Winter 17-18 Speculation

[Brick Tamland]

Well, this doesn't look good for snow around here. But who knows. A couple of years ago we were supposed to have the best chance for record breaking snow based on the pattern and indicies, and we didn't even get to average here. 

[Cold Rain]

^ Yep, that's about as ugly as you will see.

[Met1985]

8 minutes ago, Cold Rain said:

^ Yep, that's about as ugly as you will see.

Looks typical Nina.

[Bob Chill]

9 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

Looks typical Nina.

My first thought as well. Did anyone expect anything different? NWS sticks to enso climo exclusively so no surprise. Over time it's the most accurate though so you can't really fault them. I also don't disagree with their outlook. But as history has shown, AN mean temps for DJF /= no cold and snow. 

[Met1985]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

My first thought as well. Did anyone expect anything different? NWS sticks to enso climo exclusively so no surprise. Over time it's the most accurate though so you can't really fault them. I also don't disagree with their outlook. But as history has shown, AN mean temps for DJF /= no cold and snow. 

No surprise from me either. I mean should we expect anything differently after the last several above normal winters? obviously we can get small windows for cold and storms but again I do not like this upcoming winter as a whole.

[BullCityWx]

28 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

My first thought as well. Did anyone expect anything different? NWS sticks to enso climo exclusively so no surprise. Over time it's the most accurate though so you can't really fault them. I also don't disagree with their outlook. But as history has shown, AN mean temps for DJF /= no cold and snow. 

Can confirm, saw a double digit total here last season. 

[Brick Tamland]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

My first thought as well. Did anyone expect anything different? NWS sticks to enso climo exclusively so no surprise. Over time it's the most accurate though so you can't really fault them. I also don't disagree with their outlook. But as history has shown, AN mean temps for DJF /= no cold and snow. 

True. But it seems winters here are becoming more and more of either one big winter storm or nothing at all. 

[jburns]

2 hours ago, Queencitywx said:

Can confirm, saw a double digit total here last season. 

0.6?

[NCSNOW]

1 hour ago, Brick Tamland said:

True. But it seems winters here are becoming more and more of either one big winter storm or nothing at all. 

Brick I was around in the 70s and 80s. I hear alot of younger guys on here talk about the 80's decade winters being the good ole days etc. The winter seasons back in the 70's and 80's are no different from the ones weve expierenced over the past 17 years. You get great wall to wall ones occasionally and you get alot of big memorable events once per season and unfortunately you get alot of long stretches of crap like weve had the past 2 seasons. Usually its for 1/2 the winter seaon D,J,F and not all 3 months like the last 2 seasons. I can remeber the mid to  late 80's expierencing long stretches of warmth as well as long stretches between big ticket events. It goes back and forth.

On a side note Im very skeptical of the methods we use to collect temp data or index it for refernce points/baselines. Most of its done at airports surounded by asphalt/urbanization etc. v/s the rural suroundings pre-60's/70's. So it pollutes the results when trying to compare todays weather v/s historical perspectives/ seasonal averages etc.

[griteater]

From https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/us-winter-outlook-mostly-mild-chilly-northwest-and-roller-coaster-northeast

[Northern Foothills Snowman]

4 hours ago, NCSNOW said:

Brick I was around in the 70s and 80s. I hear alot of younger guys on here talk about the 80's decade winters being the good ole days etc. The winter seasons back in the 70's and 80's are no different from the ones weve expierenced over the past 17 years. You get great wall to wall ones occasionally and you get alot of big memorable events once per season and unfortunately you get alot of long stretches of crap like weve had the past 2 seasons. Usually its for 1/2 the winter seaon D,J,F and not all 3 months like the last 2 seasons. I can remeber the mid to  late 80's expierencing long stretches of warmth as well as long stretches between big ticket events. It goes back and forth.

On a side note Im very skeptical of the methods we use to collect temp data or index it for refernce points/baselines. Most of its done at airports surounded by asphalt/urbanization etc. v/s the rural suroundings pre-60's/70's. So it pollutes the results when trying to compare todays weather v/s historical perspectives/ seasonal averages etc.

I agree with you 100%.  One thing I notice different is snows now seem to produce bigger storms.

[Bob Chill]

4 minutes ago, Northern Foothills Snowman said:

I agree with you 100%.  One thing I notice different is snows now seem to produce bigger storms.

Yea, it's either total chaos making things seem different or a warmer ocean/land background causing bigger storms. I think the entire east coast would agree that bigger storms are more frequent. 

I looked through a lot of historical records and don't see much difference in general with winters now compared to previous decades. Maybe we're losing on the margins. Early and late storms seem less frequent. Although my area had a couple really big marches. Not sure about you folks.  December's have been pretty sucky quite often though. 

[mackerel_sky]

43 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yea, it's either total chaos making things seem different or a warmer ocean/land background causing bigger storms. I think the entire east coast would agree that bigger storms are more frequent. 

I looked through a lot of historical records and don't see much difference in general with winters now compared to previous decades. Maybe we're losing on the margins. Early and late storms seem less frequent. Although my area had a couple really big marches. Not sure about you folks.  December's have been pretty sucky quite often though. 

March is our snowiest months, is a quote we throw around when March 1 rolls around and we have a sucky winter. Don't think it's necessarily true, it's a last ditch effort to make us feel better and keeps hope alive! It's our mantra, the last few winters!

[Brick Tamland]

Well, WxSouth does seem bullish on Facebook. 

 For the record, I'd lean cooler than average Southeast to Midwest. And very active precip wise in a good chunk of the Southeast and MidAtlantic for the 3 month period December through February, with snow and ice paying a visit much more often, and to many more areas of the Southeast, than it did either of the last 2 Winters.

[Brick Tamland]

One thing is it's been pretty dry here so far this fall. Summer was pretty wet. So, maybe the longer we stay dry during the fall the better chance the pendulum swings back the other way during winter.

[FallsLake]

4 minutes ago, Brick Tamland said:

Well, WxSouth does seem bullish on Facebook. 

 For the record, I'd lean cooler than average Southeast to Midwest. And very active precip wise in a good chunk of the Southeast and MidAtlantic for the 3 month period December through February, with snow and ice paying a visit much more often, and to many more areas of the Southeast, than it did either of the last 2 Winters.

As Grit showed above, Robert thinks we'll get more blocking this year. 

[Waiting on snow]

27 minutes ago, Brick Tamland said:

Well, WxSouth does seem bullish on Facebook. 

 For the record, I'd lean cooler than average Southeast to Midwest. And very active precip wise in a good chunk of the Southeast and MidAtlantic for the 3 month period December through February, with snow and ice paying a visit much more often, and to many more areas of the Southeast, than it did either of the last 2 Winters.

I've been following his page for a few years now. He is a fantastic met but he always seems to think cold and snow. I hope he's right but he seems to base this off of indices that can't be known more than two weeks out. 

[J.C.]

Somebody had posted earlier about the cooling in the pacific at this point wasn't convincing enough to forecast with certainty about a true La Nina this winter?  Have temps cooled even more prompting this latest forecast?  

[calculus1]

I agree with you 100%.  One thing I notice different is snows now seem to produce bigger storms.

And here I thought storms produced snow. Maybe that's our problem: We have to have snow to produce storms.

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[JoshM]

52 minutes ago, calculus1 said:

And here I thought storms produced snow. Maybe that's our problem: We have to have snow to produce storms.

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[John1122]

The Nina maps posted above show something we should all know. The -AO/NAO will trump ENSO every time out.  You could probably apply that map regardless of ENSO state and get the same above/below normal results based on the NAO/AO. The +PNA is a big factor too, the Pacific can run the show for good or ill for the East.

 

The -NAO is virtually a winter unicorn lately but maybe with -qbo will help some with that. 

[Cold Rain]

[Cold Rain]

Good luck.

[No snow for you]

4 hours ago, Cold Rain said:

Good luck.

That's all we need. A little luck and 1 big storm. 

[Tacoma]

What happened to the day of the Gulf Lows, when I grew up in the 50's and 60's and even the 70's there were Gulf Lows very frequently of which we're lucky now if we get one storm out of the Gulf in the winter.

[griteater]

Final tally for October

[CAD_Wedge_NC]

4 hours ago, fritschy said:

What happened to the day of the Gulf Lows, when I grew up in the 50's and 60's and even the 70's there were Gulf Lows very frequently of which we're lucky now if we get one storm out of the Gulf in the winter.

We still get the gulf lows. Only now days they run up the spine of the apps instead of the SE coastline.

[Tacoma]

So the blocking hasn't been there to send the storms up the SE Coast.  Has the blocking been that far off to where we don't even have it anymore?  You would think we would get the blocking once in a while.

[FallsLake]

51 minutes ago, fritschy said:

So the blocking hasn't been there to send the storms up the SE Coast.  Has the blocking been that far off to where we don't even have it anymore?  You would think we would get the blocking once in a while.

The NAO has been primarily positive the last few years. We've had winter storms the last few years but the storms were timed just right with the highs to the north. NAO helps buckle the pattern towards the east allowing storms to be pushed southward and highs to get "anchored" more to the NE; and not be so progressive (move out quickly). So basically, the NAO helps up our odds of getting a winter storm.

(but)I've always considered the PNA to be more important for our chances; whereas if it's negative we really have no chance.  

[Brick Tamland]

I think we either stay warm and dry all winter, or it goes to the other extreme and is cold and with lots of winter storm chances. We just don't seem to get anything in between or "normal" anymore. And when a pattern like this locks on for so long it seems it takes the exact opposite extreme to change it.