Winter 2021-22

[Yeoman]

10 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

That map is awful

Sue Palka drew the numbers out of a hat at the recent Fox 5 happy hour.. so no less likely than any other random seasonal guesscast you'll find, including NWS..

[Eskimo Joe]

4 hours ago, CentralVaNATS said:

Fox 5 winter outlook. I thought first that there was going to be a coastal sometime this week. But it's for the entire season

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

The gradients don't event match up. Loudoun County somewhere between 5" and 20".

[chris21]

4 hours ago, CentralVaNATS said:

Fox 5 winter outlook. I thought first that there was going to be a coastal sometime this week. But it's for the entire season

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 

That would be the lowest all time snowfall total for Davis, WV by at least 40 inches.  Extremely bold call there. Some of Tucker County is in the 10-20 inch zone.

[psuhoffman]

12 minutes ago, chris21 said:

That would be the lowest all time snowfall total for Davis, WV by at least 40 inches.  Extremely bold call there. Some of Tucker County is in the 10-20 inch zone.

They never pay much attention to those local mountain zones. Always way under done. 

[mattie g]

2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

That map is awful

Every year it's the same thing: Take a general base snowfall (below average, average, above average), draw contours from SW-NE, and fill in the blanks.

[IronTy]

2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

That map is awful

It's over.

[RIC_WX]

48 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

They never pay much attention to those local mountain zones. Always way under done. 

Thing is, if they left the colors the same, removed the "inch" predictions and just said "between 50%-100% of seasonal normal" it would almost impossible not to verify.  This is a safe prediction most years and especially so in a nina and even more so for the F5 viewing area.

Most of the population in the highlands isn't watching Fox 5 anyway

[nj2va]

2 hours ago, RIC_WX said:

Thing is, if they left the colors the same, removed the "inch" predictions and just said "between 50%-100% of seasonal normal" it would almost impossible not to verify.  This is a safe prediction most years and especially so in a nina and even more so for the F5 viewing area.

Most of the population in the highlands isn't watching Fox 5 anyway

What are you thinking for the mountains?  Last year I ended up just north of 110" so an average year.  I'm thinking 60-90".

[MJO812]

La nina is weakening 

Good news for you area

[WinterWxLuvr]

3 hours ago, IronTy said:

It's over.

Been saying it for months 

[WinterWxLuvr]

34 minutes ago, nj2va said:

What are you thinking for the mountains?  Last year I ended up just north of 110" so an average year.  I'm thinking 60-90".

No way the Allegheny front gets 60”. 
 

One thing about northern stream systems … tons of upslope 

[Weather Will]

WB latest EURO Weeklies

[TugHillMatt]

9 hours ago, CentralVaNATS said:

Fox 5 winter outlook. I thought first that there was going to be a coastal sometime this week. But it's for the entire season

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 

It looks like PIttsburgh, PA would only get 5 to 13 inches on that map? The odds of that are extremely low. Less than 50 inches for the high elevations of WV? What an awful map...really, an embarrassment to their station.

[WinterWxLuvr]

22 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB latest EURO Weeklies

That would be a pretty lean amount of snow by Dec 24

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, TugHillMatt said:

It looks like PIttsburgh, PA would only get 5 to 13 inches on that map? The odds of that are extremely low. Less than 50 inches for the high elevations of WV? What an awful map...really, an embarrassment to their station.

If you go back and look at old snow maps local DC media outlets put out its very obvious they don’t pay any attention to details once outside the DC metro area. 

[raindancewx]

-WPO Novembers in La Nina are kind of a mixed bag for December, but a lot of them do get pretty cold nationally, even in the South. I'm a bit annoyed the WPO has gone negative this month, my analogs didn't have that at all, but they did show it going neutral/negative in December.

The closest -WPO La Nina November similar to what the Canadian forecast in the US this month for temperatures is probably November 1954, followed in distant second/third by 2005 and 2007. As a blend, that'd be an interesting December, and it's relatively consistent with what I had for December if you assume it'd be a bit warmer everywhere with that three year blend centered on ~1988. My gut for a while has been December wouldn't be super cold nationally, but mostly because it would be quite cold late November into mid-December, before reversing between 12/15 and 12/25 to warmer conditions.

I assumed November would follow the August temperature progression nationally, with a cold East / hot West look to start, and then a big breakdown mid-month to a different look. We'll see how that goes, but the cold East / hot West start, like August, is certainly correct. Several of my analogs were pretty cold in the East for the end of November, but I also blended in a couple warm years to de-fang the severity of it.

[nj2va]

3 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

No way the Allegheny front gets 60”. 
 

One thing about northern stream systems … tons of upslope 

Good point, hopefully it’s another good winter out there. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

21 minutes ago, nj2va said:

Good point, hopefully it’s another good winter out there. 

No doubt in my mind it will be.

[TugHillMatt]

55 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If you go back and look at old snow maps local DC media outlets put out its very obvious they don’t pay any attention to details once outside the DC metro area. 

How sad. There are people outside of their little universe....I realize Pittsburgh isn't part of their viewing area, but why even include it if you're just going to slap a color and number over it? But I guess that's pretty much what these maps are anyways. Ha!

[Maestrobjwa]

FOX45's prediction (the precip number was blocked by the logo)

 

I think this is a very good, non-weenie-ish prediction! Now sure could we get a slightly colder bust temperature-wise? Assuming it can still get cold, it certainly could happen. But 14.6" sounds about right (I think we got like 13" last winter).

[Jebman]

9 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

No way the Allegheny front gets 60”. 
 

One thing about northern stream systems … tons of upslope 

This winter, the Allegheny Front WILL get 60 inches of snow.

[StormchaserChuck!]

I don't know why the hell my post was deleted about my NAO research-index for the Winter. I spent a lot of time on that. 

[ldub23]

21 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

The gradients don't event match up. Loudoun County somewhere between 5" and 20".

Thats way underdone. For example RIC can expect  20+ inches.

[Kmlwx]

13 hours ago, TugHillMatt said:

How sad. There are people outside of their little universe....I realize Pittsburgh isn't part of their viewing area, but why even include it if you're just going to slap a color and number over it? But I guess that's pretty much what these maps are anyways. Ha!

Why would a person from the PIT market even watch FOX DC? It's above/behind the map header. Would think that most would assume it's not applicable to the map. 

[psuhoffman]

My real serious non snarky winter thoughts

preface: The thing about these winter predictions and why I’m pretty jaded towards them and didn’t issue a real winter forecast last year is I feel like I know what we don’t know.  Don’t get me wrong a lot of the people putting them together are incredibly intelligent skilled forecasters and there is excellent science in the process. But the media culture demands they turn that science into a definitive forecast that isn’t realistic. 
 

We can look at all the known pattern influences like enso and QBO and dozens more to get a scope or range of variability the winter pattern is likely to fall within but we also cannot account for the variability within that range. We can’t fully explain why two years with nearly identical pattern drivers ended up with somewhat different results.  Additionally snowfall is a crazy erratic variable. Some luck with 1-2 discreet events is the difference between a god awful snowfall year and a decent or even pretty good one!  Pattern recognition in the fall cannot tell you if you will get unlucky on a few threats and end up with 7” or lucky and get 20”.   
 

Think about 2000. There was a favorable pattern for 10 days that winter. Most of the rest of that winter was garbage. Within that 10 days there were 3 threats. And all 3 hit to some degree across our area. And so it went down as one of the better nina winters. But what if we didn’t have as much luck?  What if the big storm did stay OTS and only the 2 smaller events on either side of it hit. Suddenly that year is bad. Some luck with one event makes or breaks it.  No one right now can say with any certainty how those details will play out. 
 

So I won’t be issuing a traditional winter forecast.  But considering what we do know I feel comfortable saying the following.
 

WRT snowfall. The range of variability this winter is skewed toward the less snowy side. When I look at all winters with a similar set of pattern drivers (SST, QBO, solar, soil, longer scale patterns) we get a range skewed towards less than normal snowfall.  But whether that ends up much below normal like 07/08 or 11/12 or we get lucky like 99/00 or 05/06 or somewhere in between like 17/18 is impossible to say.  It probably comes down to luck and maximizing potential. One thing is we absolutely NEED the NAO to be negative some of the time.   One thing that stuck out in my snowfall study years ago was we had almost no significant snows in a Nina without a -NAO.  
 

A -NAO is helpful in all enso phases but even more so in a Nina. While there are some examples of warning events in neutral and Nina phases without NAO help that is not true in a Nina. To get a significant snow we will need to get lucky during a period of high latitude help.  Whether we end up with 5-10” or 15-20” across the region likely comes down to that. Do we get some periods of blocking and luck into 1-2 storms from it. These won’t be HECS level but one 6-10” storm or two 3-6” storms across the region is all the difference here. 

I am actually leaning a little on the hopeful side on this one. Imo there are signs the NAO may be in a more favorable longer term phase right now.  I do think we get some periods of blocking. The most likely months are December and March.  Not coincidentally the most likely cold months are also Dec and March. 
 

 I know that’s not ideal but January and February aren’t totally hopeless. 2000, 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2021 are all examples of Nina’s where the NAO went negative at some point in January/February. Some worked out. Some didn’t. A chance is all Im asking for at this time. The details which will determine our fate have to be worked out with each discreet synoptic event. 
 

TLDR version:

my snowfall expectation.
 
DC urban corridor: 9-15”

Baltimore urban corridor: 13-19”

NW zones west of the fall line to the mountains: 15-22”

temps averaged above normal but I do think we get some cold shots but when it does get warm it torches so in the end it skews warm.   

[WxUSAF]

Nice summary @psuhoffmanand your point about the NAO dovetails nicely with what I just said in the other thread. -WPO is typical for -PDO and that’s bad news for us unless we get NAO help. We want the PAC ridge axis farther east to be ideal for us.

[TugHillMatt]

40 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Why would a person from the PIT market even watch FOX DC? It's above/behind the map header. Would think that most would assume it's not applicable to the map. 

That's pretty much what I'm saying...why even include Pittsburgh, and an embarrassing call at that, if it's not even in the area. It might look odd to cut it off at the end of their viewing area, but to me that would be better than putting some junk call out for that area. It doesn't make a big deal to me personally, of course...but I'm all about presentation and as a teacher, I would expect a professional to not make such a careless map.

[Superstorm]

That's pretty much what I'm saying...why even include Pittsburgh, and an embarrassing call at that, if it's not even in the area. It might look odd to cut it off at the end of their viewing area, but to me that would be better than putting some junk call out for that area. It doesn't make a big deal to me personally, of course...but I'm all about presentation and as a teacher, I would expect a professional to not make such a careless map.

Be funny if they actually only get 9” for the year.


.

[TugHillMatt]

3 minutes ago, Superstorm said:

Be funny if they actually only get 9” for the year.


.

Lol...that would sting a bit...

[Kmlwx]

8 minutes ago, TugHillMatt said:

That's pretty much what I'm saying...why even include Pittsburgh, and an embarrassing call at that, if it's not even in the area. It might look odd to cut it off at the end of their viewing area, but to me that would be better than putting some junk call out for that area. It doesn't make a big deal to me personally, of course...but I'm all about presentation and as a teacher, I would expect a professional to not make such a careless map.

Graphically - from a design standpoint - it looks "more complete" to not have there be a sudden end to the contours. And in the map drawing software - they probably have to draw over a larger area and then take a zoom shot. The way that current news banners these days have been designed are that you can see behind them. It's just what it is. Short of putting a black box awkwardly over areas they don't want you to see - the assumption is just going to be that a PIT viewer does not see the FOX 5 DC affiliate. I'm sure the PIT market maps bleed into our market as well.