November Long Range Disco

[Cobalt]

Euro continues advertising this fabled "cold spell"

[showmethesnow]

10 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I'm contemplating an early open of The Panic Room to handle the demand. 

Seriously though, the signals don't look great. If we're popping a strongly positive AO that doesn't bode particularly well for December overall. I'm still concerned about the PAC pattern and ENSO. Hopefully things start to look like a legit flip or transition toward favorable in by mid November, but it certainly doesn't look that way right now. 

Been on vacation for the last week so i haven't really had the time to dig deep into the models but I had seen enough to believe that things were not as dire as the models might suggest. I would not be surprised if by this time next week things look much brighter in this forum. Right now I am thinking there is a reasonable chance we see the beginnings of a pattern flip in the eastern PAC/west coast region in roughly the next 7-10 days. I am also seeing some indications that we could also possibly see some changes in the east as well. Am home now but my farther is visiting from California so i am limited on time but i will try to get my reasoning behind these thoughts posted either later today or more likely tomorrow at some point. 

[CAPE]

42 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

Euro continues advertising this fabled "cold spell"

GEFS is hinting at a cooler pattern with the EC ridge weakening during that time frame. It's not a a cold look though on the EPS or GEFS at h5. Looking at the 850 anomalies it would appear to be a chilly period. Without seeing individual members I would guess there is some spread/few different camps.

[CAPE]

49 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

0z continues the intriguing look...even has higher heights trying to build in GL. That low south of Alaska retrograded sw around day 8 to help build that west ridge.  The Gfs has that Ak  low stay further east. Patterns like to repeat so maby they're reshuffling back to our recent look

Edit: 6z Gfs also tries for a similar look it's just further out in time day 13 or so...but we are getting in major fantasy land by then..lol

I am pretty laser focused on the AO. I agree with Bob that the last thing we want to see over the next few weeks is an established +AO. That would very likely put us on the long road  to get things to evolve in a more favorable direction as we move through December.

[showmethesnow]

41 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

0z continues the intriguing look...even has higher heights trying to build in GL. That low south of Alaska retrograded sw around day 8 to help build that west ridge.  The Gfs has that Ak  low stay further east.

It isn't exactly what you would call a classic look or evolution for snow for our region. The bridging of the Alaskan ridge and the ridging in the west does wonders for dumping the cold into the central Us and eventually into the east, as well as deeply amplifying the trough into the east. The cutoff low is far enough south and west, off the Pacific NW, as to where it is providing a split flow. We actually see 3 jet streaks, though not timed well, all located in the central to east US. At day ten on the op so take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much, but this would suggest a possible window of opportunity centered on day 10 or so.

[NorthArlington101]

It isn't exactly what you would call a classic look or evolution for snow for our region. The bridging of the Alaskan ridge and the ridging in the west does wonders for dumping the cold into the central Us and eventually into the east, as well as deeply amplifying the trough into the east. The cutoff low is far enough south and west, off the Pacific NW, as to where it is providing a split flow. We actually see 3 jet streaks, though not timed well, all located in the central to east US. At day ten on the op so take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much, but this would suggest a possible window of opportunity centered on day 10 or so.

Yeah, I was going to mention earlier that the GFS gives us a shot at first flakes around day 10. I bet at some point we get a run showing something around that time. Looks decently chilly in the day 10-15 period.

[CAPE]

11 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Almost want to play the taps in here. Talk about a depressing crew and it's not even November yet. I can see @WxWatcher007 is going to be filling up his rooms early this year.

I thought the 12Z Euro run was somewhat intriguing at the end of the run. But it was the op and at range so....

Hey we are just being objective. Gotta walk that line between weenie-ism/wishcasting and the negative nancy routine. Unless there is a clear threat, I pay little attention to op runs beyond 5 days, esp this time of year. Right now the means look meh. CFS is on one of its brutal streaks. Hoping for a hold or some improvement with the new CanSIPS for Nov/Dec.

[mitchnick]

Maybe no big deal, but unlike the past few years,  almost every morning this fall the lows have been lower than forecast by the nws. This morning,  the forecast low was 41, but BWI bottomed out at 38. Just not used to that happening as regularly as it has been.

[CAPE]

2 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Tonight was looking like one of the colder night's this fall but models backed off a little...maybe clouds pushing in earlier..it was looking like a possible freeze 24 to 48 ago nw

Forecast for here tonight is clear skies and calm winds. Might go lower than the 37 forecast. Have had a bunch of 37-40 degree lows here. Would be nice to get below 35 with some widespread frost.

[Bob Chill]

Cohen updated his blog yesterday:

http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Crib notes:

-SCI and SAI are sending conflicting signals. Snowcover is good but the advance index stalled mid month before accelerating. The SAI is not as robust for a -AO as the SCI

-The AO will be positive for the first 2 weeks of Nov but the signals point towards that flipping mid month (we'll see about that)

-No signs of the strat PV warming/weaking so that supports a +AO for now

-Confidence for a winter -AO isn't very high

[Cobalt]

6 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

 

-The AO will be positive for the first 2 weeks of Nov but the signals point towards that flipping mid month (we'll see about that)

 

It's all about the little victories. I'll take that for now

[Bob Chill]

4 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

It's all about the little victories. I'll take that for now

After reading Cohen's blog for the last 4-5 years, it really doesn't give me any confidence. Whenever things aren't going as planned, the can is always kicked down the road but the narrative is always the same. "Not now but later" is a typical Cohen spin. 

Of course I'm hoping he's right about the second half of November but I have my doubts. If the AO spikes like it's currently progged then it becomes much more likely that Nov will feature a +AO door to door. We won't know much for another couple weeks though. A 2 week AO spike isn't all that troubling. A strong +AO for the month of Nov is pretty troubling. All we can do is sit back and scope and hope right now. 

[North Balti Zen]

3 hours ago, H2O said:

I come to read this for the optimism and leave with stage 5 of grief: acceptance.

It's definitely better to skip to that part.

[George BM]

Do you all remember this kick in the guts? 

 

 

[Cobalt]

9 minutes ago, George BM said:

Do you all remember this kick in the guts? 

 

 

1 word. DISSAPOINTMENT

[Bob Chill]

George, that really isn't that bad honestly. The SST structure last year was a +PDO and that's what we want in general. Especially during warm enso but anytime is always better than a -PDO. There are many variations inside of theses pretty pictures but we want the one on the left:

Not too far back in the past (Sept) the PDO was definitely negative. You can see the warm anomlies near Japan propagating eastward and cold anomalies close the west coast. This is a crappy panel for the PDO as far as we're concerned.

 

 

Fast forward a couple months the the PDO region has lost quite a bit of the -PDO phase. It's still probably technically negative but not nearly as obvious as a few months ago:

 

 

The pattern in the npac coming up is pretty sideways so I don't expect much clarity for a couple weeks with how the PDO is going to shift. Overall, I've seen far worse at this point in time in recent years....2011 takes the cake for a disgusting npac award of the decade...lol

[showmethesnow]

3 hours ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Hey we are just being objective. Gotta walk that line between weenie-ism/wishcasting and the negative nancy routine. Unless there is a clear threat, I pay little attention to op runs beyond 5 days, esp this time of year. Right now the means look meh. CFS is on one of its brutal streaks. Hoping for a hold or some improvement with the new CanSIPS for Nov/Dec.

Yeah, I can understand where you are coming from. Hell, last year I came over as a negative Nellie quite often. But of course everything pointed to crap where as the only hope we had was looking beyond day 10 if not day 15 and that always goes over so well counting on that. But I think we are dealing with a whole different situation at this point.

Though on the surface it looks pretty crappy I think looking into more detail shows some promise. Take the AO for example, the current value would argue for a somewhat strong PV and yet I think that is misleading. The pv is weakened and disrupted and looks to remain that way in the near future despite the extended range smoothing that suggests otherwise. Looking in the eastern pacific/western US, the models would suggest that we lock into a somewhat stable pattern and yet when looking at the continual disruptions and weakening of the PAC jet with it gyrating everywhere I would think that argues otherwise. When this same jet is continually split into mid latitude and polar jet streaks across the CONUS with a subtropical thrown into the mix quite often that to me suggests a very unstable pattern. About the only feature that looks somewhat stable in my mind is the ridging we have been seeing around the Aleutians and into Alaska.

Over the last week I have seen the models go from hinting at a suppression of the strong SER and WAR to where as now they are actually attempting to pull the higher heights/ridging underneath us westward into the southwest. Which most likely would flip the ridging and troughing alignment through the CONUS. This can be seen with the latest runs of the Euro op that I have to question whether it may be leading the way on a possible pattern change. Looking at indice values also may be cluing us in on a pattern change. When I see a sudden huge spread develop between members on multiple indices at roughly the same time on both the GEFS and the EPS this would lead me to believe that we will have a possible pattern change. This coincidentally is centered roughly around day 7 at this time. There are other things I have seen also over the last several days but I just don't recall them at this time.

Maybe I am just being an over optimistic weenie, but at this point in time I see quite a bit that screams change in the somewhat near future and half expect that by this time next week things will look much different.

[George BM]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

George, that really isn't that bad honestly. The SST structure last year was a +PDO and that's what we want in general. Especially during warm enso but anytime is always better than a -PDO. There are many variations inside of theses pretty pictures but we want the one on the left:

Not too far back in the past (Sept) the PDO was definitely negative. You can see the warm anomlies near Japan propagating eastward and cold anomalies close the west coast. This is a crappy panel for the PDO as far as we're concerned.

 

 

Fast forward a couple months the the PDO region has lost quite a bit of the -PDO phase. It's still probably technically negative but not nearly as obvious as a few months ago:

 

 

The pattern in the npac coming up is pretty sideways so I don't expect much clarity for a couple weeks with how the PDO is going to shift. Overall, I've seen far worse at this point in time in recent years....2011 takes the cake for a disgusting npac award of the decade...lol

Gotcha. My mistake.

[BTRWx]

1 minute ago, George BM said:

Gotcha. My mistake.

It's still a notable trend.  I think people are approaching this from different reference points.  Those ssta maps George shared from last year show what went wrong and when.  This year would have to trend in the opposite direction from cool to warm almost like we are seeing now, but it's still too early to see how the PDO behaves as Bob said.

[mitchnick]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

George, that really isn't that bad honestly. The SST structure last year was a +PDO and that's what we want in general. Especially during warm enso but anytime is always better than a -PDO. There are many variations inside of theses pretty pictures but we want the one on the left:

Not too far back in the past (Sept) the PDO was definitely negative. You can see the warm anomlies near Japan propagating eastward and cold anomalies close the west coast. This is a crappy panel for the PDO as far as we're concerned.

 

 

Fast forward a couple months the the PDO region has lost quite a bit of the -PDO phase. It's still probably technically negative but not nearly as obvious as a few months ago:

 

 

The pattern in the npac coming up is pretty sideways so I don't expect much clarity for a couple weeks with how the PDO is going to shift. Overall, I've seen far worse at this point in time in recent years....2011 takes the cake for a disgusting npac award of the decade...lol

Note how the "perfect" +PDO has the "perfect" Modoki Nino too  

[Eduardo]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Yeah, I can understand where you are coming from. Hell, last year I came over as a negative Nellie quite often. But of course everything pointed to crap where as the only hope we had was looking beyond day 10 if not day 15 and that always goes over so well counting on that. But I think we are dealing with a whole different situation at this point.

Though on the surface it looks pretty crappy I think looking into more detail shows some promise. Take the AO for example, the current value would argue for a somewhat strong PV and yet I think that is misleading. The pv is weakened and disrupted and looks to remain that way in the near future despite the extended range smoothing that suggests otherwise. Looking in the eastern pacific/western US, the models would suggest that we lock into a somewhat stable pattern and yet when looking at the continual disruptions and weakening of the PAC jet with it gyrating everywhere I would think that argues otherwise. When this same jet is continually split into mid latitude and polar jet streaks across the CONUS with a subtropical thrown into the mix quite often that to me suggests a very unstable pattern. About the only feature that looks somewhat stable in my mind is the ridging we have been seeing around the Aleutians and into Alaska.

Over the last week I have seen the models go from hinting at a suppression of the strong SER and WAR to where as now they are actually attempting to pull the higher heights/ridging underneath us westward into the southwest. Which most likely would flip the ridging and troughing alignment through the CONUS. This can be seen with the latest runs of the Euro op that I have to question whether it may be leading the way on a possible pattern change. Looking at indice values also may be cluing us in on a pattern change. When I see a sudden huge spread develop between members on multiple indices at roughly the same time on both the GEFS and the EPS this would lead me to believe that we will have a possible pattern change. This coincidentally is centered roughly around day 7 at this time. There are other things I have seen also over the last several days but I just don't recall them at this time.

Maybe I am just being an over optimistic weenie, but at this point in time I see quite a bit that screams change in the somewhat near future and half expect that by this time next week things will look much different.

You give me hope, my friend!  Great discussion in here overall.  I must admit that the combination of Alaskan/WPO ridging and 10-15 pattern changes harkens back to last year's traumas for me.  I'm hoping that the weaker, more east-oriented Niña saves us this time around...

[leo2000]

8 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Yeah, I can understand where you are coming from. Hell, last year I came over as a negative Nellie quite often. But of course everything pointed to crap where as the only hope we had was looking beyond day 10 if not day 15 and that always goes over so well counting on that. But I think we are dealing with a whole different situation at this point.

Though on the surface it looks pretty crappy I think looking into more detail shows some promise. Take the AO for example, the current value would argue for a somewhat strong PV and yet I think that is misleading. The pv is weakened and disrupted and looks to remain that way in the near future despite the extended range smoothing that suggests otherwise. Looking in the eastern pacific/western US, the models would suggest that we lock into a somewhat stable pattern and yet when looking at the continual disruptions and weakening of the PAC jet with it gyrating everywhere I would think that argues otherwise. When this same jet is continually split into mid latitude and polar jet streaks across the CONUS with a subtropical thrown into the mix quite often that to me suggests a very unstable pattern. About the only feature that looks somewhat stable in my mind is the ridging we have been seeing around the Aleutians and into Alaska.

Over the last week I have seen the models go from hinting at a suppression of the strong SER and WAR to where as now they are actually attempting to pull the higher heights/ridging underneath us westward into the southwest. Which most likely would flip the ridging and troughing alignment through the CONUS. This can be seen with the latest runs of the Euro op that I have to question whether it may be leading the way on a possible pattern change. Looking at indice values also may be cluing us in on a pattern change. When I see a sudden huge spread develop between members on multiple indices at roughly the same time on both the GEFS and the EPS this would lead me to believe that we will have a possible pattern change. This coincidentally is centered roughly around day 7 at this time. There are other things I have seen also over the last several days but I just don't recall them at this time.

Maybe I am just being an over optimistic weenie, but at this point in time I see quite a bit that screams change in the somewhat near future and half expect that by this time next week things will look much different.

I have to agree with you on this. Like you said all the other indexes look to be wobbling a lot. The only one index that has been pretty stable has with the EPO which remains negative. We have to remember we have quite a number of things going in our favor this year unlike the last couple of winters like the negative QBO and the weak east based La Nina. Thanks for the awesome writeup. 

[CAPE]

48 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Gfs day 7 storm really pumps up the heights ahead in the west atlantic and moves up To GL ..this could be an interesting op run 

Edit...and it was 

Long range but nice to see .Builds a west ridge twice thru dsy 15...decent blocking as well. Now lets get ensembles to get on that train 

Yeah its way out there. Lets see what the GEFS looks like, and more importantly if there is any persistence with this as we go forward. Looking for some encouraging signs, but this may very well be transient(NA +heights). Would really like to see some reshuffling of the epac pattern. The advertised configuration around AK at the end of this run is not what we want to see for the long haul. Rolling that forward would very likely end up with more EC ridging.

[CAPE]

Well thats a couple GEFS runs in a row where it at least looks seasonable as we get past mid November. Baby steps lol.

[mitchnick]

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

Well thats a couple GEFS runs in a row where it at least looks seasonable as we get past mid November. Baby steps lol.

That's one heck of a block over Alaska. 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs-ens&region=nhem&pkg=z500a&runtime=2017110118&fh=6&xpos=0&ypos=0

[Bob Chill]

31 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

That's one heck of a block over Alaska. 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs-ens&region=nhem&pkg=z500a&runtime=2017110118&fh=6&xpos=0&ypos=0

Gfs/gefs is starting to advertise some decent hp in the ao/nao domains down the line. Unfortunately the gfs/gefs has been consistently busting in the wrong direction d7+. I need something encouraging to hug so I'll hug it for now. 

[psuhoffman]

On 10/31/2017 at 11:23 AM, George BM said:

Do you all remember this kick in the guts? 

 

 

I agree with bob the PDO wasnt our main problem last year. But when that happened it did finally settle it in my mind that JB was 100% lying to people and not just being a weenie. He had based most of his fall edition of his winter outlook on that warm pool and even admitted that was going to have to overcome some negative factors otherwise. Then when it flipped he somehow updated with the same forecast only shifted the reason to other things even though at the same time his colleagues on wxbell were posting analog maps showing it was likely to be a warm winter. I lost any respect for him at that moment. I can understand weenyism. I've been guilty of that plenty. But blatant lying is disgusting and makes the whole weather community look bad. 

[psuhoffman]

On 10/31/2017 at 2:14 PM, mitchnick said:

Note how the "perfect" +PDO has the "perfect" Modoki Nino too  

I am pessimistic but I've not given up all hope for this winter yet and one reason is the ambiguity remaining around some of the big factors that will determine our fate. The PDO could yet end up our way. Nao doesn't look good but it's too early to say for sure. But if we were looking at that 2011 map I would already be planning my "snow vacation" trips to get my fix because I would know it wasn't going to end well. 

[NorthArlington101]

For what little its worth, the GFS mean snowfall has been slowly creeping down over the area for the past couple runs over Day 6-8. The metro is officially .1" range (lol).  in the The couple that take the low to NC almost get something going. I've been watching the timeframe for a little while since I have nothing better to do, I'll check in again at 12z. 

[NorthArlington101]

3 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

For what little its worth, the GFS mean snowfall has been slowly creeping down over the area for the past couple runs over Day 6-8. The metro is officially .1" range (lol).  in the The couple that take the low to NC almost get something going. I've been watching the timeframe for a little while since I have nothing better to do, I'll check in again at 12z. 

Trend reversed. Back to hibernation.