Is next winter looking like a disaster?

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

How quickly we forget when the seasonals nailed the la nina pattern a couple years back.

My basic philosophy anymore is if the seasonals are predicting a crap winter then odds are strongly in their favor. A good winter then odds are strongly against. 

Yep. Pretty safe bet.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

How quickly we forget when the seasonals nailed the la nina pattern a couple years back.

My basic philosophy anymore is if the seasonals are predicting a crap winter then odds are strongly in their favor. A good winter then odds are strongly against. 

So in said philosophy...would anything ever signal a good winter? Lol

[EastCoast NPZ]

4 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So in said philosophy...would anything ever signal a good winter? Lol

Pigs flying, or hell freezing over come to mind.

[Maestrobjwa]

Like I said before...would we not save a lot of angst if we simply predicted based on ENSO alone? I mean we could just use our history, right? (I mean, La Niña was a good winter good one time in 100+ years, correct?) So, essentially:

La Niña in any form: Lock your shovels away. Go to northeast or to the beaches for snow.

Weak El Niño--Average snow...nothing TOO spectacular, but nice scenery snow (10-18" for the cities like last year?)

Moderate Niño--Get your shovels ready. Only one in the bunch where above average is actually a better bet

Strong Niño--Either one big blizzard or nothing at all

Neutral--The only category that really has 50/50 odds...sometimes we score, sometimes we don't.

 

If we follow history, we can pretty much expect things to either pan out more often or not, right? While I have nowhere near the years following our winters some of you have, we have had just about every state in the last 10 years!

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Like I said before...we would we not save a lot of angst if we simply predicted based on ENSO alone? I mean we could just use our history, right? (I mean, La Niña was a good winter good one time in 100+ years, correct?) So, essentially:

La Niña in any form: Lock your shovels away. Go to northeast or to the beaches for snow.

Weak El Niño--Average snow...nothing to spectacular, but nice scenery snow (10-18" for the cities like last year?)

Moderate Niño--Get your shovels ready. Only one in the bunch where above average is actually a better bet

Strong Niño--Either one big blizzard or nothing at all

Neutral--The only category that really has 50/50 odds...sometimes we score, sometimes we don't.

 

If we follow history, we can pretty much expect things to either pan out more often or not, right? While I have nowhere near the years following our winters some of you have, we have had just about every state in the last 10 years!

Not bad.

At this point, the winter looks to be a la Nada, er neutral. I will take it. Even if it ends up cold neutral, or a weak Nina, my area can do okay. Can hardly do worse than last winter here, Anything but a moderate/strong Nina, which seems pretty unlikely at this juncture. Hopefully the QBO combined with the solar min will tilt things in our favor in the HL region. If we end up weak Nina the tendency for NS dominance will likely be the biggest challenge,

[showmethesnow]

8 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

 

La Niña in any form: Lock your shovels away. Go to northeast or to the beaches for snow. 

Know they are rough but I thought Nina's were more like 1 out of 5/1 out of 6 that reached around avg to above avg snowfall around the dc/Baltimore corridor? Majority of them being of the weak nina state.

Our last nina a couple of years ago I think most attained around avg snowfall with some exceptions of course. And if we had had a semblance of a negative Nao it would have been a somewhat notable winter as the coastal scrappers would have been adjusted westward. 

Don't get me wrong though, I would much rather see a neutral to a nino enso every winter. 

[Rhino16]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Know they are rough but I thought Nina's were more like 1 out of 5/1 out of 6 that reached around avg to above avg snowfall around the dc/Baltimore corridor? Majority of them being of the weak nina state.

Our last nina a couple of years ago I think most attained around avg snowfall with some exceptions of course. And if we had had a semblance of a negative Nao it would have been a somewhat notable winter as the coastal scrappers would have been adjusted westward. 

Don't get me wrong though, I would much rather see a neutral to a nino enso every winter. 

As long as it isn’t like this past winter... please no!

[showmethesnow]

18 hours ago, frd said:

 

This last day of July initial release may be totally fine, but recently the CanSIPS has been having some issues as alluded to by Ventrice 

 

 

Was there mention of what the issues were? Curious as to whether it was in relation to the height anomalies, which seemed crazy, or whether it was in relation to the long wave pattern which actually looked pretty good. Or actually both for that matter. 

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Was there mention of what the issues were? Curious as to whether it was in relation to the height anomalies, which seemed crazy, or whether it was in relation to the long wave pattern which actually looked pretty good. Or actually both for that matter. 

I don't recall the shaded height anomalies having that jaggy/rippled look before, but then I don't often look at this model. Usually the LR/climate models are overly smoothed. Not sure if this is an indication of the "issue" its having. Fwiw, the 2m temp anomalies are a pretty good match to what is being advertised at h5. Colder east for all of winter.

[CAPE]

Just for fun and fwiw-

Latest CFS runs aren't bad, as long as you look more at the height lines and don't get hung up on the anomalies too much. Suggestive of an intact PV for the first half of winter, then some displacement with cold dumping into much of Canada, especially SE portion. Looks like a combo of PV perturbation/cross polar flow. Feb would be pretty interesting.

Overall the HL look is not great, probably neutral to +AO/NAO, but the E/N PAC looks pretty good throughout.

[showmethesnow]

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

I don't recall the shaded height anomalies having that jaggy/rippled look before, but then I don't often look at this model. Usually the LR/climate models are overly smoothed. Not sure if this is an indication of the "issue" its having. Fwiw, the 2m temp anomalies are a pretty good match to what is being advertised at h5. Colder east for all of winter.

Looked at the temp anoms as well. Besides the temps jiving with the long wave pattern through the CONUS it also matched well with the higher heights in the upper latitudes which are scorching. 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

Arctic ice melt has me concerned, unless we have some sort of consciousness awakening it's probably going to be an anti-climatic Winter. 

[frd]

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

Just for fun and fwiw-

Latest CFS runs aren't bad, as long as you look more at the height lines and don't get hung up on the anomalies too much. Suggestive of an intact PV for the first half of winter, then some displacement with cold dumping into much of Canada, especially SE portion. Looks like a combo of PV perturbation/cross polar flow. Feb would be pretty interesting.

Overall the HL look is not great, probably neutral to +AO/NAO, but the E/N PAC looks pretty good throughout.

As you know, we can live here with a good Pac and a not so good Atlantic. The very best Pac patterns can really produce for us here and be cold as well. 

The pattern over the NW North America and the PAc seems to have increaed the SSTs in the PDO region. We allknow better then to assume that will last. 

Even a stout + PDO in Novermber can be reversed quickly with the right weather pattern over the NE Pac.

[frd]

2 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Was there mention of what the issues were? Curious as to whether it was in relation to the height anomalies, which seemed crazy, or whether it was in relation to the long wave pattern which actually looked pretty good. Or actually both for that matter. 

I will look into it @showmethesnowand let you know if I find a good answer. 

[WEATHER53]

Not a disaster 

[frd]

Euro seasonals are trash but OK ........  still waiting on cold and snow....... sorry Maue I disagree on any value from these forecasts 

 

[Maestrobjwa]

Well, we can wish, right? Lol Now does anyone have any stats on winters that come during the actual minimum? (Although I know the exact deepest point of each minimum is a bit tricky to pinpoint)

[frd]

11 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Well, we can wish, right? Lol Now does anyone have any stats on winters that come during the actual minimum? (Although I know the exact deepest point of each minimum is a bit tricky to pinpoint)

 

I read from a decent science based site that the min can occur anywhere from July 2019 to March 2020. Not sure the QBO will be in the same phase as late 09 and 10. I think that period was East and this year may be West?  A lot to consider, not just one element,  but still very fascinating to see what happens as we enter the Fall. 

 

[Newman]

1 hour ago, frd said:

 

I read from a decent science based site that the min can occur anywhere from July 2019 to March 2020. Not sure the QBO will be in the same phase as late 09 and 10. I think that period was East and this year may be West?  A lot to consider, not just one element,  but still very fascinating to see what happens as we enter the Fall. 

 

Correct going into 09-10 the QBO was in a rather strong easterly regime which bodes well for the high latitude regions. This year we will likely be transitioning from westerly to easterly. I saw a tweet that said the most probable and similar QBO analog year is 1995-96. Keep in mind last year's QBO transitioned easterly to westerly, this year will be the opposite.

 

[Eskimo Joe]

We won't even have the NAM or SREFs to cling to anymore.  #EPIC

https://owaq.noaa.gov/Programs/EPIC

[JakkelWx]

1 hour ago, Newman said:

Correct going into 09-10 the QBO was in a rather strong easterly regime which bodes well for the high latitude regions. This year we will likely be transitioning from westerly to easterly. I saw a tweet that said the most probable and similar QBO analog year is 1995-96. Keep in mind last year's QBO transitioned easterly to westerly, this year will be the opposite.

 

So we can bet on fall lasting through winter? #whatwinter2019-20

[yoda]

2 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

We won't even have the NAM or SREFs to cling to anymore.  #EPIC

https://owaq.noaa.gov/Programs/EPIC

I like the UFS

[frd]

6 hours ago, Newman said:

Correct going into 09-10 the QBO was in a rather strong easterly regime which bodes well for the high latitude regions. This year we will likely be transitioning from westerly to easterly. I saw a tweet that said the most probable and similar QBO analog year is 1995-96. Keep in mind last year's QBO transitioned easterly to westerly, this year will be the opposite.

 

Hmm, well the Pac state was interesting that Fall and Winter ,  and certainly the QBO was not an issue when the winter produced some noteworthy snowfalls. I recall several surprise snowfalls as well along the coastal plain. ( near the beaches of Ocean City, MD. and Fenwick , DE for example.  

It just wanted to snow that winter. Whether the Pacific base state combined with the low solar background and worked in tandem, not sure. 

 

Now as to the 1995 hurrican season and using that as a analog way too early to say, as 1995 was an active year.base chage with the NAo 

You have to ponder whether we are entering a base state change regarding the NAO, if so, it  could be interesting if it persists into the winter.  

 

1995 Atlantic hurricane season - Wikipedia

 

 

The Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1, and activity in 1995 began on the next day with the formation of Hurricane Allison on June 2. It was a well-above average season in which 21 tropical depressions formed, 19 of which attained tropical storm status, and 11 of these attained hurricanestatus.

 

A quick look at the winter of 1995-96

 Winter 1995/96

The 1995/96 winter (DJF) season featured abnormally cold and snowy conditions in the northern plains, the eastern half of the Midwest, the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, and much of Canada. For the season as whole, temperatures averaged 3°-5^oC below normal across western and central Canada, and 1°-2^oC below normal across the northern tier of the United States and throughout the eastern seaboard from Florida to New England (see section 5, Fig. 59a ). In the East, these conditions contrasted with the abnormally warm temperatures and low snowfall totals (less than 25% of normal) observed during the 1994/95 winter.

One prominent aspect of the 1995/96 winter season was a recurring pattern of enhanced northwesterly flow, which extended from northern Alaska and the Bering Sea to southeastern Canada and the north-central United States. This flow brought a series of major winter storms and severe winter outbreaks to the northern and eastern United States, resulting in record-breaking cold and snowfall totals in many regions. The season also featured considerable variability over large portions of the United States and Canada, with periods of extreme cold and snow followed by brief periods of warmth and rain.

 

 

 

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

The Winter NAO index per Atlantic SSTs is pretty ridulously negative, like -1.2~3 NAO (DJFM) on this day. 

[Eskimo Joe]

RIP, winter 2019 - 2020

 

[Maestrobjwa]

22 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

RIP, winter 2019 - 2020

 

Dude we had weak El Niño last year and it didn't quite work...I argue that a neutral may give us a better shot at something than we had last year (neutrals are literally 50/50 for snow) I'd even venture to say we have more above average neutrals than weak Niños...but that's just a guess.

[CAPE]

6 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Dude we had weak El Niño last year and it didn't quite work...I argue that a neutral may give us a better shot at something than we had last year (neutrals are literally 50/50 for snow) I'd even venture to say we have more above average neutrals than weak Niños...but that's just a guess.

I will gladly roll the dice with a neutral ENSO, even a weak Nina. Be hard pressed to match the failure of last winter in my yard.

[Maestrobjwa]

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

I will gladly roll the dice with a neutral ENSO, even a weak Nina. Be hard pressed to match the failure of last winter in my yard.

What was your season total?

[psuhoffman]

There are some good, some ambiguous, and some not good signals att. Certainly doesn’t look doomed. 

[poolz1]

If we have some semblance of the SSTs posted above leading into late fall I would have a pretty good feeling....regardless of the technical enso classification.

IMO, the one thing that really faked us out last winter (and all the climate models) was the SOI and MJO. The lack of response by the atmosphere to the SST was very frustrating. I recall reading late in the winter that things had finally coupled but by then it was too late. Looking at the image above it looks like trop forcing would be biased in the areas we want.

Long way to go and sst can warm/cool pretty dramatically over the next 3/4 months.