2021-2022 ENSO

[StormchaserChuck!]

La Nina/+QBO = +AO, and El Nino/-QBO = -AO is a really good correlation. 10mb heights are best showing. 

[EasternLI]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

One issue I have with the QBO is the height of the anomaly use varies in the research, and people don't seem to reconcile that when they use it. You can see that paper uses 700 mb heights. But CPC tracks it at 30 mb heights.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/qbo.u30.index

Yeah, you're not wrong. Some use 50mb some use 30mb. That is very annoying. Agreed. 

[StormchaserChuck!]

On 3/2/2021 at 10:20 PM, StormchaserChuck! said:

Analogs

+4 now in the western subsurface.. recent analogs 2000,2008,2009,-2010,2011,2012

Next Winter 3 La Nina - 1 Neutral - 1 El Nino for +4> western subsurface wave/cold east since 2000

[EasternLI]

Wanted to post this here. I found 2 other years that did anything remotely similar to the current MJO. This year is higher amplitude than both. From the BOM website back to 1975.

Super El Niño followed both of these 2 years later. 

[StruThiO]

Simultaneous Kelvin waves of both phases noted. >2sigma phase 7 MJO yet trades are neutral to weakly enhanced. Next few months will be interesting!

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 12/23/2021 at 3:01 AM, Mr. Kevin said:

Hello Ray. Any chance to get the alutian ridge to weaken or shift enough to allow the pna to somewhat go less negative? Or what do we need to happen? Lol. I'm still optimistic we get a few weeks of cold weather east of the rockies

It should at some point, but I'm not seeing much support for that on longer range guidance at this time.

On 12/24/2021 at 3:17 PM, raindancewx said:

Here is how November finished for reference:

Nino 4: 28.01C  Nino 3.4: 25.81C   Nino 3: 24.17C  Nino 1.2: 20.67  QBO: -19.78

I did use other years for my forecast. But I still don't see any reason for the La Nina or QBO to rapidly move away from the 1974 and 2017 blend.

I'm not a QBO guy anyway. Wasn't the whole point of the QBO nonsense this year that December should have been cold when blended with the ENSO base state? My opinion has always been that the QBO looks like it drives certain patterns because it has one or two heavy anchoring analogs that are very cold or very hot that mask the variation when you run the composite....so this year isn't exactly changing my mind.

Maybe someone who actually believes in the QBO can offer their thoughts though.

 

I didn't think it would be a very cold month, but I am surprised its ended up as warm as it has....I figured it would be seasonable in the northeast.

[raindancewx]

Top matches for the SOI for Oct-Dec are warmer than what the CFS has nationally for January. Likely with the cold trapped in Canada in the SOI matches. But the SOI match does agree with the colder West / warmer East idea the CFS has. Impressive for a blind blend of three numbers from the top six matching years. I'm closer to the warmer SOI blend than the CFS.

SOI at +12 for December would make your OND SOI matches: 1938, 1942, 1998, 2000, 2007, 2020

SOI	Oct	Nov	Dec
1938	13.6	1.7	12.5
1942	9.2	-4	12.5
1998	11.2	13.2	11.7
2000	11.6	20.7	7.7
2007	6.1	9.9	13.3
2020	4.37	9.24	16.63
Blend	9.35	8.46	12.39
2021	7.66	11.73	12.3

1961-62 has been showing up a lot on the CPC analogs lately. There is no MJO data for that year. My suspicion is you had very similar MJO progression that year, minus the 30-31C heat by Indonesia. 1961 had a very similar hurricane season and extraordinary Summer heat in the Northwest followed by a spectacular cold dump in January. Part of why I included 1961-62 for winter is it does get very get cold nationally (cold also showed up following the similar severely placed cold Februaries I showed before). But I don't buy it lasting real long with the waters so warm by Indonesia. So the other years I had, when blended are pretty warm. The real question is if March 1962 is in the pattern....I think it is. But we'll see soon enough. Idea was 1961-62 would become a better analog over time as we exited the early winter.

SOI       Oct    Nov   Dec

1961      4.7    6.8    12.5

2021      7.6    11.7   12.3*

*currently

[StormchaserChuck!]

I had a cold January.. solar ascending underperforming is 3:2 La Nina vs historical

[raindancewx]

On 10/28/2021 at 8:32 PM, raindancewx said:

ACE is kind of a big deal in La Nina for precipitation patterns in the West, especially in Nov-Jan, but you can already see the template setup in October. Years like 1995 with the record early Fall snows in the Rockies, super -WPO, and super ACE tend to follow the super-dry West template, while the lesser ACE years, like say 1984, look much more like 2016 and 2021. I'm looking forward to seeing 3,000 forecasts that have the western drought worsening though even though there are a lot of signs that this not that type of winter.

140 ACE La Nina:

180 & 225 ACE La Ninas:

My comment above aged fairly well! Idea when I blended 2017-18 with 1974-75 as the main analogs for winter was to include a very warm year in the West with a very wet year in the West.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/28/us/california-december-snow-record-drought-climate/index.html

As of Tuesday, more than 202 inches of snow -- nearly 17 feet (5.2 meters) -- had fallen so far this month at the University of California, Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, at Donner Pass east of Sacramento.

Scientists at the lab said this month is now the snowiest December on record for the location and the third snowiest month overall. The top month was January 2017 when 238 inches (6 meters) fell, and it's not likely enough snow will fall in the next three days to challenge that record. Records here go back to 1970.

[StormchaserChuck!]

This is the important zone

 

 

 

[StruThiO]

7 hours ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

This is the important zone

 

 

 

Yep. Need to see if this downwelling Kelvin wave attenuates in this area

[raindancewx]

CFS has the -WPO returning, with the corresponding California dryness you'd expect.

I don't really pay attention to mountain torque over the Western US and things like that, but if you buy into that type of stuff, it does support the -NAO flipping. I thought it'd be fairly neutral in Jan-Feb overall. We did have a pretty big period of blocking late Nov and late Dec, so not quite a -NAO December in the way I imagined but close enough (~3 days off on my end).

Snow pack entering January is the highest in California in a decade. There are a lot of potent systems by Kamchatka in the coming days, so late January should transition to a more active period again. The CFS continues to show most of the West (but not California) wet in January, with the South hot and the Northwest cold. The stalled weakening / slight gains in the La Nina in December is, once again very similar to 2011-12 in terms of ENSO development. So we should see the La Nina begin to rapidly weaken in January. I'd expect the weakening to begin in earnest 1/10.

 

[raindancewx]

Canadian has less cold in the Plains. Has an east based La Nina in January slowly weakening in the new run, turns into an El Nino in mid-Summer. Canadian did pretty well in December, had most of the US warm. I had the NW cold and SE hot for winter. So this is consistent with that idea.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Pretty good +PNA incoming.. probably turn my ^zone to  +  

[raindancewx]

Solar activity really popped in December, up to 67.6 sunspots.

The subsurface cooled to -1.18 from -1.09 in November. Very similar behavior to 2011 still, which dropped from -0.92 to -1.07. Suspect we rebound warm faster than 2011-12, which cooled a bit more in January 2012.

La Nina or not, we had a shit load of snow even in the Southwest in the past few weeks, but since it was warm, the valleys largely missed out. Ski Taos has a base of 46 inches this morning.

[raindancewx]

On 12/23/2021 at 8:28 PM, raindancewx said:

If you wanted to be optimistic for January:

Jan 1937, 1979, 1995, 2019 is very cold nationally. But I don't think that will be the look. You have 30C waters by Indonesia which create a psuedo MJO permanent phase five look for Nov-Jan regardless of the RMM

But, Feb 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 worked for Feb 2021. December 1936, 1978, 1994, 2018 is not bad for this year with the cold coming.

Not bad for rolling forward a match of severe Plains Februaries that matched last year.

This is the 1961-62 part of the pattern that I thought would show up when i did my forecast in October. The look above will hold for 5-10 days in January before a lot of the Western / Eastern extremes burn off. 

At the surface, the La Nina remains weaker / warmer than last year to the West. My forecast called for weaker conditions to the West with more of an East-based look. Specifically wrote the event would have trouble moving the coldest waters at the surface west of 150W. Unlike a lot of East-based years though, the Indonesian waters are near 30C, so it's hard to get the Eastern US to sustain cold, since you force pseudo MJO 5 responses with that warmth. I think of the WPO+ signal as the canonical Dec MJO 5 response, and that's what you had this year.

Nino 3 in Jan-Dec

2020  25.88  26.51   27.41   27.86   26.92  25.93  25.22  24.50  23.91   23.88  23.90  24.41
2021  25.04   25.68  26.52  26.79  26.69   26.30  25.49  24.65  24.45  24.20  24.09  24.01

Nino 3.4 in Jan-Dec

2020  27.15  27.12  27.76  28.18  27.66  27.39  26.99  26.26  25.89  25.46  25.28  25.44
2021  25.55  25.75  26.48  27.10  27.47  27.45  26.91  26.34  26.15  25.77  25.76  25.54

Nino 4 in Jan-Dec

 2020  29.17  28.97  29.07  29.15  29.01  29.09  28.89  28.47  28.21  27.96  27.80  27.54
 2021  27.27  27.24  27.67  28.20  28.71  28.83  28.68  28.54  28.23  28.04  27.99  27.75

[raindancewx]

For those of you into tornado stuff, the 1962 Spring was very active. I suspect in two MJO / harmonic cycles, you'll see the current pattern repeat in April. There were some major tornado outbreaks in April 1962, late month. The December pattern with huge moisture dumps into the West should return in March when the WPO flips positive again too. March 1962 was also quite tornadic.

[raindancewx]

 

Bye bye.

[LibertyBell]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:18 PM, raindancewx said:

For those of you into tornado stuff, the 1962 Spring was very active. I suspect in two MJO / harmonic cycles, you'll see the current pattern repeat in April. There were some major tornado outbreaks in April 1962, late month. The December pattern with huge moisture dumps into the West should return in March when the WPO flips positive again too. March 1962 was also quite tornadic.

March 1962 also had  a historic noreaster

[StormchaserChuck!]

-PNA for Feb, March, April, and May, I think. 

I have a +PNA signal for 2-21-2022 and 2-22-2022, and we have been reversing last year in the Pacific pretty good (strong -PNA February), but I think we will pull it off 4-month in a row after this. 

[raindancewx]

Cracks me up to see people so happy with the snow in the East today and in recent days. It's extremely common for the East to get snow after a wet West December in week two of January if you look at the history. I think three of my five analogs had snow for the NE on 1/7.

[Maestrobjwa]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Cracks me up to see people so happy with the snow in the East today and in recent days. It's extremely common for the East to get snow after a wet West December in week two of January if you look at the history. I think three of my five analogs had snow for the NE on 1/7.

Dude...you're acting like everybody knows the analogs in that minute of detail...lol (and what's a "wet west December"?)

[StormchaserChuck!]

Yeah, warm pool should be centered in 2-3 weeks. surprised me. In this age of weather derivatives, etc. It should be interesting to see what happens, +PNA in La Nina +2-3 weeks from now (after what's already happening)?

[StormchaserChuck!]

10 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Cracks me up to see people so happy with the snow in the East today and in recent days. It's extremely common for the East to get snow after a wet West December in week two of January if you look at the history. I think three of my five analogs had snow for the NE on 1/7.

well, 90% of the population never sees snow. GW might be a program, too

[andyhb]

On 1/5/2022 at 9:18 PM, raindancewx said:

For those of you into tornado stuff, the 1962 Spring was very active. I suspect in two MJO / harmonic cycles, you'll see the current pattern repeat in April. There were some major tornado outbreaks in April 1962, late month. The December pattern with huge moisture dumps into the West should return in March when the WPO flips positive again too. March 1962 was also quite tornadic.

Not overly. May was much busier in the Plains though.

[raindancewx]

The real time stats for ENSO indicate rapid weakening at the moment. We've gone from -1.1 below the surface to -0.8 or so. Nino 1.2/3 are warming rapidly. SOI for January is around -6 currently. I think you'll see Nino 3/3.4/4 reach their coldest readings at the surface this week to two weeks from now before warming pretty quickly. Last year peaked at 25.28C in November 2020. This event may peak at 25.5C or something in January, or when CPC inevitably revises December. Should be another DJF without a 25.5C average (-1.0C v. 1951-2010) in Nino 3.4. Last one was 2010-11. The subsurface is now warmer than last year in mid-January, looks like.

[raindancewx]

Mid-Dec to Late-Dec period of active Western storminess looks like it will come back. This is a pretty substantial rex block forecast in the short term for Kamchatka that will translate to storms for at least California and Arizona in the 1/31-2/3 time frame.

Here is December 13 for comparison ahead of the big system around 12/31, with a similar rex block in a stormy period for the West.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Analog to last years Kelvin wave 

The whole Pacific is lifting north into the Artic circle.. this did a +PDO thing, which was interesting because an El Nino didnt develop, it turned back to la nina. 

Let's see if we have a similar pattern for the next 40 days. 

 

[raindancewx]

The PDO is starting tor revert toward neutral. -2.00 in December is still incredibly low on the Nate Mantua method historically.

https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO

2020-11-01T00:00:00Z	-1.12
2020-12-01T00:00:00Z	-0.9
2021-01-01T00:00:00Z	-0.16
2021-02-01T00:00:00Z	-0.54
2021-03-01T00:00:00Z	-1.17
2021-04-01T00:00:00Z	-0.91
2021-05-01T00:00:00Z	-0.94
2021-06-01T00:00:00Z	-1.18
2021-07-01T00:00:00Z	-1.87
2021-08-01T00:00:00Z	-1.12
2021-09-01T00:00:00Z	-1.53
2021-10-01T00:00:00Z	-2.55
2021-11-01T00:00:00Z	-2.52
2021-12-01T00:00:00Z	-2.0

[raindancewx]

The storm this week for the East & South confirms two of the snow ideas in my forecast from October:

1) I wrote "most storms not cold enough for all snow" for the East Coast - kind of obvious, but people forget,

2) All analogs featured fluky snow deep into the South, despite record SE warmth at times, mostly in January. I had mid-Dec to mid-Jan as the timing target for fluky southern snows. Also mentioned significant ice storms were likely just north of the area of warmest anomalies in the Southeast.

If you look at January 1962, the temperature profile has resembled early January so far nationally. That's a pretty snowy month in places like Nashville, Memphis, etc, as it looks like this month could be. Memphis had 5.0 inches in January 1962, top ten January for snow in the past 90 years as an example, with 2-4 forecast, on top of 0.5 so far.

More generally, my weighted analog blend of 1961-62, 1974-75 (x2), 2001-02, 2017-18 (x2), 2020-21 is within 2-3 inches of observed totals for July 2021-January 14, 2022 so far in Boston, NYC, and Philadelphia, so this is probably going to be one of my better snow forecasts, as I had the West pretty snowy at times too.