2024-2025 La Nina

[roardog]

10 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I know that. But with these further north storm tracks, even places outside the traditional snow belts can do very well. While past -5 -AOs favored DC to Boston, this was another one that linked up with the Southeast Ridge which has become a regular occurrence in the 2020s. So the heaviest snows got pushed up into Canada instead with this much warmer storm track. But the most impressive records continue to be in the favored lake effect zones like we just saw in Gaylord. 

 

 

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. 

 The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

[LibertyBell]

11 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes....precisely. If we have an El Nino, 2014-2015 will be an upper tier analog for me....but just as we saw with the 2013 analog this season, snowfall is highly variable. That was a great analog in hindsight, but that doesn't mean snowfall will work out...this is especially true with respect to an analog that featured highly anomalous snowfall, like 2014-2015. I would expect it to be much snowier than this season for the north mid atl and S/CNE, though.

it's like developing a probabilistic bell curve and you'd expect the eventual outcome to be somewhere between 86-87 and 14-15.  The probability is highest it will be somewhere in the middle of those two.

The suppression we saw this season did remind me of March 2014, except it engulfed more of the season.

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, roardog said:

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. 

 The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

Yea, this was a different Pacific paradigm...the one common denominator, as Chris pointed out, was the fast jet that inhibited phasing....unless of course it was over the midwest or Atlantic.

[LibertyBell]

7 minutes ago, roardog said:

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. 

 The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

we've had an almost continuous westerly or northwesterly flow since last October which is why we got shut out for all precip in October and a historically dry January too.

[bluewave]

17 minutes ago, roardog said:

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. 

 The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

We had a very strong Southeast Ridge this February which pushed the storm track well to the north. This was the first time a -5 -AO linked up with the Southeast Ridge. So another case of the -AO not delivering for coastal sections like we saw in December 2022 and numerous other times this decade.

 

[GaWx]

 JB is saying that a stratwarm caused widespread US colder than average 3/20-4/14 is still possible. He’s saying Europe being wet has already tipped off this idea 3 times and he thinks it will happen again.

 But I agree with @snowman19that he usually calls for colder than normal around this period. Also, the Euro Weeklies so far still have not shown any BN signal in the E 2/3 of the US for any upcoming week with AN temps dominating. In addition, the MJO is forecasted to be in the maritime continent on 3/20.

 But the 60N 10 mb wind reversal is still looking stout with a rapid drop of 50 m/s over just a 7 day period from Mar 5th’s +30 to ~-20 m/s Mar 12. This is similar to the record earliest FW during about the same period in 2016, but that didn’t result in any widespread long lasting E US BN period in late Mar-Apr:

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We had a very strong Southeast Ridge this February which pushed the storm track well to the north. This was the first time a -5 -AO linked up with the Southeast Ridge. So another case of the -AO not delivering for coastal sections like we saw in December 2022 and numerous other times this decade.

 

I think has always been pretty common in cool ENSO Feb.

[bluewave]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think has always been pretty common in cool ENSO Feb.

But not when we have had the -AO dip below -5 in the past. 

[roardog]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We had a very strong Southeast Ridge this February which pushed the storm track well to the north. This was the first time we had a -5 -AO link up with the Southeast Ridge. So another case of the -AO not delivering for coastal sections like we saw in December 2022 and numerous other times this decade.

 

Yes there was a strong SE ridge for a while in February but what about December and January? When the mid Atlantic was getting warning criteria snow, I’m sure the snow lovers in NYC and Boston were hoping for a SE ridge. The SE ridge this winter only occurred for a small fraction of the winter. It was a +PNA winter overall. 

I mean, the pattern this winter was completely different than what we’ve had overall the last decade. Sometimes snowfall just comes down to luck. 
 

 

[roardog]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

But not when we have had the -AO dip below -5 in the past. 

But isn’t it also unusual to have a -5 AO in a Nina February?

[40/70 Benchmark]

21 minutes ago, bluewave said:

But not when we have had the -AO dip below -5 in the past. 

Yea, I haven't researched it, but I'll take your word for it.

Here is the apex of the -AO

[GaWx]

12 minutes ago, roardog said:

But isn’t it also unusual to have a -5 AO in a Nina February?

Yes. There’s been just the 2/10-11/2021 Feb Niña sub -5 AO since 1950 other than the non official Niña of Feb of 2025.
 

 

[roardog]

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I haven't researched it, but I'll take your word for it.

Here the apex of the -AO

It was basically Nina Feb climo vs an unusually negative AO. I feel like without the strongly -AO, the pattern could have ended up being a blowtorch for the entire eastern half of the country. The -AO really helped to keep the cold in southern Canada and the northern US. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

16 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I haven't researched it, but I'll take your word for it.

Here is the apex of the -AO

I was saying it in the Mid-Atlantic forum, that the -AO was actually too far north. The global cells make a 90N block put a trough at 45N, but not 40N.. under the Arctic block was a strong trough in the North-Atlantic. -300dm on your map. That is actually a south-based +NAO, and correlates to a slight SE ridge pattern. 

[LibertyBell]

53 minutes ago, bluewave said:

But not when we have had the -AO dip below -5 in the past. 

Have we had an AO of -5 before in February in a la nina?

Offhand, I can't think of any.

[LibertyBell]

55 minutes ago, roardog said:

Yes there was a strong SE ridge for a while in February but what about December and January? When the mid Atlantic was getting warning criteria snow, I’m sure the snow lovers in NYC and Boston were hoping for a SE ridge. The SE ridge this winter only occurred for a small fraction of the winter. It was a +PNA winter overall. 

I mean, the pattern this winter was completely different than what we’ve had overall the last decade. Sometimes snowfall just comes down to luck. 
 

 

not luck, it's a repeating pattern of a strong Pac jet like we had in the 80s.

[LibertyBell]

43 minutes ago, roardog said:

It was basically Nina Feb climo vs an unusually negative AO. I feel like without the strongly -AO, the pattern could have ended up being a blowtorch for the entire eastern half of the country. The -AO really helped to keep the cold in southern Canada and the northern US. 

When it comes down to it, NYC made out pretty well with 7 inches of snow in February.  That last storm that missed us did sting a bit, almost like March 2001 in the opposite direction....

 

[roardog]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

not luck, it's a repeating pattern of a strong Pac jet like we had in the 80s.

This is where luck comes in though. I get that the chance of phasing decreases with the strong jet but areas to your south had decent snow this winter. A little bit of a SE ridge or just any nuance in January could have brought that snow to NYC instead of Philadelphia/DC. 

[bluewave]

11 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Have we had an AO of -5 before in February in a la nina?

Offhand, I can't think of any.

Yes during February 2021. So this is the first time since the late 1960s without a KU blizzard here during either a La Niña or El Niño February with a -5 -AO. We had our blizzard in February 2021 before the -AO peak. The February 2010 multiple blizzards with that -5 -AO had the amazing STJ pattern. Back during the weak El Niño in February 1978 with that -5 -AO we had the greatest 1970s blizzard. Then the famous Lindsey Snowstorm  in February 1969 with that -5 - AO.  

[LibertyBell]

9 minutes ago, roardog said:

This is where luck comes in though. I get that the chance of phasing decreases with the strong jet but areas to your south had decent snow this winter. A little bit of a SE ridge or just any nuance in January could have brought that snow to NYC instead of Philadelphia/DC. 

But if you look at the 80s the same thing happened back then.  I remember back in the 80s I got the idea that there are two predominant west-east tracks, one is to our south and the other is to our north.  NYC does not generally see snow from west to east tracks we need coastals that go south to north or southwest to northeast.  We had quite a few winters like this in the 80s too, namely 88-89 and 89-90.  1988-89 is a great match, especially since it was a la nina.  And both of those winters are for having historic southern snowstorms.  South Carolina's greatest snowstorm is from December 1989 and Norfolk had an amazing snowstorm in February 1989 that dumped over a foot there and even 20" at Atlantic City.  It was a bust for us, a forecast of 6-8 inches and all we got was virga.  We saw a similar bust in December 1989 in the opposite way, when we got rain and thunderstorms instead of our forecast of 6-8 inches.

DC did better than us in both winters too.  Storm track is more of a factor in our winters than average temperatures.  December 1989 was one of our coldest Decembers on record but with very little snow.

 

[LibertyBell]

9 minutes ago, roardog said:

This is where luck comes in though. I get that the chance of phasing decreases with the strong jet but areas to your south had decent snow this winter. A little bit of a SE ridge or just any nuance in January could have brought that snow to NYC instead of Philadelphia/DC. 

Philadelphia had a huge snowfall deficit similar to NYC.  The snow seemed to have a cutoff point this season north of the Mason Dixon line.  Maybe the pattern repeated itself?

 

[LibertyBell]

7 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yes during February 2021. So this is the first time since the late 1960s without a KU blizzard here during either a La Niña or El Niño February with a -5 -AO. We had our blizzard in February 2021 before the -AO peak. The February 2010 multiple blizzards with that -5 -AO had the amazing STJ pattern. Back during the weak El Niño in February 1978 with that -5 -AO we had the greatest 1970s blizzard. Then the famous Lindsey Snowstorm  in February 1969 with that -5 - AO.  

These -5 AO patterns must be very rare, it almost feels like we wasted a golden opportunity this season.

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

11 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yes during February 2021. So this is the first time since the late 1960s without a KU blizzard here during either a La Niña or El Niño February with a -5 -AO. We had our blizzard in February 2021 before the -AO peak. The February 2010 multiple blizzards with that -5 -AO had the amazing STJ pattern. Back during the weak El Niño in February 1978 with that -5 -AO we had the greatest 1970s blizzard. Then the famous Lindsey Snowstorm  in February 1969 with that -5 - AO.  

I bet in those cases though you didn't have +400dm over the very North Pole. Even if the block extended south of that, the 4-trough pattern in the N. Hemisphere was based around a 90N center.  Then there was also a very anomalously cold and tight 10mb vortex, that may have kept the wavelengths closer to the center.. result of that is you have a storm cutting up to SE Canada. I understand the rarity of that, 3 weeks from the coldest time of the year during -5 AO, but it was kind of a tight pattern.  That strong N. Atlantic trough getting south of the block did favor the SE ridge. 

[michsnowfreak]

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

The early 30s were warm because of a persistent la nina pattern, but 1933-34 was historically cold and snowy.

The 1940s were very cold and snowy, especially 1942-43 and 1947-48

The 50s were warmer but had a lot of snow in March and the snowstorms in the 50s were long duration ones, like 1955-56, 1957-58.

The 60s were very cold and some of those years were historically snowy, like 1960-61, 1963-64 and 1966-67 especially.

 

Just goes to show the different patterns in different regions. La Ninas arent necessarily a bad thing here tho, and those early 1930s winters were very mild. On one of my snow sheets I jotted down some highlights of this crappy time in our snow climo. Some of the highlights (or should I say lowlights):

1931-32: still stands as 2nd warmest winter on record
1932-33: After Jan ’32 saw just 0.9” snow, Jan ’33 sets the all time low with 0.4”
1936-37: still stands as least snowy winter (12.9”) on record
1937-38: largest storm just 2.4”; the 5th consecutive winter without a 5”+ storm
1941-42: mild winter; max snow depth 3”; only 1 winter of last 6 has exceeded 4” depth!
1943-44: mild winter nonexistent til Feb, but Feb sees the decades ONLY 6”+ storm!
1945-46: 2nd “Morch” in a row; no measurable snow after Feb 27, earliest on record
1948-49: 13.7” total snow, only 17 days with snow on ground, max depth 4”
1952-53: 16.6” total snow; Max depth of entire winter 2”, lowest on record
1957-58: 18.0” total snow, biggest storm just 2.1”, the smallest “biggest of season” on record
1960-61: cold but only 18.0” of snow; everything hit the east coast
1965-66: warm wet start then cold & very dry; only 15.4” snow
1968-69: 17.1” snow, the 7th sub-20” winter in 33 years! The last time Detroit didn’t hit 20”+

Snowiest winter of 1930s: 66.5” in 1929-30
Least snowy winter of 1930s: 12.9” in 1936-37
Warmest winter of 1930s: 1931-32 (stands as 2nd warmest)
Coldest winter of 1930s: 1935-36 (stands as 9th coldest)

Snowiest winter of 1940s: 44.4” in 1942-43 (snowiest winter of decade is our current avg)
Least snowy winter of 1940s: 13.7” in 1948-49
Warmest winter of 1940s: 1948-49 (stands as 17th warmest)
Coldest winter of 1940s: 1944-45 (stands as 21st coldest)

Snowiest winter of 1950s: 58.6” in 1951-52
Least snowy winter of 1950s: 16.6” in 1952-53
Warmest winter of 1950s: 1952-53 (stands as 15th warmest)
Coldest winter of 1950s: 1958-59 (stands as 18th coldest)

Snowiest winter of 1960s: 50.6” in 1966-67
Least snowy winter of 1960s: 15.4” in 1965-66
Warmest winter of 1960s: 1965-66 (stands as 45th warmest)
Coldest winter of 1960s: 1962-63 (stands as 5th coldest)

[bluewave]

25 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I bet in those cases though you didn't have +400dm over the very North Pole. Even if the block extended south of that, the 4-trough pattern in the N. Hemisphere was based around a 90N center.  Then there was also a very anomalously cold and tight 10mb vortex, that may have kept the wavelengths closer to the center.. result of that is you have a storm cutting up to SE Canada. I understand the rarity of that, 3 weeks from the coldest time of the year during -5 AO, but it was kind of a tight pattern.  That strong N. Atlantic trough getting south of the block did favor the SE ridge. 

On the day of the strong cutter back in mid-February that produced the record snows from Toronto to Montreal it was more about the -AO linking up with the Southeast Ridge than the -AO being too far north. In the old days we would have done fine with the block extending west to Baffin Island. These days with the faster Pacific flow and record Atlantic SSTs we get more of these Southeast Ridge link ups. From the 1950s into early 1970s even when we had strong -PNAs, there would be a trough over the Eastern U.S. and not a ridge when there was a -AO. 

 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

There are other signs that point to a Pacific transition too. And also one in the Atlantic.

I think we might be headed towards a 60s type pattern in a few years.

Oh boy, the east coast should salivate then. 

Actually, Id consider this winter of 2024-25 pretty similar HERE to a typical 1960s winter. Below avg snow but we were able to stretch it far with the number of days with snow on the ground.

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think more like 80s for the next few years until we get past the elevated geomagnetic energy and solar winds in the immediate aftermath of solar max, then maybe more like 60s towards the turn of the decade, closer to solar min. This is why I feel like next winter maybe Pacific driven without much NAO blocking, which would favor the northern mid atl and New England. It depends on how quickly we fade from max....we could sneak in one more season before geomag kicks up.

See now the 80s I can totally dig. Cold decade for the most part, and very solid snowfall. No massive storms, just lots of solid ones. Only winter of the 80s that Ill pass on is 1982-83 and 1988-89.

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

this almost feels like a 2013-14/2014-15 couplet (obviously with much less snow than what 2013-14 had this season.)

Sign me up and let me know who I can send the payment to!

[Stormchaserchuck1]

9 minutes ago, bluewave said:

On the day of the strong cutter back in mid-February that produced the record snows from Toronto to Montreal it was more about the -AO linking up with the Southeast Ridge than the -AO being too far north. In the old days we would have done fine with the block extending west to Baffin Island. These days with the faster Pacific flow and record Atlantic SSTs we get more of these Southeast Ridge link ups. From the 1950s into early 1970s even when we had strong -PNAs, there would be a trough over the Eastern U.S. and not a ridge when there was a -AO. 

The Midwest did get record cold around it.. It hit -32F in Valentine, Nebraska.  The NAO has been positive in the mean for this Winter.. If you calculated the cases there was a -300dm trough at 45-50N/35W, there would be above average temperatures on the East coast south of Boston.  Sometimes the closer pattern prevails. 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, roardog said:

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. 

 The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

The Northwest flow is basically what saved January in MI from being the cold, frozen disaster it was just to our west. We were able to squeeze out enough snowfalls for a white month...while they had temps in the -10s and -20s with bare ground in MN and WI.