Winter 2021-2022

[Typhoon Tip]

Mm... I'm not sure I agree with using temperature anomaly distributions anyway.  Not that anyone asked... just showing up to the bus-stop here. But, in short, I'd actually ballast the pattern tendencies more so than the t-anomaly distribution for any climate lapsing questions/method therein.

I've come to find that early pattern tendencies, more so the temps, tend to beget those patterns returning in deeper more prolonged form.   Temps? those will usually follow the patterns guiding - eventually..  

Not trying to troll here - just being frank.  Late October 1995 into early November is a perfect paragon for that sort of aspect, ... yeah perhaps too good and should be treated as an isolate fluke. I don't know. But there are many other years I can recall where early -EPO/-NAO blips --> later onslaughts.   This seems to be less true for the AO itself, however ...'nother headache.  

As an aside:   we are also in a skewing interpretation problem right now - a bad one, too.  People seem to be missing this quite a bit. We have been getting CC -related ( most likely culpable...) disproportionately warm temperatures relative to all teleconnection, an aspect that has been increasing in frequency spanning some years.  It's just been a matter of decimals vs whole numbers or not.  But, in suppositionally speaking, a -1.0 SD NAO was colder in 1990 than now...etc  - how much or how little. Which to me makes the usage of temperatures even more shaky - maybe even absurd.

Case in point, spanning these first 10 days of present October, we are likely to sustain at least a modest positive temp anomaly distribution over our regional U.S. ( notwithstanding two or three counties managing to buck those averages ..if so).  In fact, +2 and +3 at HFD/ORH, i.e., just a bit sight longer than just modest at that.   But regionally speaking, we'll see.  Yet, sustaining a -2.0 SD NAO?!  That should be interesting to anyone not brain numb.  

I suspect if we keep hitting the neggie NAO's we'lll start bleeding more cold and offset these 10 days.  (Hint, I'm not buying the EPS right now... but that is getting too discrete for the seasonal thread).

Fact of the matter is, we are now 10 days into this Oct, with all of them in a rather deep -NAO, and the dailies are modestly warmer than normal.  And, this -NAO has been demonstrative in the lower tropospheric circulation bias, with plenty of mass transport evident into eastern Ontario and slicing SW -W along the upper M/A into the OV region. It's not fake... I think that's playing with dry ice there... heading toward November if the GOA/R-wave structure remains relatively weak,  while the NAO is neutral-negative.   Eventually we're threshold and it will have been a coherent pattern tendency that "might" have been surmised early if using that "beget idea"  lol.. .but yeah

[George001]

6 hours ago, It's Always Sunny said:

I agree it's good to see La Nina strengthen per guidance but you also don't want too strong of a Nina either imho. In my head I've always told myself a weak Nina to weak Nino is ideal for good SNE snows. I found this graphic as a visual and it actually mirrors this line of thought, with moderate Nina also proving favorable. This is for Boston:

Where’s the 2010-2011 winter? There was over 80 inches of snow that winter, and the La Niña was strong. The chart I saw had strong La Niña, moderate La Niña, and enso neutral all at roughly the same snowfall average. This chart also had the 2010-2011 winter with the highest dot in the strong La Niña category being at right around 80.

[George001]

As long as we don’t have a trough in the west with the expected North Atlantic blocking the La Niña should help us prevent storms from missing to the south and burying DC and Philly.

[CoastalWx]

5 minutes ago, George001 said:

As long as we don’t have a trough in the west with the expected North Atlantic blocking the La Niña should help us prevent storms from missing to the south and burying DC and Philly.

A La Nina means trough in the west. And also, how would a trough in the west mean us whiffing?

[It's Always Sunny]

30 minutes ago, George001 said:

Where’s the 2010-2011 winter? There was over 80 inches of snow that winter, and the La Niña was strong. The chart I saw had strong La Niña, moderate La Niña, and enso neutral all at roughly the same snowfall average. This chart also had the 2010-2011 winter with the highest dot in the strong La Niña category being at right around 80.

Not sure what you're talking about Boston got 81" that winter. It's on the graph...

[Cold Miser]

23 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

It's the place we put our snow totals https://wkevin.com/new_england_snow/

Yeah... I remembered that after I posted.  I forgot how much work Kevin did setting that up for us.

[snowman19]

4 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yep. I posted in the October thread that very warm Sept/Octobers do not scare me at all (if anything they are a good sign for winter)...a torch November would spook me a little but even those aren’t a death knell. 

We start looking up toward AK once we get into mid-November. We basically just want to avoid a developing death vortex up there. One-eyed pigs are what scares us. 

A member in the NYC forum posted something about this a few years ago, forget who researched it, but anyway, they found that a warmer than normal Sept and Oct were nothing to worry about and many of them lead to a cold and snowy winter. It was when all 3 months (Sept, Oct, Nov) were warmer than normal that it became a huge problem. Nearly all of them lead to warmer than normal winter with below average snowfall in NYC, it was the kiss of death. Don’t know if the same holds true up there

[Damage In Tolland]

1 hour ago, Cold Miser said:

Yeah... I remembered that after I posted.  I forgot how much work Kevin did setting that up for us.

It was a lot of backbreaking effort on my part. No doubt. But it was for the board 

[George001]

8 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

A La Nina means trough in the west. And also, how would a trough in the west mean us whiffing?

What? I don’t understand….. how is that possible, if it means a trough in the west how are we averaging more snow in La Niña than moderate or stronger ninos? How is weak La Niña the second snowiest Enso state. I thought La Niña meant a more active northern branch and a weaker pacific jet due to less warm air flooding the country. I hate it when there is a trough in the west, it seems like when that happens it always gets too warm for snow here and the blizzards end up burying Colorado instead of here. 

[Ginx snewx]

8 hours ago, snowman19 said:

A member in the NYC forum posted something about this a few years ago, forget who researched it, but anyway, they found that a warmer than normal Sept and Oct were nothing to worry about and many of them lead to a cold and snowy winter. It was when all 3 months (Sept, Oct, Nov) were warmer than normal that it became a huge problem. Nearly all of them lead to warmer than normal winter with below average snowfall in NYC, it was the kiss of death. Don’t know if the same holds true up there

The best winters here are clustered around the mean for Sept to Nov temps. Higher or lower averages have split results. 

[CoastalWx]

2 hours ago, George001 said:

What? I don’t understand….. how is that possible, if it means a trough in the west how are we averaging more snow in La Niña than moderate or stronger ninos? How is weak La Niña the second snowiest Enso state. I thought La Niña meant a more active northern branch and a weaker pacific jet due to less warm air flooding the country. I hate it when there is a trough in the west, it seems like when that happens it always gets too warm for snow here and the blizzards end up burying Colorado instead of here. 

It typically is a -PNA which usually is lower than normal heights from AK into the Rockies. El Niño is the opposite. Because of our latitude we can do fairly well in Nina’s, especially if the dateline ridging is more poleward. Sometimes you can get real lucky and get a period of blocking to really make it snowy and turn those lows that would cut, into either SWFEs or Miller Bs that redevelop under SNE. You also can play with fire in that pattern if the troughing out west is really deep and/or a raging +NAO.  07-08 was probably the one winter where the NAO was so positive, it set up confluence to our northeast and forced would be cutters to redevelop more towards the cape and SE MA. 
 

In general, SNE does better when the ENSO phases are on the weaker side. You generally don’t want strong Nino or Nina. 

[George001]

17 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

It typically is a -PNA which usually is lower than normal heights from AK into the Rockies. El Niño is the opposite. Because of our latitude we can do fairly well in Nina’s, especially if the dateline ridging is more poleward. Sometimes you can get real lucky and get a period of blocking to really make it snowy and turn those lows that would cut, into either SWFEs or Miller Bs that redevelop under SNE. You also can play with fire in that pattern if the troughing out west is really deep and/or a raging +NAO.  07-08 was probably the one winter where the NAO was so positive, it set up confluence to our northeast and forced would be cutters to redevelop more towards the cape and SE MA. 
 

In general, SNE does better when the ENSO phases are on the weaker side. You generally don’t want strong Nino or Nina. 

Ok that makes sense, so even though a trough in the west is more likely in Ninas it’s not necessarily bad here if we get blocking. With blocking it would force the lows that initially cut into Wisconsin due to the trough in the west to redevelop off the coast and turn into Miller bs that bury us with feet of snow. That explains why the risk with stronger ninas is rain while Wisconsin gets buried, where as the risk with strong ninos is DC getting buried. I do believe the North Atlantic blocking will be severe so maybe when combined with the trough out west, it  will still end up being an epic Miller b pattern with 5-6 blizzards in eastern mass this upcoming winter.

[KEITH L.I]

9 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

It typically is a -PNA which usually is lower than normal heights from AK into the Rockies. El Niño is the opposite. Because of our latitude we can do fairly well in Nina’s, especially if the dateline ridging is more poleward. Sometimes you can get real lucky and get a period of blocking to really make it snowy and turn those lows that would cut, into either SWFEs or Miller Bs that redevelop under SNE. You also can play with fire in that pattern if the troughing out west is really deep and/or a raging +NAO.  07-08 was probably the one winter where the NAO was so positive, it set up confluence to our northeast and forced would be cutters to redevelop more towards the cape and SE MA. 
 

In general, SNE does better when the ENSO phases are on the weaker side. You generally don’t want strong Nino or Nina. 

It's usually not always..66-67,95-96 and 10-11 featured a trough in the east and were historic snowy winters for the Northeast..They were La Nina's

[CoastalWx]

25 minutes ago, KEITH L.I said:

It's usually not always..66-67,95-96 and 10-11 featured a trough in the east and were historic snowy winters for the Northeast..They were La Nina's

Right, that's why I said "typically" and "generally."  It's not always, but Nina's generally more -PNA dominated.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Right, that's why I said "typically" and "generally."  It's not always, but Nina's generally more -PNA dominated.

What is interesting is that the linear comparison matrix at CDC shows that what begins as a weak positive correlation in December, gradually strengthens through the ensuing months.  By February the coefficients between NINO ( 3, 3.4, and 4 ) goes from any average of merely .1 in Dec,  to over .5 in Feb!   This latter is quite robust considering the arena of the atmospheric, where the pull of other mass field forcing ..etc..

Sorta why a La Nina winters "might" have better odds for earlier showing that fade... ?  .. by earlier showing we mean "front end loaded" 

I think the paragon for this was that 1995 year... But, it seemed maybe have other things that augmented further making it sort of 'on roids'...  

The other thing is ..these existential takes are ( for me ..) prior to the era where/whence these ENSO signals began demonstrating weaker correlation to ensuing winter pattern tendencies...

 

[raindancewx]

I linked to my outlook in the other section if anyone is curious. Should be an interesting winter.

[Go Kart Mozart]

Seems reasonable

https://www.scribd.com/document/531730561/2021-22-Winter-Outlook

 

 

[MJO812]

[512high]

40 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

I linked to my outlook in the other section if anyone is curious. Should be an interesting winter.

Like I have said to Ray and others, thanks for taking the time and doing the  research and sharing with all, I just hope its better then last season...

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I linked to my outlook in the other section if anyone is curious. Should be an interesting winter.

Funny how we seem to have arrived at some similar conclusions despite different methodologies. 

Mine should be out in early November.

[sebastiaan1973]

Glosea5 for december till february

[sebastiaan1973]

I think this is an important research for this winter.

Interannual climate anomalies in the Atlantic-European region associated with La-Nina types - IOPscience

[40/70 Benchmark]

22 hours ago, sebastiaan1973 said:

I think this is an important research for this winter.

Interannual climate anomalies in the Atlantic-European region associated with La-Nina types - IOPscience

The Springer article is much better...more extensive. That is the piece that I use.

[tamarack]

On 10/10/2021 at 11:50 PM, CoastalWx said:

It typically is a -PNA which usually is lower than normal heights from AK into the Rockies. El Niño is the opposite. Because of our latitude we can do fairly well in Nina’s, especially if the dateline ridging is more poleward. Sometimes you can get real lucky and get a period of blocking to really make it snowy and turn those lows that would cut, into either SWFEs or Miller Bs that redevelop under SNE. You also can play with fire in that pattern if the troughing out west is really deep and/or a raging +NAO.  07-08 was probably the one winter where the NAO was so positive, it set up confluence to our northeast and forced would be cutters to redevelop more towards the cape and SE MA. 
 

In general, SNE does better when the ENSO phases are on the weaker side. You generally don’t want strong Nino or Nina. 

At the Farmington co-op, 62 AN Octobers have been followed by an average of 101% normal snowfall.  For the 62 AN Novembers, it's 93%.  Given the sample size, I'd guess the November discrepancy is likely significant.

[J.Spin]

13 hours ago, tamarack said:

At the Farmington co-op, 62 AN Octobers have been followed by an average of 101% normal snowfall.  For the 62 AN Novembers, it's 93%.  Given the sample size, I'd guess the November discrepancy is likely significant.

Are the snowfall numbers applied in this analysis for the entire season, or for only the post-November portion of the season?  I think we’ve talked about it before in the NNE thread, but one has to be more careful in correlating November data with winter up north, or it can just become a self-fulfilling hypothesis/comparison.  November farther north, and especially in the mountains, isn’t quite the potentially uncorrelated/insignificant “pre-season” that it might be in areas to the south; in much of NNE you’re essentially “in-season” by that point.  With November being at the edge of the season the way it is, above average temperatures are going to have a strong correlation with little to no snowfall.  Average November snowfall at our site is almost 10% of the seasonal snowfall, so it’s not the minor/insignificant percentage represented by October snowfall.  If you cut out 10% of a season’s snowfall through warm Novembers, then indeed, even if all else is equal for the rest of the season, one would expect those seasons with warm Novembers to average less overall snowfall.  I’m not sure what % of Farmington’s average snowfall comes in November, but if the comparison is to full season snowfall, it would probably alter the threshold for significance vs. the assumption that the November temperatures and season’s snowfall have the possibility of being entirely independent.

[MJO812]

[George001]

13 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

I’m very excited for this upcoming winter, it’s a great sign that the polar vortex is weak.

[WinterWolf]

14 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Like that ‘68 and 2010 idea…both those winters following those October’s were exceptional. 

[Typhoon Tip]

15 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

These early warm nodes up there are not really the same thing as that which tends to correlate to -AO forcing we see more so in mid winter. In his defense .. he doesn't label that as an SSW, per se. But I'm not sure that is indicative, just the same.

Those anomalies may simply be the ambience pushing the surplussing warmth at planetary dimensions, more readily into those altitudes/latitudes... There's only so much swelling at mid and lower latitudes the atmosphere can balloon to, before 'something' like that begins to occur; increasing the frequency of 'bumping' warmer heights into those high altitudes/latitudes.   It may not be indicative of what he is using for that context ...  

Or it may ...but I have found an increasing frequency for that type of chart rendition in recent years, happening way ...waaaaay before the typical onset timing ( climatology ) of the Sudden Stratospheric Warming events. They seem to be more originated elsewhere and - imho - it is in warming ambient heights at altitude being compared to a previous dataset in order to derive anomalies - so it's kind of faux in that sense.   At least something to consider.

[Typhoon Tip]

On 10/12/2021 at 5:26 AM, sebastiaan1973 said:

Glosea5 for december till february

What are the units on the X axis ?   It says 'm' there but ...is that meters?    As in, < intervals of 10's of ?? 

If so, that's irrelevant. 

I keep seeing this chart or ones like if flashed and I'm wondering if folks are really taken by the color association.  

That said, I could also not be right about that units on that X axis, too.  Ha.   

But 40 "meters" above normal ? That's chicken shit in this business.  I mean it may matter to climate/science concerns (maybe) and time-constraining for other long term implications and so forth. But there is no way 30 meters above normal SE of NS in the NW Atlantic cripples winter here. IN fact, one could reasonably argue we have enhancing baroclinicity, considering also in that depiction above ( just to use this one example... ), with that modest neggie over the Canadian shield means quite the numerically unstable canvas in the means, from ~ STL-PWM. 

That said, yeah... there is clearly an unbalanced ballast of "warm" colors vs "cool" color in that mercadal layout ... but that's just where we are at in CC; which to wit isn't so far along that we can't get dystopian(utopian) winter - depending on one's wet/white dreams.