Winter 2020-21 Discussion

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Man, it’s been awhile, but doesn’t a Nina favor clippers?

You'd think!

[nj2va]

2 hours ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Man, it’s been awhile, but doesn’t a Nina favor clippers?

Yeah, I think so. Clippers are fun sneaky events. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

3 hours ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Man, it’s been awhile, but doesn’t a Nina favor clippers?

They used to but it’s been a while so we’ll see 

[Rhino16]

It must have sucked to be someone who loves snow in Richmond during the 1993 storm... only 3.5 inches, probably washed away by rain. They did it 966mb at the airport though...

[CAPE]

3 hours ago, Rhino16 said:

It must have sucked to be someone who loves snow in Richmond during the 1993 storm... only 3.5 inches, probably washed away by rain. They did it 966mb at the airport though...

That storm sucked on all of the coastal plain of the MA.

[Redmorninglight]

@CAPE Wife and I happened to be visiting family in N Jersey for that storm so we saw the full brunt of it which was awesome. However, coastal cape May did get about a foot of snow That turned to a mix of sleet and ice with storm force winds. When we came home, the north side of the house was caked in a 2” thick crust of sleet and ice. Never seen anything like that since down here. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

That storm sucked on all of the coastal plain of the MA.

But it was awe inspiring for some. Truly a storm of the century, maybe many centuries.

[CAPE]

38 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

But it was awe inspiring for some. Truly a storm of the century, maybe many centuries.

Oh I agree. It was just a heavy wet snow to rain deal here though. Then all the waterlogged slush froze solid as the cold air came back in at the end. Probably not even a top 20 storm here as winter storms go.

This is a MBY business, as we are all well aware of here.

[Weather Will]

Would take it in a minute after last year!!!

[CAPE]

21 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

Would take it in a minute after last year!!!

I was in the 4-10" area. Yeah 8" of wet snow at 32 degrees piled up here early on, but the second half of the storm was 40 degree driving rain. An historic storm for the interior for sure, esp the mountains.

[Eskimo Joe]

 

[Rhino16]

2 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

 

There’s a lot of disagreement in the comments. Are the states that have places of both El Niño and La Niña favored because of some outlier during a winter? I’m also assuming that just means for temperatures, but I don’t think they clarified what “Best Winter Weather” means...

[CAPE]

That map is ambiguous, and quite frankly, useless.

[frd]

3 minutes ago, Rhino16 said:

There’s a lot of disagreement in the comments. Are the states that have places of both El Niño and La Niña favored because of some outlier during a winter? I’m also assuming that just means for temperatures, but I don’t think they clarified what “Best Winter Weather” means...

I have seen neutral, Nino and Nina comparison snowfall scatter plots for December through February in the Northern Mid Atlantic which shows we tend to achieve the highest snowfall in a moderate to even skewed stronger Nino. Possibly, as you mentioned,  in a Northern stream dominated Nina and dependent on where the cool anomalies are located in the Pacific the temp profile in our area versus a Nino may be colder.

The image itself lends to confusion and has little value if you ask me.  Just as all Ninos are not the same,  the same can be said of Ninas. Of course, as mentioned here previously you really need the establishment of NAO  and HL blocking for true winter block buster events in a Nina background state.   

[frd]

 

JMA for next 3 months.

If the Nina's most significant  measured drop occurs in the period late October to early December,  with a possible lag  effect , December could indeed be a cold month in the East. Followed by the real winter pattern of warmth dependent on other factors of course.   

Still feel the positioning on the High pressure in the Pacific will be the driver, and any appearence of HL blocking. GLoSea mean may indeed be skewed. Also as HM stated the model may have sniffed out the extreme + IOD last winter as the driver to little if any NAO and HL blocking during the 19=20 winter. This year is the IOD is opposite,  so what to expect is uncertain in my opinion. 

As mentioned previously,  the poleward High and positioning, in a Nina with a + QBO as Griteater mentioned may have a role in our weather. The sample size has to be considered. 

 

 

 

[CAPE]

Latest CFS runs continue to depict h5 +height anomalies over the high latitudes for late Fall into the first part of winter.

[frd]

Where have we seen this before. Will be interesting to observe and speculate on the late Fall implications,  in conjunction with SST forcing.  

 

[Stormfly]

On 9/14/2020 at 9:31 AM, frd said:

 

JMA for next 3 months.

If the Nina's most significant  measured drop occurs in the period late October to early December,  with a possible lag  effect , December could indeed be a cold month in the East. Followed by the real winter pattern of warmth dependent on other factors of course.   

Still feel the positioning on the High pressure in the Pacific will be the driver, and any appearence of HL blocking. GLoSea mean may indeed be skewed. Also as HM stated the model may have sniffed out the extreme + IOD last winter as the driver to little if any NAO and HL blocking during the 19=20 winter. This year is the IOD is opposite,  so what to expect is uncertain in my opinion. 

As mentioned previously,  the poleward High and positioning, in a Nina with a + QBO as Griteater mentioned may have a role in our weather. The sample size has to be considered. 

 

 

 

82-83 would be OK with me!

Cold December with snow, record Jan warmth and Blockbuster storm in Feb.

Summer of '83 also featured high severe level events.

Some expecting quarterly snowpack need to move.  Just a few hour drive northwesterly should do.  Otherwise Labrador or Longyearbyen will have to suffice!

[Prestige Worldwide]

Ugh!

 

[nj2va]

1 hour ago, Prestige Worldwide said:

Ugh!

 

Not saying we'll have a blockbuster winter but I put no faith in these seasonal forecasts.

[WinterWxLuvr]

I’ll guarantee we have a better winter than last year. Mark it down.

[CAPE]

2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I’ll guarantee we have a better winter than last year. Mark it down.

Yeah I will go out on a limb here and guarantee my yard will see more than an inch, which was the total last winter(rounding up).

[Roger Smith]

Except for 2005, a lot of the more active tropical seasons have been followed by cold winters in eastern NA. 1933 was second most active before this year, and the winter of 1933-34 was epic although punctuated by a ho-hum January. 1995 was a very active year, and 1969 at least had a cold winter although rather dry following on. The most active season before 1900 was 1887, say no more. 

However, 1936 and 2005 were not rewarded and more recent active seasons are part of the larger shift away from cold winters. 

So I'll just say that the tropical activity is by no means a red card situation for the winter prospects. 

The large amounts of forest fire smoke being generated over the interior west could be a factor assisting early cold regimes that are available even if they won't be directly created by the smoke layers. Temperatures in some places have dropped considerably under the thick smoke despite no real change in air mass. 

Those are some minor factors compared to teleconnections that most people would consult. I don't see anything too well-defined from the standard parameters. So I had a look at some research index values for any hints. 

What I found was that this should be a cold and snowy winter (in the eastern U.S. generally) with any luck. I suspect it would be a stop and go type of winter where you have to be patient and take limited opportunities, but one of them might click to produce a good snowfall event. 

So mark me down as mildly optimistic. 

[nj2va]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

Yeah I will go out on a limb here and guarantee my yard will see more than an inch, which was the total last winter(rounding up).

I’m not even sure I could round up to an inch last winter.

[frd]

12 hours ago, Roger Smith said:

The large amounts of forest fire smoke being generated over the interior west could be a factor assisting early cold regimes that are available even if they won't be directly created by the smoke layers. Temperatures in some places have dropped considerably under the thick smoke despite no real change in air mass. 

In the short term yes. As in today, temps in this region will average 2 to 5 degrees lower versus without the smoke effect on solar energy. 

However, this is an interesting thread below discussing the effects of Western fires on the stratosphere.  As Anthony points out some interesting outcomes on the winter AO and even the development of the early season PV.  

The thing that interests me the most is that in the Nature. com abstract below it discusses the 2017 " Pacific Northwest event " . Keep in mind that the current fires on the West Coast and other areas are far more impressive in terms of release. 

Also, keep in mind the similarities , as mentioned in the abstract of  volcanic intrusions.   

 

Also there is this literature

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0039-3

Abstract

Intense heating by wildfires can generate deep, smoke-infused thunderstorms, known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb), which can release a large quantity of smoke particles above jet aircraft cruising altitudes. Injections of pyroCb smoke into the lower stratosphere have gained increasing attention over the past 15 years due to the rapid proliferation of satellite remote sensing tools. Impacts from volcanic eruptions and other troposphere-to-stratosphere exchange processes on stratospheric radiative and chemical equilibrium are well recognized and monitored. However, the role of pyroCb smoke in the climate system has yet to be acknowledged. Here, we show that the mass of smoke aerosol particles injected into the lower stratosphere from five near-simultaneous intense pyroCbs occurring in western North America on 12 August 2017 was comparable to that of a moderate volcanic eruption, and an order of magnitude larger than previous benchmarks for extreme pyroCb activity. The resulting stratospheric plume encircled the Northern Hemisphere over several months. By characterizing this event, we conclude that pyroCb activity, considered as either large singular events, or a full fire season inventory, significantly perturb the lower stratosphere in a manner comparable with infrequent volcanic intrusions.

 

 

[nw baltimore wx]

Someone check my work here. We need global warming to make for a longer and more intense fire season. We need a longer and more intense fire season to produce a lot of smoke. We need a lot of smoke to offset global warming. 
 

How am I doing so far?

 

[midatlanticweather]

 

 

[snowman19]

3 hours ago, frd said:

In the short term yes. As in today, temps in this region will average 2 to 5 degrees lower versus without the smoke effect on solar energy. 

However, this is an interesting thread below discussing the effects of Western fires on the stratosphere.  As Anthony points out some interesting outcomes on the winter AO and even the development of the early season PV.  

The thing that interests me the most is that in the Nature. com abstract below it discusses the 2017 " Pacific Northwest event " . Keep in mind that the current fires on the West Coast and other areas are far more impressive in terms of release. 

Also, keep in mind the similarities , as mentioned in the abstract of  volcanic intrusions.   

 

Also there is this literature

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0039-3

Abstract

Intense heating by wildfires can generate deep, smoke-infused thunderstorms, known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb), which can release a large quantity of smoke particles above jet aircraft cruising altitudes. Injections of pyroCb smoke into the lower stratosphere have gained increasing attention over the past 15 years due to the rapid proliferation of satellite remote sensing tools. Impacts from volcanic eruptions and other troposphere-to-stratosphere exchange processes on stratospheric radiative and chemical equilibrium are well recognized and monitored. However, the role of pyroCb smoke in the climate system has yet to be acknowledged. Here, we show that the mass of smoke aerosol particles injected into the lower stratosphere from five near-simultaneous intense pyroCbs occurring in western North America on 12 August 2017 was comparable to that of a moderate volcanic eruption, and an order of magnitude larger than previous benchmarks for extreme pyroCb activity. The resulting stratospheric plume encircled the Northern Hemisphere over several months. By characterizing this event, we conclude that pyroCb activity, considered as either large singular events, or a full fire season inventory, significantly perturb the lower stratosphere in a manner comparable with infrequent volcanic intrusions.

 

 

I read several studies which concluded that tropical volcanic eruptions that punch into the stratosphere result in +AO the first winter after an eruption, then cause -AO the following winter. This study on wildfire impacts on the stratosphere is real interesting. These wildfires are much more extensive than 2017 so you would expect a bigger impact; it would seemingly support +AO this winter

[Eskimo Joe]

37 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I read several studies which concluded that tropical volcanic eruptions that punch into the stratosphere result in +AO the first winter after an eruption, then cause -AO the following winter. This study on wildfire impacts on the stratosphere is real interesting. These wildfires are much more extensive than 2017 so you would expect a bigger impact; it would seemingly support +AO this winter

We have everything going against us into this winter. You'd think sooner or later the tables would turn and we'd have a shot for at least climo.

[Subtropics]

1 hour ago, Eskimo Joe said:

We have everything going against us into this winter. You'd think sooner or later the tables would turn and we'd have a shot for at least climo.

Climo has changed most likely. Expecting 15 inches of snow in DC from multiple storms isn't realistic IMO. We will always have a chance at a big one given our location to the coast, but boom or bust on storms is something we should get used to.