The “is it ever going to snow again” discussion.

[Cobalt]

This certainly hasn't helped our prospects of snow recently. While the 97-02 snow drought didn't feature much of any notable cold in the CONUS during February, the recent 17-22 stretch has, it's just consistently been dumping into the Central and Western US, and the persistent SER has made it rather difficult to see any sustained cold in the East. 

This has turned what was a snowy month (avg 5.0") into just an average of 1.1" over the past 6 Februaries at DCA. January (4.9" avg during that interval), and even March (1.3" avg) have presented substantially more snow threats during this period by a good margin. Whether something temporary, exacerbated by persistent Nina conditions, or a product of the bigger picture, it isn't good, and has contributed to our futility since the 2015-16 winter.

[Eskimo Joe]

Since moving back to Maryland in August 2016, I haven't seen one event in Reisterstown with more than 6" of snow. The drought has to end eventually.

[Maestrobjwa]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:38 PM, Cobalt said:

This certainly hasn't helped our prospects of snow recently. While the 97-02 snow drought didn't feature much of any notable cold in the CONUS during February, the recent 17-22 stretch has, it's just consistently been dumping into the Central and Western US, and the persistent SER has made it rather difficult to see any sustained cold in the East. 

This has turned what was a snowy month (avg 5.0") into just an average of 1.1" over the past 6 Februaries at DCA. January (4.9" avg during that interval), and even March (1.3" avg) have presented substantially more snow threats during this period by a good margin. Whether something temporary, exacerbated by persistent Nina conditions, or a product of the bigger picture, it isn't good, and has contributed to our futility since the 2015-16 winter.

SER--Public Snow Enemy No.1!!!

[BristowWx]

No.  It’s not going to snow again.  

[MDScienceTeacher]

6 hours ago, BristowWx said:

No.  It’s not going to snow again.  

Based on the record books, it appears that what we are going though is normal.. HOWEVER...it does appear that the snow droughts have been more frequent over the last 50 years. 

Given that we only have a small sample size, it is hard to conclude whether or not the recent more frequent snow droughts are a signal for some bigger decrease in annual snow for our region, or if the period BTW the late 1800s and 1950 was just really snowy for our region.

These are Baltimore/ BWI numbers:

 

1912-13  - 7.3

1918-19 - 4.0

 

1926-27 - 8.5

1931-32 - 4.2

 

1937-38 - 7.6

 

1949-50 - 0.7

1950-51- 6.2

1954-55 - 10.1

1958-59 -4.0

 

1972-73 - 1.2

 

1980-81 - 4.6

 

1988-89 - 8.3

1990-91 - 9.4

1991-9- 4.1

1994-95 - 8.2

 

1997-98 - 3.2

2000-01 - 8.7

2001-02 - 2.3

 

2007-08 - 8.5

2008-09 - 9.1

2011-12 - 1.8

2012-13 - 8.0

 

2016-17 - 3.0

2019-20- 1.8

2022-2023 - 0.0 (so far)

[BristowWx]

11 minutes ago, MDScienceTeacher said:

Based on the record books, it appears that what we are going though is normal.. HOWEVER...it does appear that the snow droughts have been more frequent over the last 50 years. 

Given that we only have a small sample size, it is hard to conclude whether or not the recent more frequent snow droughts are a signal for some bigger decrease in annual snow for our region, or if the period BTW the late 1800s and 1950 was just really snowy for our region.

These are Baltimore/ BWI numbers:

 

1912-13  - 7.3

1918-19 - 4.0

 

1926-27 - 8.5

1931-32 - 4.2

 

1937-38 - 7.6

 

1949-50 - 0.7

1950-51- 6.2

1954-55 - 10.1

1958-59 -4.0

 

1972-73 - 1.2

 

1980-81 - 4.6

 

1988-89 - 8.3

1990-91 - 9.4

1991-9- 4.1

1994-95 - 8.2

 

1997-98 - 3.2

2000-01 - 8.7

2001-02 - 2.3

 

2007-08 - 8.5

2008-09 - 9.1

2011-12 - 1.8

2012-13 - 8.0

 

2016-17 - 3.0

2019-20- 1.8

2022-2023 - 0.0 (so far)

good info.  I do think we will have good years again.  for BWI and DCA...essentially the 95 cities I can see feast or famine for a number of reasons UHI low elevation yada...but the fact that locations well west of there but east of the upslope zones are also getting shut out seems like the bigger story.  If the SER is being enhanced by the warmer Atlantic then undoing that might be a tall order.  So this new base state as many have mentioned is really concerning.  It will snow again but the conditions it takes to get snow are becoming more of an anomalous pattern situation.  The regular base state patterns that worked in the past here in the MA might not in the future as things are seeming to prove themselves as the models get closer and see the impact of the SER. I know there is more at play than that but if we need a -EPO+PNA 50/50 -NAO to even have a chance at frozen its gonna be long periods of time between winter weather. there is enthusiasm about el nino but if you without the cold/blocking/SER mitigation its just a wet/warm pattern with active southern jet.  That's what is spooking everyone.  just my 2 cents

[mattie g]

20 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

good info.  I do think we will have good years again.  for BWI and DCA...essentially the 95 cities I can see feast or famine for a number of reasons UHI low elevation yada...but the fact that locations well west of there but east of the upslope zones are also getting shut out seems like the bigger story.  If the SER is being enhanced by the warmer Atlantic then undoing that might be a tall order.  So this new base state as many have mentioned is really concerning.  It will snow again but the conditions it takes to get snow are becoming more of an anomalous pattern situation.  The regular base state patterns that worked in the past here in the MA might not in the future as things are seeming to prove themselves as the models get closer and see the impact of the SER. I know there is more at play than that but if we need a -EPO+PNA 50/50 -NAO to even have a chance at frozen its gonna be long periods of time between winter weather. there is enthusiasm about el nino but if you without the cold/blocking/SER mitigation its just a wet/warm pattern with active southern jet.  That's what is spooking everyone.  just my 2 cents

But how long as this "new base state" been the norm? And what is the cause of this state (not CC, but the actual surface cause)? And what's to say that this "new base state" will remain in perpetuity?

ORH said something really profound in one of the New England threads yesterday. It was incredibly simple, but really said a lot:

20 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Over-stating attribution is just as anti-science as implying there is none.

 

[ge0]

we've had aprils better than this

[psuhoffman]

57 minutes ago, MDScienceTeacher said:

Based on the record books, it appears that what we are going though is normal.. HOWEVER...it does appear that the snow droughts have been more frequent over the last 50 years. 

Given that we only have a small sample size, it is hard to conclude whether or not the recent more frequent snow droughts are a signal for some bigger decrease in annual snow for our region, or if the period BTW the late 1800s and 1950 was just really snowy for our region.

These are Baltimore/ BWI numbers:

 

1912-13  - 7.3

1918-19 - 4.0

 

1926-27 - 8.5

1931-32 - 4.2

 

1937-38 - 7.6

 

1949-50 - 0.7

1950-51- 6.2

1954-55 - 10.1

1958-59 -4.0

 

1972-73 - 1.2

 

1980-81 - 4.6

 

1988-89 - 8.3

1990-91 - 9.4

1991-9- 4.1

1994-95 - 8.2

 

1997-98 - 3.2

2000-01 - 8.7

2001-02 - 2.3

 

2007-08 - 8.5

2008-09 - 9.1

2011-12 - 1.8

2012-13 - 8.0

 

2016-17 - 3.0

2019-20- 1.8

2022-2023 - 0.0 (so far)

That only shows half the story...if you also show the decreasing probabilities for 20" on the "high end" of the range you start to see that there is definitely a trend from 100 years ago.  Now your point that we don't know what might have happened BEFORE about 150 years ago, although we have enough colonial period accounts to say even without daily records that snowfall was probably pretty high through the 1700s and 1800s in our area, but yea before that we know about nothing.  We can say based on what we know from Europe there was likely a warm period before that.  It is very possible that if you want to judge things on like a 1000 time period, or even the whole period since the last ice age we were in a colder period and this warmer isn't that unusually on a very long timescale.   But isn't all that irrelevant?  We don't live on that kind of timescale.  Humans lifespan dictates how we judge norms.  This is true of everything.  No one cares what prices were 100 years ago that no longer the "norm".  No one cares that human life expectancy was like 30 for most of history...that isn't what we expect now.  Even if we had records that went back 1000 years our expectations would probably still be set based on more recent records not what happened in 1450.  No one is alive who set their expectations based on that weather.  

My main point is much of our pattern analysis and expectation wrt snowfall is based on the norms of the last 100 years.  When we see some "look" on the day 15 ensembles and our experts opine about the snowfall potential, that is based on how that same look produced results in the recent past.  So if that is changing it is very pertinent.  It doesn't matter what was happening 500 years ago since that isn't what our expectations are based on.  

[Maestrobjwa]

7 minutes ago, jayyy said:

Agreed! Very active storm track and cold air around to our NW with a building snowpack in places like PA NY and the Midwest. Wouldn’t take much to get something out of that pattern.

We don’t need extravagant to get a workable pattern. Simple works best for us most of the time, especially during years where the SER is so dominant.


.

I worry about this being permanent and every single winter from now one looking like thus regardless of enso state. I mean what's preventing a long string of 1 inch winters? When's the last time we DIDN'T have a SER? Smh

[mattie g]

36 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I worry about this being permanent and every single winter from now one looking like thus regardless of enso state. I mean what's preventing a long string of 1 inch winters? When's the last time we DIDN'T have a SER? Smh

Just fucking stop. FFS.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, mattie g said:

Just fucking stop. FFS.

Stop what, exactly? I'm just responding to what I'm reading here. There's been discussion here about the possibility of the SER (which seems to mean more difficult snow chances) being a permanent feature so like...what's the problem? This ain't the main thread, anyway...

[psuhoffman]

4 hours ago, osfan24 said:

Which to me, is likely what the models are trying to tell us. I know some keep saying that there will be cold air, but it seems like there will be cold air until a storm pops and then the SER flexes its muscle and we get rain and then it dries out and it relaxes and the cold returns and on and on we go.

Don't get me wrong...its a better pattern simply because there is enough cold around.  But it's not actually a "historically snowy" looking pattern.  I think that because recently we have failed completely due to temps people have begun looking for "cold" as if that means "snowy".  But historically those are very different things.  Until recently we failed due to dry just as often as warm.  There are plenty of "cold" periods that had little to no snow through history.  I don't think we are necessarily more likely to snow just because its cold now...its just warm so damn much of the time that warm has become the bigger problem.  But rooting for a cold/dry pattern or more accurately a "colder" pattern but one that is likely to warm up before any storm...isn't really the answer.  

@CAPE I agree that we need cold to snow...I mean that's not a revelation.  So doing something to get a colder profile is necessary.  If we are to accept to get cold enough to snow we NEED an EPO induced arctic airmass then yes I guess we must root for that first.   But there is a reason the EPO has absolutely no correlation to our snow.  It's because through history we have been able to snow without needing EPO induced arctic air.  In short if it's true we can't get cold enough without an arctic airmass anymore were fucked.  Because that means you're now stacking one more variable on top of what we already needed to get snow, which even before was anomalous, we were never a very snowy climate.   And on top of that, the variable you are stacking is one that actually correlates to a very bad longwave configuration to get a favorable storm track.  A big EPO ridge is actually NOT the right jet configuration to get an east coast snowstorm.  So now...the implication is we first need a big EPO ridge, then let the cold get into the CONUS...then we need to root for a pattern change AFTER that to the right longwave jet configuration right after the EPO and before the cold gets obliterated by the pac again.  Ya ok...if that's true then that right there is why its never snowing anymore in general the last 7 years. lol  

The reason many are rooting for this upcoming pattern IMO is simply because patterns that SHOULD SNOW have been failing lately.  We are in a predominant -PDO pattern.  If you look back at the last -PDO period from 1945 to 1980 the way we got snow was mostly through a -NAO overcoming the -PNA.  Look at a comp I put together of Baltimore 6" snowstorms during the last -PDO period with a -PNA.  This is the look we want.  

The most obvious feature there is the west based blocking which causes the mid latitude response necessary to overcome the -PNA.  No the NAO wont stop a -PNA in a -PDO regime.  But in the past what a -NAO did was cause a full latitude trough across the mid latitudes UNDER the blocking so the PNA didn't matter so much.  But lately that has been failing.  Look at the last few -NAO periods...

 

3 of the last 4 NAO blocks instead of forcing a trough under the SE ridge linked up and created a full latitude ridge instead.  That is NOT the typical response during a -PNA/PDO regime.  If that was true it would have never snowed from 1945-1980.  The other, the winter of 2021 was the most egregious and most alarming.  Look at that H5 for the winter.  Keep in mind the composite I showed from earlier snows was using current climo skewing the means.  There was a colder base state then so that 2021 mean is almost identical if you adjust for that.  The ridges and troughs are in the same spots.  But it didnt do DC and Baltimore any good.  It was simply too warm.  We had like 6 perfect track storms that winter and it was just mostly rain everytime along 95.  It was barely cold enough to be snow up here!

Even this winter's pattern so far is closer to what historically is a "snowy" look than the one coming up.  Again...

That right there is NOT a shut out shit the blinds no hope torch look.  If you showed us that back in October and said that would be the pattern from Dec 1 to Jan 15 I would not have said uh oh were in deep trouble.  That is a decent look.  But we were torching so everyone is acting like its been a bad pattern and we need something else...but the coming "colder' EPO pattern is actually historically a lower odds of snow look than the one we just have had.  The fact it was too warm in what should have been a decent pattern doesn't mean a cold but historically bad for snow one is more likely to be any better.  It might be slightly better ONLY because the better pattern turned out to be a torch but a -EPO +NAO is NEVER going to bring us to the holy land of a truly snowy period.  The best we will ever do is what we have been doing the last 7 years which is luck our way to table scraps once every LOOOONG while if we can't snow from blocking without arctic air anymore.  

@WxUSAF You brought up the PDO the other day so I did some numbers.  And this is scary.  The last -PDO lasted from 1945 to 1980 where the PDO was negative 80% of the time during winter.  Then from 1981 to 2019 the PDO was + 73% of the time during winter.  If we have just entered another -PDO cycle its likely to last the rest of our lives.  But looking back at 1945-1980 we were able to overcome it much of the time.   But I found some scary numbers to indicate things might have been degrading much earlier than we knew but the +PDO was covering it up.  

From 1945-1980 we had 29 seasons with a predominant -PDO during which 52% still featured a 6" snow day at BWI.  In other words more than half the time we were able to overcome the unfavorable pacific and still get at least one big snowstorm. 

But from 1980 to 2019 we had 12 seasons with a predominant -PDO and in all those years there were just 2 6" snow days at BWI.  So we only were able to get a big snowstorm 17% of the time since 1980 during a -PDO while before 1980 we got a big snowstorm 52% of the time during a -PDO.  So....was our climo degrading much earlier than we even knew its just the favorable PDO was covering it up for a time?  If we can only get a snowstorm 17% of the time in a -PDO and we are heading into a LONG period where we will be in a -PDO 80% of the time...that math is REALLY UGLY.  

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, mattie g said:

But how long as this "new base state" been the norm? And what is the cause of this state (not CC, but the actual surface cause)? And what's to say that this "new base state" will remain in perpetuity?

ORH said something really profound in one of the New England threads yesterday. It was incredibly simple, but really said a lot:

 

We can't know yet.  I am not sure how much of this is AGW.  There might be other cyclical things going on, I suspect there are, but again what does it matter? 

Lets say for a second that the Indo-Pac warm pool is NOT related to AGW, and its some long term hundreds of years cycle that we just don't know about because we don't have records going back far enough to capture it... and lets say the same about the expanding Pac Hadley cell.  We know the PDO is a cyclical 30-40 year cycle so then add in that.  So lets say this new horrible snow climo is a result of mostly 3 factors that are not related to AGW...that doesn't make my arguments or fears any less correct, that our snow climo has severely degraded.  I have never made this about AGW.  I accept the reality that it is getting warmer, thermometers and all that jazz, but I have not made this a AGW or man has made us not snow anymore thing.  I am simply focused on why are we in the absolute worst stretch of snowfall in the history of records in our area.  What is the cause.  Maybe its AGW.  Maybe its all cyclical.  Maybe its a combo.  Whatever.  But the reality is its snowing less now than in any previous period of record...and its starting to become a long enough period of time its getting harder to dismiss as just a temporary thing.  I don't mean temporary as in FOREVER but temporary as in its likely to just flip all the way back to historical norms very soon.  

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I worry about this being permanent and every single winter from now one looking like thus regardless of enso state. I mean what's preventing a long string of 1 inch winters? When's the last time we DIDN'T have a SER? Smh

No one can say the future.  But why don't you simply use objective evidence about the recent past to make your determinations.  Frankly even before this recent god awful run you were unhappy most of the time.  So even in our best of times our climo wasn't really good enough to satisfy you.  If snow is as important to your mental health as it seems to be...you really should move.  If you cannot change your attachment to snow and you continue to live in a place it doesn't snow much you will continue to be miserable most of the time.  

[Ralph Wiggum]

28 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Don't get me wrong...its a better pattern simply because there is enough cold around.  But it's not actually a "historically snowy" looking pattern.  I think that because recently we have failed completely due to temps people have begun looking for "cold" as if that means "snowy".  But historically those are very different things.  Until recently we failed due to dry just as often as warm.  There are plenty of "cold" periods that had little to no snow through history.  I don't think we are necessarily more likely to snow just because its cold now...its just warm so damn much of the time that warm has become the bigger problem.  But rooting for a cold/dry pattern or more accurately a "colder" pattern but one that is likely to warm up before any storm...isn't really the answer.  

@CAPE I agree that we need cold to snow...I mean that's not a revelation.  So doing something to get a colder profile is necessary.  If we are to accept to get cold enough to snow we NEED an EPO induced arctic airmass then yes I guess we must root for that first.   But there is a reason the EPO has absolutely no correlation to our snow.  It's because through history we have been able to snow without needing EPO induced arctic air.  In short if it's true we can't get cold enough without an arctic airmass anymore were fucked.  Because that means you're now stacking one more variable on top of what we already needed to get snow, which even before was anomalous, we were never a very snowy climate.   And on top of that, the variable you are stacking is one that actually correlates to a very bad longwave configuration to get a favorable storm track.  A big EPO ridge is actually NOT the right jet configuration to get an east coast snowstorm.  So now...the implication is we first need a big EPO ridge, then let the cold get into the CONUS...then we need to root for a pattern change AFTER that to the right longwave jet configuration right after the EPO and before the cold gets obliterated by the pac again.  Ya ok...if that's true then that right there is why its never snowing anymore in general the last 7 years. lol  

The reason many are rooting for this upcoming pattern IMO is simply because patterns that SHOULD SNOW have been failing lately.  We are in a predominant -PDO pattern.  If you look back at the last -PDO period from 1945 to 1980 the way we got snow was mostly through a -NAO overcoming the -PNA.  Look at a comp I put together of Baltimore 6" snowstorms during the last -PDO period with a -PNA.  This is the look we want.  

The most obvious feature there is the west based blocking which causes the mid latitude response necessary to overcome the -PNA.  No the NAO wont stop a -PNA in a -PDO regime.  But in the past what a -NAO did was cause a full latitude trough across the mid latitudes UNDER the blocking so the PNA didn't matter so much.  But lately that has been failing.  Look at the last few -NAO periods...

 

3 of the last 4 NAO blocks instead of forcing a trough under the SE ridge linked up and created a full latitude ridge instead.  That is NOT the typical response during a -PNA/PDO regime.  If that was true it would have never snowed from 1945-1980.  The other, the winter of 2021 was the most egregious and most alarming.  Look at that H5 for the winter.  Keep in mind the composite I showed from earlier snows was using current climo skewing the means.  There was a colder base state then so that 2021 mean is almost identical if you adjust for that.  The ridges and troughs are in the same spots.  But it didnt do DC and Baltimore any good.  It was simply too warm.  We had like 6 perfect track storms that winter and it was just mostly rain everytime along 95.  It was barely cold enough to be snow up here!

Even this winter's pattern so far is closer to what historically is a "snowy" look than the one coming up.  Again...

That right there is NOT a shut out shit the blinds no hope torch look.  If you showed us that back in October and said that would be the pattern from Dec 1 to Jan 15 I would not have said uh oh were in deep trouble.  That is a decent look.  But we were torching so everyone is acting like its been a bad pattern and we need something else...but the coming "colder' EPO pattern is actually historically a lower odds of snow look than the one we just have had.  The fact it was too warm in what should have been a decent pattern doesn't mean a cold but historically bad for snow one is more likely to be any better.  It might be slightly better ONLY because the better pattern turned out to be a torch but a -EPO +NAO is NEVER going to bring us to the holy land of a truly snowy period.  The best we will ever do is what we have been doing the last 7 years which is luck our way to table scraps once every LOOOONG while if we can't snow from blocking without arctic air anymore.  

@WxUSAF You brought up the PDO the other day so I did some numbers.  And this is scary.  The last -PDO lasted from 1945 to 1980 where the PDO was negative 80% of the time during winter.  Then from 1981 to 2019 the PDO was + 73% of the time during winter.  If we have just entered another -PDO cycle its likely to last the rest of our lives.  But looking back at 1945-1980 we were able to overcome it much of the time.   But I found some scary numbers to indicate things might have been degrading much earlier than we knew but the +PDO was covering it up.  

From 1945-1980 we had 29 seasons with a predominant -PDO during which 52% still featured a 6" snow day at BWI.  In other words more than half the time we were able to overcome the unfavorable pacific and still get at least one big snowstorm. 

But from 1980 to 2019 we had 12 seasons with a predominant -PDO and in all those years there were just 2 6" snow days at BWI.  So we only were able to get a big snowstorm 17% of the time since 1980 during a -PDO while before 1980 we got a big snowstorm 52% of the time during a -PDO.  So....was our climo degrading much earlier than we even knew its just the favorable PDO was covering it up for a time?  If we can only get a snowstorm 17% of the time in a -PDO and we are heading into a LONG period where we will be in a -PDO 80% of the time...that math is REALLY UGLY.  

How's your book coming along? I see you put chapter 1 here for us to proofread. Looks great! 

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

No one can say the future.  But why don't you simply use objective evidence about the recent past to make your determinations.  Frankly even before this recent god awful run you were unhappy most of the time.  So even in our best of times our climo wasn't really good enough to satisfy you.  If snow is as important to your mental health as it seems to be...you really should move.  If you cannot change your attachment to snow and you continue to live in a place it doesn't snow much you will continue to be miserable most of the time.  

That's actually not all the way true. Now remember, prior to 2016 I had only been on here a couple years (around Jan or Feb 2014 is when I started). I was still snow-obsessed but not unhappy overall. 2011-12 and 12-13  sucked, yes...but then we came around. To a favorable period again. Much of my accumulated angst has come from the 7 year period of struggle. This 7 years was not the climo I grew up with. Of course working memore goes back to 96...but we had 00, 03, then 06, 10...But never this long in between even decent snows has never happened in my brief years. I mean we ain't been able to get NOTHIN' to even KIND OF work lately! This is worse than I remember from 1996-2016.

In terms of moving...well it's not actually possible for me at this juncture even if I really, REALLY wanted to (and I don't for non-snow related reasons) Things more important than snow  So that leaves treating the symptom (lessening the unhealthy attachment to snow)

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

I get it. This 'song and dance' happens almost every winter though. At least the ensembles provide some degree of stability when tracking patterns in the LR. Lay off the op runs lol.

Do you really think “everything’s fine” or are you just trying to prevent negativity?  If it’s the layer I can respect that. I do. But if it’s the former…I used to be on the side you seem to be here but that was years ago when we were in a drought that was historically sucky but normal and wasn’t nearly this bad. We’ve now entered totally unprecedented levels of suckage both on seasonal (many regional locations are close to or already have set records for latest without snow) and longer term (least snow last 7 years) levels.  But you’re talking like this is just normal par for the course.  Maybe on the eastern shore sure…but further NW it’s unheard of to be this snowless for long stretches year after year like this. 
 

It’s sad that many use last year as some high bar when really it was just a lucky fluke some places in here ended up near median. Look at the snow anomalies for last winter. 

That tiny little area that just happens to run through our general area of near normal is surrounded by 500 miles of below in all directions. It’s just an artifact of crazy good luck in one event in a location where avg snowfall is so low that can skew results. Last year was another crap year where 90% of the mid Atlantic struggled just like the last several. Some local places just got really lucky.  

[stormy]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:38 PM, Cobalt said:

This certainly hasn't helped our prospects of snow recently. While the 97-02 snow drought didn't feature much of any notable cold in the CONUS during February, the recent 17-22 stretch has, it's just consistently been dumping into the Central and Western US, and the persistent SER has made it rather difficult to see any sustained cold in the East. 

This has turned what was a snowy month (avg 5.0") into just an average of 1.1" over the past 6 Februaries at DCA. January (4.9" avg during that interval), and even March (1.3" avg) have presented substantially more snow threats during this period by a good margin. Whether something temporary, exacerbated by persistent Nina conditions, or a product of the bigger picture, it isn't good, and has contributed to our futility since the 2015-16 winter.

The SER has been a pain this winter but this is not unusual for a La Nina winter.

My LR annual average snowfall is 24 inches.

Looking back over detailed personal records back to 1979  I am heartened to find no consecutive snow droughts.  The two lowest winters were 80-81 at 3.25" and 91-92  at 3.05".

Last year, I was above average at 28.50" with 21.00 inches during January.

7 years ago today we were digging out from 18 inches of snow with 5 ft. drifts from the blizzard of 2016.

Most of us will receive unknown amounts of snow during February and March.    November - January will be better next year.

[MountainGeek]

@psuhoffman - have you ever looked into potential correlation between ACE (especially in GOM and eastern seaboard), # of CONUS landfalling hurricanes, and the following winters? Obviously there's a ton of factors all mixed in that create a given winter "state", but just curious if we have a very mild hurricane season, how much heat energy does NOT get dissipated in the summer/fall and then rolls into GOM/Western ATL SSTs, tending to feed SER and WAR. Overall ACE could be misleading as well, since I'd think a GOM hurricane would have a lot more effect than something hitting Bermuda and hooking back east. 

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, CAPE said:

But there were 3 waves, and you probably ended up with more snow than any of those areas. In most cases if you post an anomaly map like that for a given MA winter the NW areas will be closer to (or exceed) mean snowfall. More typical. It just didn't work out that way last winter, but many areas still got some snow despite being below average. I doubt that becomes the new bar for what is 'good' lol.

I ended up with slightly above 50% of average.  But my main point is, and reason for my pessimism, that these patterns that have lead to some snow over the last 7 years, mainly progressive wave epo driven, are never going to lead to a sustainable truly snowy period. They just aren’t. They are patterns that are correlated to some snow but mostly fail.  The issue is what’s supposed to be a good snowfall pattern, blocking, isn’t working lately. That’s a huge problem because that’s the only way historically we’ve sustained a ton of snow in a -pdo regime.  Just because a -NAO has failed to work the last 4 times doesn’t mean these -epo patterns are going to be more successful. Yea once in a while we might luck into a wave this way. But unless we get blocking to resume it’s historical effect of neutralizing a -pdo and suppressing the SER, we will continue to be in a snow drought with only temporary sporadic waves to provide minor relief. I’m not hunting a single 4” snow.  I’m trying to find a way out of this larger scale god awful cycle and into a snowier period on a larger scale. We are never getting there praying to get lucky with progressive waves in a -epo +NAO pattern. 

[Maestrobjwa]

8 hours ago, stormy said:

The SER has been a pain this winter but this is not unusual for a La Nina winter

Isn't this rather excessive even for a nina, though?

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Isn't this rather excessive even for a nina, though?

It's unheard of for a nina, the people saying "this is just a nina" are just plain flat wrong.  Nina's have less variance than other winters.  They are very rarely big snowfall years, but they are also rarely really awful ones either.  This is unprecedentedly bad for a nina. 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

It's unheard of for a nina, the people saying "this is just a nina" are just plain flat wrong.  Nina's have less variance than other winters.  They are very rarely big snowfall years, but they are also rarely really awful ones either.  This is unprecedentedly bad for a nina. 

Now in particular I was referring to the SER.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Now in particular I was referring to the SER.

the SER has a bit of a higher tendency to persist in a nina but that is not true of all Nina's so it's hard to say really.  This year has kind of been a mix of patterns but the worst parts of each. 

[Maestrobjwa]

And you know what? Getting modoki niño next winter might not even matter dude...like our historically best enso state. I mean...ordinarily you'd be encouraged by it but I'm not so sure it even works. And the SER...do we even know if that calms down next year? Smh

[psuhoffman]

4 hours ago, MountainGeek said:

@psuhoffman - have you ever looked into potential correlation between ACE (especially in GOM and eastern seaboard), # of CONUS landfalling hurricanes, and the following winters? Obviously there's a ton of factors all mixed in that create a given winter "state", but just curious if we have a very mild hurricane season, how much heat energy does NOT get dissipated in the summer/fall and then rolls into GOM/Western ATL SSTs, tending to feed SER and WAR. Overall ACE could be misleading as well, since I'd think a GOM hurricane would have a lot more effect than something hitting Bermuda and hooking back east. 

no but that is an interesting theory and worth researching.  I might try to get to that at some point. 

[Terpeast]

@psuhoffman I wanted to continue our discussion after your long post about the 1960s, but my brain is starting to check out from all this. 

But just one thing. With the common denominator in the 60s not being enso or mjo or the pacific, but persistent negative height anomalies in the west/central atlantic, I would think that is almost the mirror opposite of the SER/WAR we have now. 

I’m curious about low ACE <> WAR correlation, and whether the 60s was a higher than average hurricane activity decade. Would be interesting to look into ACE for that period while you’re at it. 

And if the upcoming nino also suppresses hurricane activity this year, and there IS a correlation with the WAR, I’m not sure how it’s going to help us next year either. Too strong of a nino, or too east based, it’ll probably lead to an above normal likelihood of another 97-98.

[psuhoffman]

@Terpeast @WxUSAF @CAPE

So I went through and tried to identify blocking periods that coincided with a hostile pacific and see what the trend is in snowfall at BWI.  It wasn't easy, at first I tried to use pure monthly data but realized quickly, since I know what a lot of these snowy periods h5 looked like from that snowfall study I did years ago, that the monthly indexes were missing things.  A 10 day -NAO can be hidden by a positive the other 20 days for instance.  So I started breaking down months by 15 day chunks using the h5 composites to identify months that had a -NAO -PNA at some point then looked at snowfall.  I know that gets messy and subjective but I couldn't find a simple better way.  But the trends are pretty obvious.  This is the scatter plot of BWI snowfall during -NAO/PNA months since 1950 with a moving average imposed. 

We have had some low periods before, its not unprecedented to get a short period where a -NAO is muted and doesn't result in prolific snowfall...but its suspicious we are in the longest such streak since 1950 right now.  We are in the longest streak without a -NAO/PNA producing 7", 10" or 12" at BWI.  Historically we averaged about 8" during a -NAO/PNA month from 1950 to 2000 but are only averaging about 3.5" during such periods since.  Our failure to take advantage of a -NAO during a -PNA is a huge problem lately. 

 

The biggest problem is what has happened to December...there the trend is even more alarming

This is the scatter plot with moving average for Dec -NAO/PNA periods since 1950 at BWI

For whatever reason in the last 15 years or so the -NAO has lost its impact in December.  We have gone from averaging about 7" from a Dec -NAO/PNA to less than 2" and the last 2 were 0.  I know some say "December just isn't a snowy month" but that wasn't always true, and a -NAO december used to be snowy and now it isn't and that does account for a big part of this difference.  When we only get 4 months that can realistically deliver snow we can't afford to just toss one and expect it not to take a huge bit out of our snow climo. 

But December does not account for the whole difference, the trend is down in other months also, just not as extreme as December...but January and February are not produce as significant snow results during a -NAO/PNA lately either. 

Luckily a -NAO+PNA has still be producing epic results however...if we are entering a -PDO where a -PNA will dominate the next 30-40 years this trend is ominous because during the last -PDO our snowfall during +NAO periods was atrocious.  If the -NAO fails to deliver the way it did from 1945-1980 anymore...well the possible results would be catastrophic for our snowfall prospects. 

[psuhoffman]

17 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

@psuhoffman I wanted to continue our discussion after your long post about the 1960s, but my brain is starting to check out from all this. 

But just one thing. With the common denominator in the 60s not being enso or mjo or the pacific, but persistent negative height anomalies in the west/central atlantic, I would think that is almost the mirror opposite of the SER/WAR we have now. 

I’m curious about low ACE <> WAR correlation, and whether the 60s was a higher than average hurricane activity decade. Would be interesting to look into ACE for that period while you’re at it. 

And if the upcoming nino also suppresses hurricane activity this year, and there IS a correlation with the WAR, I’m not sure how it’s going to help us next year either. Too strong of a nino, or too east based, it’ll probably lead to an above normal likelihood of another 97-98.

I will try to look into ACE but my eyes are done after compiling all the NAO/PNA data for the last post.  But I am very interested in the ACE theory and there could be something there.  As for the enso...everyone is kinda assuming, or maybe just praying, that a nino will solve all this...but I am less sure because a lot of the nino's during the last -PDO still featured a predominant -PNA, but they also, as is true of most nino's still, featured more blocking which helped to mitigate the PNA.  However, if lately blocking has not been doing that...what good would the nino do us?  If we got the added pacific warmth but without suppressing the SER or PNA it might just make things worse.  If that is even possible.