January 2019 General Discussion & Observations

[MJO812]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

We need a more southerly phase like 2-2-76 to get a rain to accumulating snow for the coast.

It's very close to a nice solution for our area. Just need an earlier phase.

[SnoSki14]

36 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

It's very close to a nice solution for our area. Just need an earlier phase.

It's a lot more interesting than any of the other models, doesn't mean anything will come from it though.

[NYCweatherNOW]

Let’s see if it anything comes from this as we get closer still very far. I like systems like that come out of nowhere. Plenty of cold air around too!

[Tatamy]

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

We need a more southerly phase like 2-2-76 to get a rain to accumulating snow for the coast.

 

Do you really think 2-2-76 is a potential analog for this?

[Tatamy]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

None of the current model runs phase that far south yet. We would need to see some changes in the next few days. That was an example of a more southerly stream TPV phase during this time of year.

It was not even the phasing so much as the incredible bombing and intensification of SLP as it moved NNE along the coast that morning.  My barometer read under 28.60 when it passed where I was at on the north shore of LI.

[forkyfork]

there's also march 05

[donsutherland1]

The Arctic Oscillation (AO) has fallen to near its lowest levels this winter. Further declines are likely over the next 7-10 days with the development of severe blocking likely by the start of February.

The SOI was +4.43 today. The SOI could go negative within the next 2 days.

The Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -2.147. That is the lowest figure since January 11 when the AO was -2.166. The preliminary average for meteorological winter is -0.158.

On January 24, the MJO was in Phase 5 with an amplitude of 1.905 (RMM). That amplitude had fallen from the January 23-adjusted figure of 2.126.

The MJO will very likely continue to advance through Phase 5 and then into Phase 6 over the next several days. Afterward, it will likely gradually progress to Phase 7.

Since 1974, there have been 12 cases when the MJO reached Phase 5 with an Amplitude of 1.000 to 2.499 in the January 16-31 period. All of those cases proceeded directly to Phase 6 and 9 (75%) proceeded directly to Phase 7. Upon reaching Phase 7, the outlook is more uncertain. The historical risks are balanced between the MJO's reversing back to Phase 6 or continuing to Phase 8. The MJO will likely remain at a high amplitude through the remainder of January and into the first week of February.

A storm or frontal passage could bring at least the threat of some snow during the January 29-31 period. Prospects for a more meaningful snowstorm could increase during the first week of February.

With the MJO's likely pushing toward or reaching Phase 7 toward the start of February, the AO will very likely see predominantly negative values for a sustained period of time. Strong to perhaps severe blocking could develop in the closing days of January.

The latest GEFS is forecasting a situation where the AO is at or below -3.000 during the opening of February in combination with a positive NAO and positive PNA.

A positive NAO in combination with a severely negative AO during the February 1-15, 1950-2018 period has been uncommon. In cases where the AO was -3.000 or below, just 17% of days had a positive NAO. In cases where the AO was -4.000 or below, just 14% of cases saw a positive NAO. Such combinations have featured a much above climatological frequency of measurable snow events.

The February 1-5, 1978 period featured a similar teleconnections setup. In addition, that period saw the MJO move from Phase 6 into Phase 7. By February 5, a major blizzard was developing along the Middle Atlantic coast. Afterward, the NAO went negative. February 1978 featured much above normal snowfall in much of the Northeast.

In sum, February will very likely open on a cold note. The potential for a snowy to possibly very snowy month remains on the table.

[donsutherland1]

7 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

And the NAO will go negative come February 1, Don?

 

Probably somewhat afterward. The guidance has tended to rush the development of a NAO- this winter.

[Ji]

Probably somewhat afterward. The guidance has tended to rush the development of a NAO- this winter.

In 10 days euro has a blowtorch.

[LibertyBell]

17 hours ago, RU848789 said:

You can't draw that conclusion from a sample size of 1.  

It's 2 (Feb 1994 and Jan 2014) but also the fact that having the rain/snow line cut through the area has been a persistent feature this winter.  If it was a winter like 2003-04 that would be a different story.  By the way this would also mean the rain/snow line would cut across or north of Central NJ

 

 

[LibertyBell]

14 hours ago, bluewave said:

The 12z Euro is back to the colder scenario. A piece of the TPV settles over New England on February 1st. So the coldest temperatures come in a day later instead of January 31st. Would like to see the Euro MOS since the raw 2m T’s can be biased to the cold side longer range. But it looks like we could at least see another round of single digits near the coast.

I see the coldest temps are forecast for Friday now?  Maybe near or just below 0?  Either way looks like we start to warm up just after the weekend.  We go into a zonal flow and Pacific air rushes across the CONUS.

[snowman19]

33 minutes ago, Ji said:

10 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Probably somewhat afterward. The guidance has tended to rush the development of a NAO- this winter.

In 10 days euro has a blowtorch.

It (EPS) actually starts to get really bad around day 8 but yea the pattern turns into a disaster in the 1st week of February. GEFS and GEPS also show this. At that point we are less than 4 weeks away from met spring. I have serious doubts as to whether we ever go into a sustained cold and snow pattern before winter’s end now

[NYCweatherNOW]

10 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

It (EPS) actually starts to get really bad around day 8 but yea the pattern turns into a disaster in the 1st week of February. GEFS and GEPS also show this. At that point we are less than 4 weeks away from met spring. I have serious doubts as to whether we ever go into a sustained cold and snow pattern before winter’s end now

Ok dude yes it’s not looking good but your  a Debbie not a way to start my weekend honestly. Reading your stuff is always depressing whether about weather or not. Eps could improve I’ve seen it before but for now it does look bad. We may see a couple of inches Tuesday night into Wednesday morning 

[Ji]

It (EPS) actually starts to get really bad around day 8 but yea the pattern turns into a disaster in the 1st week of February. GEFS and GEPS also show this. At that point we are less than 4 weeks away from met spring. I have serious doubts as to whether we ever go into a sustained cold and snow pattern before winter’s end now

Winter is over. By the time we recover from this disaster...its like feb 15 to 20...yikes....guess hope now is one good storm before March.

[LibertyBell]

19 minutes ago, NYCweatherNOW said:

Ok dude yes it’s not looking good but your  a Debbie not a way to start my weekend honestly. Reading your stuff is always depressing whether about weather or not. Eps could improve I’ve seen it before but for now it does look bad. We may see a couple of inches Tuesday night into Wednesday morning 

It's time to start talking about that scenario though as our TV Mets as well as TWC long range Mets have been talking about Pac air flooding the whole country after SB weekend.

 

[CIK62]

Last 6 days of Jan.  averaging 30degs., or 2degs. BN.

Month to date is +1.4[33.7].     Should end Jan. at +0.7[33.0].

All 8 days are averaging 29degs., or 3degs. BN.

EURO is 1" of Snow for the next 10 days.   GEFS is a 60% of at least 5" of Snow by Feb.11.

25* here at 6am.

[tim]

41 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

It's time to start talking about that scenario though as our TV Mets as well as TWC long range Mets have been talking about Pac air flooding the whole country after SB weekend.

 

...was feeling pretty good last nite after reading d. sutherlands' post..then woke up 

to this..hoping day 9-10 forecasts are wrong and don is right..in the meantime mon-tues

ocean storm is a miss but there has been trends further N & W..would be nice to get 

a 'eastern scraper' for us easterners.

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, tim said:

...was feeling pretty good last nite after reading d. sutherlands' post..then woke up 

to this..hoping day 9-10 forecasts are wrong and don is right..in the meantime mon-tues

ocean storm is a miss but there has been trends further N & W..would be nice to get 

a 'eastern scraper' for us easterners.

my big hope is these models are as wrong with the zonal flow and pac air as they have been with storms 9-10 days out lol

 

[LibertyBell]

17 minutes ago, tim said:

...was feeling pretty good last nite after reading d. sutherlands' post..then woke up 

to this..hoping day 9-10 forecasts are wrong and don is right..in the meantime mon-tues

ocean storm is a miss but there has been trends further N & W..would be nice to get 

a 'eastern scraper' for us easterners.

you might like this (from CoastalWx):

Yeah we go back to more of a -PNA look with some ridging into AK southwest to the dateline. But we also get a -NAO to try and help(although I don’t buy it yet). It’s likely an active look, but more riding the line. It’s funny how we refuse to get a classic Niño  look.

 

 

31 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

If we can get the blocking, that’s a good look. That’s the key. If.

This is actually somewhat (tempered) good news.  If we get an unfavorable Pacific but with a -NAO that would mean that warm surge of Pac air would stay confined to the Plains and Midwest?  So in the Northeast we could still hold onto air cold enough for it to snow.  Basically the favorable Pacific and unfavorable Atlantic would be trading places lol.  

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

I see the coldest temps are forecast for Friday now?  Maybe near or just below 0?  Either way looks like we start to warm up just after the weekend.  We go into a zonal flow and Pacific air rushes across the CONUS.

The ensembles have our next Arctic shot on the 30th-1st. But like the last one, we get a quick moderation in temperatures a few days later. The MJO keeps interfering with the El Niño. So we continue with theses non-canonical hybrid type patterns.

 

[LibertyBell]

3 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The ensembles have our next Arctic shot on the 31st-1st. But like the last one, we get a quick moderation in temperatures a few days later. The MJO keeps interfering with the El Niño. So we continue with theses non-canonical hybrid type patterns.

 

Ugh Chris, what about that possible - NAO, would that mute the warm up and keep us in the 30s at least?  So we'd be trading in a favorable Pacific for a favorable Atlantic?  And what about that Arctic Blue showing up in the last panel over the Northern Plains?  Is that headed our way after that?

 

 

[bluewave]

10 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Ugh Chris, what about that possible - NAO, would that mute the warm up and keep us in the 30s at least?  So we'd be trading in a favorable Pacific for a favorable Atlantic?  And what about that Arctic Blue showing up in the last panel over the Northern Plains?  Is that headed our way after that?

 

 

The MJO 6-7 forcing is stretching the El Niño forcing just east of the Date Line back toward the Western Pacific. So we get all these overlapping teleconnection factors and big temperature swings. This is creating a non-canonical forcing pattern for El Niño.

 

[LibertyBell]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The MJO 6-7 forcing is stretching the El Niño forcing just east of the Date Line back toward the Western Pacific. So we get all these overlapping teleconnection factors and big temperature swings. This is creating a non-canonical forcing pattern for El Niño.

 

Ironic that we have this unusual pattern so stable that it keeps feeding back and repeating.  It must be a very stable pattern that's difficult to displace.  We might even go back to cold and dry interrupted by storms with temp spikes come mid February lol.

[MJO812]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

It (EPS) actually starts to get really bad around day 8 but yea the pattern turns into a disaster in the 1st week of February. GEFS and GEPS also show this. At that point we are less than 4 weeks away from met spring. I have serious doubts as to whether we ever go into a sustained cold and snow pattern before winter’s end now

You always have doubts every winter. Your trolling gets old.

[snowman19]

Just now, Snow88 said:

You always have doubts every winter. Your trolling gets old.

This isn’t trolling. Do you not read? I was calling a pattern change to cold and snowy after mid January back in December and early this month. Remember all my posts? All you ever do is hype cold and snow every winter. You’ve literally been calling for cold and snow non stop since mid November after that one snowstorm we’ve had all winter. What has happened? The city has yet to see one inch of snow since then and every month has been above normal for temps 

[snowman19]

18 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The MJO 6-7 forcing is stretching the El Niño forcing just east of the Date Line back toward the Western Pacific. So we get all these overlapping teleconnection factors and big temperature swings. This is creating a non-canonical forcing pattern for El Niño.

 

That’s the problem, right there. All the tropical convective forcing is well west of the dateline, around Australia. There has been an explosion of tropical storm activity around/north of Australia recently. All that convective, latent heat release into the upper troposphere helps to really strengthen and push the west Pacific High poleward. A strong poleward west Pacific High promotes the pattern the long range ensembles are showing. Look at the SSTs out that way, they are on fire, helping the positive feedback process and latent heat release 

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

That’s the problem, right there. All the tropical convective forcing is well west of the dateline, around Australia. There has been an explosion of tropical storm activity around/north of Australia recently. All that convective, latent heat release into the upper troposphere helps to really strengthen and push the west Pacific High poleward. A strong poleward west Pacific High promotes the pattern the long range ensembles are showing 

The record MJO activity in recent years with all the SST warming in the Central/Western Pacific is becoming a new wild card. Very hard to issue a successful seasonal forecast in the fall when the MJO is creating these non-canonical ENSO responses.

[snowman19]

20 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The record MJO activity in recent years with all the SST warming in the Western Pacific is becoming a new wild card. Very hard to issue a successful seasonal forecast in the fall when the MJO is creating these non-canonical ENSO responses.

Yep the SSTS are on fire out that way, sustaining the positive feedback process and beefing up the latent and sensible heat releases through strong convection and evaporation 

[LibertyBell]

24 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The record MJO activity in recent years with all the SST warming in the Western Pacific is becoming a new wild card. Very hard to issue a successful seasonal forecast in the fall when the MJO is creating these non-canonical ENSO responses.

and here we thought that higher SST in the Pacific were a good thing because that meant a stronger el nino.  Looks like climate change is rearing its head again and creating a new pattern- we are in uncharted waters (quite literally!)

 

[nycwinter]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

That’s the problem, right there. All the tropical convective forcing is well west of the dateline, around Australia. There has been an explosion of tropical storm activity around/north of Australia recently. All that convective, latent heat release into the upper troposphere helps to really strengthen and push the west Pacific High poleward. A strong poleward west Pacific High promotes the pattern the long range ensembles are showing. Look at the SSTs out that way, they are on fire, helping the positive feedback process and latent heat release 

it's summertime in australia so of course the sst are going to be very warm....