December 2021 Medium/Long Range Discussion Thread

[Mr. Kevin]

34 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It’s frustrating now but the very slow speed of the mjo wave will be a good thing in a few weeks. 

Do you believe the mjo wave will make it past the standing wave to have a coherent mjo propagation into colder phases? I think that's really important 

[frd]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

It’s frustrating now but the very slow speed of the mjo wave will be a good thing in a few weeks. 

 

@psuhoffman Goes along with what you said.

From Webb.....posted today. 

these slower-moving West Pacific MJO waves during La Nina are actually the most likely to significantly disrupt the stratosphere and create stronger, long-lasting -NAOs because of the poleward displacement of the N Pacific jet during La Nina (focusing more wave fluxes onto the mean state/over eastern Russia when active WP MJO is present) & greater separation between the Pacific + Atlantic jet streams as well as large wavelength Rossby Waves in the N Pacific jet.

 

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, Mr. Kevin said:

Do you believe the mjo wave will make it past the standing wave to have a coherent mjo propagation into colder phases? I think that's really important 

This wave originating in 6 is more favorable than some recent years when we saw waves originate in 3 then slowly cycle through the MC.  Additionally while 6 isn’t favorable there is evidence phase 6/7 is favorable to disrupting the PV.  Makes me wonder if the colder looks from 8/1 partially are tied to the after effects of 6/7 since we know PV disruption has a significant lag effect on sensible weather. I’m not an mjo expert but from experience my guess is the wave makes it at least to 8. 

1 hour ago, frd said:

 

@psuhoffman Goes along with what you said.

From Webb.....posted today. 

these slower-moving West Pacific MJO waves during La Nina are actually the most likely to significantly disrupt the stratosphere and create stronger, long-lasting -NAOs because of the poleward displacement of the N Pacific jet during La Nina (focusing more wave fluxes onto the mean state/over eastern Russia when active WP MJO is present) & greater separation between the Pacific + Atlantic jet streams as well as large wavelength Rossby Waves in the N Pacific jet.

 

I’ve seen the same theories and it jives with my anecdotal experiences. Slower waves seem to have greater impact on the conus pattern in my experience. Not to mention a slower wave moving through 8/1 simply gives us more time. Lastly I like a wave starting in 6 much better than the last few years when it seemed everything wanted to start in 2/3 then slowly traverse the warm hell phases then die right as they got to 8. No guarantees but this scenario has a much higher chance of working in our favor Imo. 

[clskinsfan]

33 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

my guess is the wave makes it at least to 8.

I agree with this. With how amped into 7 it is supposed to get 8 seems like almost a sure thing. 

[Mr. Kevin]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

This wave originating in 6 is more favorable than some recent years when we saw waves originate in 3 then slowly cycle through the MC.  Additionally while 6 isn’t favorable there is evidence phase 6/7 is favorable to disrupting the PV.  Makes me wonder if the colder looks from 8/1 partially are tied to the after effects of 6/7 since we know PV disruption has a significant lag effect on sensible weather. I’m not an mjo expert but from experience my guess is the wave makes it at least to 8. 

I’ve seen the same theories and it jives with my anecdotal experiences. Slower waves seem to have greater impact on the conus pattern in my experience. Not to mention a slower wave moving through 8/1 simply gives us more time. Lastly I like a wave starting in 6 much better than the last few years when it seemed everything wanted to start in 2/3 then slowly traverse the warm hell phases then die right as they got to 8. No guarantees but this scenario has a much higher chance of working in our favor Imo. 

I agree, but if the mjo cant make it into the more colder phases for winter, we are fooked lol. I mean stuck in the warm phases that promote warm weather. Alot of moving parts with winter as you know. 

[cbmclean]

1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

I agree with this. With how amped into 7 it is supposed to get 8 seems like almost a sure thing. 

Are you trying to jinx us?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Never trust the MJO....at least not until more research and upgrades have been funded for improvements. People hung their hats on this as our saving grace 2 of the last 3 winters and the phases that were forecast never materialized. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

8 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

I agree with this. With how amped into 7 it is supposed to get 8 seems like almost a sure thing. 

I take you back to winter 2020 when the amplitude was literally off the chart. Forecasts showed it moving along weaker into the next favorable phase but instead went right into the COD completely bypassing the forecast and traversed almost 180 into a warm regime. It was that particular situation that made me realize just how much of a dartboard that product truly still is.

[SnowenOutThere]

End of the GFS has a Christmas Eve snowstorm in the works

[BristowWx]

11 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

End of the GFS has a Christmas Eve snowstorm in the works

I'd give it another run or two then start a thread.  That timeframe is starting to look promising in Santa as the experts have noted so who knows.

[Eskimo Joe]

22 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

End of the GFS has a Christmas Eve snowstorm in the works

The Eskimo Express is still on track.

[SnowenOutThere]

24 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

I'd give it another run or two then start a thread.  That timeframe is starting to look promising in Santa as the experts have noted so who knows.

Yeah don’t want to take away the spotlight from the tochtober thread.

[osfan24]

1 hour ago, SnowenOutThere said:

End of the GFS has a Christmas Eve snowstorm in the works

Yeah, that looked like it was about to be what dreams are made of. Too bad it's forever away.

[CAPE]

GFSX ens Control run has a similar look to the CFS depiction for early Jan with an amped ridge out west and a PV lobe dropping south. Euro Weeklies Control from Monday looks very similar too. Fun to look at, but still pretty far out. We just cant know.

 

[Eskimo Joe]

 

[psuhoffman]

4 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Never trust the MJO....at least not until more research and upgrades have been funded for improvements. People hung their hats on this as our saving grace 2 of the last 3 winters and the phases that were forecast never materialized. 

 

4 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I take you back to winter 2020 when the amplitude was literally off the chart. Forecasts showed it moving along weaker into the next favorable phase but instead went right into the COD completely bypassing the forecast and traversed almost 180 into a warm regime. It was that particular situation that made me realize just how much of a dartboard that product truly still is.

Nothing is guaranteed and its possible the MJO fails us again.  But wrt to the example you gave, and I remember it well, it started as a standing wave in the IO around phase 3.  Phase 3 isnt ideal but its not bad and we were stuck in kinda a mediocre pattern and people were wanting the standing wave to break so the MJO could progress and I remember saying "be careful what you wish for" because by far the strongest profile for the MJO at that time was for it to go ape in phases 4-6 if the IO wave died.  Thats exactly what happened.  It's one of the things that contributed to my "were pretty much screwed" post I made around the holidays that year that got some people upset.  A wave starting in phase 6 is much more likely to progress into 8 than a wave starting in 3.  The great MJO fake out of 2019 also started in phases 3/4 not phase 6.  There are some differences.  

My other problem with that kind of skepticism is that its not based in predictive science just pure skepticism.  Its useless in making a real forecast.  It's like the people that say "its just gonna suck because it sucks right now".  That's really bad science.  Persistence isn't really a thing, its confirmation bias.  It feels like "suck" is persistent around here because our climo is "suck" most of the time wrt snow.  NOT snowing is the normal in our area.  Snow is the anomaly.  So simply saying "its gonna suck" all the time makes you look really smart most of the time but you aren't actually making a science based prediction.  Just playing the odds.   

 

Look at our recent history even.  2015 we had almost no snow into February.  The "persistence" matra was LOUD.  Then we went on an epic run.   2016 was as god awful a start as you could possibly have into mid January...then one of our biggest snowstorms in history hit.  2018 we had almost no snow at all then got several snows and a 4-8" storm in March.  2019 started cold, got really warm, turned cold/snowy for a couple weeks...then turned warm again.   Persistence isnt really a thing...its just we will skew towards a bad pattern for snow more often then not because that's whats "normal" here.  

 

Another thing, there are legit science based reasons to be skeptical.  The SST profile in the tropical pac bothers me.  Its definitely more favorable for convection in the warm MJO phases and destructive to a wave amplifying in 8/1.  The nina base state would also support the MJO being less helpful.  But the people poo pooing the MJO aren't really making the science arguments they are mostly just making the "things suck so they will continue to suck and we should just expect suck" type arguments and I hate that crap.  Its just lazy forecasting.  

Lastly, when I am "interested" in something it doesn't necessarily mean I expect snow.  I know our climo.  I know snow is an anomaly.  So I come at this from "looking for possibilities" POV.   How COULD we get snow.  I know most of these possibilities will fail.  But waiting until its about to snow to get excited would be boring most of the time since we spend the majority of our time in bad patterns.  The final point I will make is, at some point this winter it is VERY likely we will get a better pattern for at least some time.  Even the absolute worst winters had SOME opportunities.  Even the years we had a total fail there were SOME (granted not many) chances but it was a combo of bad luck and failing at the few chances we did get and having a bad pattern MOST of the time.  I can't remember a year where it was wall to wall start to finish a totally hopeless pattern.  So the odds say at some point the pattern will evolve to something better than the absolute no hope god awful look we are heading into.  I am focused on looking for hints of how that may happen.  

[midatlanticweather]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

......

Lastly, when I am "interested" in something it doesn't necessarily mean I expect snow.  I know our climo.  I know snow is an anomaly.  So I come at this from "looking for possibilities" POV.   How COULD we get snow.  I know most of these possibilities will fail.  But waiting until its about to snow to get excited would be boring most of the time since we spend the majority of our time in bad patterns.  The final point I will make is, at some point this winter it is VERY likely we will get a better pattern for at least some time.  Even the absolute worst winters had SOME opportunities.  Even the years we had a total fail there were SOME (granted not many) chances but it was a combo of bad luck and failing at the few chances we did get and having a bad pattern MOST of the time.  I can't remember a year where it was wall to wall start to finish a totally hopeless pattern.  So the odds say at some point the pattern will evolve to something better than the absolute no hope god awful look we are heading into.  I am focused on looking for hints of how that may happen.  

I keep reminding myself of this.. as you have said.. We have to get lucky! Some patterns are more favorable to have a lucky outcome. But a good pattern can be wasted. Some years, we seem to get a lot of luck. Some, no matter how good it looks, we are still a miss. 

 

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

I keep reminding myself of this.. as you have said.. We have to get lucky! Some patterns are more favorable to have a lucky outcome. But a good pattern can be wasted. Some years, we seem to get a lot of luck. Some, no matter how good it looks, we are still a miss. 

 

I'm sure I will take some heat for this...since 1996 seems to hold some spot of reverence and honor with snow weenies, but I have come to believe 1996 was a combination of a good pattern (for a nina) but more than that just a LOT of good luck.  If you go through the H5 patterns that year...it wasn't as much a classic can't miss pattern as 2010 was for example.  It was good at times, don't get me wrong...but no better than the h5 look we have had in other nina winters that had periods of blocking.  There were also hints of some of the tendancies in a few other storms that hurt us in other Nina's but somehow didnt'.  There were several late developing miller b and frontal wave storms that year...but somehow they managed to not screw 95 while also hitting the coastal plan and immediate coast also.  I have come to think maybe we just got lucky with that January blizzard hitting...and a couple other storms.  Maybe that was just the slot machine coming up triple bars.  If you take all other -NAO nina patterns...its not like we don't get snow and can't get storms.  Just that year managed a much higher hit rate than you would expect.  Instead of agonizing over some intricate reason why maybe it was just luck.  

[dallen7908]

Whenever PSU goes on this rant, it always reminds me of skill score.  

A skill score measures the accuracy of a forecast with reference to the accuracy of a standard forecast. The standard forecast is usually but not always a forecast that is available to a forecaster, and which does not require any effort or knowledge on his part to prepare. For example, a forecast which consists of the climatological average temperature for a particular station for each day can be obtained from climatological tables and doesn't require any knowledge of the current weather situation to prepare.

More significant digits, more ensembles, or a better model might help (a very little) but this doesn't look encouraging for us low landers. 

 

[Kmlwx]

That's also only out to D10. There are indications that the warmer pattern may be in place until late month. Would not expect anything prior to the end of that chart - and more likely even a bit longer. 

[Eduardo]

30 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

Nothing is guaranteed and its possible the MJO fails us again.  But wrt to the example you gave, and I remember it well, it started as a standing wave in the IO around phase 3.  Phase 3 isnt ideal but its not bad and we were stuck in kinda a mediocre pattern and people were wanting the standing wave to break so the MJO could progress and I remember saying "be careful what you wish for" because by far the strongest profile for the MJO at that time was for it to go ape in phases 4-6 if the IO wave died.  Thats exactly what happened.  It's one of the things that contributed to my "were pretty much screwed" post I made around the holidays that year that got some people upset.  A wave starting in phase 6 is much more likely to progress into 8 than a wave starting in 3.  The great MJO fake out of 2019 also started in phases 3/4 not phase 6.  There are some differences.  

My other problem with that kind of skepticism is that its not based in predictive science just pure skepticism.  Its useless in making a real forecast.  It's like the people that say "its just gonna suck because it sucks right now".  That's really bad science.  Persistence isn't really a thing, its confirmation bias.  It feels like "suck" is persistent around here because our climo is "suck" most of the time wrt snow.  NOT snowing is the normal in our area.  Snow is the anomaly.  So simply saying "its gonna suck" all the time makes you look really smart most of the time but you aren't actually making a science based prediction.  Just playing the odds.   

 

Look at our recent history even.  2015 we had almost no snow into February.  The "persistence" matra was LOUD.  Then we went on an epic run.   2016 was as god awful a start as you could possibly have into mid January...then one of our biggest snowstorms in history hit.  2018 we had almost no snow at all then got several snows and a 4-8" storm in March.  2019 started cold, got really warm, turned cold/snowy for a couple weeks...then turned warm again.   Persistence isnt really a thing...its just we will skew towards a bad pattern for snow more often then not because that's whats "normal" here.  

 

Another thing, there are legit science based reasons to be skeptical.  The SST profile in the tropical pac bothers me.  Its definitely more favorable for convection in the warm MJO phases and destructive to a wave amplifying in 8/1.  The nina base state would also support the MJO being less helpful.  But the people poo pooing the MJO aren't really making the science arguments they are mostly just making the "things suck so they will continue to suck and we should just expect suck" type arguments and I hate that crap.  Its just lazy forecasting.  

Lastly, when I am "interested" in something it doesn't necessarily mean I expect snow.  I know our climo.  I know snow is an anomaly.  So I come at this from "looking for possibilities" POV.   How COULD we get snow.  I know most of these possibilities will fail.  But waiting until its about to snow to get excited would be boring most of the time since we spend the majority of our time in bad patterns.  The final point I will make is, at some point this winter it is VERY likely we will get a better pattern for at least some time.  Even the absolute worst winters had SOME opportunities.  Even the years we had a total fail there were SOME (granted not many) chances but it was a combo of bad luck and failing at the few chances we did get and having a bad pattern MOST of the time.  I can't remember a year where it was wall to wall start to finish a totally hopeless pattern.  So the odds say at some point the pattern will evolve to something better than the absolute no hope god awful look we are heading into.  I am focused on looking for hints of how that may happen.  

Such a solid post!  I am skeptical about us moving into the favorable MJO phases or experiencing an extended wintry period this year, but the fact that we are beginning in Phase 6 gives me a tad more hope.

 

One question that's been on my mind that I've posed in my own regional forum: Wouldn't those those anomalously low SSTs off the coast of western South America have to serve us well at some point (even if the NPAC is pure suckage)?

[Ralph Wiggum]

10 minutes ago, Eduardo said:

Such a solid post!  I am skeptical about us moving into the favorable MJO phases or experiencing an extended wintry period this year, but the fact that we are beginning in Phase 6 gives me a tad more hope.

 

One question that's been on my mind that I've posed in my own regional forum: Wouldn't those those anomalously low SSTs off the coast of western South America have to serve us well at some point (even if the NPAC is pure suckage)?

The PDO you referenced is the real killer for the next 10 days imho, moreso than the enso right now. Once the h5 blob sets in over the Aleutians via the near record PDO profile recently, it is going to be tough to dislodge. We can hope it noses into the EPO region perhaps, but we will need help on the Atlantic side given the overall look in the Pacific.

And I agree with PSU re the MJO. I would never say it sucks and will continue to suck and will never improve without facts. That certainly wasn't my point. Psu eloquently reinforced what I was basically trying to state... sometime you need to be careful what you wish for. 

Things will improve. It isnt a shutout pattern by any means, especially given it isnt even Dec 10 yet. We will get plenty of chances. And yes, the start in phase 6 is better than 3....but where it heads is still anyones guess.

Moving ahead on the ens means, I do certainly like the look where we may be headed by Christmas week....epo ridging, weakening SE ridge, scan ridge propagating towards part of Greenland. Just gotta be patient.....and lord knows we do this well around here.

[SnowenOutThere]

13 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Moving ahead on the ens means, I do certainly like the look where we may be headed by Christmas week....epo ridging, weakening SE ridge, scan ridge propagating towards part of Greenland. Just gotta be patient.....and lord knows we do this well around here.

Christmas Blizzard confirmed?

[SnowenOutThere]

With what the smart people have said around here and the GFS continuing (even at the end of it's run) to have a period of cold and potential snow, maybe this could be the year where we get some snow near Christmas.

[BristowWx]

That is vodka cold in Canada and entering the US late in the GFS run.  The stuff dreams are made of

[Scraff]

1 hour ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Christmas Blizzard confirmed?

Start a thread.

 

 

That joke too soon? 

 

 

[SnowenOutThere]

10 minutes ago, Scraff said:

Start a thread.

 

 

That joke too soon? 

 

 

Like I said don't want to take any attention away from the torchtober thread... yet.

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, BristowWx said:

That is vodka cold in Canada and entering the US late in the GFS run.  The stuff dreams are made of

Vodka cold rarely, rarely will produce snow here. And usually only upon its exit

[Yeoman]

11 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Vodka cold rarely, rarely will produce snow here. And usually only upon its exit

or cold for that matter

[mattie g]

23 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Vodka cold rarely, rarely will produce snow here. And usually only upon its exit

But being along a gradient could produce.