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

[psuhoffman]

@Terpeast just from an eyeball glance at an ACE yearly chart...the 60's were a little high overall but not enough to think that was the main cause here...they were no higher than the 50's and that decade stunk and they were lower than the last 20 years which have stunk by comparison.  Obviously an eyeball glance isn't good enough, but I don't see anything eye opening there. 

What is eye opening is just looking at -PNA periods, we did manage to snow quite frequently with a -PNA during the last PDO cycle but its actually been trending the wrong way in that regards for quite a while...since the 1980s our snowfall during -PNA periods has been going down pretty drastically, its just been covered up because we have been in a +PNA dominant cycle so it wasn't that big of a deal. 

[CAPE]

6 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

@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. 

The propensity for ridging to develop along the east coast even with a -NAO is problematic lately. TNH + Nina + warmer SSTs might be contributing to that recently. I still want to see what happens when we get a moderate Nino with legitimate blocking. In the past a significant number of our big snow events in a Nino have occurred when the PNA was 'unfavorable', but I am pretty sure recently (2009-10 and 2016) all the events had some semblance of a PNA ridge leading in. Ofc there is more of a tendency for a +PNA during a Nino historically. With -PNA seemingly more prevalent now overall, the -NAO/-PNA combo during a CP based Nino needs to be "tested" .

[brooklynwx99]

48 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The propensity for ridging to develop along the east coast even with a -NAO is problematic lately. TNH + Nina + warmer SSTs might be contributing to that recently. I still want to see what happens when we get a moderate Nino with legitimate blocking. In the past a significant number of our big snow events in a Nino have occurred when the PNA was 'unfavorable', but I am pretty sure recently (2009-10 and 2016) all the events had some semblance of a PNA ridge leading in. Ofc there is more of a tendency for a +PNA during a Nino historically. With -PNA seemingly more prevalent now overall, the -NAO/-PNA combo during a CP based Nino needs to be "tested" .

a good recent example of a -PNA/-NAO that worked in the northern MA was in late Jan into mid Feb 2021. the NYC metro into NJ saw a historic blizzard and a few other storms, bringing them to 26" on the month. yes, it wasn't great for you guys, but again, that's a matter of luck IMO. if the confluence associated with that storm was a bit slower or farther S, it would have been you guys getting smoked

this is honestly quite similar to the late Dec pattern this year. again, just goes to show how much of this is really just dependent on luck, especially the farther S you go. as variance increases, the more things need to line up correctly. this pattern could have easily produced a major snowstorm, but the devil was in the details. what can you do?

[brooklynwx99]

March 2018 is another good example of a prolific -PNA/-NAO month for much of the northeast and northern MA. there was a NESIS storm that gave N MD more than 10"

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

March 2018 is another good example of a prolific -PNA/-NAO month for much of the northeast and northern MA. there was a NESIS storm that gave N MD more than 10"

Yeah March of 18 was a nice event here. If you look at the mean (without the anomalies) for the period leading up you can see more clearly there was a bit of a ridge out west though. PNA looks neutral/slightly positive.

[Terpeast]

9 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

@Terpeast just from an eyeball glance at an ACE yearly chart...the 60's were a little high overall but not enough to think that was the main cause here...they were no higher than the 50's and that decade stunk and they were lower than the last 20 years which have stunk by comparison.  Obviously an eyeball glance isn't good enough, but I don't see anything eye opening there. 

What is eye opening is just looking at -PNA periods, we did manage to snow quite frequently with a -PNA during the last PDO cycle but its actually been trending the wrong way in that regards for quite a while...since the 1980s our snowfall during -PNA periods has been going down pretty drastically, its just been covered up because we have been in a +PNA dominant cycle so it wasn't that big of a deal. 

Ok so maybe that’s not it. 

Maybe it’s down to the simplest answer staring right at us. 

As the arctic warms faster than the rest of the planet, the finite source of cold air becomes… even more finite.

However, as the N-S temperature gradient becomes smaller, we still get blocking, maybe even moreso than before. 

Sometimes that helps us produce epic years like 09-10. Other times, because we have a smaller and more finite source of cold air, it hurts us by linking with the SER.

Maybe that’s why Chuck has been rooting for a +nao lately, just to blunt that SER down.

[MountainGeek]

Wondering if ACE might obscure the distinctions of hurricane track/location. 12 CAT5's grazing Bermuda wouldn't have the same impact they would in the GOM. 

1951-1959:

 

[MountainGeek]

1961-1969:

 

 

 

Both decades had 63 storms within the search criteria - 750 miles of ATL (arbitrary, but picked to try to filter storms that didn't significantly impact GOM or W ATL ). 

The 1960s seem to have a higher number of high-intensity storms in GOM, whereas 1950s have more in the W ATL/eastern seaboard. 

Of course, this could all be backwards and hurricane intensity is just another effect of other pattern drivers rather than cause.....

 

[stormy]

14 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

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

Snowfall is not guaranteed to be light in La Nina  or guaranteed heavy in El Nino. Last winter was also a Nina but I received 21 inches of snow out here in the Shenandoah Valley.

I believe we all can agree that a repetitive SER has been a factor this winter as it encouraged a storm track into the OHV & Lakes region where weakness existed.  I also believe that most informed weather geeks agree that an upper level SER is encouraged in a Nina. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT ALWAYS HAPPENS.  But, it is not unusual to occur. 

During the past 50 years in my area, 4 snow drought winters proves the Enso state to not be an overwhelming factor.  1972-73 El Nino,  1980-81 neutral, 1991-92 El Nino, 2007-08 La Nina.

My observation in recent years is that high pressure or ridging often dominates weather patterns in Virginia.  CAD can often be a precipitation denier in winter because the dry air is difficult to overcome.

 

 

[stormy]

10 minutes ago, stormy said:

Snowfall is not guaranteed to be light in La Nina  or guaranteed heavy in El Nino. Last winter was also a Nina but I received 21 inches of snow out here in the Shenandoah Valley.

I believe we all can agree that a repetitive SER has been a factor this winter as it encouraged a storm track into the OHV & Lakes region where weakness existed.  I also believe that most informed weather geeks agree that an upper level SER is encouraged in a Nina. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT ALWAYS HAPPENS.  But, it is not unusual to occur. 

During the past 50 years in my area, 4 snow drought winters proves the Enso state to not be an overwhelming factor.  1972-73 El Nino,  1980-81 neutral, 1991-92 El Nino, 2007-08 La Nina.

My observation in recent years is that high pressure or ridging often dominates weather patterns in Virginia.  CAD can often be a precipitation denier in winter because the dry air is difficult to overcome.

 

 

Edit:  My 21 inches of snow last winter was for January only. The winter total was 28.50".

[psuhoffman]

6 hours ago, stormy said:

Snowfall is not guaranteed to be light in La Nina  or guaranteed heavy in El Nino. Last winter was also a Nina but I received 21 inches of snow out here in the Shenandoah Valley.

I believe we all can agree that a repetitive SER has been a factor this winter as it encouraged a storm track into the OHV & Lakes region where weakness existed.  I also believe that most informed weather geeks agree that an upper level SER is encouraged in a Nina. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT ALWAYS HAPPENS.  But, it is not unusual to occur. 

During the past 50 years in my area, 4 snow drought winters proves the Enso state to not be an overwhelming factor.  1972-73 El Nino,  1980-81 neutral, 1991-92 El Nino, 2007-08 La Nina.

My observation in recent years is that high pressure or ridging often dominates weather patterns in Virginia.  CAD can often be a precipitation denier in winter because the dry air is difficult to overcome.

 

 

This is not normal for a nina.  You can spin the numbers any way you want, but all 3 major airports in our region have yet to record any snowfall and that is the latest into ANY NINA they have gone without snow.  Whenever something has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE it is not normal. 

This is a mean h5 for all Nina's over the last 30 years. 

There is no clear signal that the SER is any more pronounced than other years. 

Actually this is the composite for all enso neutral winters in the last 30 years...the SER is much more pronounced here.

This is no evidence to support a claim that what is going on this year can be attributed to simply a typical nina response. 

As for your comments regarding variance, yes there have been snow droughts, none have been this bad over this large an area in recorded history.  I said RECORDED...we have no way to know what happened before records, speculating is silly, and its irrelevant anyways.  Even if we had records that go back 500 years no one would be basing our expectations on 500 years ago.  We would be basing our expectations on a more recent baseline.  This is human nature.  No one bases their life expectancy on the way it was 500 years ago.  We expect electricity even though 99% of human history there was none.  We expect to live into our old age even though over the longer term human life span was only 35 years.  What it may or may not have done 500 years ago in a different climate period is irrelevant because we wouldn't be basing our expectations on that. 

Additionally, lets say the climate was warmer 500 years ago...and it has been colder and all our expectations and normals and pattern recognition is based on that colder period...if it is now warming back to some past climate that changes nothing.  The fact remains it is getting warmer and changing out outcomes compared to 20 or 50 years ago...  The only reason it would even be relevant would be to a discussion of AGW and how much of it is attributed to human activity.  But we have a whole thread for that where people that want to live with their head up the ass can have at it.  That is not the conversation anyone is having here.  Here we were simply discussing what impact the warming RIGHT NOW is having on our snow prospects RIGHT NOW. 

But you seem to be trying to make the case that this is just normal variance.  Sure, what is acceptable variance is subjective I guess...so if you consider the absolute least snowy period of the last 150 years to be "normal variance" then sure.  I do not.  But that is our opinions.  The facts are it is getting warmer, our snowfall has been trending down for the last 100 years along with the warming, and now we are in the worst snow drought in recorded history (your lucky geographic location last winter aside) across the vast majority of this region. 

[Terpeast]

29 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

This is a mean h5 for all Nina's over the last 30 years. 

Actually this is the composite for all enso neutral winters in the last 30 years...the SER is much more pronounced here.

 

Let’s see, 2nd chart showing a flatter -epo ridge with -pna trough dumping west, a SER, and a cutter track (neut H anomalies SW to NE across central US through great lakes). Warm H anomalies over most of Europe. 

Looks familiar! 

We’ve been saying that the atmosphere isn’t really acting like a nina, but more like a nino (but not really). 

Appears to me that this is an enso neutral winter as a leading indicator ahead of a dying nina! 

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Let’s see, 2nd chart showing a flatter -epo ridge with -pna trough dumping west, a SER, and a cutter track (neut H anomalies SW to NE across central US through great lakes). Warm H anomalies over most of Europe. 

Looks familiar! 

We’ve been saying that the atmosphere isn’t really acting like a nina, but more like a nino (but not really). 

Appears to me that this is an enso neutral winter as a leading indicator ahead of a dying nina! 

Yup!  I pointed this out years ago when I noticed it while putting together analogs but I’ll try to find the numbers again. Actually the biggest degradation to our snow climo has been in enso neutral years. Prior to 1990 a good % were snowy. Since they are mostly duds and some god awful. 

[psuhoffman]

@Terpeast this is also why I’ve never understood the infatuation with rooting for a Nina to die during winter. There is no evidence it helps and neutral after a nina can be even worse! Frankly neural has simply been our worse base state for a while.  

[Terpeast]

Yeah and I also noticed that a neutral that comes after a nina tend to be the worst seasons. Here’s hoping that we’re getting it out of the way this year, and that the fading nina is just a lagging indicator than a leading one. 

[psuhoffman]

43 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah and I also noticed that a neutral that comes after a nina tend to be the worst seasons. Here’s hoping that we’re getting it out of the way this year, and that the fading nina is just a lagging indicator than a leading one. 

A big part of our lowered snow climo is this. 

From 1960-2000 enso neutral years averaged 24.9” and were above avg 53% of the time at bwi. 

Since 2000 they avg 12” and are above avg 17%. 

Worse that’s skewed by the only good Enso neutral year 2014. Remove that as an outlier and BWI averages 6.7” in enso neutral years this century!  

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, Heisy said:

That was brutal 00z as expected. That day 9-10 event on the GFS had the Hp build in too late, but it’s absolutely horrible how nothing can go right. Praying for a March miracle, but at this rate just don’t see it happening. Some winters nothing goes right and this is def one of those


.

I dunno even after the storm is exiting and that high is on top of us there is no snow south of like NYC on the back side.  But unlike the previous high which had pure arctic origin air that high is modified polar and it’s simply not cold enough.  
 

And picking on some minor imperfection kinda misses the bigger picture.  It’s not a pac puke airmass. There wasn’t some weeks long pac invasion. We had an arctic airmass in place 48 hrs out. One that took weeks to build by the way. And a weak ass POS wave obliterates it.  Not some 980 cutter. Just a run of the mill NS wave comes along and the regular return flow with it routs the cold it took weeks to establish in a blink of an eye. 
 

Yea not everything goes perfect. Sure had that NS wave not come along and the arctic high had been 36 hours slower then we would have had a snowstorm. But the point is the margins. No one is claiming it can’t possibly snow. My point is it seems really obvious to me that it’s been a lot harder lately to get snow. More and more has to go perfectly. 

[MDstorm]

Rumor has it that the American Weather Mid-Atlantic forum during the winter of 1949-50 was littered with posts questioning whether it would ever snow again. 

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, MDstorm said:

Rumor has it that the American Weather Mid-Atlantic forum during the winter of 1949-50 was littered with posts questioning whether it would ever snow again. 

We’ve had small periods as bad as anything before. We’ve never had a prolonged period as bad as 2017-now. No one season or event fail alone is alarming. But the cumulative evidence is becoming worrying. 

[cbmclean]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We’ve had small periods as bad as anything before. We’ve never had a prolonged period as bad as 2017-now. No one season or event fail alone is alarming. But the cumulative evidence is becoming worrying. 

"becoming"?  You're book just hit the third edition.  Stormtracker's clip just got nominated for an Oscar for best short feature

[IronTy]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We’ve had small periods as bad as anything before. We’ve never had a prolonged period as bad as 2017-now. No one season or event fail alone is alarming. But the cumulative evidence is becoming worrying. 

It's worse than that.  We're in this stupid middle period where it's too warm to snow but still too cold to enjoy the benefits of a proper subtropical climate.  If this is it then fuck it, give me SE gulf coast weather with year round green live oaks, anoles and pythons.  I want to see zebra longwings flying around.  Instead we get the rare subfreezing lows that are just enough to spoil the party along with shitty 40 degree days.  

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

We’ve had small periods as bad as anything before. We’ve never had a prolonged period as bad as 2017-now. No one season or event fail alone is alarming. But the cumulative evidence is becoming worrying. 

This is why I'm starting to become skeptical that a legit moderate niño is gonna make a difference.

[Ji]

This is why I'm starting to become skeptical that a legit moderate niño is gonna make a difference.

Psu is great but you have to be mentally in good place to read it. Put him on ignore for a few days and decleanse.

[psuhoffman]

57 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

This is why I'm starting to become skeptical that a legit moderate niño is gonna make a difference.

The good news is it can’t be worse!  Im skeptical how much it will help myself.  But at least then we will know. If we get a modoki Nino and Baltimore gets 7” or something, after the last 7 years also, we know the party’s over and it’s time to just move on.   This is simply the new normal. My guess though is that better is still better. The question is how much better.  But I do think we are still capable of 20”+ seasons. But the bad years will likely continue to be so bad that the decades of Baltimore averaging close to 20” are probably out of reach.  

[Ji]

The good news is it can’t be worse!  Im skeptical how much it will help myself.  But at least then we will know. If we get a modoki Nino and Baltimore gets 7” or something, after the last 7 years also, we know the party’s over and it’s time to just move on.   This is simply the new normal. My guess though is that better is still better. The question is how much better.  But I do think we are still capable of 20”+ seasons. But the bad years will likely continue to be so bad that the decades of Baltimore averaging close to 20” are probably out of reach.  

2009-10 wasn't that long ago lol. How Many ninos have we had just like 09-10 since tben..im gonna guess 0. Closet...maybe 2016 and we got a hecs

[Terpeast]

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The good news is it can’t be worse!  Im skeptical how much it will help myself.  But at least then we will know. If we get a modoki Nino and Baltimore gets 7” or something, after the last 7 years also, we know the party’s over and it’s time to just move on.   This is simply the new normal. My guess though is that better is still better. The question is how much better.  But I do think we are still capable of 20”+ seasons. But the bad years will likely continue to be so bad that the decades of Baltimore averaging close to 20” are probably out of reach.  

Yep, and we will see another KU HECS here. But they won’t be every 3-7 years like from ‘79 through ‘16 anymore. Maybe more like once a decade. Twice if lucky. 

[psuhoffman]

19 minutes ago, Ji said:

34 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The good news is it can’t be worse!  Im skeptical how much it will help myself.  But at least then we will know. If we get a modoki Nino and Baltimore gets 7” or something, after the last 7 years also, we know the party’s over and it’s time to just move on.   This is simply the new normal. My guess though is that better is still better. The question is how much better.  But I do think we are still capable of 20”+ seasons. But the bad years will likely continue to be so bad that the decades of Baltimore averaging close to 20” are probably out of reach.  

2009-10 wasn't that long ago lol. How Many ninos have we had just like 09-10 since tben..im gonna guess 0. Closet...maybe 2016 and we got a hecs

Even if Baltimore got a repeat of 2010 next year…the last 7 have been so bad it would still only get the 8 year period to a  17” avg!  And that’s if we got our snowiest winter ever!  I am not arguing we won’t get snowy winters again  but I think it’s Unlikely we return to averaging 20” in Baltimore  

 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

Yep, and we will see another KU HECS here. But they won’t be every 3-7 years like from ‘79 through ‘16 anymore. Maybe more like once a decade. Twice if lucky. 

Hope you're wrong about that part! I'm not giving up on that yet...Actually, it appears that most of the KU HECS (I'm assuming that means 12"+?) came during El Niños--of which we've had none during this 7 year period! Just thinking now...2016, 2010, 2003, 1996, 1983, 1978-79, ...only Niña in that bunch where we got 2 feet was the ever anomalous 1996. We'll have to see what happens next year: Next year is gonna determine a lot, actually (assuming a healthy niño forms)

[Ji]

Hope you're wrong about that part! I'm not giving up on that yet...Actually, it appears that most of the KU HECS (I'm assuming that means 12"+?) came during El Niños--of which we've had none during this 7 year period! Just thinking now...2016, 2010, 2003, 1996, 1983, 1978-79, ...only Niña in that bunch where we got 2 feet was the ever anomalous 1996. We'll have to see what happens next year: Next year is gonna determine a lot, actually (assuming a healthy niño forms)

If it's only going to snow in west based ninos....you are in big trouble

[psuhoffman]

10 hours ago, Ji said:

11 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Hope you're wrong about that part! I'm not giving up on that yet...Actually, it appears that most of the KU HECS (I'm assuming that means 12"+?) came during El Niños--of which we've had none during this 7 year period! Just thinking now...2016, 2010, 2003, 1996, 1983, 1978-79, ...only Niña in that bunch where we got 2 feet was the ever anomalous 1996. We'll have to see what happens next year: Next year is gonna determine a lot, actually (assuming a healthy niño forms)

If it's only going to snow in west based ninos....you are in big trouble

this!  2019 was a Nino. But it wasn’t the “perfect” kind of Nino. Yea. True. But I keep rolling my eyes when people point out the minor imperfection (either seasonally or synoptically) that is the reason it didn’t snow because if the only time we get snow is the 1/10 years we get a west based moderate Nino or that once in a blue moon that every single one of like 200 synoptic variables all go perfectly we’re cooked.