Winter 2024-25 Discussion/Speculation

[brooklynwx99]

I don't think we're going to see much winter success until the PDO flips, though it seems we're approaching the end of the cycle... we've been in a -PDO regime since the late 90s and these cycles usually have a 20 year lifespan

[stormy]

4 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I don't think we're going to see much winter success until the PDO flips, though it seems we're approaching the end of the cycle... we've been in a -PDO regime since the late 90s and these cycles usually have a 20 year lifespan

I agree..  La Nina is always bad news, but -PDO is even worse.  I will be posting some historical La Nina info soon...................... depressing..............

[Ji]

22 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

I also totally admit I’m way less enthused because up here it’s pretty impossible to get close to climo trying to luck into a couple progressive waves, and that’s a pretty much the only path to snow in that look. 
 

If I was just looking for a 15-20” winter I’d be more optimistic from that look.  If im being honest, I’ve been up here 19 years now, and for the first 11 it was worth the long commute snow wise. The last 8 years it’s most definitely not been!  

not sure if it means anything but the climate models have Canada much colder this winter. Last year they blowtorched Canada i think but we didnt really care because Moderate El nino and the climate models had a dream 500mb pattern

[Deck Pic]

3 hours ago, Ji said:

not sure if it means anything but the climate models have Canada much colder this winter. Last year they blowtorched Canada i think but we didnt really care because Moderate El nino and the climate models had a dream 500mb pattern

what did HM predict?  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The Winter looks probably bad.. but it does feel like something long term is shifting. Natural Gas right now is near record lows, and my Winter NAO formula is coming in very +. The good news is history says the EPO/WPO usually shifts, and we are coming off of 5/6 +WPO Winters and a very +WPO Dec-Aug so we might have some -EPO periods (they usually last 7-12 days). 

[Ji]

what did HM predict?  

He left twitter for truth social

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

[Ji]

Hi M*t*
How are things and any changes of interest?
I’m retired  and being  a granddaddy and find winter models more disgusting than ever 
202-589-1212 and  be in The Know
Do you still see R**dy?

Hey grandpa. I hope you invested well for your retirement. Hopefully we get a good winter. Which winter models are you talking about. Are the summer ones better?

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

[Weather Will]

JB on WB came out with his winter outlook and it is horrible for the East....  so let's hope he is wrong again about this winter!!!! 

[dailylurker]

7 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

JB on WB came out with his winter outlook and it is horrible for the East....  so let's hope he is wrong again about this winter!!!! 

Perfect! This winter sounds like a good one. Remember last fall? Everything looked amazing. We had a week of winter lol. I wouldn't concern yourself with some dudes guess. My guess is we snow town. 

[Weather Will]

If we get arctic air in Canada we will get a few chances....maybe we will have some luck this year.  

[Eskimo Joe]

45 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

If we get arctic air in Canada we will get a few chances....maybe we will have some luck this year.  

Yea we just need to stop that Pacific puke from shutting down things for 6 weeks at a time.

[psuhoffman]

12 hours ago, Ji said:

not sure if it means anything but the climate models have Canada much colder this winter. Last year they blowtorched Canada i think but we didnt really care because Moderate El nino and the climate models had a dream 500mb pattern

I don’t find that overly interesting. Many of our snowiest winters were “warm” in Canada. And there have been plenty of cold Canada winters with little snow here.   It’s rare that you get a winter where there is a large expansive cold dome that spreads out from Canada into the eastern US. 2014 and 2015 aren’t the most common ways we get snowy winters here. 
 

The problem lately has been when it’s warm in Canada it’s so warm we can’t win even when there is a good mid latitude long wave pattern under it. That’s a serious problem since that’s the most common path to big snow here historically and lately it’s just been too warm on a hemispheric scale for that setup to work. 
 

If we’re going to have a Nina yes a cold Canada is much better than warm. It leaves the door open to avoiding a total snowless dud. But I don’t think it’s indicative of a snowy winter. I think the goal posts here are between total snowless dreg and eeking and lucking our way to just a more typical lately meh result. 

[psuhoffman]

20 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I don't think we're going to see much winter success until the PDO flips, though it seems we're approaching the end of the cycle... we've been in a -PDO regime since the late 90s and these cycles usually have a 20 year lifespan

I agree 100% but isn’t it troubling that lately it seems almost impossible to get much snow in a -pdo. Think about the long term implications on our climo.  

[CAPE]

The new edition of the CanSIPS is out, and it is pretty similar to the previous run. Both the CFS and CanSIPS are indicating that the Aleutian ridge may be biased poleward, in conjunction with a southeastward stretched TPV. I don't see any indication of a raging +NAO on either model(not that that necessarily means much). Seasonal LR guidance can provide some hints but are generally 'boilerplate' wrt the longwave pattern. Remember the great Nino looks we were all getting excited about this time last year? The CanSIPS also has a Scandi ridge with suggestion of a neutral NAO, and perhaps episodes where that ridge builds westward into the NAO domain. Looking at the surface, there is the typical colder than avg for Canada and the northern tier of the US, but if the TPV does verify in that location along with some -EPO periods, there certainly could be a few cold air outbreaks that push the thermal boundary further south and east. Overall I would expect a mild winter for the MA, but it only takes a well timed wave or 2 when the cold presses southward to get close to climo in the lowlands. We have seen this work out several times in recent Nina winters.

[Terpeast]

42 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The new edition of the CanSIPS is out, and it is pretty similar to the previous run. Both the CFS and CanSIPS are indicating that the Aleutian ridge may be biased poleward, in conjunction with a southeastward stretched TPV. I don't see any indication of a raging +NAO on either model(not that that necessarily means much). Seasonal LR guidance can provide some hints but are generally 'boilerplate' wrt the longwave pattern. Remember the great Nino looks we were all getting excited about this time last year? The CanSIPS also has a Scandi ridge with suggestion of a neutral NAO, and perhaps episodes where that ridge builds westward into the NAO domain. Looking at the surface, there is the typical colder than avg for Canada and the northern tier of the US, but if the TPV does verify in that location along with some -EPO periods, there certainly could be a few cold air outbreaks that push the thermal boundary further south and east. Overall I would expect a mild winter for the MA, but it only takes a well timed wave or 2 when the cold presses southward to get close to climo in the lowlands. We have seen this work out several times in recent Nina winters.

Good post, and I agree after checking the new run. I’m a little more pessimistic than you after seeing how dry the 3-month average over DJF is currently depicted to be. But the saving grace is that Canada may not be torched this time like last year, and all it takes is a little well-timed cold push SE…

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, Terpeast said:

Good post, and I agree after checking the new run. I’m a little more pessimistic than you after seeing how dry the 3-month average over DJF is currently depicted to be. But the saving grace is that Canada may not be torched this time like last year, and all it takes is a little well-timed cold push SE…

Yeah it looks dry overall, but again that is to be expected on these models during a Nina. Odds are we get a few shots at a storm with cold in place. The difference between a complete ratter and something like 2022 is basically timing/luck. One thing about a Nina is there will be available cold air to the NW. Just need a mechanism to bring it south, and an EPO ridge + the TPV on our side can do that. Not sure Ninos can work for us anymore with Canada being above avg. A Modoki would be the real test. If that fails..

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, CAPE said:

Yeah it looks dry overall, but again that is to be expected on these models during a Nina. Odds are we get a few shots at a storm with cold in place. The difference between a complete ratter and something like 2022 is basically timing/luck. One thing about a Nina is there will be available cold air to the NW. Just need a mechanism to bring it south, and an EPO ridge + the TPV on our side can do that. Not sure Ninos can work for us anymore with Canada being above avg. A Modoki would be the real test. If that fails..

Luck plays a significant part in the variance, 2000 for instance could have easily been a dreg season without luck, but in general I do think there is a legitimate duality with Nina’s betweeen ones that feature a more poleward pac ridge v a flat one. 
 

Almost all the Nina’s with a flat ridge end up pretty awful. Most of the ones with a more poleward one end up frustrating (still no stj) but not awful. And places east of 95 can even get above climo from costal scrapers. Definitely root for the more poleward ridge as you’ve identified. 
 

As for the Nino comment, I agree it cannot work in the current pacific base state.  I’m stubborn and not ready to throw in the towel yet on whether it could work if we timed up a Nino with a favorable pdo. I guess the question is do we think the current pacific issues are permanent. There are legit arguments on both sides of that debate. 
 

My guess is some of the pacific issues are symbiotic with cc and so we are going to spend more time than “normal” in a hostile regime going forward. How much more is debatable and I don’t know. I’d like to think the good old fashioned Nino “warm” qpf bomb snowstorms aren’t a thing of the past. But how reduced in frequency are they?  But until this current pdo cycle flips I think we’ve seen its hand wrt variance and our goalposts in this regime are between completely snowless torch winters and near normal snow with a lot of luck. 
 

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Half of the PDO measurement measures cold water, over the Gulf of Alaska, and Bering Strait.. it's a 50/50 index. so I don't think you can say CC is part of the PDO. The index from 2020-2024 is actually the lowest 4 year stretch ever recorded. 

The problem is this pattern

No other 7-year consecutive time period even comes close to +120dm anomaly. #2 was -NAO Jan 1964-1969, and that was 1-month covering 6 years. That period registered at +95dm. 

[psuhoffman]

57 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Half of the PDO measurement measures cold water, over the Gulf of Alaska, and Bering Strait.. it's a 50/50 index. so I don't think you can say CC is part of the PDO. The index from 2020-2024 is actually the lowest 4 year stretch ever recorded. 

The problem is this pattern

No other 7-year consecutive time period even comes close to +120dm anomaly. #2 was -NAO Jan 1964-1969, and that was 1-month covering 6 years. That period registered at +95dm. 

There is some speculation that warming is associated with some of the sst patterns in the IO and western pacific that are exasperation the PDO.  Also the expanded Hadley cell could theoretically enhance the negative issues associated with this pattern.   I don’t know.  But I’m open to argument on both sides here. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Per the CPC's NAO measurement, since Winter 11-12, 44/52 (84%) Winter months (DJFM) have been +NAO! That's 44-8. In that time, 19/20 >1.11 NAO months have been positive (95%)! Since 13-14, 16/16 Winter months with NAO >1.11 have all been positive. 

Dec has been +NAO 11 of the last 13 years (85%)

January has been +NAO 12 of the last 13 years (92%)

February has been +NAO 12 of the last 13 years (92%)

March has been +NAO 9 of the last 13 years (72%)

The CPC does weigh heavily on the south part of that index, as I've found out (we've had some Greenland blocks but there remained high pressure near the Azores, they call that +nao). 

And we've had strong -PDO since 2016. So, the Atlantic and Pacific have both been unfavorable together by actually a pretty good standard deviation. 

Add to it the fact that climate change has been associated with more precipitation/global precipitable water, and I would say that our problems in the Winter with snow have probably been something like 10-15% global warming. A lot of the warm forecasts in this regard are more based on consistency than the average global temperature. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

20 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

There is some speculation that warming is associated with some of the sst patterns in the IO and western pacific that are exasperation the PDO.  Also the expanded Hadley cell could theoretically enhance the negative issues associated with this pattern.   I don’t know.  But I’m open to argument on both sides here. 

The Pacific is the most extreme ocean and that spot north of Hawaii, south of the Aleutians is a big region for ridges or troughs.. more global High pressure could possibly been seen there, but I think we are like 80-90% in a pattern. La Nina's have happened 14-8 since 1998 (15-8 if this year is La Nina), and that doesn't count the 0.2-0.3 skew for overall warmer waters. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Add to it the fact that 5 of the last 6 Winter's have been +WPO

And it's been super unfavorable, from 3 different uncorrelated areas. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Per the CPC's NAO measurement, since Winter 11-12, 44/52 (84%) Winter months (DJFM) have been +NAO! That's 44-8. In that time, 19/20 >1.11 NAO months have been positive (95%)! Since 13-14, 16/16 Winter months with NAO >1.11 have all been positive. 

Dec has been +NAO 11 of the last 13 years (85%)

January has been +NAO 12 of the last 13 years (92%)

February has been +NAO 12 of the last 13 years (92%)

March has been +NAO 9 of the last 13 years (72%)

The CPC does weigh heavily on the south part of that index, as I've found out (we've had some Greenland blocks but there remained high pressure near the Azores, they call that +nao). 

And we've had strong -PDO since 2016. So, the Atlantic and Pacific have both been unfavorable together by actually a pretty good standard deviation. 

Add to it the fact that climate change has been associated with more precipitation/global precipitable water, and I would say that our problems in the Winter with snow have probably been something like 10-15% global warming. A lot of the warm forecasts in this regard are more based on consistency than the average global temperature. 

Yea, CC certainly isn't helping, but its mainly just been that the pattern has been awful.

[Terpeast]

7 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Add to it the fact that climate change has been associated with more precipitation/global precipitable water, and I would say that our problems in the Winter with snow have probably been something like 10-15% global warming. A lot of the warm forecasts in this regard are more based on consistency than the average global temperature. 

Interesting you say that. Last year I did a quantitative analysis on how much CC has impacted our snowfall thus far, and found it to be roughly 16% using two different methods arriving at basically the same answer. 

But we haven’t seen a merely 16% reduction the last few years - its been way more than that. Either we’re still underestimating the effects of CC on snowfall, or we’re in an awful pattern - which is the point you seem to be making. 

The big question is whether this awful pattern as of late is being driven by CC itself. 

[stormy]

2 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Interesting you say that. Last year I did a quantitative analysis on how much CC has impacted our snowfall thus far, and found it to be roughly 16% using two different methods arriving at basically the same answer. 

But we haven’t seen a merely 16% reduction the last few years - its been way more than that. Either we’re still underestimating the effects of CC on snowfall, or we’re in an awful pattern - which is the point you seem to be making. 

The big question is whether this awful pattern as of late is being driven by CC itself. 

My snow-drought has been 7 years.  I seriously doubt that this short range aberration could honestly be significantly attributed to Climate Change which should take at least 25 years to establish a trend.

Throughout history, short and long range weather patterns appear, disappear and re-appear.

I have been predominately dry for the past 4 years. Prior to that, I had 3 wet years.

Historically, La Nina winters are low snowfall for Va/Maryland, therefore this winter will likely continue the trend. More on that later.

[IronTy]

Well if there's any solace, weatherbell has their prelim winter forecast up and it's pretty much a dumpster fire.  This combined with all the experts predicting a crap winter gives me some reason for optimism.

[psuhoffman]

7 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Interesting you say that. Last year I did a quantitative analysis on how much CC has impacted our snowfall thus far, and found it to be roughly 16% using two different methods arriving at basically the same answer. 

But we haven’t seen a merely 16% reduction the last few years - its been way more than that. Either we’re still underestimating the effects of CC on snowfall, or we’re in an awful pattern - which is the point you seem to be making. 

The big question is whether this awful pattern as of late is being driven by CC itself. 

One possibility is that cc is affecting our snowfall during bad cyclical periods more than good ones. Winters like 1996, 2003, 2010 and 2014 would argue this may have some merit.
 

The best historical comp to the 2017-2024 period in terms of the overall N Hemisphere pattern is 1950-1957 and 1970-1977. Both of those periods were bad wrt snowfall coming in with an avg snowfall at BWI of 12.4 and 12.6”. But the most recent period has been about 25% worse at only 9.4”.  This is probably indicative that bad cycles are trending worse imo.

However, we’ve had some 8 year periods prior where we did much better than 16% below the long term avg. I think that while CC is impacting even good patterns some, where we are seeing the most dramatic degradation is on our ability to snow much during hostile regimes, of which we’ve been in since 2016.
 

I suspect over the longer term we probably are closer to that 16% still, but it’s continuing to trend the wrong way. That said, and I’ve mentioned this before, we are close to going off a snow climo cliff.  It’s true we’ve had a couple of periods at least close to this bad. Yea this is worse but one or two snowstorms over the last 8 years could have made the difference and it’s legitimate to argue that could just be bad luck!  But all the past periods even close to this bad were bookended by very snowy periods and we’ve now reached the point where if we don’t flip into a snowier regime within the next 2 years we will enter territory with no historically documented comparison and it will be impossible to claim “we’ve seen this before it’s just cyclical”. 

[CAPE]

14 hours ago, IronTy said:

Well if there's any solace, weatherbell has their prelim winter forecast up and it's pretty much a dumpster fire.  This combined with all the experts predicting a crap winter gives me some reason for optimism.

Remember how epic the Nino of last winter was going to be? Those big coastal storms late winter, with just enough cold!

I will take the over this winter. Over meaning more snow than last winter, which was 8-10 inches for the DC area. That would be a pretty good outcome for a Nina with high solar, and increasing QBO. The PDO isn't a factor because its has been stuck negative for awhile, and is unfavorable more times than not during a Nina.

[psuhoffman]

16 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Remember how epic the Nino of last winter was going to be? Those big coastal storms late winter, with just enough cold!

I will take the over this winter. Over meaning more snow than last winter, which was 8-10 inches for the DC area. That would be a pretty good outcome for a Nina with high solar, and ascending QBO. The PDO isn't a factor because its has been stuck negative for awhile, and is unfavorable more times than not during a Nina.

During this 8 year extreme +NAO-PDO cycle Nina’s have actually been the best outcomes in general. We’ve had 3 Nina’s and 3 seasons where by JFM were neutral. The Nina’s averaged 13.6” at BWI and the neutrals 1.7”. Throwing this out there because some on the main enso thread are rooting for neutral. There is no evidence that’s good for us wrt snowfall.  

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

During this 8 year extreme +NAO-PDO cycle Nina’s have actually been the best outcomes in general. We’ve had 3 Nina’s and 3 seasons where by JFM were neutral. The Nina’s averaged 13.6” at BWI and the neutrals 1.7”. Throwing this out there because some on the main enso thread are rooting for neutral. There is no evidence that’s good for us wrt snowfall.  

Good info. Anecdotally, the Nina winters since 2016 have overall(minus the dud) produced better outcomes (snow) here than neutrals or Ninos. The 2022 Nina was actually better here than the 2016 Nino.