Winter 2017-18 Disco

[showmethesnow]

3 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

It's probably a concert of things. Right now the Npac is is progged to be anything but what you normally see in a Nina year. The ridge/trough setup near the Aleutians and GOA is pretty much the exact opposite of Nina climo. I don't think you can pin it on any one thing but I'm pretty confident one of the stronger drivers is the MJO moving through phase 8-1-2

 

 

 

I think we'll see things revert back to more of an aluetian ridge/goa trough as we move through November. However, what is happening now is happening at a really good time. Anything that can help us avoid a consolidated and strong strat PV as we move through Nov can only help us down the line. 

The smart money would go with you. Nina argues for an Aleutian ridge and goa trough. Not to mention the obvious, that if things can go wrong for our winter chances they can and will.

But on the other side of the argument what we have seen so far as we head into winter has not resembled a Nina pattern. We are also seeing a continuing barrage around Alaska and the Bering straits, that looks somewhat cyclic in nature, in the prime time when winter pattern begins to set up. Considering the onset began a few days ago and the GFS OP has been showing this to extend beyond it's 16 day forecast window by quite a bit we are looking at a potential of seeing this for a minimum of at least 3 weeks which would suggest this is something more then just a transient feature and more likely the dominant feature in the winter pattern. And even if we do see a return of the goa trough/Aleutian ridge down the road, at this point one has to wonder if in fact it may be more transient in nature then anything else. Needless to say all this speculation is contingent on the models being correct.

On a side note I do question if what we are seeing right now is the result of a pole-ward propagating Rossby wave train. Don't know enough about them to say for sure and if so what that would mean.

 

[Bob Chill]

@showmethesnow

This year is tricky for sure. I expect some nina tendencies in general. Last year was a weak nina and it's pretty close to another in the eq pac already. There has been nina background conditions for a while now. The active tropical season was at least loosely connected to last year's weak nina. 

November LOVES throwing head fakes (in all directions. lol). You and me and everyone else does the same thing every Nov :). One thing that caught my eye today was the d15 EPS:

 

You know what was the first thing I thought when saw that panel? ....2013-14....lol

 

A +AO/NAO and -EPO combo isn't always generous. 93-94 missed a lot of snow ops but 13-14/14-15 are fresh in the memory so recency bias is in play. lol. One thing we will almost always get with a mean -EPO for DJF is some nice cold shots. The ridging around AK in the med to long range is impressive on both ops and ens. I wouldn't be mad if the epo breaks in our favor this winter. 

 

[Mason Dixon]

Terrific discussion in here guys. Really great stuff. Sure beats the thread in the NYC forum which is snowdummy19 talking to himself with one post after another on how horrible the winter will be. 

[BTRWx]

18 minutes ago, Mason Dixon said:

Terrific discussion in here guys. Really great stuff. Sure beats the thread in the NYC forum which is snowdummy19 talking to himself with one post after another on how horrible the winter will be. 

I know how he feels.  Sometimes my thoughts transfer to the keyboard too fast for these folks.

[showmethesnow]

Yesterday I mentioned that I thought the buckling of the jet up around Alaska, with the subsequent higher heights and ridging, may be a predominate feature we could possibly expect for at least the first half if not the whole of winter. Well there was one thing I did not mention at that time that could possibly add weight to this belief. I held off because I wanted to first confirm that my thoughts were accurate and not just the imagined scattered brained thoughts of a senile snow weenie. Needless to say, I had no luck and that is bugging the hell out of me not knowing. So I am going to throw this out there in the hopes that someone can either confirm or deny or even give better clarity to what I am posting.

If my memory is somewhat accurate, there is a very stable high latitude blocking pattern that will persist through long periods of time. It is a pattern that even if it gets broken down has a tendency to bounce back after a short period of time. It was called a tripole something or other I believe. If I am correct the configuration is below.

 

In this stable blocking pattern we see high latitude blocking (higher heights and ridging) in roughly three locations. First is located around Alaska/Bering straits, second around Greenland and the third in western Russia/eastern Europe. This can be seen clearly below at day 8 on the 00Z GEFS run with the very distinct blocking circled in black. Between these ridges we have lower heights/trough that sets up (blue circles).

 

Now at day 10 we see a little smoothing occurring so the ridging is not quite as distinct but the higher heights are a good indication that good ridging does exist in these 3 locations. Notice that this blocking has not moved. We once again see troughing between the ridging. 

 

 

 

Now at day 12 we see a little more smoothing occurring but there are still 3 distinct areas where ridging is occurring. 

 

 

 

Now at day 16, at range and with smoothing occurring, it is almost impossible to discern where the blocking has set up. But by looking at the troughing and the higher heights you can get the feel that the overall blocking pattern for the most part still exists but has maybe shifted a little.

 

This is yesterdays 00Z run at day 16. Though not great it does give a little better representation of how this pattern can endure then the overnight run posted above.

 

 

If my memory is correct this might add some weight to my belief that we may see a PAC setup flipped from what a typical Nina would present. One other + to this blocking pattern is that it pumps heat and higher heights to the pole which would argue for a weakened and displace pv along with the -AO that comes with it. 

Anyway, if I am wrong, either in whole or in part feel free to hammer away. 

[LoveSN+]

I'm feeling good about this winter already. Canada looks to be cold now and in the extended, certainly building up that snow pack. Makes it much easier in DJF for cold to intrude when Canada has a thick snowpack on the ground. The past few starts to winter, central southern Canada has been baking. 

[mitchnick]

47 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Yesterday I mentioned that I thought the buckling of the jet up around Alaska, with the subsequent higher heights and ridging, may be a predominate feature we could possibly expect for at least the first half if not the whole of winter. Well there was one thing I did not mention at that time that could possibly add weight to this belief. I held off because I wanted to first confirm that my thoughts were accurate and not just the imagined scattered brained thoughts of a senile snow weenie. Needless to say, I had no luck and that is bugging the hell out of me not knowing. So I am going to throw this out there in the hopes that someone can either confirm or deny or even give better clarity to what I am posting.

If my memory is somewhat accurate, there is a very stable high latitude blocking pattern that will persist through long periods of time. It is a pattern that even if it gets broken down has a tendency to bounce back after a short period of time. It was called a tripole something or other I believe. If I am correct the configuration is below.

 

In this stable blocking pattern we see high latitude blocking (higher heights and ridging) in roughly three locations. First is located around Alaska/Bering straits, second around Greenland and the third in western Russia/eastern Europe. This can be seen clearly below at day 8 on the 00Z GEFS run with the very distinct blocking circled in black. Between these ridges we have lower heights/trough that sets up (blue circles).

 

Now at day 10 we see a little smoothing occurring so the ridging is not quite as distinct but the higher heights are a good indication that good ridging does exist in these 3 locations. Notice that this blocking has not moved. We once again see troughing between the ridging. 

 

 

 

Now at day 12 we see a little more smoothing occurring but there are still 3 distinct areas where ridging is occurring. 

 

 

 

Now at day 16, at range and with smoothing occurring, it is almost impossible to discern where the blocking has set up. But by looking at the troughing and the higher heights you can get the feel that the overall blocking pattern for the most part still exists but has maybe shifted a little.

 

This is yesterdays 00Z run at day 16. Though not great it does give a little better representation of how this pattern can endure then the overnight run posted above.

 

 

If my memory is correct this might add some weight to my belief that we may see a PAC setup flipped from what a typical Nina would present. One other + to this blocking pattern is that it pumps heat and higher heights to the pole which would argue for a weakened and displace pv along with the -AO that comes with it. 

Anyway, if I am wrong, either in whole or in part feel free to hammer away. 

Every seasonal/monthly model has a warm December in the east with AN heights, which is contrary to a typical Nina. This will NOT be a "typical" Nina, assuming it even reaches official Nina status (5 months+ in a row on ONI scale with ENSO 3.4 at -.5C or cooler.) There's a burst of westerlies on our doorstep in ENSO-land that will throw a monkey wrench in cooling for a while. Considering there is a lag between SSTA and effects of ENSO state, this year will leave everyone scratching his/her head I'm sure. 

[showmethesnow]

11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Every seasonal/monthly model has a warm December in the east with AN heights, which is contrary to a typical Nina. This will NOT be a "typical" Nina, assuming it even reaches official Nina status. There's a burst of westerlies on our doorstep in ENSO-land that will throw a monkey wrench in cooling for a while. Considering there is a lag between SSTA and effects of ENSO state, this year will leave everyone scratching his/her head I'm sure. 

Saw you had mentioned earlier the westerlies which should hold down the up-welling of the deeper colder waters. If correct you may very well be right as far as never seeing Nina status for this winter. Which is fine by me. At this point though nothing says Nina pattern anyway which suggests we should hopefully get through at least the first half of winter without an overly hostile PAC. Actually there is one thing I have seen that is a Nina feature that I keep seeing pop up, a southeast ridge. But that feature has been fairly well suppressed and may actually be the reason we are seeing a southern jet through the gulf riding up off the southeast coast. So all in all that may actually be a good feature to have for potential spin ups off the coast.

 

[Bob Chill]

38 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Every seasonal/monthly model has a warm December in the east with AN heights, which is contrary to a typical Nina. This will NOT be a "typical" Nina, assuming it even reaches official Nina status (5 months+ in a row on ONI scale with ENSO 3.4 at -.5C or cooler.) There's a burst of westerlies on our doorstep in ENSO-land that will throw a monkey wrench in cooling for a while. Considering there is a lag between SSTA and effects of ENSO state, this year will leave everyone scratching his/her head I'm sure. 

Yea, don't look at the latest CFS iteration of Dec unless you want to throw up in your mouth. It does have an aluetian ridge/goa trough on the means though so the CFS is baking in at least some nina climo. 

The thing is, even if the nina doesn't reach "official" numerical status, it's hard to just toss what the Pac looks like right now. The SSTA config is certainly looks strong enough to drive some of the bus this winter. 

 

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.10.23.2017.gif

 

My least favorite part of the Pac is the -PDO config in the npac. You aren't going to find many pleasant analogs with cold neutral or weak nina conditions combined with the -PDO. 

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Nice work, but I'm left feeling empty? There is really nothing of substance predictor-wise. Maybe some analogs? This is a favorable MJO time for modeled pattern, so I don't know if this is anything but piece of a whole cycle. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

I think the early summer thoughts of a 0 to -0.5 still looks good.  Not exactly sure how that might play out in real weather, but I think I feel better about it than I would a -1.5.

[ORH_wxman]

20 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yea, don't look at the latest CFS iteration of Dec unless you want to throw up in your mouth. It does have an aluetian ridge/goa trough on the means though so the CFS is baking in at least some nina climo. 

The thing is, even if the nina doesn't reach "official" numerical status, it's hard to just toss what the Pac looks like right now. The SSTA config is certainly looks strong enough to drive some of the bus this winter. 

 

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.10.23.2017.gif

 

My least favorite part of the Pac is the -PDO config in the npac. You aren't going to find many pleasant analogs with cold neutral or weak nina conditions combined with the -PDO. 

 

There is an awful lot of subsurface cold still to work with on this Nina, so I also wouldn't sell its impact short yet. The CFS would probably be a bad pattern too with a strongly positive NAO look. The Euro seasonal was definitely better looking...it tried to produce more blocking up north.

[WinterWxLuvr]

BTW, great write ups fellas.  Good stuff.

[Bob Chill]

56 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

There is an awful lot of subsurface cold still to work with on this Nina, so I also wouldn't sell its impact short yet. The CFS would probably be a bad pattern too with a strongly positive NAO look. The Euro seasonal was definitely better looking...it tried to produce more blocking up north.

CFS is a screwy model. I hadn't looked at it in a while but the last time I did it was completely "acceptable" and now is completely unacceptable. 

The latest CanSips is destroying October so far. Even with the shakeup going on right now, mean h5 is going end pretty close. Will be interesting to see what the CanSips serves up in a week for Nov. Seems like a good model for 1 month leads in general. It was pretty decent last year even though I absolutely hated what it was serving up. lol

Totally agree about underestimating nina conditions. I went back through some older neg neutral years and the current eq conditions look FAR more organized than any of the recent neg neutrals. On the other hand...the current conditions lag recent Nina events by a fair margin. In limbo I suppose but closer to a legit nina than a legit nada. Don't think that can be disputed. 

Other than the very easy call of BN snow and AN temps, I got nothin else. Enso climo is the only reliable long lead indicator year over year and right now enso climo says be prepared for notsogreat but don't rule out some good fortune. In another month we'll have a line on the AO/NAO and how that will look going into Dec. That's the heavyweight for our region. So far it's not breaking against us and we're probably off to a better early start with the strat/trop PV than the last few years. I'll hug that for now. lol

[Bob Chill]

1 hour ago, StormchaserChuck said:

Nice work, but I'm left feeling empty? There is really nothing of substance predictor-wise. Maybe some analogs? This is a favorable MJO time for modeled pattern, so I don't know if this is anything but piece of a whole cycle. 

I suppose it depends on where you live this year as to how much confidence you can have with guessing the personality of winter. If I lived in the pac nw or northern rockies I would be tuning up my skis. If I lived in the upper midwest I would be tuning up my ice fishing gear and snowmobiles. If I lived in the NE I wouldn't worry because there's a lot of leeway with all kinds of different patterns. 

But I live in the MA (you do too right?). The land of all or none more often than lot. An area that gets hit frequently enough with big storms to always feel "in the game" at this lead. But deep down inside I know where I live and because of that I know the greatest risk we ALWAYS have is a dud. lol. The general ENSO analogs don't really paint a pretty picture in general. It won't take much to beat last year in these parts though. 

[mitchnick]

11 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

CFS is a screwy model. I hadn't looked at it in a while but the last time I did it was completely "acceptable" and now is completely unacceptable. 

The latest CanSips is destroying October so far. Even with the shakeup going on right now, mean h5 is going end pretty close. Will be interesting to see what the CanSips serves up in a week for Nov. Seems like a good model for 1 month leads in general. It was pretty decent last year even though I absolutely hated what it was serving up. lol

Totally agree about underestimating nina conditions. I went back through some older neg neutral years and the current eq conditions look FAR more organized than any of the recent neg neutrals. On the other hand...the current conditions lag recent Nina events by a fair margin. In limbo I suppose but closer to a legit nina than a legit nada. Don't think that can be disputed. 

Other than the very easy call of BN snow and AN temps, I got nothin else. Enso climo is the only reliable long lead indicator year over year and right now enso climo says be prepared for notsogreat but don't rule out some good fortune. In another month we'll have a line on the AO/NAO and how that will look going into Dec. That's the heavyweight for our region. So far it's not breaking against us and we're probably off to a better early start with the strat/trop PV than the last few years. I'll hug that for now. lol

Come on Bob, you know the weenie routine....when it looks bad, don't mention it. When it looks better again in a couple of weeks, hug it!

As for the cold beneath the surface ORH mentioned, sub-surface is always colder than surface in a Nina and warmer than the surface in a Nino, so I don't know how much that will play out this year. Surface wind anomalies are definitely working against the Nina for the next 7+? days. After that, we'll see. I could see the Nina strengthening rapidly IF the trades come back after this period of westerlies. In that respect, the sub-surface will be added fuel.

[NorthArlington101]

12 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

I think you're the only one here who still thinks that with certainty.

I'm guessing he means very easy as in it being a safe call. 

[Bob Chill]

27 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

Yes.  I don't think it is right now.

It is very easy in the sense that multiple month lead forecasting is nothing but educated guesswork. If you look at all the data on hand right now, the only guess that makes sense is higher odds of AN temps and BN snow. That can easily change as we move towards winter. I can point out a bunch of things to back up my guess. That's all it is too. A guess. But it's at least back by evidence. 

If someone has a compelling argument for BN temps and AN snow I would love to hear it honestly.  

[WinterWxLuvr]

14 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It is very easy in the sense that multiple month lead forecasting is nothing but educated guesswork. If you look at all the data on hand right now, the only guess that makes sense is higher odds of AN temps and BN snow. That can easily change as we move towards winter. I can point out a bunch of things to back up my guess. That's all it is too. A guess. But it's at least back by evidence. 

If someone has a compelling argument for BN temps and AN snow I would love to hear it honestly.  

WDI values are off the charts.

[gymengineer]

9 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

WDI values are off the charts.

How, though? I think most people in here were assuming that after 13/14 and 14/15, the last two winters would have turned out to be duds. Maybe even one or two more dud winters before the next good one.. 

[Bob Chill]

52 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

WDI values are off the charts.

I won't lie...I'm kinda banking on the WDI for the AO...lol

[BTRWx]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

It is very easy in the sense that multiple month lead forecasting is nothing but educated guesswork. If you look at all the data on hand right now, the only guess that makes sense is higher odds of AN temps and BN snow. That can easily change as we move towards winter. I can point out a bunch of things to back up my guess. That's all it is too. A guess. But it's at least back by evidence. 

If someone has a compelling argument for BN temps and AN snow I would love to hear it honestly.  

To clarify, I believe everyone is generally on the same page for the long term pattern.  What I was questioning was the "likely" "easy call" context.  Bob said either yesterday or the day before how 2013-2014 was looking closer to what could develop later on.  My goal moving forward will be to be as objective as possible without sounding so critical. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, gymengineer said:

How, though? I think most people in here were assuming that after 13/14 and 14/15, the last two winters would have turned out to be duds. Maybe even one or two more dud winters before the next good one.. 

The last two winters were awful.  How many in a row have to be bad before the index maxes out?  IMO, two.

[gymengineer]

2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

The last two winters were awful.  How many in a row have to be bad before the index maxes out?  IMO, two.

See, I even nodded to you for sure labeling 15/16 as awful in my original reply  

[Cobalt]

10 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

See, I even nodded to you for sure labeling 15/16 as awful in my original reply  

In terms of snowfall, it was great, but in terms of temperature if was pretty awful. I'm a big fan of blizzards and all, but if the snow doesn't stick around for long, it loses it's charm

[gymengineer]

9 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

In terms of snowfall, it was great, but in terms of temperature if was pretty awful. I'm a big fan of blizzards and all, but if the snow doesn't stick around for long, it loses it's charm

You’re stating the view of quite a few members, which has been liberally plastered in this subforum over the past couple of years

I personally can’t throw 15/16 into the pile of clunkers. The stretch between 86/87 and 92/93 had some legendary clunkers, as did the stretch between 95/96 and 02/03, and between 09/10 and 13/14... I’m talking about warm *and* virtually no snow-cover days. (The blizzard in ‘16 provided a decent stretch of snow-cover days.) So we’re entering winter two in my opinion. 

[Cobalt]

Just now, gymengineer said:

You’re stating the view of quite a few members, which has been liberally plastered in this subforum over the past couple of years

I personally can’t throw 15/16 into the pile of clunkers. The stretch between 86/87 and 92/93 had some legendary clunkers, as did the stretch between 95/96 and 02/03, and between 09/10 and 13/14... I’m talking about warm *and* virtually no snow-cover days. (The blizzard in ‘16 provided a decent stretch of snow-cover days.) So we’re entering winter two in my opinion. 

Fair point. At least that winter felt somewhat cold, before the blizzard, and right before and during President Day weekend.

[gymengineer]

8 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Honestly, we can toss 14/15 in the crap pile too. It was horrific until February 14, 2015. 

Gaah, no! Such an IMBY winter again. above average snowfall in January for IAD, my back yard, and many other suburbs. It was an awesome winter here.

 

[Cobalt]

1 minute ago, gymengineer said:

Gaah, no! Such an IMBY winter again. above average snowfall in January for IAD, my back yard, and many other suburbs. It was an awesome winter here.

 

Ditto for me. February was by far one of the coldest months I've ever experienced. Snow was fairly good too, and the March 5th snowstorm was also pretty sweet as well

[NorthArlington101]

Gaah, no! Such an IMBY winter again. above average snowfall in January for IAD, my back yard, and many other suburbs. It was an awesome winter here.

 

I remember it very favorably just for the Clipper that Could. Really fun day. Honestly I don't remember that much else.