Mid to Long Range Discussion ~ 2024

[GaWx]

 Today’s MJO forecasts suggest an increased chance for moderate or stronger phases 4 and 5 starting ~March 5. The folks wanting it mild to warm then should be happy about this though the correlation of those phases to warmth isn’t that strong as MJO correlations tend to be moderate. Also although very much a fwiw being how poorly they’ve done, yesterday’s Euro Weeklies are mainly mild Mar 1-10.

[Northern Foothills Snowman]

10 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Today’s MJO forecasts suggest an increased chance for moderate or stronger phases 4 and 5 starting ~March 5. The folks wanting it mild to warm then should be happy about this. Also although very much a fwiw being how poorly they’ve done, yesterday’s Euro Weeklies are mainly mild Mar 1-10.

Have an MJO question I’m curious about. 
JFM you want 1,2,3 &8 for  cold phases. 
FMA they are the same. 
MAM has 1,2,3,4&8 as cold. 
So if MJO goes into 4 isn’t that a cold phase for March?
Trying to understand this  

 

[GaWx]

10 minutes ago, Northern Foothills Snowman said:

Have an MJO question I’m curious about. 
JFM you want 1,2,3 &8 for  cold phases. 
FMA they are the same. 
MAM has 1,2,3,4&8 as cold. 
So if MJO goes into 4 isn’t that a cold phase for March?
Trying to understand this  

 

My bad. I was in DJF mode. In reality, phases 4 and 5 average near normal in the SE for FMA with 6 and 7 the warmest ones averaged out. Coldest averaged out are 1, 2 and 3. But regardless, MJO phase correlations are only moderate:

[Northern Foothills Snowman]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

My bad. I was in DJF mode. In reality, phases 4 and 5 average near normal in the SE for FMA with 6 and 7 the warmest ones averaged out. Coldest averaged out are 1, 2 and 3. But regardless, MJO phase correlations are only moderate:

So which one do you go by in March?

JFM FMA MAM?

[GaWx]

28 minutes ago, Northern Foothills Snowman said:

So which one do you go by in March?

JFM FMA MAM?

FMA fwiw

[wncsnow]

26 minutes ago, GaWx said:

FMA fwiw

This winter has gone by FML and FUBAR

[NorthHillsWx]

There’s a small sliver, roughly the mason Dixon line to eastern PA, of the east coast that’s done well this winter. Other than that, pretty much the entire east coast has shared in the misery. Parts of the MA had a great week in January and Connecticut had localized jackpots from a coastal storm recently but the vast majority of the east coast is in this same snow drought. I wonder if those years noted above featured failures for the entire east coast such as this has or if it was more regional to the southeast 

[GaWx]

4 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

There’s a small sliver, roughly the mason Dixon line to eastern PA, off the east coast that’s done well this winter. Other than that, pretty much the entire east coast has shared in the misery. Parts of the MA had a great week in January and Connecticut had localized jackpots from a coastal storm recently but the vast majority of the east coast is in this same snow drought. I wonder if those years noted above featured failures for the entire east coast such as this has or if it was more regional to the southeast 

 Even down in this area, we’re in a wintry precip “drought” of sorts. It has been 6 years, 1.5 months since the last T of wintry precip. Not getting even a T has happened in ~50% of seasons and not getting measurable has happened in ~5/6 of seasons. So, for any one cold season, not getting any isn’t the least bit unusual and getting any measurable is a special treat. But not getting even a T for over 6 years is highly unusual as it hasn’t happened since at least the 1880s-1870s. In the 1920s, there was a 5 years, 11 month drought.

[GaWx]

 For the purpose of making the readers laugh and not to be taken seriously, the Euro Bleaklies have for March a mild first third, a short transition, and then a cold last half due to a combo of +PNA/Aleutian Low and a strong -NAO/-AO. I feel like I’m having deja vu all over again as Yogi Bera would say. Don’t shoot the messenger as I’m just messaging the super important inaccurate Bleaklies. Nothing much else is happening anyway.

[NorthHillsWx]

49 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 For the purpose of making the readers laugh and not to be taken seriously, the Euro Bleaklies have for March a mild first third, a short transition, and then a cold last half due to a combo of +PNA/Aleutian Low and a strong -NAO/-AO. I feel like I’m having deja vu all over again as Yogi Bera would say. Don’t shoot the messenger as I’m just messaging the super important inaccurate Bleaklies. Nothing much else is happening anyway.

Weeklies are as trustworthy as my high school girlfriend 

[Met1985]

The weeklies had done pretty good until we hit the later half of January then they just latched onto the non existing blocking.  I do know there is another SSW coming soon but we will see. 

[GaWx]

32 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

The weeklies had done pretty good until we hit the later half of January then they just latched onto the non existing blocking.  I do know there is another SSW coming soon but we will see. 

They and all the models, including ensembles only 10 or so days out, were fooled by this non existing strong AO/NAO block predicted for mid-Feb. So, then it looked to me like the Bleaklies, extended GEFS, and the CFS ensemble were going to score a big victory once mid Feb. would arrive since the medium range ensembles all now had this. The GEFS as I posted about still had very strong blocking through the Feb 8 run and then it backed off each day more and more til it vanished. So, I had fallen for it.

[NorthHillsWx]

1 hour ago, Met1985 said:

The weeklies had done pretty good until we hit the later half of January then they just latched onto the non existing blocking.  I do know there is another SSW coming soon but we will see. 

They’re great when they predict above average temps bc that’ll give you a 90% hit rate these days

[wncsnow]

You know who wasn't wrong? This guy. 

[GaWx]

7 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

They’re great when they predict above average temps bc that’ll give you a 90% hit rate these days

Indeed. The one exception this winter was in late Dec, when they were still predicting mainly mild for that mid Jan week that was then just over two weeks out and that turned out to be the coldest of the winter. What an odd curve ball that was. Some areas predicted on this map to be +5 for that week ended up -20 instead!

 

[Met1985]

4 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Indeed. The one exception this winter was in late Dec, when they were still predicting mainly mild for that mid Jan week that was then just over two weeks out and that turned out to be the coldest of the winter. What an odd curve ball that was. Some areas predicted on this map to be +5 for that week ended up -20 instead!

 

Yeah a lot of the country was in a down winter. I know it's all my back yard stuff but we've had record low snowfall across the entire country,  record low snow-covered,  and record low great lakes ice cover. 

[wncsnow]

My family in England has basically had no snow either. They do get snow pretty regularly there even though most people think it's rain all the time. When it does snow there it's very fleeting usually with the super fast flow. 

[Met1985]

Might just be a bit of a surprise down east.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

[lilj4425]

I’m the only one viewing this thread.   

[SnowGoose69]

17 hours ago, GaWx said:

Indeed. The one exception this winter was in late Dec, when they were still predicting mainly mild for that mid Jan week that was then just over two weeks out and that turned out to be the coldest of the winter. What an odd curve ball that was. Some areas predicted on this map to be +5 for that week ended up -20 instead!

 

Ensembles have tended to be too strong with any SE ridging most of the winter...the area they've missed has been the PNA ridge which has tended to verify way flatter than shown in the longer range but the tendency to want to show ridging maximized outside of SE Canada or New England has failed on numerous occasions which is why despite being above normal for the winter, places from MS across to GA and into FL have been frigid relative to what they saw in Jan/Feb 2023....I have seen ATL has had only 1 high of 70 or higher the entire winter so far which explains why on web cameras I see the pear trees hae not even bloomed yet where last year as well as 18/19 and even 22 they were basically leafed out by now.

[olafminesaw]

The only interesting weather in the CONUS upcoming is the potent front in about 5 days. The GFS has about 500 miles to go from single digits in Wyoming to near 80 degrees in central Kansas. Of course it will not deliver meaningful arctic air to this side of the country. Because why would it? 

[GaWx]

56 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Ensembles have tended to be too strong with any SE ridging most of the winter...the area they've missed has been the PNA ridge which has tended to verify way flatter than shown in the longer range but the tendency to want to show ridging maximized outside of SE Canada or New England has failed on numerous occasions which is why despite being above normal for the winter, places from MS across to GA and into FL have been frigid relative to what they saw in Jan/Feb 2023....I have seen ATL has had only 1 high of 70 or higher the entire winter so far which explains why on web cameras I see the pear trees hae not even bloomed yet where last year as well as 18/19 and even 22 they were basically leafed out by now.

Consistent with this, much of the SE will end up only 1-2 F AN this DJF. I consider that within the NN range. To compare, 2022-23 was 4-5 AN in the same areas or 3F warmer (270 fewer heating degree days) resulting in a very mild winter.

[UnionCountyNCWX]

19 hours ago, Met1985 said:

Yeah a lot of the country was in a down winter. I know it's all my back yard stuff but we've had record low snowfall across the entire country,  record low snow-covered,  and record low great lakes ice cover. 

I was just thinking about the great lakes ice this morning. Am I wrong in thinking that 15-20 years ago it was normal for most of the lakes to be completely covered in ice? I feel like they used to talk about lake effect snow "until the lakes froze." But haven't heard of talk like that in a while. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.?

[Met1985]

23 minutes ago, UnionCountyNCWX said:

I was just thinking about the great lakes ice this morning. Am I wrong in thinking that 15-20 years ago it was normal for most of the lakes to be completely covered in ice? I feel like they used to talk about lake effect snow "until the lakes froze." But haven't heard of talk like that in a while. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.?

You are correct.  Lake effect snow was early season or late season when the ice started to break up. I've read that even ski resorts in Montana have closed early this season because the lack of snow. Snowmobile trails in New England and the UP of Michigan have been closed because there isn't any snow pack. Seems like the only place that had had a good winter is Alaska.  The SW and the inner mountains of California,  Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado have only recently gotten in on some big time snows because of the Atmospheric river screaming across the SW.

[Snow dog]

I’m headed to Whistler for some skiing in 2 weeks.  It’s been bad there most of the season, until now!  At least I’ll see snow this year, just hate I have to go to Canada to see it. 
 

 

[UnionCountyNCWX]

Posted this in the sanitarium but I'll post here too.  If you want to see an impressive HP setup, go to the 12z GFS at 228 and watch that HP build in. If this was a different winter and we had at least some things going our way, that would be a PERFECT HP for us to score.

[GaWx]

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are warmer for 3/11-18 and not as cold 3/18-25 vs yesterday’s run. 

[Met1985]

5 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are warmer for 3/11-18 and not as cold 3/18-25 vs yesterday’s run. 

Well onto spring.

[kvegas-wx]

Had to come all the way to the Grand Canyon this week to find some snow.  Got to see it snowing sideways twice yesterday, ripping fatties as we like to say back home.    I guess I'll survive 200 more days until the winter thread comes alive again.  Until then, enjoy your weeds, bugs and humidity.

[Coach McGuirk]

Back to back winters with no accumulating snow.  Welcome to the new normal.