My Winter Outlook for 2021-22

[raindancewx]

https://t.co/qpg8wV8Cmw?amp=1

General Idea:

- Some blocking present again (likely Dec/Mar, brief periods Nov, Jan-Feb too)

- Temp pattern reflects -PDO looks

- Solar incorporated

I have temperature maps by month with different weightings of the five year blend I used for winter overall (1961-62, 1974-75 (x2), 2001-02, 2017-18 (2), 2020-21).

Analogs have fluky snow events deep into the South each year. February is expected to be both snowy and tornadic, and I like Feb-Mar as snowy for most of the Northern US compared to averages. I went cold again in February. But the overall look is pretty different to last year.

There is a strong signal for several major cold waves reaching at least parts of the Southwest (NM/TX) at times.

This is 60-slides, but around 40 have pictures or charts. It's not just me blathering. Regarding ENSO strength at the surface, this is what I used to justify a weak event despite the cold below the surface. It's a bit fuzzy below, but clearer at the link.

[raindancewx]

Getting there wasn't pretty. But the overall cold signal showed up in the Northwest, and the Southeast was up to +5F where I thought it would be. 

I mentioned a strong cold signal for TX & NM in my forecast for February back in Sept/Oct. Here is how that went. I saw it in part because major cold snaps in TX in February often repeat back to back.

Here is how I did seasonally for about 100 cities. You can see a big +3 to +5 area did show up as I expected.

Alright then. Back to skiing. I'll check back in a few weeks on this week.

[raindancewx]

Almost had the entire US within 3 degrees of the analog blend. I consider anything over 3F out to be no-skill or worse, since most places see an average of +/-6F variation for a period of three months. The scale is in increments of 0.55C, so I wrote the conversion in Fahrenheit onto the scale. I had something like 2/3 of the US within 2F of actual observed temperatures in the spot.

[Roger Smith]

Are we going to see anything like that heat dome we experienced in this region late June and early July? I am noticing that there has been a tendency in the past for very hot summers to be followed in this region by another rather hot summer before the signal fades out. We can do without any repeat of that. 

I would say you've done quite well with the winter forecast and perhaps if the amount of cold air moving through central Canada towards Quebec doesn't fit some analogues it may be that in the past these air masses were able to spread out a bit more and lose their concentrated packages of cold. Despite the winter patterns, January was actually quite cold in the Great Lakes region, the anomaly was more than balanced out by milder signals in Dec and Feb. At Toronto it was the 32nd coldest of the past 182 when urban heat island was factored into the value. This cold was a lot less noteworthy by the time it filtered out to the east coast of the U.S. which had a fairly average January. 

[raindancewx]

I haven't really looked at Summer yet. The winter featured a pretty -WPO look for the first time in ages, I think that's a pretty big hint for the Summer. 

There are some strong -WPO tendencies that follow in Summer. Keep in mind, last year hard was record positive. I usually try to look for opposite tendencies to roll forward,

 2020   0.69   1.46   1.29  -1.34   0.12  -1.25  -0.54  -0.21  -2.44  -1.18   0.72   0.99
 2021   2.45   0.76   2.05  -0.12   0.18  -0.82  -0.44  -1.94  -0.65   1.74  -0.15   0.48
 2022  -1.44  -0.39 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90

2021-22: -0.45

2020-21: +1.40

The WPO precipitation correlation implies a gigantic high over San Antonio with south Texas strongly correlated to dryness. It broadly matches the temperature correlation too. I'd have to look at the individual months though. The recent Summers to follow net -WPO winters, cold ENSO winter are 1997, 2000, 2011, 2012, 2014. March 1997 saw rapid warming in Nino 1.2 ahead of the big 1997 El Nino like we have now. It's also very much like the actual WPO tendency in 2021-22, with December positive, January very negative, February in between. July of the five years does look like the map below, warm middle, colder east/west thirds in line with the -WPO winter correlation. It's interesting to see that the net -WPO, -ENSO winters of the past 25 years were all followed by warmer ENSO events the following year, since that seems pretty likely for 2022-23 at this point.

[raindancewx]

I mentioned in my outlook that all analogs had "fluky snow events in the South", particularly around I-40 west of the Appalachians. That aged pretty well. Snow is not done in the West - some major snows even down to the high terrain of southern New Mexico. But this map should mostly hold. 

I'll score 100 or so cities nationally when snow totals are final in May. A lot of the Mid-South showed up as at least average in my raw analogs, so was pleased to some good snows down there even though I went more conservative. Some of the raw percentages were +20% in KY/TN and other spots.

[raindancewx]

My snowfall map has verified quite well where I am. Looks like we've topped 10 inches of snow in Albuquerque for the second year in a row. Above average both years. First time that's happened in back to back La Nina winters since 1973-74 to 1974-75.

Edit: The 3.1" snow was the storm total, not today's total at the airport. Only 9.4" for Oct-Mar 2021-22, but 3.7" in March - most since 2005 here.

Most of the metro got 1-5 inches of snow overnight. Big heavy wet snowflakes. We've had rain too this month, so the ground and plant life is quite happy.

[thunderbolt]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

My snowfall map has verified quite well where I am. Looks like we've topped 10 inches of snow in Albuquerque for the second year in a row. Above average both years. First time that's happened in back to back La Nina winters since 1973-74 to 1974-75.

Edit: The 3.1" snow was the storm total, not today's total at the airport. Only 9.4" for Oct-Mar 2021-22, but 3.7" in March - most since 2005 here.

Most of the metro got 1-5 inches of snow overnight. Big heavy wet snowflakes. We've had rain too this month, so the ground and plant life is quite happy.

You would think you would have more than 10 inches especially at the elevation of 5300+

[raindancewx]

Elevation isn't inherently a snow indicator. Santa Fe is 7,000+ feet and averages the same amount of snow as Philadelphia, roughly 23". Meanwhile, Flagstaff is about the same elevation and gets 100 inches annually.

[thunderbolt]

7 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Elevation isn't inherently a snow indicator. Santa Fe is 7,000+ feet and averages the same amount of snow as Philadelphia, roughly 23". Meanwhile, Flagstaff is about the same elevation and gets 100 inches annually.

Elevation is a big contributor and how much snow you get And I’m sure if they had more than 8 inches of rain Santa Fe (a year)Your chances of having more snow I-would think Go up dramatically

[WEATHER53]

My winter outlook was mixed.  Absolutely excellent ion them  12.5” call for DCA but missed Dec (0 to +1 ) and Feb (-2)  temps and overall.  Nailed   Jan temps with -3 to -5 call.  
Give it an overall C 

[raindancewx]

I'm planning to score the snow portion of my outlook once April is done. Nearly all of the US should be done with snow.

[raindancewx]

Here is a look at my snowfall outlook from last Fall. I wrote observed snow totals for several dozen sites on the map.

Blue is above average, red below. Circled sites were within 20% of forecast.  I thought there would be some spotty good snow totals in the mid-South, you can see that verified well in KY, TN, OK, and Arkansas. I rounded snow observed to the nearest inch for Oct-Apr and compared to the analog blend (1961-62, 1974-75 (x2), 2001-02, 2017-18 (x2), 2020-21) from Fall, and to the 60 year snow average for 1961-62 to 2020-21.

[WestMichigan]

Central Ohio and Indiana getting soundly beat by Kentucky is quote the anomaly for sure.  Overall lots of hits and misses in your guesses, but kudos for taking a shot at it in the first place.