2024-2025 La Nina

[donsutherland1]

26 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

The OISST has not updated in 5 days.

That's probably because of Helene's impact on NCEI's Asheville center.

[George BM]

Yeah multiple indices could be offline for a bit.

[FPizz]

30 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

We can agree to diasgree on the regression part. Yes, volatility has been increased, but when you view snowfall through a decadal lens, then its apprent that this decade is regression from last decade....volatility is multi-decadal and not relgated to the seasonal level.

Agreed.  Even though temps were colder, if you lived in the tri-state area for the 70s and 80s, I'm sure many thought that was the new norm by getting the 2 worst decades for snowfall back to back. 

[jm1220]

1 hour ago, Eduardo said:

I would also add that Chris was plenty bullish here and over on Eastern (IIRC) during the heavenly era we experienced beginning in the mid 2000s—and especially 13-14 and 14-15.  He’s probably one of the most objective contributors in this community of ours.

He’s an outstanding contributor here and I’m personally much more knowledgeable for all the data and research he’s posted. Can’t be said enough. When the time comes for him to be bullish again he will be lol. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

That's probably because of Helene's impact on NCEI's Asheville center.

Yea, it has impacted the PDO page.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

He’s an outstanding contributor here and I’m personally much more knowledgeable for all the data and research he’s posted. Can’t be said enough. When the time comes for him to be bullish again he will be lol. 

Well, we are all human.....I feel like he could untlimately be exposed for becoming a bit too reliant upon persistence forecasting, which is esstneitally what happened to me at the turn of the decade. Nobody is immune to it.

[jm1220]

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, we are all human.....I feel like he could untlimately be exposed for becoming a bit too reliant upon persistence forecasting, which is esstneitally what happened to me at the turn of the decade. Nobody is immune to it.

Yep, no one’s perfect. To me it just keeps being humbling how it seems so many assumptions have been turned on their heads over the last 5-6 years or so. I agree that it’s been our turn for a while for a significant regression back to the longer term mean for NYC which is about 25”/winter. There’s no way we can expect constant 40”/season bonanzas. The bonanzas bumped Central Park up to 30” average for 1991-2020 and my backyard east of the city to high 30s but we’re due for it to decrease. Hopefully in 10 years we’re not still decreasing. 

[snowman19]

The subsurface under region 3.4 is cooling down quickly again. Now it really looks like a CP event

[brooklynwx99]

1 hour ago, BlizzardWx said:

Having grown up in the west (Portland OR) I can certainly speak to the feeling that things will never go back to normal and the anguish of multiple lackluster snow years in a row. Things do turn around eventually but decadal snow drought patterns are definitely a thing. 

yeah, I remember in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 winters when people in the West were wondering if the anomalous warm and dry winters were going to be the "new normal." how silly that sounds at this point

[brooklynwx99]

I do think that winters are going to become almost solely boom or bust depending on which kind of cycle we're in... right now, we're in the bust cycle. true "normal" winters within 25% of average are going to be harder and harder to come by

however, I'm reasonably confident that when the EC sees a favorable pattern for an extended period of time, which will happen, it's probably going to be quite the year. if we go into a +PDO regime and still can't get anything going through 2035 or so that's when I'll fully re-evaluate my expectations

[mitchnick]

26 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

The subsurface under region 3.4 is cooling down quickly again. Now it really looks like a CP event

Yep. Warm shot is over per top GFS map.  If the Cfs2 is right (bottom map), cooling should continue through mid-November then it wanes.

[40/70 Benchmark]

15 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I do think that winters are going to become almost solely boom or bust depending on which kind of cycle we're in... right now, we're in the bust cycle. true "normal" winters within 25% of average are going to be harder and harder to come by

however, I'm reasonably confident that when the EC sees a favorable pattern for an extended period of time, which will happen, it's probably going to be quite the year. if we go into a +PDO regime and still can't get anything going through 2035 or so that's when I'll fully re-evaluate my expectations

Agree completely.

However, I thinkl the difficulty getting to within 25% of average is more applicable the further south one is.....that is not difficult in the north.

[jm1220]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Agree completely.

However, I thinkl the difficulty getting to within 25% of average is more applicable the further south one is.....that is not difficult in the north.

I think it’ll happen within 10 years that there’s a truly crippling historic snowstorm or series of snowstorms that happen here when we can get the pieces to finally fit together-stuck pattern, warm Atlantic SSTs and finally enough cold. By that I mean widespread 30”+, maybe 36”. NYC was 40 miles from it happening in Feb 2013, close in Jan 2015 and 2022, close in early Feb 2010 etc. It did happen in Mar 1888 and and to a lesser extent 2/26/2010 with the retrograding bomb (I know a bad memory for most of New England). I would take that in a second even if the rest of winter had zilch. 

[FPizz]

23 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I do think that winters are going to become almost solely boom or bust depending on which kind of cycle we're in... right now, we're in the bust cycle. true "normal" winters within 25% of average are going to be harder and harder to come by

however, I'm reasonably confident that when the EC sees a favorable pattern for an extended period of time, which will happen, it's probably going to be quite the year. if we go into a +PDO regime and still can't get anything going through 2035 or so that's when I'll fully re-evaluate my expectations

Our area is boom/bust most of the time anyway.  Only 7 times in the past 37 years that I've been measuring have I gotten to within 25% +/- our average.  It is usually well below or above average. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

I think it’ll happen within 10 years that there’s a truly crippling historic snowstorm or series of snowstorms that happen here when we can get the pieces to finally fit together-stuck pattern, warm Atlantic SSTs and finally enough cold. By that I mean widespread 30”+, maybe 36”. NYC was 40 miles from it happening in Feb 2013, close in Jan 2015 and 2022, close in early Feb 2010 etc. It did happen in Mar 1888 and and to a lesser extent 2/26/2010 with the retrograding bomb (I know a bad memory for most of New England). I would take that in a second even if the rest of winter had zilch. 

I agree...and I will take that. I would rather have a few lean years, as much as I bitch, when there is more time to focus on work and family, then be pinned to the blog for  a string of 3"ers. I go all in on those storms so save it for the biggies.

[brooklynwx99]

3 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

I think it’ll happen within 10 years that there’s a truly crippling historic snowstorm or series of snowstorms that happen here when we can get the pieces to finally fit together-stuck pattern, warm Atlantic SSTs and finally enough cold. By that I mean widespread 30”+, maybe 36”. NYC was 40 miles from it happening in Feb 2013, close in Jan 2015 and 2022, close in early Feb 2010 etc. It did happen in Mar 1888 and and to a lesser extent 2/26/2010 with the retrograding bomb (I know a bad memory for most of New England). I would take that in a second even if the rest of winter had zilch. 

if the Bomb Cyclone in Jan 2018 was closer to the coast, that would have been the widespread 24-36" event. Juno, obviously, was close as well. it's just a matter of time, really

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, FPizz said:

Our area is boom/bust most of the time anyway.  Only 7 times in the past 37 years that I've been measuring have I gotten to within 25% +/- our average.  It is usually well below or above average. 

Yea, I would say from about the latitude of Providence, RI and points southward. Lot easier to BS your way to a respectable season once you get into N RI/CT and especially the MA pike.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, brooklynwx99 said:

if the Bomb Cyclone in Jan 2018 was closer to the coast, that would have been the widespread 24-36" event. Juno, obviously, was close as well. it's just a matter of time, really

The issue with the bomb cyclone is that it occluded so far to the south...not that it was too far east.

[jm1220]

6 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

if the Bomb Cyclone in Jan 2018 was closer to the coast, that would have been the widespread 24-36" event. Juno, obviously, was close as well. it's just a matter of time, really

That was a really nice one (1/4/2018), too bad it couldn’t slow down. It was hauling. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

That was a really nice one (1/4/2018), too bad it couldn’t slow down. It was hauling. 

The trough dug so far to the south that it remained progressive and occluded fast.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, we are all human.....I feel like he could untlimately be exposed for becoming a bit too reliant upon persistence forecasting, which is esstneitally what happened to me at the turn of the decade. Nobody is immune to it.

The patterns becoming more persistent are the result of the warming atmosphere and oceans. So observing these changes and incorporating them into forecast techniques is just pattern recognition. I take a very data driven approach so it’s more pattern persistence than persistence forecasting.

[GaWx]

18 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

+8.61.. not really up a lot from Aug. October will probably be >+10, peaking during the Winter. 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/qbo.u30.index

Chuck/others,

 The +8.61 was for Aug. Sep just updated and was +10.36. Based on past, highest chance for peak is within Oct-Dec with smaller chance JF. Even if peaks Oct, DJF should still be +:

2024  -24.56  -25.54  -28.56  -23.42   -6.52    1.95    6.91    8.61   10.36

[snowman19]

4 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Chuck/others,

 The +8.61 was for Aug. Sep just updated and was +10.36. Based on past, highest chance for peak is within Oct-Dec with smaller chance JF. Even if peaks Oct, DJF should still be +:

2024  -24.56  -25.54  -28.56  -23.42   -6.52    1.95    6.91    8.61   10.36

Beat me to it, just saw the updated number (+10.36). Since it just went positive in June, my guess is a peak around January or thereabouts 

[GaWx]

35 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Beat me to it, just saw the updated number (+10.36). Since it just went positive in June, my guess is a peak around January or thereabouts 

The reason I said Oct-Dec as most likely peak based on past is that peak has largely been at 4th-7th + month in a row. With June the 1st, 4-7 would be Sep-Dec. But last 16 peaks have been at 11+ amplitude. So, I highly doubt Sep’s +10 will be peak. Last time peak was 8th+ + month in row was 15 peaks ago (1993). But DJF will almost certainly still be well within +, regardless.

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, FPizz said:

Agreed.  Even though temps were colder, if you lived in the tri-state area for the 70s and 80s, I'm sure many thought that was the new norm by getting the 2 worst decades for snowfall back to back. 

We were living in a much colder climate back then so the below normal snow years were the result of drier conditions and unfavorable storm tracks. These days our below normal years are the result of too much warmth and unfavorable storm tracks. Also remember that the bad seasons back then had more snowfall than our poor do seasons now. 
 

1 hour ago, FPizz said:

Our area is boom/bust most of the time anyway.  Only 7 times in the past 37 years that I've been measuring have I gotten to within 25% +/- our average.  It is usually well below or above average. 

It wasn’t always that way. From the 1960s into the early 1990s especially on Long Island there was a balanced  mix of below, near normal, and above normal snowfall seasons. Many seasons with mid 20s snowfall. Since the 90s it’s almost exclusively well below or well above with hardly any mid 20s seasons. As the climate continues to warm it will be harder to get the above normal seasons so the below normal seasons will become the new normal. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

if the Bomb Cyclone in Jan 2018 was closer to the coast, that would have been the widespread 24-36" event. Juno, obviously, was close as well. it's just a matter of time, really

 

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The issue with the bomb cyclone is that it occluded so far to the south...not that it was too far east.

 

1 hour ago, jm1220 said:

That was a really nice one (1/4/2018), too bad it couldn’t slow down. It was hauling. 

 That one gave my area the heaviest IP/SN (2”) since 12/1989’s 3-5” and the heaviest liquid equiv of wintry precip (0.75” with 0.5” being ZR on 1/3/2018) since the predecessor to the Knickerbocker storm of 1/1922 that gave SAV the worst ZR on record.

 However, I haven’t had even a T of wintry since then. This drought of nearly 7 years of no wintry incl T is longest on record!

[bluewave]

On 9/24/2024 at 10:58 AM, bluewave said:

The most interesting part of this is the volatility of both the NAO and AO indices. We saw a record low Iceland 500mb height anomaly in August. Now this month one of the highest September daily 500mb height anomalies over Greenland near +500meters. This has been a theme in recent years with some of the greatest positive and negative swings over a relatively short period we have ever seen. 

 

On 9/24/2024 at 11:18 AM, bluewave said:

It’s interesting that this study came out in 2009 right before the next big step up in volatility over the last 10 to 15 years. We can also add the AO which overlaps with the NAO. It does seem like more of the volatility has been evident in the AO while the winter NAO seems to be becoming more positive. 

https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/study-links-swings-in-north-atlantic-oscillation-variability-to-climate-warming/

 

The research team found the variability of the NAO decade-to-decade (multi-decadal scale) has been larger, swinging more wildly, during the late twentieth century than in the early 1800s, suggesting that variability is linked to the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere. This confirms variability previously reported in past terrestrial reconstructions.

“When the Industrial Revolution begins and atmospheric temperature becomes warmer, the NAO takes on a much stronger pattern in longer-term behavior,” said Goodkin. “That was suspected before in the instrumental records, but this is the first time it has been documented in records from both the ocean and the atmosphere.”

The North Atlantic Oscillation is described by the NAO index, calculated as a weighted difference between the polar low and the subtropical high during the winter season. In a positive phase, both the low-pressure zone over Iceland and high pressure over the Azores are intensified, resulting in changes in the strength, incidence, and pathway of winter storms crossing the Atlantic. In a negative phase, a weak subtropical high and a weak Icelandic low results in fewer and weaker winter storms crossing on a more west-east pathway.

The NAO index varies from year to year, but also exhibits a tendency to remain in one phase for intervals lasting more than a decade. An unusually long period of positive phase between 1970-2000 led to the suggestion that global warming was affecting the behavior of the NAO.

“Anthropogenic (human-related) warming does not appear to be altering whether the NAO is in a positive or negative phase at multi-decadal time scales,” said WHOI paleoclimatologist Konrad Hughen. “It does seem to be increasing variability. Clearly, this has implications for the future.”

“As temperatures get warmer, there’s potential for more violent swings of the NAO — the phases becoming even more positive and even more negative,” Hughen added. “If the NAO locks more into these patterns, intense storms will become more intense and droughts will become more severe.”

 

 

[BlizzardWx]

49 minutes ago, GaWx said:

That one gave my area the heaviest IP/SN (2”) since 12/1989’s 3-5” and the heaviest liquid equiv of wintry precip (0.75” with 0.5” being ZR on 1/3/2018) since the predecessor to the Knickerbocker storm of 1/1922 that gave SAV the worst ZR on record.

 However, I haven’t had even a T of wintry since then. This drought of nearly 7 years of no wintry incl T is longest on record!

Down here we've done a little better, but it's still been pretty bad. Since 15-16 the seasonal totals have been:

Long term mean of 8.7"
15-16: 3.0"
16-17: 0.7"
17-18: 2.1"
18-19: 2.9"
19-20: 3.1"
20-21: 15.8"
21-22: 12.0"
22-23: 2.0"
23-24: 1.6"

That's 5/7 with less than 50% of normal. The 43.4/78.3 inches over that stretch is about 55% of normal snow. I was in Phoenix for 2019-2022 and then in Tulsa the last two years. So I've only seen about 3.5" of snow in 5 years. There have been a few sleet and zr events in there but we all know snow is where its at! The patterns that help me to do well aren't exactly the same as most in this sub but they are at least related. 

 

[GaWx]

Just now, bluewave said:

 

 

 

1. Per NOAA monthlies, Aug 2024 didn’t have anywhere near record +PNA for Aug as it was only +0.63. Since 1950, 18 Augs had a stronger +NAO incl way higher in ‘22 and ‘18:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
 

2. Per NOAA’s NAO table 2024’s drop Aug to Sep was still big but not as big as 1976, 1983, and 2022.

 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, FPizz said:

Our area is boom/bust most of the time anyway.  Only 7 times in the past 37 years that I've been measuring have I gotten to within 25% +/- our average.  It is usually well below or above average. 

That was always my impression of the east coast. Completely different that the Great Lakes.