January 2020 General Discussions & Observations Thread

[FPizz]

3 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Next weekend could be record breaking. Today's Euro indicates 60s possible, insane 850mb anomalies.

LA might be colder than us.

Does that come with rain, or is it dry, haven't had time to look

[Allsnow]

18 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Even though the SE ridge didn’t show up In the means into early December, the cutter and hugger storm tracks would briefly kick it up. So in effect, we had a transient SE ridge for our storms. That’s how Albany had 27.9 inches of snow in December to only 2.5 in NYC.

Yep. That second storm in December with the transient 50/50 dug a bit to much out west and kicked up the ridge. Most of the area was between 32-34 with rain. 

[bluewave]

18 minutes ago, PB-99 said:

 

Well I am S of NYC and I got 6 in December and so did PSV who is E of NYC and both of those #s were AN.  That retrograding Scan ridge helped allow the heights to get pushed on.

Look at the mean 500 for those 5 weeks , there`s a trough in the east in the means. 

NYC only averages 4.8 inches in Dec, early climo goes against big snows unless there`s real blocking.

You didn`t have a SE ridge as Nov ended - 3.8 and through Dec 20 KNYC was - 2.7 

The ridge really appeared at the back end of Dec as the MJO entered the COD and on into p6.

 

The ridge over the East emerged strong enough to dominate in the monthly means. Same old pattern with the Niña-like ridge axis stuck north of Hawaii. That’s what caused such low snowfall last DJF even with the colder January intervals. So the cutter and hugger storm tracks won out.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allsnow]

11 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Next weekend could be record breaking. Today's Euro indicates 60s possible, insane 850mb anomalies.

LA might be colder than us.

Next weekend has a chance to be real nice before any rain. Friday through Sunday 

[PB-99]

Just now, bluewave said:

It emerged strong enough to dominate in the monthly means. Same old pattern with the Niña-like ridge axis stuck north of Hawaii. That’s what caused such low snowfall last winter even with the colder January intervals. So the cutter and hugger storm track ends up dominating. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from above.

" You didn`t have a SE ridge as Nov ended - 3.8 and through Dec 22 KNYC was - 2.7 " 

 

The 1st 20 days are below , please don`t add in the last 10 days to make your argument when I specifically said the 1st 22 days.

 

There was no SE ridge early on. 

 

The back 10 days were well forecast , expected and spoken about. 

 

 

 

 

[Brian5671]

3 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

 

crazy gradient there...Jesus-looks like an April Back door front, interesting if the gradient can slip south a bit...maybe some chances for mix precip or snow in an awful pattern

[PB-99]

We have been in a POS TNH for 2 years.  What was posted was the period from Nov 1- Dec 20 when you rotated through all the cold phases early on.

 

So now if you do that again in Feb you will get the same response IMO.  

[bluewave]

5 minutes ago, PB-99 said:

from above.

" You didn`t have a SE ridge as Nov ended - 3.8 and through Dec 22 KNYC was - 2.7 " 

 

The 1st 20 days are below , please don`t add in the last 10 days to make your argument when I specifically said the 1st 22 days.

 

There was no SE ridge early on. 

 

The back 10 days were well forecast , expected and spoken about. 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a transient SE ridge early on in December  which showed up ahead of the cutters and hugger storm tracks. The cold would come in behind the storms. November and March have been our few months to feature below normal temperatures and a suppressed SE ridge.

[FPizz]

3 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Next weekend has a chance to be real nice before any rain. Friday through Sunday 

Upper 30s possible in NNJ to maybe 70 in SNJ.  Crazy.  If it is dry, bring it.  Wouldn't mind smoking some ribs and maybe drinking one the summer beers that are in the back of the beer fridge. 

[PB-99]

7 minutes ago, bluewave said:

There was a transient SE ridge early on in December  which showed up ahead of the cutters and hugger storm tracks. The cold would come in behind the storms. November and March have been our few months to feature below normal temperatures and a suppressed SE ridge.

 

Chris, 15 of the 1st 21 days of Dec were BN @ KNYC.

 

You got a SE ridge on the 9/10  as one cut and another warm up 13/14. There were 3 small snow events because of the trough in the means.

 

You are talking about the 9th`s event which was 1 event and not indicative of the month or what was prevalent for the 1st 21 days. 

 

 

[Allsnow]

Next Friday will probably be ridiculously warm for early January 

[PB-99]

Dec 21 2013 71 

Feb 21 2018 78 

Both of those years turned around, let`s hope that we hit 70 next weekend. 

[bluewave]

On 1/2/2020 at 12:12 PM, Isotherm said:

 

 

I am uncertain whether I ever recall seeing such an expansive (or any) area of 32C coverage in that part of the world. These are 90 degree F water temperatures to the north of Australia. For such an anomaly in the deep tropics, it yields a significant impact on the energy budget as you know, and concordantly, it isn't surprising to see the modeled high amplitude in phases 4/5 of the MJO. This is akin to throwing gasoline on the proverbial fire. Ambient SST's of 32C/90F are very impressive. This will further serve to enhance the MJO in its unfavorable [from E US perspective] octants.

 

 

These were the warmest December SST’s recorded in the area north of Australia. Also very close to the all-time highest SST’s for that region.

[snowman19]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Even though the SE ridge didn’t show up In the means into early December, the cutter and hugger storm tracks would briefly kick it up. So in effect, we had a transient SE ridge for our storms. That’s how Albany had 27.9 inches of snow in December to only 2.5 in NYC.

Bluewave, Out of curiosity, which other winters (12/1-now) in NYC had the same or close to the same amount of snow to this point and how did those winters turn out? Snowfall wise?

[tek1972]

crazy gradient there...Jesus-looks like an April Back door front, interesting if the gradient can slip south a bit...maybe some chances for mix precip or snow in an awful pattern

Looks like a fog setup

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

[Isotherm]

22 hours ago, Allsnow said:

Good post by @bluewave regarding the warm waters by Australia. I tend to think it might want to linger in P5 because the mjo is convection and loves warm waters. One of the reasons why we spent most of December in P2 was the warm waters creating a standing wave. 
 

 

I believe what happens with this mjo wave will hold the fate for what happens at the end of January into February. The roundy plots and vp maps  have this entering p7 by the 20th. 

@tombo82685 stated to me that the jma keeps this in p5 to the start of January and the CFS gets it into p8. Definitely the reason for their differences regarding the rest of this winter. 

 

The MJO will certainly be an integral aspect of the entire momentum budget. As I noted pre-season, there were many variables likely to be fundamentally unfavorable for most of the season. Some of those background indicators should improve late-winter [e.g., the QBO]; however, the amelioration in the pattern may only be into a fair/mediocre one [though this would be improved versus the Dec-Jan mean pattern]. Many (not all) of the analogs I examined pre-season would tend to indicate a MJO circuit through 5-6-7, with diminution in 7+ beyond. As an aside, sometimes the background state overwhelms even a favorable MJO circuit. For example, last winter, we did have a 8-1-2 passage late winter, which improved the pattern, but not significantly so. The momentum transports have been unpropitious this winter, and we would need a quite significant vicissitude in that. All said, late winter should *improve* versus Dec-Jan as I've said.

 

 

 

 

 

[Isotherm]

15 minutes ago, bluewave said:

These were the warmest December SST’s recorded in the area north of Australia. Also very close to the all-time highest SST’s for that region.

 

 

Thanks for that data; it certainly confirms our suspicions. That additional energy inputted into the budget across the tropical domain will certainly serve to decelerate and amplify the intraseasonal-MJO signal as it propagates ewd.

 

 

[Allsnow]

31 minutes ago, Isotherm said:

 

The MJO will certainly be an integral aspect of the entire momentum budget. As I noted pre-season, there were many variables likely to be fundamentally unfavorable for most of the season. Some of those background indicators should improve late-winter [e.g., the QBO]; however, the amelioration in the pattern may only be into a fair/mediocre one [though this would be improved versus the Dec-Jan mean pattern]. Many (not all) of the analogs I examined pre-season would tend to indicate a MJO circuit through 5-6-7, with diminution in 7+ beyond. As an aside, sometimes the background state overwhelms even a favorable MJO circuit. For example, last winter, we did have a 8-1-2 passage late winter, which improved the pattern, but not significantly so. The momentum transports have been unpropitious this winter, and we would need a quite significant vicissitude in that. All said, late winter should *improve* versus Dec-Jan as I've said.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah. The atmosphere was more Niña like and ENSO was Niño during 2019.  We really never got a true nino response in that 8-1-2 pass during February. I definitely agree that the mjo wave could go 7-cod at the end of the month. We should improve the pattern to a more of a overrunning look later in the month. As you said in your outlook, the pac isn’t going to play ball this winter. The PDO killed any hope of that. 
 

I still don’t see any strat help in the near future. Do you think it starts taking punches in February? The Scandinavian block developing might be a sign of a -nao coming in February. 

[Allsnow]

 

[Isotherm]

11 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Yeah. The atmosphere was more Niña like and ENSO was Niño during 2019.  We really never got a true nino response in that 8-1-2 pass during February. I definitely agree that the mjo wave could go 7-cod at the end of the month. We should improve the pattern to a more of a overrunning look later in the month. As you said in your outlook, the pac isn’t going to play ball this winter. The IOD killed any hope of that. 
 

I still don’t see any strat help in the near future. Do you think it starts taking punches in February? The Scandinavian block developing might be a sign of a -nao coming in February. 

 

I think wave-2 activity will increase later this month, but whether it's sufficient to induce a technical SSW is indeterminate. Probability is lower than normal this season, in my view, for one to occur. However, regardless of what happens with the stratosphere, Feb-Mar had/have the highest potential (compared to Dec-Jan) for some improvements in the Atlantic-Arctic domain. 

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, Isotherm said:

 

The MJO will certainly be an integral aspect of the entire momentum budget. As I noted pre-season, there were many variables likely to be fundamentally unfavorable for most of the season. Some of those background indicators should improve late-winter [e.g., the QBO]; however, the amelioration in the pattern may only be into a fair/mediocre one [though this would be improved versus the Dec-Jan mean pattern]. Many (not all) of the analogs I examined pre-season would tend to indicate a MJO circuit through 5-6-7, with diminution in 7+ beyond. As an aside, sometimes the background state overwhelms even a favorable MJO circuit. For example, last winter, we did have a 8-1-2 passage late winter, which improved the pattern, but not significantly so. The momentum transports have been unpropitious this winter, and we would need a quite significant vicissitude in that. All said, late winter should *improve* versus Dec-Jan as I've said.

Great post. That background state last February was probably related to the warm pool west of the date line. So even though the RMM charts went though phases 6-1, the actual VP anomalies indicated primary forcing between phase 6-7 regions. Almost like a MJO 6.5.

 

 

[Allsnow]

9 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Great post. That background state last February was probably related to the warm pool west of the date line. So even though the RMM charts went though phase 6-1, the actual VP anomalies indicated primary forcing between the phase 6-7 regions.

 

 

Yeah, the base state was Niña so we got that response in February. -pna with troughs diving into the west coast. 

[Allsnow]

1 hour ago, Isotherm said:

 

I think wave-2 activity will increase later this month, but whether it's sufficient to induce a technical SSW is indeterminate. Probability is lower than normal this season, in my view, for one to occur. However, regardless of what happens with the stratosphere, Feb-Mar had/have the highest potential (compared to Dec-Jan) for some improvements in the Atlantic-Arctic domain. 

@tombo82685 stated, the wave 2 activity usually is a good indicator for cold shots. It worked very well in 2014. 

[White Gorilla]

Could someone explain how mountain torque enters the MJO equation if at all... just for my education? 

[bluewave]

36 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Yeah, the base state was Niña so we got that response in February. -pna with troughs diving into the west coast. 

We got lucky in March when the strong -EPO disrupted the unfavorable pattern. But there was enough of a lingering influence so the best snows were NYC-LI North Shore, and CT. I only got about 4” here on the South Shore last March.
 

 

[donsutherland1]

Temperatures continued to run above normal in the region. In the Southeast, record high temperatures were tied and toppled. Select records there included:

Jacksonville: 85° (tied January record set on January 30, 2013); Pensacola: 79°; Savannah: 80°; and, Wilmington, NC: 77° (tied daily record).

Some of this warmth will push northward for a day tomorrow. Readings could soar into the middle and even upper 60s in such cities as Baltimore and Washington and into the middle 50s into southern New England.

The first week of the month remains on track to average 5° or more above normal across much of the region. New York City will likely have a mean temperature of 40° or above. Since 1869, there were 23 cases when the first week of January had a mean temperature of 40° or above in New York City. In 17 (74%), January wound up warmer than normal and in 12 (52%), January had a mean temperature of 35° or above. The average monthly temperature for January for all 23 cases was 36.0° (median temperature: 35.6°).

A short-duration cold shot is possible after the first week of January. A small window of opportunity for at least some snowfall in the region and especially across central/upstate New York and New England could exist until around January 10.

Based on the forecast strongly positive AO, the probability of a significant (6" or greater snowstorm) for the major cities of the Middle Atlantic region during the first 10 days of January is low. Since 1950, the biggest snowfall for that region when the AO was +2.000 or above during the January 1-15 period occurred during January 14-15, 1954 when Philadelphia received 3.0" snow and New York City picked up 2.0". Boston has had numerous 6" or greater snowstorms during such cases, including one 10" or greater snowstorm. Therefore, the risk of significant snow would likely be greatest over New England assuming this relationship holds (no significant offsetting variables). Such a scenario does not preclude the possibility of a light snow event across parts of the region during this timeframe, particularly during the January 5-9 period.

Afterward, a tendency for ridging with warmer than normal temperatures prevailing will very likely develop during the latter part of the second week of the month and persist through at least mid-month. Afterward, the progression of the MJO and state of the teleconnections will determine the pattern evolution for the second half of the month.

Right now, there is strong consensus between the EPS and GEFS that the PNA will remain negative to strongly negative past mid-month. That typically translates in warm anomalies in the Middle Atlantic region. For the January 16-31, 1981-2019 period, the mean temperature for New York City and Philadelphia was 32.2° and 32.1° respectively. When the PNA was negative, those values were 34.2° and 34.1° respectively. The coldest mean temperatures for PNA- periods occurred when the EPO and AO were both negative. The warmest occurred when the EPO and AO were both positive.

The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +0.3°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +0.4°C for the week centered around December 25. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +0.27°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +0.48°C. The remainder of winter 2019-2020 will likely feature neutral-warm to weak El Niño conditions.

The SOI was -7.34 today.

Today, the preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) figure was +2.949.

No significant stratospheric warming event appears likely through January 12, several periods of warming appear likely to develop in the upper stratosphere and approach or reach 5 mb over the next 10 days. Wave 2 activity will remain relatively muted following the first week of the month. Overall, most of the stratosphere is forecast to remain cold on the EPS.

On January 2, the MJO was in Phase 8 at an amplitude of 0.516 (RMM). The January 1-adjusted amplitude was 0.558.

[Allsnow]

52 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We got lucky in March when the strong -EPO disrupted the unfavorable pattern. But there was enough of a lingering influence so the best snows were NYC-LI North Shore, and CT. I only got about 4” here on the South Shore last March.
 

 

Yeah, the -epo was the only thing favorable on that map. I got more then half my seasonal snowfall that weekend. Unfortunately, the mid level warmth came in quicker then forecast(as always) for that Sunday night event. It quickly turned the snow to rain on the coast. 

[donsutherland1]

New Research: AMO, PDO Appear not to Exist...

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) do not appear to exist, according to a team of meteorologists who believe this has implications for both the validity of previous studies attributing past trends to these hypothetical natural oscillations and for the prospects of decade-scale climate predictability.

Using both observational data and climate model simulations, the researchers showed that there was no consistent evidence for decadal or longer-term internal oscillatory signals that could be differentiated from climatic noise—random year to year variation. The only verifiable oscillation is the well-known El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

"A distinct—40 to 50 year timescale—spectral peak that appears in global surface temperature observations appears to reflect the response of the climate system to a combination of anthropogenic and natural forcing rather than any intrinsic internal oscillation," the researchers report today (Jan. 3) in Nature Communications.

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-pacific-oscillations-lost-noise.html

The paper can be found at:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13823-w

[Isotherm]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Great post. That background state last February was probably related to the warm pool west of the date line. So even though the RMM charts went though phases 6-1, the actual VP anomalies indicated primary forcing between phase 6-7 regions. Almost like a MJO 6.5.

 

 

 

Thanks, Chris. In addition to that warm pool to which you describe, another issue, IMO, was the transport of momentum generally south of the equator w/ that intraseasonal MJO passage last February. Note the z850 zonal wind anomalies; most of which were directed south of the equator [circa 5-S latitude], so we didn't benefit as much in the northern hemisphere.

 

1 hour ago, Allsnow said:

Yeah, the -epo was the only thing favorable on that map. I got more then half my seasonal snowfall that weekend. Unfortunately, the mid level warmth came in quicker then forecast(as always) for that Sunday night event. It quickly turned the snow to rain on the coast. 

 

Indeed - My total snowfall after February 15th last winter was 6.9", while the entire Dec 1-Feb 14th period featured 2.8". Certainly an improvement - though not to a very favorable regime - but better than nothing. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this season evolves.

[CIK62]

Eke!     The nothing cold of Jan 7,8,9 looks better than the drop at the end of run: