum again when I say waiting all the way through December for things to start getting "ok" really sucks. It always feels like such a waste. Nina's can be ok for Dec snow. Much prefer an event or 2 in Dec (even if light) then a Jan thaw or whatever. A 30 day thaw in Dec is lame as F. 

Yep. Other then chaos I'd say based on those stats hope the enso stays between -.1 and -.9 and hope for a -nao. Get both and the numbers look better for us. 

[Bob Chill]

22 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

It was a Miller A storm, but of the Norfolk to Boston variety. It took kind of a reverse "C" track...which unfortunately left DC in the middle of the snowhole carved out by that track. It was pretty unlucky. It easily could have been a 6"+ storm or even double digits. It was one of two storms that winter which had a pseudo STJ southern stream with it...the other was 1/26-27/11...which actually did hit DC.

It was but it was really convoluted because of the northern stream ULL producing snow to our west giving the impression that it was a more typical MA screw job.  The features were independent of each other unlike a more typical jump to the coast. The northern stream upper level low did the perfect handoff of it's energy right over our heads as it phased into the miller A. 

The thing that's kind of funny is that if the southern stream or northern stream system ran their course at different times with no interaction, we would have gotten at least a light to moderate event out of both of them. The way they interacted with each other couldn't have been drawn up any better to give most of our region the middle finger. lol. 

[BTRWx]

There's a driver every winter.  The challenge is finding it.

[SnowGoose69]

6 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Don't really follow solar so i may be off on this but wasn't there a brief flareup of the sun leading into the 2008 winter? Might have to go back and check on that in a little.

I don't recall that.  In 2001 and also a winter recently.  I can't recall which, maybe it was 15-16 there was a surge in solar activity in September and October and I thought it was a factor in those winters being mild.  It seems the atmosphere sometimes responds violently to small solar dips/surges when the solar phase is strongly opposite.  So a brief 3-4 week surge during or near the solar min may produce a very mild winter whereas the same surge occurring midway between cycles may have not producerd any noticeable atmospheric response at all.  It's the joke I often make that the atmosphere "knows" what state it's in whether it be ENSO or solar and reacts strongly when you think it won't

[snowman19]

On 9/18/2017 at 9:46 AM, Bob Chill said:

I see the same thing. Enso is almost always a primary driver for the conus once you cross neutral threshold. It's rare when it gets completely overwhelmed by something else. The best long lead logic is to just go with climo in general and see what kinds of signals emerge later in the fall to gauge what kind of variation we can expect. If HL blocking shows its face in late November then BN temps and BN precipitation is a fair call for Dec. 

Nina's are typically normal or drier than normal here. Even with blocking we struggle with organized precipitation. You are in a much better climo spot so friendly advice would be to tread lightly in this thread. 

You are a very good source of info. When I see that you've made a post I always read it. Anyway, I get accused of being "warm biased"  but I just call it as I see it and I know I'm not liked for that by some but whatever. I honestly really just love learning about weather. I have no idea how this winter is going to turn out, I'll reserve my decision until November. As I've said before and I'll say it again, we don't have a big pool of analogs to go from this winter (2nd year La Niña, -PDO, -QBO, low solar). As far as next month, I know some will be looking at Siberian snowcover growth and use that as a basis for possibly predicting the predominant "NAM" (AO/NAO) state, but as we have seen time and again over the last few years, it is a totally unrealible inidicator, misunderstood, and has lead to epic fails

[GramaxRefugee]

On 9/19/2017 at 5:24 PM, SnowGoose69 said:

I don't recall that.  In 2001 and also a winter recently.  I can't recall which, maybe it was 15-16 there was a surge in solar activity in September and October and I thought it was a factor in those winters being mild.  It seems the atmosphere sometimes responds violently to small solar dips/surges when the solar phase is strongly opposite.  So a brief 3-4 week surge during or near the solar min may produce a very mild winter whereas the same surge occurring midway between cycles may have not producerd any noticeable atmospheric response at all.  It's the joke I often make that the atmosphere "knows" what state it's in whether it be ENSO or solar and reacts strongly when you think it won't

Hasn't the sun been a bit active this month too? Not much spots, but some flare/storm/wind. Aurora was seen in 18 states including MD, VA.

 http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=11&month=09&year=2017

Eta another link:

http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/solar-flux-almost-as-strong-than-at-the-top-of-the-solar-cycle.580328/

[showmethesnow]

10 hours ago, SnowGoose69 said:

I don't recall that.  In 2001 and also a winter recently.  I can't recall which, maybe it was 15-16 there was a surge in solar activity in September and October and I thought it was a factor in those winters being mild.  It seems the atmosphere sometimes responds violently to small solar dips/surges when the solar phase is strongly opposite.  So a brief 3-4 week surge during or near the solar min may produce a very mild winter whereas the same surge occurring midway between cycles may have not producerd any noticeable atmospheric response at all.  It's the joke I often make that the atmosphere "knows" what state it's in whether it be ENSO or solar and reacts strongly when you think it won't

Did casually glance back at 2008 and found nothing of note. But know very little about solar so maybe I am over looking something. 

If I am understanding you correctly, you believe that when the atmosphere reaches an equilibrium near or during a solar minimum/max that a sudden influx/lack of energy may disrupt that equilibrium sometimes violently? Whereas in between solar min/max this ebb/flow of energy would have little to no impact? This actually makes a lot of sense in my mind. 

If you look at the min/max, as well as the corresponding stable atmospheric conditions, as polar opposites I can definitely see the sudden insertion of a polar opposite variable into a stable setup as the equivalent of throwing a wrench into the machine. I do question though if this would be more noticeable in a low energy system then a high one. In a low energy system a sudden influx of energy would be rapid and more explosive whereas in a high energy system the lack of energy would result in a slow bleeding off of energy. I can also see the lack of influence of these variables in between the solar min/max. After all the atmosphere is not stable and is in a state of turmoil as both polar opposites play tug of war with the system.

[psuhoffman]

On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 10:29 AM, showmethesnow said:

Missed that on your original post. I would have thought the NAO/AO would play a big part. If I recall correctly there is a strong correlation between low solar and NAO/AO so maybe we have that going for us. Of course watch we get a flare up late fall/early winter to botch things up for us.

The NAO plays a HUGE part.  I broke down each year in the entire list by month and found there were 25 months with above average snowfall.  I then looked at each of those.  Only one pulled it off with a positive NAO and it wasn't even that positive, it was like +.7  That kind of a number could easily be hiding a 10 day period with a decent negative NAO.  That was January 1957 btw.  All the other 24 months with above normal snowfall had either a negative NAO or a neutral one, and looking at the neutral years I can say they probably had periods of -NAO hidden within the neutral monthly numbers.  In other words...if we don't get a -NAO kiss our snow chances goodbye.  Its almost unheard of to luck our way into snow in a positive NAO in this type of pattern.  That is the one obvious thing that pops out in the data.  So we need a -nao to have a chance.  So the years in the analogs that were wall to wall +NAO sucked.  What separates the other years seems to be simply getting lucky with well timed blocking and storm track.  But when the NAO goes positive...it will get ugly for snow chances in a -PDO cold enso pattern.    

On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 10:36 AM, Bob Chill said:

We're all being kinda silly with the winner/loser miller B talk. I mean yea, it could easily be part of our season but when I look at the seasonals all I see is ridging to our NE during DJ. We might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves. It's a rare day when a miller b hits hard without a fairly stout block. Of course we're all rooting for blocking but that piece of the puzzle won't come into focus until close to Dec. 

There are a lot of assumptions being thrown around that I am not sure will hold up this year.  One is that there will be a ton of miller b, and another is that NYC is in a much better spot then us.  Looking at all 14 years with a -PDO, cold enso, -QBO, NYC only had one winter with above average snowfall.  NYC averaged only 65% of their mean in those years.  By comparison DC had 2 above average winters and averaged 72% of normal.  I am not saying DC should be throwing a victory party but the numbers don't show any advantage in this pattern for NYC.  It's generally not a great look for them either.  New England....now that's another story. 

[showmethesnow]

46 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The NAO plays a HUGE part.  I broke down each year in the entire list by month and found there were 25 months with above average snowfall.  I then looked at each of those.  Only one pulled it off with a positive NAO and it wasn't even that positive, it was like +.7  That kind of a number could easily be hiding a 10 day period with a decent negative NAO.  That was January 1957 btw.  All the other 24 months with above normal snowfall had either a negative NAO or a neutral one, and looking at the neutral years I can say they probably had periods of -NAO hidden within the neutral monthly numbers.  In other words...if we don't get a -NAO kiss our snow chances goodbye.  Its almost unheard of to luck our way into snow in a positive NAO in this type of pattern.  That is the one obvious thing that pops out in the data.  So we need a -nao to have a chance.  So the years in the analogs that were wall to wall +NAO sucked.  What separates the other years seems to be simply getting lucky with well timed blocking and storm track.  But when the NAO goes positive...it will get ugly for snow chances in a -PDO cold enso pattern.    

So this is pretty much confirmation to what we have been saying for a month or so now. No -NAO, No snow.

Couple questions if you don't mind.

You also had cold neutrals on your list, did you count them in this as well? Did you by any chance get a % of winters that featured this pattern that had a -NAO as well? Just curious if this pattern is more conducive for a -NAO to show up. One last thing, did this pattern favor an early or later winter?

Edit: Didn't realize the new chart had the NAO as well. So 12 out of 22 years featured a -NAO if you include a cold neutral. Not much better then 50/50.

[Bob Chill]

22 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

There are a lot of assumptions being thrown around that I am not sure will hold up this year.  One is that there will be a ton of miller b, and another is that NYC is in a much better spot then us.  Looking at all 14 years with a -PDO, cold enso, -QBO, NYC only had one winter with above average snowfall.  NYC averaged only 65% of their mean in those years.  By comparison DC had 2 above average winters and averaged 72% of normal.  I am not saying DC should be throwing a victory party but the numbers don't show any advantage in this pattern for NYC.  It's generally not a great look for them either.  New England....now that's another story. 

We all root for different things based on latitude. Just like you said (and the reason I changed the thread title) is it really does come down to blocking or bust. The further north you go the less you want a big block. Once you get far enough north, a big block means dry and cold. And not all blocks are created equal. A general -AO state favors decent snow up and down the east coast. Many times the NAO decides winners and losers. Many of our big hits don't include the NE. It's an intricate dance that lies in the hands of the NAO. 

 

For now I'll hug the WDI. That's tilted far in favor of a -NAO this year. And if not this year then next year. Otherwise it will be a record. It's been 6 consecutive +NAO winters. That's the upper limit in recent history. 

[showmethesnow]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

We all root for different things based on latitude. Just like you said (and the reason I changed the thread title) is it really does come down to blocking or bust. The further north you go the less you want a big block. Once you get far enough north, a big block means dry and cold. And not all blocks are created equal. A general -AO state favors decent snow up and down the east coast. Many times the NAO decides winners and losers. Many of our big hits don't include the NE. It's an intricate dance that lies in the hands of the NAO. 

 

For now I'll hug the WDI. That's tilted far in favor of a -NAO this year. And if not this year then next year. Otherwise it will be a record. It's been 6 consecutive +NAO winters. That's the upper limit in recent history. 

WDI? We're due index? Works for me.

[Bob Chill]

1 minute ago, showmethesnow said:

WDI? We're due index? Works for me.

It's a very reliable indicator. Worked like a charm with snowfall in 13-14 in the face of a hostile high latitude pattern. The WDI for a -AO/NAO is STRONG. lol

[showmethesnow]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's a very reliable indicator. Worked like a charm with snowfall in 13-14 in the face of a hostile high latitude pattern. The WDI for a -AO/NAO is STRONG. lol

Worse part here. I actually was googling WDI and then it hit me like a ton of bricks what it was. 

[BTRWx]

10 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's a very reliable indicator. Worked like a charm with snowfall in 13-14 in the face of a hostile high latitude pattern. The WDI for a -AO/NAO is STRONG. lol

Disagree! Our WDI is trending the wrong way after our record +climo streak before last year.

eta: WDI is a thing...https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00271-008-0120-5

[psuhoffman]

27 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

So this is pretty much confirmation to what we have been saying for a month or so now. No -NAO, No snow.

Couple questions if you don't mind.

You also had cold neutrals on your list, did you count them in this as well? Did you by any chance get a % of winters that featured this pattern that had a -NAO as well? Just curious if this pattern is more conducive for a -NAO to show up. One last thing, did this pattern favor an early or later winter?

The spread was pretty even month to month. There was a slight bias early and late. Between dec to mar January had the fewest snowy occurrences. Not by a ton but enough to say it's the least likely to be a big winner. 

There was also a slight bias towards better outcomes in cold neutral vs stronger Nina years. But it wasn't a strong correlation. But I do think weaker Nina is better based on the numbers. But a few cold neutrals turned out bad too and there doesn't seem to be much to differentiate why at least not from the data I have and the time I can put into it right now. 

Basically what I'm saying is let's just say we end up with a -.6 enso number, a -1 PDO and a -15 QBO. I'm not sure, other then just getting lucky with a -nao, what would make that flip decent or awful. Because both show up in the analogs without any tell as to why. 

[Bob Chill]

4 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Worse part here. I actually was googling WDI and then it hit me like a ton of bricks what it was. 

There is some merit to the premise honestly. Just like the active Atlantic tropical season. That WDI was basically off the charts. Things have a way of evening out. Sometimes in historic ways (like the temporary end of CA's drought). Embedded in the chaos of weather is order and predictability over longer timescales. 

[BTRWx]

1 minute ago, Bob Chill said:

There is some merit to the premise honestly. Just like the active Atlantic tropical season. That WDI was basically off the charts. Things have a way of evening out. Sometimes in historic ways (like the temporary end of CA's drought). Embedded in the chaos of weather is order and predictability over longer timescales. 

[showmethesnow]

On 9/19/2017 at 0:29 PM, psuhoffman said:

I decided to actually pull out QBO from an eliminating factor since I am not sure it is as significant a driver as the PDO and Enso which I am very confident have major impact on our pattern.  I am not saying the QBO does not but I am less confident in using it as a determining factor.  The PDO could change, but right now its trending the wrong way so assuming, big IF...the PDO is negative and the Enso is negative this is ALL of the years in the data set post 1950.  I used the average snowfall for the big 3 airports in the data.  Enso, PDO, NAO are all the DJF mean.  QBO and Solar I simply used the January number because they have less variability month to month and I was tired. 

Year	big 3 AVG snow	ENSO	PDO	QBO	NAO	Solar
1950	2.1	-1.4	-1.94	-8.99	0.26	1507
1951	8.2	-0.8	-1.12	-6.01	-0.37	1079
1956	15.2	-0.9	-2.66	-1.01	-0.8	1412
1957	14.8	-0.3	-1.26	-13.05	0.13	2312
1962	25.1	-0.2	-1.71	2.84	-0.36	949
1963	20.5	-0.4	-0.48	-17.35	-2.27	795
1965	17.3	-0.5	-1.3	-1.03	-1.02	786
1967	41.6	-0.4	-0.23	11.03	-0.4	1477
1968	25.1	-0.7	-0.58	-8.38	-0.93	1891
1971	14.7	-1.3	-1.53	-10.67	-1.06	1626
1972	17.1	-0.7	-1.9	8.2	0.07	1148
1974	17.6	-1.7	-1.21	-0.91	0.22	831
1975	14.3	-0.5	-0.56	-16.7	0.11	775
1976	7.6	-1.5	-1.53	9.22	-0.09	747
1989	8.2	-1.6	-0.8	-2.87	1.05	2354
1999	15.7	-1.4	-0.47	3.09	0.33	1426
2000	21.6	-1.6	-1.49	4.85	1.02	1581
2008	6.6	-1.4	-0.78	-12.42	0.38	743
2009	8.2	-0.7	-1.27	10.71	-0.42	698
2011	12.4	-1.3	-0.99	9.18	-0.99	834
2012	2.5	-0.7	-1.34	-16.07	1.05	1331
2013	7.9	-0.4	-0.35	-6.07	-0.33	1271
AVG	14.7

 

 

Thought I would run some analogs on this list. Haven't done this in so long I hope I did it correctly.

Have a limit to how many years you can throw in so I dropped 74, 89, 00 because of their high Nina values which i don't think we will achieve (Famous last words).

DJF 

 

November

December

January

February

March

Much better look then I was expecting. Good blocking shows up in the second half of winter through March which suggests maybe a back loaded winter.