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Winter 2020-2021

ORH_wxman

By ORH_wxman,
in New England

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

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Think we’re missing an important component related to climate change in this discussion about winter length versus winter intensity… The endpoints of winter are being skewed - although Will mentioned - by seasonal lag in the spring and by also continental folding causing early cold departures in October and November’s ...meanwhile on the gradient expansion in the middle of the winter is modulating extremes around general warmer than normal relative to DJF. 

It makes it sort of confusing to categorize because it’s “shortening” December January February but it’s in a sense lengthening because of the colder than normal transition seasons at either ends- Which in itself is obfuscated further because it’s really the patterns that look cold at the transition season and it’s probably only cooler than normal 50% of the time ...something like that

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40/70 Benchmark
40/70 Benchmark

I'm excited for this season's outlook. My process will be a little bit different this season, as I am going to supply links to background information throughout the finished product, so that folks can

powderfreak
powderfreak

Lets go for this, by Christmas.  Suburbs buried with 6-foot mushroom caps.

40/70 Benchmark
40/70 Benchmark

My winter composite was dead-on. Not one of them had snowfall through the first week of October.

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40/70 Benchmark

40/70 Benchmark

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On 8/20/2020 at 11:29 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

Ah...that declaration is available to question - imho... 

The climate models ( if that is what we are basing declaratives off of in present context ...) have routinely verified too slow in predictive environmental observations due to climate change. 

I don't see how that necessarily stamps an imprimatur of certitude on any numerical temperature expectancy ...even in worst case scenario of 5C ( to whomever mentioned that number); the "worst case" scenario could end up wrong too...  In fact, magnitude and timing become difficult to un-entangle ... 'was the system just fast, such that the result at the end time frame was based on time error alone, or was the system just more responsive, so time was default wrong by missing the responsivity of the system'  - you don't know which ;)  and climate as a science, particularly wrt to 'changing' ( regardless of cause mind you - this is not conflation with AGW or just GW...), is clearly proving to have error sandwiched somewhere in between either of those unknowns. 

Heh...you know, as a digression - if one is insightful that should immediately suggest ... maybe we ought not be mucking around with such a complex system? muah -hahahaha

It's an inexact science.  We can't say that climate bands won't "leap" based upon thresholds ... suppose at some crucial 3.5 C we witness an event ahead of the climate model et al timing. An unknown trigger effectively pops the band up some 500 km to the N with > 50%, non-returning residence ... I'd almost argue that is at least substantively probabilistic to occur too - as we see "tipping points" as a phenomenon in nature in general - we'd be neolithic incompetent to assume the climate won't do that.  

The problem with tipping points is that... once the ballast momentum is moving, it takes proportionally more momentum to countermand the effect and bring it back to the previous stable dynamic - which in itself is opening the door to fractals and chaos and other "synergistic" effects. 

John, I know you are big on the warming planet muting warm ENSO to a degree, but what are your thoughts on cooler ENSO events being augmented?

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tamarack

tamarack

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11 hours ago, weathafella said:

I don’t thnk winter have warmed so much but it seems they have shortened.

To me, cold winters are about as cold as in decades past but are less common now, while warm winters are setting records and are more common.  At the Farmington co-op, 1991-2020 temps thru last month are 1.75° milder than 1961-1990.  Only June (0.9) and July (0.6) are within one degree and January is 3.2° milder, 16.4 vs. 13.2.  Worth noting that 1961-1990 is the co-op's coldest 30-year segment on record, comparing only the standard intervals - something like 56-85 might be colder.  Their warmest 30 is 1931-1960, back when the obs site was in town and 1.24° above 91-20.

Edit:  Farmington's mildest 30-year period is 44.36° for 1927-56.  Coolest is 1967-96 at 40.996° (68-97 was 40.998) and with the obs site moved to its current location in Sept. 1966, probably no coincidence that the coolest period was the earliest full 30 years there.

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

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20 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

John, I know you are big on the warming planet muting warm ENSO to a degree, but what are your thoughts on cooler ENSO events being augmented?

Good question...

Considering the system as a whole… meaning the entire Pacific basin, there is thermal residency that’s going on out there that is consistent across seasons and normal seasonal variances…

In other words it’s always warmer than normal, which has been a persistent observation probably going back 20 years now at least 2/3 of the time if not more

I don’t think it really matters either direction particularly if an ENSO in question is inside crucial thresholds, whether weak warm or weak cool events. If they are within whatever that hypothetical threshold is they are damped 

Another way to look at it ...the band of SST’s that are cooler than normal, it’s just a tiny fraction of the entire Pacific basin which is still warmer than normal as an integrated mean overall so in terms of coupled oceanic/atmospheric physics I don’t really see how modestly cool ENSO really is going to force anything compared to that monster ballast of warmer than normal forcing that’s consistent everywhere imposing a masking more dominant lever. 

Nother thing to keep in mind is that when we say cooler than normal or cool ENSO and all that…  It’s not like it’s sensibly cool water? It’s just cooler than normal ...it’s still warm equatorial water ... I guess if you’re right up against the coast of Peru in the up wells it’d be a little bit chillier by the time 1200 km west of the Americas on the Pacific it’s 74° water vs 84 ( cromagnon  example ) 

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40/70 Benchmark

40/70 Benchmark

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10 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Good question...

Considering the system as a whole… meaning the entire Pacific basin, there is thermal residency that’s going on out there that is consistent across seasons and normal seasonal variances…

In other words it’s always warmer than normal, which has been a persistent observation probably going back 20 years now at least 2/3 of the time if not more

I don’t think it really matters either direction particularly if an ENSO in question is inside crucial thresholds, whether weak warm or weak cool events. If they are within whatever that hypothetical threshold is they are damped 

Another way to look at it ...the band of SST’s that are cooler than normal, it’s just a tiny fraction of the entire Pacific basin which is still warmer than normal as an integrated mean overall so in terms of coupled oceanic/atmospheric physics I don’t really see how modestly cool ENSO really is going to force anything compared to that monster ballast of warmer than normal forcing that’s consistent everywhere imposing a masking more dominant lever. 

Nother thing to keep in mind is that when we say cooler than normal or cool ENSO and all that…  It’s not like it’s sensibly cool water? It’s just cooler than normal ...it’s still warm equatorial water ... I guess if you’re right up against the coast of Peru in the up wells it’d be a little bit chillier by the time 1200 km west of the Americas on the Pacific it’s 74° water vs 84 ( cromagnon  example ) 

I get that they are just anomalies, and not cool readings in the absolute sense.....but I would think that if the ambient sea surface is very warm, then that would accentuate the ability of the sliver of cooler anomalies to exert forcing. Not my area of expertise, though, so I'll defer on that. I'm not a math and physics guy at all.

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PowderBeard

PowderBeard

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10 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

 

Another way to look at it ...the band of SST’s that are cooler than normal, it’s just a tiny fraction of the entire Pacific basin which is still warmer than normal as an integrated mean overall so in terms of coupled oceanic/atmospheric physics I don’t really see how modestly cool ENSO really is going to force anything compared to that monster ballast of warmer than normal forcing that’s consistent everywhere imposing a masking more dominant lever. 
 

All my teaching of stats and research methods classes tell me this is that it is a sampling issue and one could make an argument for either based on sample location?

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

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Op ed:   I am noticing already there is a tendency for higher mid tropospheric wind velocity anomalies circumvallate around the curved bases of troughs over southern Canada and we're still technically in a summer climo month.

I'm wondering if we are seeing a portence of this winter ...

I don't see the geo-wind anomalies being observed over winters as of late, as being merely flukes; consistency begins to argue against randomness. It has been spanning aggregate winters at this point in planetary in scope and scale is another point. But, it is conceptually/intuitively supportive in the notion of HC expansion introducing excessive geopotential gradient in the means where the HC terminates amorphously with the lower Ferrel cell latitudes... ( ~ 40 N ..which climate scientist remind us that boundary is not a discrete geography because the termination is seamless ...duh, it's free air).  Tamarack posed a fantastic observation the other night ... (to me); paraphrasing his remark and probably butchering it, 'in my 60 years I see winters as having similar extremes in cold, just fewer of those cold extremes. Meanwhile warmer seasons or events that are warmer than normal within, are increasing.' 

That homage essentially nails it!  But folks seem to be less aware of 'the less frequency of cold', instead focusing on whether it still gets cold at all - almost like a denial pathway... ( 'feels' that way).  Even 2015...  (December+February)/2 ... really mutes the significance of that February... it was like that February was bigger picture obfuscator that distracts from the fact that the December thing ...prooobably is getting more likely to occur while we hid in the exultation, awe and orgasm over that historic month later in the winter.  Something like that...

 

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

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8 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I get that they are just anomalies, and not cool readings in the absolute sense.....but I would think that if the ambient sea surface is very warm, then that would accentuate the ability of the sliver of cooler anomalies to exert forcing. Not my area of expertise, though, so I'll defer on that. I'm not a math and physics guy at all.

The absolute scalar point at the end wasn't intended for you, per se ... just sayn'

The point and supposition ...formulaic en route to a hypothesis I am/was attempting is right there ( enlarged bold ) as a necessity.  If it is very warm(cool), we'll talk.  

Hypothetical/boundary premise:    

I'm just creating hypothetical numbers to elucidate the point there... If the region outside of the ENSO ...which in a coupled oceanic-atmosphere volume of atmosphere is the entire planet... is already hot... what f'n difference does 1.5 C in SST mean when subtropical waters outside of the spatial domain of the ENSO band itself are already +2 or +3 C ...? 

It's a tricky argument to settle, no doubt... because that scalar thing does play an evil role in the consideration (ha).  Fascinating... But, +3 C at 35 N... does not carry as much energy in the coupled system, as +1.5C anomaly does farther S - why? Because +1.5 C in a 80 F water column has a more energy stored in it than a +3 C in a column of 74 C... This complexity then gets far more grueling a prospect then asking this particular collection of 2020 unprincipled politicians to agree on the flatness of Earth!  I'd think I might rather suck on the latter's pistol muzzle over having to solve the other one - 

Anyway, you get my meaning... so, gradating the force is also a nightmarishly complex secondary and tertiary derivative(s) in, and if/when the scaling of the equations and all that shit.. yeesh!

So I just smooth it out conceptually ... The boundary of the HC has expanded too far beyond the ENSO domain ..such that the ball of the ENSO is bouncing around inside and not transferring momentum into the jet/R-wave middle latitudes ...because the lowering gradient once inside the boundary of the HC, is decoupling it's effect.

Plausible evidence of this:  The pattern of response behavior over recent decades with these NINOs and NINA regimes has changed to be less impacting. It seems neither has been very representative... The last "super NINO" (...which, that is not a distinction in conceit it statistically was that abnormal ) expressed very limited or at worse, manageable impacts around the known global regions. This sort of dimming correlation between occurrence vs impact in the total complexion is - in my mind - likely geophysical in nature ( i.e., more than 'chancy'), from having a warmer expanded HC into the lower middle latitudes. This has expanded the playing field beyond the QB's throwing distance if we want to beat the metaphor to death.

If the atmosphere was more akin to 1955, and then we ran a super NINO like 5 clicks ago up underneath that ...? Phew, we'd probably have had hell to pay in enormous geo-physical responses, because gradient is the entire machinery of nature ...and...weather and climate - that's the whole game.  

I keep harping that...because ( not you but a lot of enthusiasts and others...) see El Nino and their expectation of what that will mean ... becomes too guiding. Has to be qualified ( in a sense). One my know that if A=B there is no A or B ...intellectually say they understand this stuff, but then turn around and their seasonal predictions are hugely instrumentally based upon the ENSO?  What -  

Well...anywho... I toss almost all ENSO based forecast these days and assume if the season correlated, it's probably luck ...because the polar indexes and Asian torque guiding the total pacific in the wave absorption at the super synoptic scales, happened to come into sync and that gave a false impression of causality.  ... It's very similar if not down right analogous to the MJO:  If the surrounding atmosphere is in constructive wave interference, the MJO looks like it was the entire cause of why the circulation over all took on its construct... but, if the surrounding medium is in destructive interference... we pass through huge Phase 8/1/2 and end up with a Clipper ... So in that sense ...a warmer atmosphere and ballooned HC doesn't give the ENSO  chance to even sync

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Chrisrotary12

Chrisrotary12

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Someone remind me, am I remembering the last couple fall seasons correctly in that they featured a perfect winter-like pattern? Super active with LPs passing through New England every few days or so. Then come winter we lose the pattern in early December and whine about how great the pattern was in October.

That sound about right?

Starting to wonder if we are about to do that again? Guidance is certainly hinting at an active pattern of troughiness for the eastern half of the continent. Take a look at that persistent trough in today's GFS. The Ensemble means appear to me to be hinting at a longwave trough in the eastern 1/2 for September.

Would be disappointing if that unfolds again.

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

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39 minutes ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

Someone remind me, am I remembering the last couple fall seasons correctly in that they featured a perfect winter-like pattern? Super active with LPs passing through New England every few days or so. Then come winter we lose the pattern in early December and whine about how great the pattern was in October.

That sound about right?

Starting to wonder if we are about to do that again? Guidance is certainly hinting at an active pattern of troughiness for the eastern half of the continent. Take a look at that persistent trough in today's GFS. The Ensemble means appear to me to be hinting at a longwave trough in the eastern 1/2 for September.

Would be disappointing if that unfolds again.

It's precisely correct  - imho that is... 

I've been op-ed writing theoretical missives on this site that exactly illustrated that propensity to behave that way for a couple few years.  Really, there are hallmarks of this tendency going back 6 or even 8 years too - 

It's been a gradual onset...  It's seasonally lagging winters into springs; it's triggering prolapse of winter patterns earlier than normal with cold pops and heavy frost, and packing pellet virga CAA events ...snow storms in November are almost 50% return rates.   Anecdotal incoming: but that was rarely so inspiring in my youth, and I'm middle aged fwiw ... living in a new realm.

Since 2000 some 2/3rds of the years have featured either, snow in the air, or snow supportive air mass transports to Chicago and Boston latitudes throughout Octobers and or Aprils and even Mays.  

And you are right ... the mid winters ...not always so successfully appealing..  

I believe the reason has to do with gradient saturation .. I keep saying this, people need to start studying this shit ... I am not making this up!!  ( not directing that urgency at you per se..). The Hadley Cell has expanded some 2 to 10 deg or latitude laterally outward, north and south of the Equator, ..strongly collocated in time with the observed global warming trends, since the late 1970s  (   https://science2017.globalchange.gov/  ) ...it's all contained in there.  Folks should really start reading and plumbing into that stuff because the traditional perspective of climate and seasonal modalities ... are becoming increasingly outmoded - 

But sorry I don't mean to preach to the quire...just sayn' 

As the HC expands...and here is the confusing aspect:  The polar regions are warming ( particularly the north polar region(s) ) much faster than the equatorial regions in terms of scalar, measured temperature increases.  But, the tropics absorb and express warming thermodynamically more readily because of diabatic physical modulation, ...which means...hypsometric expansion... for one. But, that also means that gradient increases as the balloon expands and encroaches on the mid latitudes.

What happens when gradient increases in the geopotential depths?   

WIND 

Well... there has been a marked increase in ground-based velocity anomalies noted by airline traffic during this same time of expansion.  

It's all related... 

But, that is important because the x-coordinate velocities are beginning to exceed the stable Norwegian Model low scaffolding ( in the means...) so we are seeing a morphology in the distribution and typology of governing precipitation causes/ events...  

Having said all that ... I don't personally see how this stuff necessarily has to mean lower snow... either.  Or even lacking cold for that matter. Maybe faster turn over between extremes - I could see that.  I mean, yes the polar region is warming, but we're still talking -30C at 850s available to tap into in winters... I think what it is doing though is disrupting the storm orderliness - R-wave patterns are less able to remain stable...etc..  I see a lot more sheared out busted ravioli systems in the winter...  Storms tend to move quicker too. But, that lack of orderliness ... that means by virtue one's winter is more open to buckshot odds... You almost want to land into a stable pattern like 1978, 1987, 1993, 1995 or 2004, ..2015 (fluke)... which almost made storms prebaked..  man those were great years ..

I also agree with your ending comment - clearly as is the case with the GFS in particular, that model seems to just ignore the season altogether beyond D10 and rushes to Thanks Giving already. Pretty sure we are days away from a 300 hour Lake effect snow synoptic illustration on that thing

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Chrisrotary12

Chrisrotary12

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4 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's precisely correct  - imho that is... 

I've been op-ed writing theoretical missives on this site that exactly illustrated that propensity to behave that way for a couple few years.  Really, there are hallmarks of this tendency going back 6 or even 8 years too - 

It's been a gradual onset...  It's seasonally lagging winters into springs; it's triggering prolapse of winter patterns earlier than normal with cold pops and heavy frost, and packing pellet virga CAA events ...snow storms in November are almost 50% return rates.   Anecdotal incoming: but that was rarely so inspiring in my you and I'm middle aged fwiw - 

Since 2000 some 2/3rds of the years have featured either, snow in the air, or snow supportive air mass transports to Chicago and Boston latitudes throughout Octobers and or Aprils and even Mays.  

And you are right ... the mid winters ...not always so successfully appealing..  

Having said all that ... I don't personally see how this stuff necessarily has to mean lower snow... either.  Or even lacking cold for that matter. Maybe faster turn over between extremes - I could see that.  I mean, yes the polar region is warming, but we're still talking -30C at 850s available to tap into in winters... I think what it is doing though is disrupting the storm orderliness - R-wave patterns are less able to remain stable...etc..  I see a lot more sheared out busted ravioli systems in the winter...  Storms tend to move quicker too. But, that lack of orderliness ... that means by virtue one's winter is more open to buckshot odds... You almost want to land into a stable pattern like 1978, 1987, 1993, 1995 or 2004, ..2015 (fluke)... which almost made storms prebaked..  man those were great years ..

I also agree with your ending comment - clearly as is the case with the GFS in particular, that model seems to just ignore the season altogether beyond D10 and rushes to Thanks Giving already. Pretty sure we are days away from a 300 hour Lake effect snow synoptic illustration on that thing

Hadley cell...drink!  The bolded part above has been blatantly obvious for a while now.  The transition seasons seem to be on the chopping block as the climate changes. Spring more so than fall in my opinion.  

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tamarack

tamarack

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1 hour ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

Someone remind me, am I remembering the last couple fall seasons correctly in that they featured a perfect winter-like pattern? Super active with LPs passing through New England every few days or so. Then come winter we lose the pattern in early December and whine about how great the pattern was in October.

That sound about right?

Starting to wonder if we are about to do that again? Guidance is certainly hinting at an active pattern of troughiness for the eastern half of the continent. Take a look at that persistent trough in today's GFS. The Ensemble means appear to me to be hinting at a longwave trough in the eastern 1/2 for September.

Would be disappointing if that unfolds again.

Maybe Nov-Dec 2018?  The cold  began to take  over 2 weeks into October and storminess for the last week or so.  Nov brought storms of 4", 6" and 7.1" - we've had only 7 snows of 4"+ in 22 Novies and 2018 is alone in having more than one - then Dec laid a rotten egg.  Farther south, NYC had its earliest 6"+ snowfall, more than a week earlier than the next one, then had "T" for Dec and 3.7" total for Jan-Feb before bagging 10" in early March..  

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