2024-2025 La Nina

[bluewave]

13 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

A La Nina this year will make it 4/5 years that we have had La Nina conditions lately. Those similar cases were actually followed by some good Winters in the years after:

 

We have effectively had 7 out of the last 8 winters with La Niña conditions. The weak El Niño in 18-19 and 19-20 wasn’t able to couple due to the very strong La Niña background state with the record WPAC warm pool. So we got a very strong Niña-like Aleutian ridge and Southeast ridge both winters. Warm MJO 5 tropical SSTs near 120E and marine heatwave east of Japan has been a common theme. If we count Niña-like background elements, then all of the last 9 winters would be included. December 2015 featured the record MJO 4-6 for an El Niño that strong. Plus this recent winter featured an unusual amount of Nino 4-7 forcing for such a strong El Nino also. The piece of the Aleutian ridge hanging on NW of Hawaii pushed the typical Nino +PNA ridge further east than usual. So there was stronger ridging into the Eastern US. The typical Nino trough was also dampened across the U.S. Southern Tier.

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

14 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We have effectively had 7 out of the last 8 winters with La Niña conditions. The weak El Niño in 18-19 and 19-20 wasn’t able to couple due to the very strong La Niña background state with the record WPAC warm pool. So we got a very strong Niña-like Aleutian ridge and Southeast ridge both winters. Warm MJO 5 tropical SSTs near 120E and marine heatwave east of Japan has been a common theme. If we count Niña-like background elements, then all of the last 9 winters would be included. December 2015 featured the record MJO 4-6 for an El Niño that strong. Plus this recent winter featured an unusual amount of Nino 4-7 forcing for such a strong El Nino also. 

Easy to see why 2019-2020 was so much worse than 2018-2019.....poleward Aleutian ridge more characteristic of east-based La Nina in the latter and very flat, modoki La Nina like response with a very flat ridge in the former.

[snowman19]

15 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Easy to see why 2019-2020 was so much worse than 2018-2019.....poleward Aleutian ridge more characteristic of east-based La Nina in the latter and very flat, modoki La Nina like response with a very flat ridge in the former.

The thing I remember most about the 19-20 winter was all the big cold/snowy east coast forecasts that came out in the fall because of the model runs that were showing blocking, which turned out to be a huge fail. The forcing from the ++IOD and 90+ SSTs north of Australia put the SPV on steroids come the end of December, winter ended and that was all she wrote. Isotherm nailed that debacle months before it happened

[40/70 Benchmark]

55 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

The thing I remember most about the 19-20 winter was all the big cold/snowy east coast forecasts that came out in the fall because of the model runs that were showing blocking, which turned out to be a huge fail. The forcing from the ++IOD and 90+ SSTs north of Australia put the SPV on steroids come the end of December, winter ended and that was all she wrote. Isotherm nailed that debacle months before it happened

December 2019 had a really nice storm in my area before the season went to hell.

Isotherm blew the 2020-2021 foreast and then was never heard from again.

Shame.

[bluewave]

25 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Easy to see why 2019-2020 was so much worse than 2018-2019.....poleward Aleutian ridge more characteristic of east-based La Nina in the latter and very flat, modoki La Nina like response with a very flat ridge in the former.

Yeah, that Arctic outbreak at the end of January 2019 was very impressive in the Midwest. While the warmth has dominated US winters since 15-16, there have been a few potent Arctic outbreaks. Another was in Texas during the 20-21 winter. The common theme is that the core of several of them have remained west of the Northeast closer to the center of the Continent. 
 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, that Arctic outbreak at the end of January 2019 was very impressive in the Midwest. While the warmth has dominated US winters since 15-16, there have been a few potent Arctic outbreaks. Another was in Texas during the 20-21 winter. The common theme is that the core of several of them have remained west of the Northeast closer to the center of the Continent. 
 

Time Series Summary for Moline Area, IL (ThreadEx) - Jan through Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending coldest low temperatures on record

 

1 2019 -33 
2 1996 -28

3 2009 -27

0 - 1979 -27

0 - 1884 -27 0 4 1999 -26 0 - 1974 -26 0 - 1963 -26 0 - 1887 -26 0 5 1905 -25 0 6 1989 -24 0 - 1888 -24 0

Yea, they usually will load west with the -PDO/RNA.

[snowman19]

23 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

December 2019 had a really nice storm in my area before the season went to hell.

Isotherm blew the 2020-2021 foreast and then was never heard form again.

Shame.

The mid-December, 2019 snowstorm was it for my area that winter. One and done. I remember BAMWX being one of the first to call their winter forecast a bust and said that winter was toast when it was apparent that the SPV was going into beast mode right after Christmas. The IOD overwhelmed everything. Of course JB was the last to admit defeat and kept hyping for months that deep winter was right around the corner…..

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Come to think of it, the closest thing to 18-19 and 19-20 was the disjointed el nino of 52-53/53-54. In fact, the last 6 years closely resemble 52-53 through 57-58. You got the disjointed el nino (52-54, 18-20) followed by a triple la nina (54-57, 20-23), and a strong el nino (57-58, 23-24).

I just realized that 64-65 was the only la nina of the 1960s. If not for that, we would have 13 years between la ninas (from the dissipation of the triple la nina in 57 until the 70-71 la nina). Despite the lack of la ninas, PHL had stretch of cold and snowy winters during this time.

The only other time we followed a triple la nina with an el nino was in 76. Like after 57, there was a stretch of a lack of la ninas. The next one would be in 83-84 (which would continue into 84-85), after a failed la nina in summer 78. Like with the 60s, 76-77 through 82-83 produced some historically cold and snowy winters at PHL. Heck, even the la nina winters (Jan 84 and Jan 85) produced historical cold, something we've only seen one time since (1/19/94).

[bluewave]

26 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, they usually will load west with the -PDO/RNA.

Yeah, whenever that Aleutian ridge can become more poleward and get pushed into the West Coast the Central US has been the focus of the relatively short but potent Arctic outbreaks since 14-15. It’s ironic that my strongest Arctic outbreak since the  15-16 super El Niño was on Valentine’s Day 2016. It was the only time NYC went below 0 since 1994. But it was a brief Arctic outbreak as has been the case across the U.S. So we can still generate significant Arctic cold over North America but the lasting power is much shorter than when it occurred in the past.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, whenever that Aleutian ridge can become more poleward and get pushed into the West Coast the Central US has been the focus of the relatively short but potent Arctic outbreaks since 14-15. It’s ironic that my strongest Arctic outbreak since the  15-16 super El Niño was on Valentine’s Day 2016. It was the only time NYC went below 0 since 1994. But it was a brief Arctic outbreak as has been the case across the U.S. so we can still generate significant Arctic cold over North America but the lasting power is much shorter when it does occur than as in the past. 

Yea, I remember that......that was nuts. Been a few years since we have had frigid wind gusts triggering a temp drop into the single digits during the PM.

[bluewave]

14 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, I remember that......that was nuts. Been a few years since we have had frigid wind gusts triggering a temp drop into the single digits during the PM.

I had to laugh when NYC was able to drop below 0° in February 2016 but couldn’t do it in February 2015.

Data for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

2016-02-01	59	44
2016-02-02	50	38
2016-02-03	59	42
2016-02-04	59	44
2016-02-05	44	31
2016-02-06	40	30
2016-02-07	47	33
2016-02-08	39	28
2016-02-09	36	27
2016-02-10	39	31
2016-02-11	31	18
2016-02-12	27	15
2016-02-13	22	6
2016-02-14	15	-1
2016-02-15	35	13
2016-02-16	54	35
2016-02-17	39	35
2016-02-18	36	27
2016-02-19	39	24
2016-02-20	61	39
2016-02-21	55	44
2016-02-22	52	38
2016-02-23	40	35
2016-02-24	60	36
2016-02-25	61	37
2016-02-26	39	27
2016-02-27	41	26
2016-02-28	60	38

 

Data for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

2015-02-01	36	20
2015-02-02	34	14
2015-02-03	26	13
2015-02-04	43	24
2015-02-05	42	14
2015-02-06	27	12
2015-02-07	40	25
2015-02-08	37	29
2015-02-09	29	25
2015-02-10	40	26
2015-02-11	34	22
2015-02-12	40	16
2015-02-13	21	8
2015-02-14	32	16
2015-02-15	25	4
2015-02-16	21	3
2015-02-17	27	14
2015-02-18	33	19
2015-02-19	27	8
2015-02-20	19	2
2015-02-21	32	13
2015-02-22	43	32
2015-02-23	38	8
2015-02-24	24	4
2015-02-25	37	20
2015-02-26	32	21
2015-02-27	30	18
2015-02-28	29	13

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

We've had colder days than Valentine's Day 2016 (20/8) at PHL. There was the prolonged arctic outbreak of late Dec 2017/first week of Jan 2018 (16/7 on the 6th and 19/4 on the 7th), as well as 1/31/2019 (18/5). Even the flash event of Christmas Eve 2022 (18/7) was colder than Valentine's Day 2016.

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I had to laugh when NYC was able to drop below 0° in February 2016 but couldn’t do it in February 2015.

Data for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

2016-02-01	59	44
2016-02-02	50	38
2016-02-03	59	42
2016-02-04	59	44
2016-02-05	44	31
2016-02-06	40	30
2016-02-07	47	33
2016-02-08	39	28
2016-02-09	36	27
2016-02-10	39	31
2016-02-11	31	18
2016-02-12	27	15
2016-02-13	22	6
2016-02-14	15	-1
2016-02-15	35	13
2016-02-16	54	35
2016-02-17	39	35
2016-02-18	36	27
2016-02-19	39	24
2016-02-20	61	39
2016-02-21	55	44
2016-02-22	52	38
2016-02-23	40	35
2016-02-24	60	36
2016-02-25	61	37
2016-02-26	39	27
2016-02-27	41	26
2016-02-28	60	38

 

Data for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

2015-02-01	36	20
2015-02-02	34	14
2015-02-03	26	13
2015-02-04	43	24
2015-02-05	42	14
2015-02-06	27	12
2015-02-07	40	25
2015-02-08	37	29
2015-02-09	29	25
2015-02-10	40	26
2015-02-11	34	22
2015-02-12	40	16
2015-02-13	21	8
2015-02-14	32	16
2015-02-15	25	4
2015-02-16	21	3
2015-02-17	27	14
2015-02-18	33	19
2015-02-19	27	8
2015-02-20	19	2
2015-02-21	32	13
2015-02-22	43	32
2015-02-23	38	8
2015-02-24	24	4
2015-02-25	37	20
2015-02-26	32	21
2015-02-27	30	18
2015-02-28	29	13

 

What is interesting is that we are still able to generate severe cold, but rather it is the residence time that is mitigated by CC. Intuiitively speaking it is the former that is more important for major winter storm (blizzard) genesis. We just need the right pattern.

[40/70 Benchmark]

9 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

We've had colder days than Valentine's Day 2016 (20/8) at PHL. There was the prolonged arctic outbreak of late Dec 2017/first week of Jan 2018 (16/7 on the 6th and 19/4 on the 7th), as well as 1/31/2019 (18/5). Even the flash event of Christmas Eve 2022 (18/7) was colder than Valentine's Day 2016.

VD 2016 was more severe to your north.

[bluewave]

9 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

What is interesting is that we are still able to generate severe cold, but rather it is the residence time that is mitigated by CC. Intuiitively speaking it is the former that is more important for major winter storm (blizzard) genesis. We just need the right pattern.

Yeah, I agree. Especially for the mid areas of the continent since the 15-16 super El Niño. We haven’t even needed severe cold around NYC metro for the great snowfall outcomes. Our area has seen a big uptick in 50°+ and 60°+ days in close proximity to our snowstorms. So while we have had numerous snowfall records since then, the overall snow cover days have been shrinking due to rapid melts. It really comes down to getting the Niña background to relax enough so we can get some decent BM storm tracks. The ridge that keeps pumping near the East Coast in recent years has forced the storm tracks too far west for areas other than the interior and high elevations to cash in. All we need is just cold enough with a good storm track. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

44 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, I agree. Especially for the mid areas of the continent since the 15-16 super El Niño. We haven’t even needed severe cold around NYC metro for the great snowfall outcomes. Our area has seen a big uptick in 50°+ and 60°+ days in close proximity to our snowstorms. So while we have had numerous snowfall records since then, the overall snow cover days have been shrinking due to rapid melts. It really comes down to getting the Niña background to relax enough so we can get some decent BM storm tracks. The ridge that keeps pumping near the East Coast in recent years has forced the storm tracks too far west for areas other than the interior and high elevations to cash in. All we need is just cold enough with a good storm track. 

We can't buy decent timing for highs, either....even if you get the low forced to the west, you can still cash in on the front end with a well timed +pp...but not even being able to get that is just bad luck.

[FPizz]

1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

We've had colder days than Valentine's Day 2016 (20/8) at PHL. There was the prolonged arctic outbreak of late Dec 2017/first week of Jan 2018 (16/7 on the 6th and 19/4 on the 7th), as well as 1/31/2019 (18/5). Even the flash event of Christmas Eve 2022 (18/7) was colder than Valentine's Day 2016.

There was a dusting of snow here late Dec 2017 that lasted like a week.  That was the longest I've ever seen a dusting stay

[GaWx]

 The seemingly never-ending lagging of OISST Nino 3.4 continues: (even the RONI version of this would only be down to ~-0.3 to -0.4)

[George001]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The mid-December, 2019 snowstorm was it for my area that winter. One and done. I remember BAMWX being one of the first to call their winter forecast a bust and said that winter was toast when it was apparent that the SPV was going into beast mode right after Christmas. The IOD overwhelmed everything. Of course JB was the last to admit defeat and kept hyping for months that deep winter was right around the corner…..

Yeah that winter was cooked after that early Dec storm. Not only did the PV reach near record strength, it consolidated over the North Pole which was game over for any of those big winter ideas. That was similar to what happened in 2011-2012. 

[snowman19]

26 minutes ago, George001 said:

Yeah that winter was cooked after that early Dec storm. Not only did the PV reach near record strength, it consolidated over the North Pole which was game over for any of those big winter ideas. That was similar to what happened in 2011-2012. 

11-12 was more Bering Sea vortex/+EPO driven. A few days after Thanksgiving that massive Bering Sea vortex developed, became a semipermanent feature for months on end, the EPO floodgates opened and that winter was toast. NYC hit 90 degrees in March, right after St. Patrick’s Day. Earliest I can ever remember having to turn the air conditioner on

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Yeah, if there was a winter that was cooked in November, it was 2011-12. We got the famous storm in October, and the pattern just suddenly flipped after that. The warmth continued well after the 'winter', with extreme above average temperatures especially in March, May, and July.

[snowman19]

14 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

Yeah, if there was a winter that was cooked in November, it was 2011-12. We got the famous storm in October, and the pattern just suddenly flipped after that. The warmth continued well after the 'winter', with extreme above average temperatures especially in March, May, and July.

Yep. Early-mid November, 2011 actually didn’t look too bad, it looked like that winter could have gone either way. Then a few days after Thanksgiving, the vortex appeared and it was lights out, say good night and goodbye right through spring. The only other total shut out winter in recent memory was 01-02, possibly even worse. There was a relentless high solar flux from September till the end of March. Not only was it a wall to wall torch-a-rama, it was dry as a bone

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

Yep. Early-mid November, 2011 actually didn’t look too bad, it looked like that winter could have gone either way. Then a few days after Thanksgiving, the vortex appeared and it was lights out, say good night and goodbye right through spring. The only other total shut out winter in recent memory was 01-02, possibly even worse. There was a relentless high solar flux from September till the end of March. Not only was it a wall to wall torch-a-rama, it was dry as a bone

Honest question...what is your preference, do you like cold and snow in general?

[bluewave]

3 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

We can't buy decent timing for highs, either....even if you get the low forced to the west, you can still cash in on the front end with a well timed +pp...but not even being able to get that is just bad luck.

NYC was able to get a decent 4.4” event on 2-17-18. This was a few days before parts of the area had their first winter and February 80° day on record. It was also the warmest February on record in NYC at 42.0°. Even with no cold air to speak of we got a nice BM track and decent high positioning for the event. The last time NYC had a 4” daily snowfall was on 1-29-22. So the last two winters have been a combination of record warmth and unfavorable storm tracks. We can get by with warm to record warm patterns. But when unfavorable seasonal storm tracks gets added to the mix there is very little we can do. 

[snowman19]

44 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Honest question...what is your preference, do you like cold and snow in general?

I do. I like all weather. Where my beef has always been is people who blindly forecast cold and snow with no reasoning behind it but wish casting, then get nasty about it. It became tiring to watch for me. I felt as though it was making of mockery of meteorology. Instead of wanting to be right and discussing the how’s and why’s of seasonal forecasting and mesoscale snowstorm/cold forecasting, it became a matter of “if I forecast it, it will happen, I’ll will it to happen”. And if you disagree with me I’ll say you’re wrong and get nasty

[George001]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

I do. I like all weather. Where my beef has always been is people who blindly forecast cold and snow with no reasoning behind it but wish casting, then get nasty about it. It became tiring to watch for me. I felt as though it was making of mockery of meteorology. Instead of wanting to be right and discussing the how’s and why’s of seasonal forecasting and mesoscale snowstorm/cold forecasting, it became a matter of “if I forecast it, it will happen, I’ll will it to happen”. And if you disagree with me I’ll say you’re wrong and get nasty

Agreed, there isn’t anything wrong with being a weenie but you still need to acknowledge reality and be respectful towards others with different views. I love cold and snow as much as anyone, but id rather enjoy it while it’s coming down and talk about what’s actually happening, not what I want to happen. I’ve been there with the wishcasting, hell I’m still prone to it occasionally (though nowhere near as bad as I used to be). All it does is give you unrealistic expectations and set you up for disappointment. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

I do. I like all weather. Where my beef has always been is people who blindly forecast cold and snow with no reasoning behind it but wish casting, then get nasty about it. It became tiring to watch for me. I felt as though it was making of mockery of meteorology. Instead of wanting to be right and discussing the how’s and why’s of seasonal forecasting and mesoscale snowstorm/cold forecasting, it became a matter of “if I forecast it, it will happen, I’ll will it to happen”. And if you disagree with me I’ll say you’re wrong and get nasty

 I agree and fully empathize with your view. It can get tiring reading wish-casting (no reasoning) over and over. The extreme example imo is Bastardi, who I can’t recall even one time forecasting a solidly warm NE US winter and sticking with it. That hurts forecasting credibility due to a perception of a lack of objectivity.
 

 OTOH, one can also go too far the other way, too, by becoming a “contra-weenie”. Contra-weenies will purposefully always forecast the opposite of what weenies want, whether well supported or not. Like is the case for weenies, forecasting credibility is reduced and is also tiring to read.

 In summary, having either bias be too dominant is often damaging to forecasting credibility.
 

 Although you usually provide excellent support for your posts and are a wonderful contributor/very knowledgeable (these threads wouldn’t be the same without you), I feel you did border on taking on the contra-weenie role at times for last winter’s forecasts. It almost seemed you had joy in emphasizing warm winter expectations just to stick it to the weenies.
 

 The best imo are balanced and are not pushed too much in either direction by emotion/desires. Just look at data as objectively as possible, whether or not the data is suggesting an outcome one wants.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

8 hours ago, bluewave said:

We have effectively had 7 out of the last 8 winters with La Niña conditions. 

Actually, we had -PNA conditions during last years El Nino, so I could argue that it's been La Nina conditions for 8 years in a row.. although the STJ was strong last year, and global precipitable water spiked. 

This is just an amazing map, because it features 14 months, over a 7-year-consecutive period. Going back to 1948, we've never seen an anomaly greater.. #2 was +95dm over the -NAO region 1964-1969, and I think that was just for a 1-month period. 

The pattern starts right after the N. Hemisphere's coldest day of the year (Jan 27th), which I don't think is a coincidence. 

It's my personal opinion that the wave hit in 2013. I was personally observing the sun shining brighter and hotter way before the 2015+ period even came to be. So again, this is just personal conjecture but I think the 14-16 +PDO and El Nino was an opposite wave to what was happening. 

I would say sun spikes if I didn't know better, but we have definitely seen something a major change/pattern take place, after 2013 (you say Dec 2015.) It's especially seen in the Pacific. I think a secondary wave came in 2018-2019, and since then the -NAO has been correlation with -PNA and +EPO, and +PNA/+NAO and -EPO. It will be interesting to see if that eases up or changes in the next few years.. ENSO climatology/roll forward says we have a good shot at +PNA 2026-2028. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

11 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The seemingly never-ending lagging of OISST Nino 3.4 continues: (even the RONI version of this would only be down to ~-0.3 to -0.4)

I think that what we are seeing is a "global stabilization", and the data for Nino 4 shows a gradual, linear increase year-to-year. This makes things like the RONI have more weight, because it is considering the relative-index correlation to ENSO. No negative anomalies here north of 50S since 2015: 

 

Ultimately, the continued warm conditions on the surface are probably making it likely that Nino 4 doesn't see a dip into La Nina range this year. 

 

The "shut down" of global extremes has made the Tropical Pacific, closer to the America's, hold all the weight, on the opposite side of Pacific Ocean High pressure systems. 

 

 

This has made Nino 3 have more variance than Nino 4, since about year 2000. Since the surface is holding warm waters, partially associated with a neutral SOI, it's hard to imagine the La Nina does eventually make it far west. Climate models were showing a west-based Nina this past Winter, but Nino 3 seems to be the core area now. 

 

This is another reason I like to use the subsurface. We have seen this central-subsurface region organized since mid-February this year. 

 

 

And, ta-da, the N. Pacific pattern has been this strongly correlated to the central-ENSO subsurface:

 

 

With it being a hot Summer this year and likely a Weak La Nina ONI peak, I can see 1995 being an analog for some. The thing to note is, the subsurface in 1995 was deeply negative during the Summer, and moderated to Neutral for the Winter:

 

 

This led to a hot Summer (like this year), and an active Hurricane season. But there are actually warm anomalies in the subsurface that following Winter. There is no automatic that the subsurface won't moderate in the Fall like it did in 1995, but unless it does, 95-96 is not a good analog in my opinion. 

[brooklynwx99]

I'm not expecting much for the E US this year... the strong -PDO and general progression to a more central-based event are certainly mitigating factors. would be surprised if there was AN snow for NYC, certainly DC. Boston could actually have a decent year as they do in Ninas

with that being said, this winter does look to begin east-based, which may make December pretty interesting. I'll start digging into some more concrete analogs over the coming month or so