Winter 2021-2022

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 4/19/2021 at 8:58 PM, raindancewx said:

Some research out lately comparing the Australian wildfires in 2019-20 to a volcanic eruption. Not sure if the California fires last fall are comparable in magnitude, but there is a strong signal here for unusual early snow in volcanic winters. Typically Sept-Nov depending on elevation, like in the past two years. The volcanic eruption in the Caribbean this month seems to have sent material into the stratosphere. Worth watching. For my purposes, the 2020-21 La Nina was only a weak event in winter. SSTs finished above 25.5C in winter in Nino 3.4, and 26.5C is average for 1951-2010.

The 25.57C winter 2020-21 reading is far more likely to warm than it is to cool by historical standards. We generally have cold and/or wet winters in the Southwest if the year over year trend in Nino 3.4 is warming. Years like 1974, 2000, 2011 all come to mind as warmer La Ninas following a much stronger prior La Nina winter. Solar activity will still likely be below 55 sunspots per year for 2021-22. Long and the short of it is, if we have another La Nina with an active hurricane season, I'd expect near-above average snow totals for New England in a slightly to very warm winter. But an El Nino at this point in the solar cycle, especially if the PDO stays negative, would be a pretty interesting winter. I find there is some correlation between Nino 4 in the prior winter and the NAO in February. So when Nino 4 is very warm or so in a winter you don't ever get a -NAO the following February (1981-2010 basis). The past winter was cold in Nino 4. So I could see a pretty cold February for the first time in a while for the East in an El Nino with the -NAO in February. You guys missed out on the fun of the severe cold in February 2019 and February 2021.

Also pretty sure there will be two very cold winters nationally in the next five years just based on animating trends in national winter patterns over the past 100 years, but we'll see.

I briefly touched upon that as a potential contributing factor to the record strong PV that sunk so many outlooks during the 2019-2020, including your's truly.

I have been saying that my initial inclination for next season is above average snow, as I seldom experience four consecutive significantly subpar seasons....at three and counting. Not something to hang your hat on, but something to keep in mind.

[Typhoon Tip]

57 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I briefly touched upon that as a potential contributing factor to the record strong PV that sunk so many outlooks during the 2019-2020, including your's truly.

I have been saying that my initial inclination for next season is above average snow, as I seldom experience four consecutive significantly subpar seasons....at three and counting. Not something to hang your hat on, but something to keep in mind.

Hmm... guess I should read more of this two pages of thread  ... but, just having caught this sentiment ( bold abv)

Keep in mind, in raging climate change ... that throws a monkey wrench into any presumptive analysis, that which infers based upon any  history *before* the accelerating of the climate began.

I think since 2000 ... it's really hard to get a bead on what is 'normal' in that regard.  All over the place...  It's a topic utterly rife with argumentatives based upon an an ambrosia of non-reconcilable interpretations - just seems to me that climate change should connote inference change.

Having said that ... logical or not, I have lol.  I mean, the 1980s ...I guess that qualifies as seldom, as the return took 35 years. But it doesn't supersede the point, really. I remember the 1980s pretty vividly back in dem ole WC days...  It was a way different reason for DJF dearth winters.

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Hmm... guess I should read more of this two pages of thread  ... but, just having caught this sentiment ( bold abv)

Keep in mind, in raging climate change ... that throws a monkey wrench into any presumptive analysis, that which infers based upon any  history *before* the accelerating of the climate began.

I think since 2000 ... it's really hard to get a bead on what is 'normal' in that regard.  All over the place...  It's a topic utterly rife with argumentatives based upon an an ambrosia of non-reconcilable interpretations - just seems to me that climate change should connote inference change.

Having said that ... logical or not, I have lol.  I mean, the 1980s ...I guess that qualifies as seldom, as the return took 35 years. But it doesn't supersede the point, really. I remember the 1980s pretty vividly back in dem ole WC days...  It was a way different reason for DJF dearth winters.

Yea, its just a consideration....I'm not saying to base an outlook off of it lol

Believe me, if next year looks like garbage, then fine.....

[ORH_wxman]

ECMWF seasonal (C3S) long range forecast is trying to turn this back toward Nina late in the forecast period....a bit of a difference from the April forecast. We're still in the spring barrier, but it's not as bad as April, so something to watch.

 

 

 

I still thinkt he subsurface looks more Nino-ish but it should be noted that the subsurface has cooled quite a bit in the past 2-3 weeks.

[CoastalWx]

I haven't looked myself, but I saw a tweet from Paul Roundy saying atmosphere still with a Nina look currently vs SST distribution.

[ORH_wxman]

36 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I haven't looked myself, but I saw a tweet from Paul Roundy saying atmosphere still with a Nina look currently vs SST distribution.

Yeah that would match with a lot of the cooling we've seen the past 3 weeks below the sfc (though it is still warm down there). If that atmosphere keeps up into the summer, then it will probably squelch any chance of a Nino...and we could go into 2nd year Nina.

[MJO812]

Any updates 

[Great Snow 1717]

13 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Any updates 

Patience my friend. The entire world is anxiously  waiting  for the puff of white smoke to appear from George's secret weather lab which  signals his winter weather forecast is complete....rumor has it the Navy guards his secret location..

[George001]

Summer 2021 update:

as spring ends and summer begins, we are beginning to see more clarity in regards to the enso state for the winter of 2021-2022. It is still early and this could still change (last year at this time appeared to be an enso neutral winter coming up, when in reality we ended up with a high end moderate/borderline strong Nina), but right now the models are predicting an cold neutral/borderline weak Nina for the winter of 2021-2022, with the range being from roughly warm neutral to a low end moderate Nina. The recent observations show that the subsurface warmth is weakening, which indicates that we could be approaching the peak in the Enso region over the next month or two before temps decrease again in that region. Therefore, at this time for my forecast I am leaning towards a weak La Niña (-.5 to -.8 strength), which is on the lower end of the temp range in the Enso region on the models. 
 

Unfortunately, the Pacific Ocean temps in the area just off the west coast still remain well above average, and so do the ssts off the Atlantic Ocean. These factors(especially the warm ssts off the Atlantic) skunked several of our chances at getting severe blizzards in eastern mass, as the warm ocean air warmed us up just enough to change the precip over to rain while north and west areas get hammered with a severe blizzard. The warmth in the pacific led to the pacific jet going haywire, flooding the country with mild pacific air and leading to us getting skunked in January. Due to the unfavorable SSTs (that look similar to the last few winters) combined with a favorable enso state, the early signs point to an avg to slightly below avg winter in the area (conflicting signals), but this should be taken with a grain of salt since it’s still early and the signs for how the single most important factor (the polar vortex) in our winter weather will behave are several months away from revealing themselves (October-November). In 2014-2015, the sst profile looked awful heading into the winter and did skunk the 1st half of winter, but then we had a polar vortex displacement where the polar vortex was displaced in the perfect spot and just sat there, leading to extreme cold in the eastern half of the US, and when combined with the weak nino induced subtropical jet, resulted in extreme cyclogenesis. This led to multiple severe blizzards coming up the coast, brining feet of snow to eastern mass every week from late Jan to late Feb. This polar vortex event that led to us going from a ratter to the snowiest winter on record in a month in 2015 is not something that will show its hand until a couple of weeks before it happens. 

[weathafella]

If it’s Nina we rat strongly.  Multi year ninas tend to get worse each year.  It not things look less bleak.

[ORH_wxman]

9 hours ago, weathafella said:

If it’s Nina we rat strongly.  Multi year ninas tend to get worse each year.  It not things look less bleak.

Weaker Nina is often fine during multi-year...00-01, ‘08-‘09 and ‘17-‘18 were all during multi-year events. 

The stronger events seems to do worse multi-year but there are exceptions like ‘75-76. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Mm... I realize I may be a bit of maverick intellect in this discussion when it comes to the ENSO modulation of the winter hemisphere

but no -

y'all are way too far weighting the ENSOs, those that are particularly of the < 1 or > -1 in the crucial domain space(s) "correlation" - which I put in quotes because that correlation itself HAS TO BE CHANGING.  Ugh -

...Unless we want to deny climate change.   Climate, is an aggregate occurrence of events, divided by the number of those events.  Those occurring events, before the average takes place, are guided by  changes in the environment.  Like, duh duh duhnnnn - a warming world.  This would be true in a cooling world, too.  Just happens to be, the Earth stowed 3 billion years worth of fossil fuels into the lithosphere, and a single force comes along ( the "Anthropocene Epoch" ), and threatens to reactivate all its reactive volatile chemistries back to the environment in 1/1,000,000,001 th of that former span of time  - mm yeeeah, I'm gonna go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday too, and admit we are in a global warming problem that is seriously going to f'up seasonal climate at middle latitudes, and it is likely already happening in our life-times ( I love that escape tactic).  Just a hunch -

Part of the problem is, there is vernacular gap related to sloppiness of terminology. 

We probably shouldn't call it climate change?   I mean, sure, the climate is changing for those outside the Industrial enabling delusion bubble, that is.  But we should probablycall it, changing weather types leading to changing averages that are no longer infer-able.  Because this longer wordier approach drills it in that the system is not responding to climate change. The wrong way around and isn't proving useful to the masses.  

But ... I also realize, the baby elephant in the room that is growing is that people want to engage in seasonal prediction; which by definition requires' predictors,' and without the ENSO mantra and narrative to canvas, people don't know how to apply any paint to that discussion. They don't want their fans and followers to open their seasonal press release and it's entire content reads, "Changing climate means the methods for prediction are no longer valid.  N/S  ...so enjoy the outlook! " 

But, it all unfortunately means we are all just speculative rubes defaulting outside the cutting edge that separate plausible, fancifully worded fiction, from more likely truths. 

So here's my rube take:

For the 100th time, the Hadley Cell is beginning to expand it's termination boundary ( which is amorphous - it's not like a 'curb' in space like you see on the edge of boulevard ... ) beyond the ENSO tropical nutation field - that limits the ENSO's direct forcing ability ( general physical interfacting ) with the main band of the westerlies.   This is not John verbosity and jamming my own bs down people's throats. I've cited both source, and personal observation/anecdotal that supports the former, sourcing.  It empirical from other sources et al in the ambit of research, as well as formulaic presently.  

But, I am probably a maverick relative to this social-mediasphere.  It's just IMHO, but evidence has been out there for awhile:  higher ENSO reliance is old school.

 

[CoastalWx]

On 6/20/2021 at 12:00 PM, George001 said:

Summer 2021 update:

as spring ends and summer begins, we are beginning to see more clarity in regards to the enso state for the winter of 2021-2022. It is still early and this could still change (last year at this time appeared to be an enso neutral winter coming up, when in reality we ended up with a high end moderate/borderline strong Nina), but right now the models are predicting an cold neutral/borderline weak Nina for the winter of 2021-2022, with the range being from roughly warm neutral to a low end moderate Nina. The recent observations show that the subsurface warmth is weakening, which indicates that we could be approaching the peak in the Enso region over the next month or two before temps decrease again in that region. Therefore, at this time for my forecast I am leaning towards a weak La Niña (-.5 to -.8 strength), which is on the lower end of the temp range in the Enso region on the models. 
 

Unfortunately, the Pacific Ocean temps in the area just off the west coast still remain well above average, and so do the ssts off the Atlantic Ocean. These factors(especially the warm ssts off the Atlantic) skunked several of our chances at getting severe blizzards in eastern mass, as the warm ocean air warmed us up just enough to change the precip over to rain while north and west areas get hammered with a severe blizzard. The warmth in the pacific led to the pacific jet going haywire, flooding the country with mild pacific air and leading to us getting skunked in January. Due to the unfavorable SSTs (that look similar to the last few winters) combined with a favorable enso state, the early signs point to an avg to slightly below avg winter in the area (conflicting signals), but this should be taken with a grain of salt since it’s still early and the signs for how the single most important factor (the polar vortex) in our winter weather will behave are several months away from revealing themselves (October-November). In 2014-2015, the sst profile looked awful heading into the winter and did skunk the 1st half of winter, but then we had a polar vortex displacement where the polar vortex was displaced in the perfect spot and just sat there, leading to extreme cold in the eastern half of the US, and when combined with the weak nino induced subtropical jet, resulted in extreme cyclogenesis. This led to multiple severe blizzards coming up the coast, brining feet of snow to eastern mass every week from late Jan to late Feb. This polar vortex event that led to us going from a ratter to the snowiest winter on record in a month in 2015 is not something that will show its hand until a couple of weeks before it happens. 

The SSTs really were not our biggest issue. We just had no good cold supply source for cstl areas, but Foxboro did pretty good overall.

[SnoSki14]

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Weaker Nina is often fine during multi-year...00-01, ‘08-‘09 and ‘17-‘18 were all during multi-year events. 

The stronger events seems to do worse multi-year but there are exceptions like ‘75-76. 

Are we still pretending that ENSO events haven't changed dramatically over the past decade? 

[40/70 Benchmark]

45 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Are we still pretending that ENSO events haven't changed dramatically over the past decade? 

Are we still pretending that we understand exactly how said changes will manifest into the atmosphere moving forward?

I understand that the global climate is changing, but enough with beating people over the head for referencing past analogues....we get it; but it doesn't entirely negate the value of the analog. Interestingly enough, I am willing to bet that the vast majority of those doing this have never ventured to issue a seasonal outlook in their lives.

[CoastalWx]

24 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Are we still pretending that we understand exactly how said changes will manifest into the atmosphere moving forward?

I understand that the global climate is changing, but enough with beating people over the head for referencing past analogues....we get it; but it doesn't entirely negate the value of the analog. Interestingly enough, I am willing to bet that the vast majority of those doing this have never ventured to issue a seasonal outlook in their lives.

Yeah. Sample size of a decade is weak sauce too. We can surmise that maybe the    classic depictions of ENSO as we know it might be changing, but we are fooling ourselves into thinking that we need to throw out the analogs and ENSO knowledge as we know it. We just don’t have the information and data to suggest changing how we approach and expect ENSO events to behave as we know it. 
 

For the record, I think there have been changes, but you need some more sample size IMO. 

[ORH_wxman]

35 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Are we still pretending that we understand exactly how said changes will manifest into the atmosphere moving forward?

I understand that the global climate is changing, but enough with beating people over the head for referencing past analogues....we get it; but it doesn't entirely negate the value of the analog. Interestingly enough, I am willing to bet that the vast majority of those doing this have never ventured to issue a seasonal outlook in their lives.

Agreed. Ten years doesn’t even change that much. Obviously there are some underlying factors that are different versus 20+ years ago, but it’s pretty silly to just discard analogs because of that. Let’s not act like previous ENSOs didn’t buck trends either or have weird things happen. 

Just last winter we kept mentioning how we were getting El Niño during a La Niña similar to what happened during a 4-6 week period in 1975-1976. 

Or how can we forget 1968-1969 acting like a La Niña. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

23 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Yeah. Sample size of a decade is weak sauce too. We can surmise that maybe the    classic depictions of ENSO as we know it might be changing, but we are fooling ourselves into thinking that we need to throw out the analogs and ENSO knowledge as we know it. We just don’t have the information and data to suggest changing how we approach and expect ENSO events to behave as we know it. 
 

For the record, I think there have been changes, but you need some more sample size IMO. 

I agree, and it would be silly to ignore that; however, it would be just as silly to disregard 100 years worth of data.

[40/70 Benchmark]

19 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Agreed. Ten years doesn’t even change that much. Obviously there are some underlying factors that are different versus 20+ years ago, but it’s pretty silly to just discard analogs because of that. Let’s not act like previous ENSOs didn’t buck trends either or have weird things happen. 

Just last winter we kept mentioning how we were getting El Niño during a La Niña similar to what happened during a 4-6 week period in 1975-1976. 

Or how can we forget 1968-1969 acting like a La Niña. 

Funny how the two previous el nino events acted like la nina, and now we got a la nina that acted like el nino...the common denominator?

They all porked me-

[40/70 Benchmark]

http://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/

[MJO812]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

http://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/

Let's everyone predict a ratter winter. People predicted that and many places especially where I am had a nice winter.

[Great Snow 1717]

1 hour ago, MJO812 said:

Let's everyone predict a ratter winter. People predicted that and many places especially where I am had a nice winter.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Let's everyone predict a ratter winter. People predicted that and many places especially where I am had a nice winter.

I know you are being facetious, but I see nothing to suggest that at this early juncture.

[Ginx snewx]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:42 PM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I agree, and it would be silly to ignore that; however, it would be just as silly to disregard 100 years worth of data.

The weak Nina correlation in New England is what porked you I believe.  Its ridiculously hard to predict winter as it is. Weak signals don't correlate very well in New England.  As far as Hadley goes I don't see anything that is super correlated. If one could predict EPO and PNA one could nail winter but alas.

[40/70 Benchmark]

On 6/24/2021 at 5:37 AM, Ginx snewx said:

The weak Nina correlation in New England is what porked you I believe.  Its ridiculously hard to predict winter as it is. Weak signals don't correlate very well in New England.  As far as Hadley goes I don't see anything that is super correlated. If one could predict EPO and PNA one could nail winter but alas.

It wasn't a weak la nina...it was moderate.

I think it was just that the shearing zone between pretty favorable polar fields and a hostile Pacific set up in such a manner that systems attenuated as they approached the pike region. This hurt me and really killed points NE of me. Some spots to the north lucked out w the mega band in Dec, but it ironically set up NW of me....that was bad luck, although even that system was fading somewhat as it moved NE.

[Ginx snewx]

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It wasn't a weak la nina...it was moderate.

I think it was just that the shearing zone between pretty favorable polar fields and a hostile Pacific set up in such a manner that systems attenuated as they approached the pike region. This hurt me and really killed points NE of me. Some spots to the north lucked out w the mega band in Dec, but it ironically set up NW of me....that was bad luck, although even that system was fading somewhat as it moved NE.

You miss understand.  Weak correlation with Nina for New England snow. Best to figure out PNA EPO. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

You miss understand.  Weak correlation with Nina for New England snow. Best to figure out PNA EPO. 

Oh, well I didn't base the snowfall forecast entirely on ENSO, though it was certainly considered.

EPO was pretty hostile last season and the PNA was really only favorable in December, so I'm not sure that was very telling, either....but I agree the Pacific is very important in general.

[weatherwiz]

4 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

You miss understand.  Weak correlation with Nina for New England snow. Best to figure out PNA EPO. 

And more precisely how they evolve/behave over the course of the season. Which this is something that I think Ray does very well with in his seasonal outlook presentations. Some out there who issue seasonal outlooks just focus on the variables as a whole and try to justify a seasonal forecast based off the state as a whole or a single state (for example, -NAO vs. +NAO). But IMO it's also more than just PNA, EPO, NAO, etc...it's trying to gauge what driver or drivers will hold the biggest influence on the shaping of the global pattern. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Smoking gun was the gradient that ensued between the favorable polar fields and the hostile Pacific...the position of that over the majority of the season determined the haves and have nots in terms of snowfall. SW was best because they sheared as the approached NE due to the mean position of the gradient over the course of the season.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

And more precisely how they evolve/behave over the course of the season. Which this is something that I think Ray does very well with in his seasonal outlook presentations. Some out there who issue seasonal outlooks just focus on the variables as a whole and try to justify a seasonal forecast based off the state as a whole or a single state (for example, -NAO vs. +NAO). But IMO it's also more than just PNA, EPO, NAO, etc...it's trying to gauge what driver or drivers will hold the biggest influence on the shaping of the global pattern. 

I actually had the PNA evolution backwards last season...I thought it would begin more hostile, and get better over the course of the season. However, I nailed it in the aggregate.