Winter 2020-2021

[Typhoon Tip]

Whatever happens ... high probability it happens in a relentlessly screaming rage of jet velocities ...

[Torch Tiger]

already hype analogs being tossed around. Lol

[powderfreak]

On 6/16/2020 at 6:14 PM, 512high said:

Well Scott, Your last sentence has me thinking, Last year I think December 1-2 dumped a lot in Nashua, then, well we all know how the rest of winter played out. I hope all is well with all members and their families, never too early to think about winter!

That was a high-end event in some spot.  My folks and childhood home near ALB got crushed.  I know it was a more narrow swath from NE Mass/S NH westward through eastern NY and the Catskills, but this type of snowstorm in the Hudson Valley in the first couple days of December is solid.  The grill is just totally gone.

It does suck that it is remembered by those areas not as a huge storm, but it'll be overshadowed by the poor winter that followed.  When you get that type of snowfall to start December, you dream of gold I'm sure.  Big starts are fun, but can lead to disappointment?

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

That was a high-end event in some spot.  My folks and childhood home near ALB got crushed.  I know it was a more narrow swath from NE Mass/S NH westward through eastern NY and the Catskills, but this type of snowstorm in the Hudson Valley in the first couple days of December is solid.  The grill is just totally gone.

It does suck that it is remembered by those areas not as a huge storm, but it'll be overshadowed by the poor winter that followed.  When you get that type of snowfall to start December, you dream of gold I'm sure.  Big starts are fun, but can lead to disappointment?

I had 27” for the month of December and 17” in that storm. 

It is almost impossible to have a turd winter when that happens....but we found a way. There is no other winter like it in the analogs. Closest I can think of is 1996-1997 but erase the 3/31-4/1/97 storm...that year had the epic early December including the Cantore thundersnow event and then laid a total turd until the end when we got the big one.  This year was similar but we didn’t get the big finish...those we did get a lot of little (to occasionally moderate) late season snowfalls. 

[powderfreak]

11 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I had 27” for the month of December and 17” in that storm. 

It is almost impossible to have a turd winter when that happens....but we found a way. There is no other winter like it in the analogs. Closest I can think of is 1996-1997 but erase the 3/31-4/1/97 storm...that year had the epic early December including the Cantore thundersnow event and then laid a total turd until the end when we got the big one.  This year was similar but we didn’t get the big finish...those we did get a lot of little (to occasionally moderate) late season snowfalls. 

Yes!  That's just what I was thinking... I mean you pop a big one to lead off the winter, you expect to be well on your way to a memorable winter total.

I mean what a crush job... the swath of 18"+.  It was 22-25.7" for reports in my childhood town/Delmar to the immediate SW of ALB.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Looks like either cool neutral of weak la nina incoming....I wouldn't assume a mild winter yet at this point.

 

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2020/07/la-nina-wach-in-effect-for-winter-2020.html

[DavisStraight]

19 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Looks like either cool neutral of weak la nina incoming....I wouldn't assume a mild winter yet at this point.

 

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2020/07/la-nina-wach-in-effect-for-winter-2020.html

Looking forward to your thoughts on the upcoming winter, hope its better than last winter.

[PowderBeard]

On 7/12/2020 at 10:24 PM, powderfreak said:

Yes!  That's just what I was thinking... I mean you pop a big one to lead off the winter, you expect to be well on your way to a memorable winter total.

I mean what a crush job... the swath of 18"+.  It was 22-25.7" for reports in my childhood town/Delmar to the immediate SW of ALB.

I couldn't complain about last winter after that storm. 26" total here and a 3-4" forecast turned into almost 16" on the night of the 2nd. I will never forget waking up at 4am and turning those porch lights on. 

Since I will likely be remote all winter and home with the baby I fully expect this winter to be cold and snowy so have double the amount of firewood ready compared to last year. 

[NorEastermass128]

I pulled off a lousy 5” of glop in that early Dec storm last winter. We never turned over to snow until the tail end. 

[CoastalWx]

That was a fun storm despite the mess in the middle. Sure it could have been more, but not common to have WSW amounts that early in the season. 

[weatherwiz]

I just wonder how much of a signal or how much of a factor ENSO just plays anymore (obviously in a strong or super-strong event it's going to heavily influence the global configuration) but it just seems the correlations with ENSO just aren't that strong anymore. Now perhaps what could be happening is as the data set continues to expand and we're seeing more variations within the same type of signal regime but ENSO events of late don't seem to be behaving like similar ENSO events of the past. 

ENSO gets a significant chunk of attention when it comes to seasonal forecasting (especially for the northern hemisphere winter) but I seriously wonder if the main driver is the stratosphere and the stratosphere-troposphere interaction. Now perhaps we're just in a cycle where the PV and it's evolution (both SPV and TPV) has so much weight on the evolution of the northern hemisphere pattern. 

In terms of the NAO though, I was doing a little bit looking last summer and one thing that intrigued me with a potential indication of how the NAO may evolve or behave moving into the winter was zonal wind anomalies within the Arctic and around Greenland. I don't remember off hand the signal but I want to say easterly (which would make most sense) zonal wind anomalies around the Arctic/Greenland in the fall seemed to correlate to more of a -NAO potential moving into winter. The biggest problem with indices such as the NAO/AO though is there is too much emphasis on the monthly/seasonal value. Perhaps that helps with a long-term pattern configuration, however, it's the variations and transitions on the shorter-term which play a significant role in sensible weather changes...same with the EPO/PNA as well. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I just wonder how much of a signal or how much of a factor ENSO just plays anymore (obviously in a strong or super-strong event it's going to heavily influence the global configuration) but it just seems the correlations with ENSO just aren't that strong anymore. Now perhaps what could be happening is as the data set continues to expand and we're seeing more variations within the same type of signal regime but ENSO events of late don't seem to be behaving like similar ENSO events of the past. 

ENSO gets a significant chunk of attention when it comes to seasonal forecasting (especially for the northern hemisphere winter) but I seriously wonder if the main driver is the stratosphere and the stratosphere-troposphere interaction. Now perhaps we're just in a cycle where the PV and it's evolution (both SPV and TPV) has so much weight on the evolution of the northern hemisphere pattern. 

In terms of the NAO though, I was doing a little bit looking last summer and one thing that intrigued me with a potential indication of how the NAO may evolve or behave moving into the winter was zonal wind anomalies within the Arctic and around Greenland. I don't remember off hand the signal but I want to say easterly (which would make most sense) zonal wind anomalies around the Arctic/Greenland in the fall seemed to correlate to more of a -NAO potential moving into winter. The biggest problem with indices such as the NAO/AO though is there is too much emphasis on the monthly/seasonal value. Perhaps that helps with a long-term pattern configuration, however, it's the variations and transitions on the shorter-term which play a significant role in sensible weather changes...same with the EPO/PNA as well. 

Well, if you think about it....the argument is that global warming is is having a muting effect on warm ENSO events....my train of thought is why would that not serve to augment cool ENSO events.

I get that shorter term stochastic fluctuations are more relevent with regard to storm potential, but that doesn't negate the value of monthly aggregate calculations ...especially at longer, seasonal lead times. And while volatility of the polar fields is paramount with respect to optimizing winter storm potential, I would rather have a static negative node and positive.

[40/70 Benchmark]

There is also a recency bias given that the last two vaunted meager warm ENSO events were let downs for the northeast....you need not look back very far to find meek warm ENSO events that were accompanied by mutant snows in the NE.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, DavisStraight said:

Looking forward to your thoughts on the upcoming winter, hope its better than last winter.

Hope my forecast is better than the last two lol 

[weatherwiz]

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, if you think about it....the argument is that global warming is is having a muting effect of warm ENSO events....my train of thought is why would that not serve to augment cool ENSO events.

I get that shorter term stochastic fluctuations are more relevent with regard to storm potential, but that doesn't negate the value of monthly aggregate calculations ...especially at longer, seasonal lead times. And while volatility of the polar fields is paramount with respect to optimizing winter storm potential, I would rather have a static negative node and positive.

I completely agree with this. And this is a huge challenge b/c we aren't really sure how much of an impact a warming climate is having on global oscillations and ENSO....the research indicates there is impact but what is the outcome of these impacts? 

I also agree...there is tremendous value on the monthly or seasonal calculations and averages and for reasons just like you stated...longer, seasonal lead times. However, I wish there was also more research out there which kinda broke these down to smaller time-scale intervals. I know I've said this numerous times but I wish there were like weekly or bi-weekly calculations for the the oscillations. I would love to do this b/c the data needed to do so is available, however, I have zero clue on how to even do this and my math skills are too weak. I also know that at the end of the day it's the structure/placement of the anomalies which hold more weight than a raw number but that doesn't mean there is not value within a raw number. Using a raw value with a map showing structure/anomaly strengthens any potential knowledge gained. 

[ORH_wxman]

21 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

There is also a recency bias given that the last two vaunted meager warm ENSO events were let downs for the northeast....you need not look back very far to find meek warm ENSO events that were accompanied by mutant snows in the NE.

Yeah I'm not sure I'd even call last year a weak El Nino in the sense that we typically compare to other weak Ninos...it was so borderline. It officially made it, but it basically rotted at 0.5C for an eternity.

[weatherwiz]

2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah I'm not sure I'd even call last year a weak El Nino in the sense that we typically compare to other weak Ninos...it was so borderline. It officially made it, but it basically rotted at 0.5C for an eternity.

Weren't the warmest anomalies in region 4? Which I mean technically isn't region 4 more into the region where the WHWP will propagate into? I know how the WHWP propagates can influence ENSO (particularly Nino) but I don't recall the global pattern being very "Nino like" last winter. 

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

Weren't the warmest anomalies in region 4? Which I mean technically isn't region 4 more into the region where the WHWP will propagate into? I know how the WHWP propagates can influence ENSO (particularly Nino) but I don't recall the global pattern being very "Nino like" last winter. 

Yes, region 4 was the warmest, with values hovering around 1C above average. .

[ORH_wxman]

As an aside, the Euro has been forecasting a big burst in easterly winds across the dateline region....which may provide a boost. The La Nina tendency had been weakening over the past week or two, but we could see a resurgence.

[Typhoon Tip]

It doesn't matter if the SSTs and thermocline numbers are high or low, relative to some longer term averages ... if there is no gradient in the field to trigger a physical response ... those 'super ninos' don't mean shit.  It's just this simple:   a +2 standard deviation of total ENSO in 1900 has more mechanical power to force a signature in the system, than it does now because the gradient now between that +2 and the atmospheric thermal source and sink is less. LESS = less restoring force ... Less restoring force = less response... 

There's still a tendency to look at these fields in deference to whether they exist or not ... As though, A exists thus B should result...

'A' cannot merely exist...?  If it exists...it is doing so in a constant fluid gradient relationship with its surrounding, at every instant of time in a perpetual balancing of forces...  That is entirely the machinery in Nature really... everything in nature is attempting to make the difference between point A and B, 0.  When A is less different than B... there is less movement (acceleration) to fix the differences... The atmosphere is entirely guided by that exact same fundamental physical principle.  Whereby, that 'acceleration' is observable in subsequent pattern forcing...

If A is huge...but B is huge, one cannot merely look at 'A' ... 

What really needs to happen is that a metric that is the standard deviation of the actual gradient needs to be calculated - not the the SST SDs alone...   Unfortunately, the gradient is a dynamic integral ...good luck

[powderfreak]

6 hours ago, PowderBeard said:

I couldn't complain about last winter after that storm. 26" total here and a 3-4" forecast turned into almost 16" on the night of the 2nd. I will never forget waking up at 4am and turning those porch lights on. 

Since I will likely be remote all winter and home with the baby I fully expect this winter to be cold and snowy so have double the amount of firewood ready compared to last year. 

I really forgotten how big that storm was.  That's a legit large scale zone of counties with widespread 18-28".  That's no isolated deform band jack or something... that's a large chunk of terrain buried under 18"+.

[PowderBeard]

12 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I really forgotten how big that storm was.  That's a legit large scale zone of counties with widespread 18-28".  That's no isolated deform band jack or something... that's a large chunk of terrain buried under 18"+.

Bit more banding in central Mass. UMass got 6-7" and we are about 8 miles east and grabbed 16" the second night and it was out area NE up to around Hubby.

[ORH_wxman]

It was a sneaky big storm for MA....really only SE MA got screwed

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah I'm not sure I'd even call last year a weak El Nino in the sense that we typically compare to other weak Ninos...it was so borderline. It officially made it, but it basically rotted at 0.5C for an eternity.

One part of my call that I was happy with was ENSO....I nailed that marginal modoki when most laughed at prospect of el nino...of course, the pattern reload took too long, which sunk the forecast, but that may be connected to the muted atmospheric coupling.

[michsnowfreak]

On 7/3/2020 at 4:53 PM, yoda said:

Welp... guess winter 2020 is over per the CANSIPS 

https://mobile.twitter.com/chris_sowers/status/1278428240760262656

+1°C is a blowtorch, got it

[dryslot]

To far to the north for the goods here, But saw 6.5".

[pasnownut]

51 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

+1°C is a blowtorch, got it

for him.....it is......

[dryslot]

1 minute ago, pasnownut said:

for him.....it is......

I laugh at +1F.

[pasnownut]

28 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I laugh at +1F.

based on latitude alone....

You laugh

I'm a wee bit nervous

he's toast

Now watch some anomalous pattern set up and the MA region get a shellackin while we are all smokin cirrus....

that would be a rather painful kick square in the kahunas.  

[dryslot]

5 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

based on latitude alone....

You laugh

I'm a wee bit nervous

he's toast

Now watch some anomalous pattern set up and the MA region get a shellackin while we are all smokin cirrus....

that would be a rather painful kick square in the kahunas.  

+1 may lower the ratios a bit... 2010 comes to mind on that, Wouldn't be the first time rolling around on the ground groaning in pain though.