Winter 2024-25 Discussion/Speculation

[dailylurker]

30 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Relative to averages I agree. PSU land will still get more snow than the beaches, despite being largely missed by those storms. Maybe 2022 was close. There were places in lower DE that were right around 25" for that winter.

Naaaa.. PSU is getting fringed. He'll have orenge sky to his west and dark snowy sky to his east during the big one. He'll get a few sloppers that only stick to grass while we rain, but who cares lol.

[WxUSAF]

 Not sure how other factors looked, but I’d take a 10-11 winter again in a hot second as Ninas go. Cold winter and around 20” IMBY. 

[Terpeast]

12 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

 Not sure how other factors looked, but I’d take a 10-11 winter again in a hot second as Ninas go. Cold winter and around 20” IMBY. 

And maybe the-storm-that-shall-not-be-named won’t be a miss the second time around.

/weenie mode

[psuhoffman]

51 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

And maybe the-storm-that-shall-not-be-named won’t be a miss the second time around.

/weenie mode

There was one other moderate storm that just missed also. Those both hit and we remember 2011 as another 1996 type Nina. It can happen. And both of those misses were flukes not typical Nina issues imo. The Dec storm was a gulf stj storm NOT a late miller b but it had a sloppy weird phase at the worst possible spot in its progression. 
 

But I am skeptical of getting that cold of a winter in the current pacific cycle. 

[Terpeast]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

There was one other moderate storm that just missed also. Those both hit and we remember 2011 as another 1996 type Nina. It can happen. And both of those misses were flukes not typical Nina issues imo. The Dec storm was a gulf stj storm NOT a late miller b but it had a sloppy weird phase at the worst possible spot in its progression. 
 

But I am skeptical of getting that cold of a winter in the current pacific cycle. 

Yeah so am I. Just that the arrival of pumpkin season gets me a little carried away

[IronTy]

Two nights ago I took some L-Theanine before bed which usually gives me vivid dreams and this was no exception.   In my dream this January there is a noreaster forecast, but instead of coming from the SE it originates in Michigan and moves SE towards us.  Not sure why that's called a noreaster in my dream but stay with me.  I'm at work checking the WJLA weather forecast site and notice a blizzard warning.  So I click the link and the forecast is for 65-85" of snow from the storm!  It's not all good news - I log into WB and check the GFS and see we're right on the edge of the R/S line and am really concerned we won't see that much snow.  In the dream my engineer coworkers all tell me not to worry because the pattern should produce at least a 40" storm.  I try to be optimistic but am still bummed it won't be 80". 

At that time my dog woke me up because he ate something he shouldn't have and had the shits all night so I never got to live through the storm in my dream.  Can't even get dream snow around here anymore.  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The problem is that the PDO is around -3 right now. A lot of those colder La Nina's happened with a less negative or positive PDO. For the last 4 years, I have seen how the state of this index has ruled everything when it come to Winter weather. There is still some hope that something like 13-14 can evolve, but usually the cold Winter pattern starts showing itself in October, and the Pacific H5 is warm right now (matching the -PDO perfectly). 

[MDstorm]

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1842599164544192630?s=46&t=7YEptxkR3LfH8Sv9sPDbpg

[psuhoffman]

31 minutes ago, MDstorm said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1842599164544192630?s=46&t=7YEptxkR3LfH8Sv9sPDbpg

But did you read the thread?  He includes 1989 and 2014 in the same analog group. What good is that.  One was a dud way below avg year and the other one of the snowiest ever. That’s a completely useless use of analogs. 

[psuhoffman]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

But did you read the thread?  He includes 1989 and 2014 in the same analog group. What good is that.  One was a dud way below avg year and the other one of the snowiest ever. That’s a completely useless use of analogs. 

Translated he basically said “we could get a pattern that could lead to either one of our snowiest or least snowy winters ever”. Thanks. 

[MDstorm]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

But did you read the thread?  He includes 1989 and 2014 in the same analog group. What good is that.  One was a dud way below avg year and the other one of the snowiest ever. That’s a completely useless use of analogs. 

I read the thread and realized the analogs that were being used were quite different in terms of sensible weather in these parts.  I just thought it was interesting to surmise a +TNH/-WPO/-EPO pattern which could lead to a serviceable winter (as opposed to all of the La Niña —-this winter is going to suck talk). 

[CAPE]

New Euro monthly is quite CFS like. A -EPO/WPO look with colder air across Canada draining into central/eastern US at times. Doesn't suggest a persistent Western US trough at all. Looks potentially colder/more wintry for the MA mid to late winter, which aligns with climo for snow. Thanks to @mitchnickfor the link.

[AlexD1990]

We can get colder air in a Nina than a Nino. Those big storms in Jan of 17 and 18 were cold powder right on the coast. Jan 22 was a cold month with 3 snowstorms for a good chunk of our region. Beaches did best overall- 17, 18, and 22 all featured 12"+snowtorms for the immediate coast of the MA, with 2 being blizzards. Bit of a short term Nina trend there.

I feel like 95 to the coast has better winters in a La Nina realm. My gut says 95 to Cambridge is the jack zone this season. 

Relative to averages I agree. PSU land will still get more snow than the beaches, despite being largely missed by those storms. Maybe 2022 was close. There were places in lower DE that were right around 25" for that winter.

I feel pretty good about our chances of getting at least one good storm in a Nina pattern. Some of the best storms in my recent memory(all the big beach snows you guys mentioned) were in Nina's. Always amusing, because in the lead up to those storms, the board is usually relatively quiet because "they aren't getting any snow" and it's usually just the Delmarva and So. MD peeps even talking about it. Always a special feeling when we get the jackpot, because let's be honest, it's pretty rare in the overall scheme of things.

Sent from my SM-F711U using Tapatalk

[Bob Chill]

16 hours ago, CAPE said:

New Euro monthly is quite CFS like. A -EPO/WPO look with colder air across Canada draining into central/eastern US at times. Doesn't suggest a persistent Western US trough at all. Looks colder/more wintry for the MA mid to late winter, which aligns with climo for snow. Thanks to @mitchnickfor the link.

I'm kinda liking what I see rn and what it makes me think about. To be perfectly clear... lol... I DO NOT expect a memorable winter compared to longer term history (like the last 30 years ) but I'm feeling strangely confident in a memorable winter in comparison to the last 7 lol. And I kind of agree with webberdude about 2014. I've been quietly thinking about it. Not a redux because we had some sig anomalous  stuff around AK that whole winter. A "Lite Version" is what I'm thinking. Fast moving outbreaks into the upper Midwest pushing into the east on schedule. Maybe shortwaves hit when things are fresh like periods of 2013-15, or maybe they hit when flow turns late like 93-94.

Either way produces actual winter precip and personally, I'd just like to see frozen stuff in general and not get bogged down in the "if only and what if" thought loops. Not to mention how fun this place is when a 3" snowfall produces unhappy bitter posts 4x1 over those who are just happy it snowed. I'm starting to think that an entire cohort of people only feel good when they are deeply unhappy surrounded by lots of company. Time alive is the most valuable commodity we have. I don't waste those minutes focusing on the negative and my appetite for seeing/hearing it has vanished lol

 

 If things are in fact going to actually behave like winter, even if volatile and streaky, there should be far better airmasses around the eastern half of the conus this winter. Which shouldn't take much considering lol. IMO- the plague of last winter on the EC was a product of persistently flawed longwave timing. The alignments and timing were out of sync and it affected the entire corridor. The ingredients kept getting tossed in the salad bowl but some dummy kept pouring ketchup on it instead of ranch or vinaigrette. We can argue the elephant, and it is part of it imo, but when the entire 95 corridor suffered the same flaws up and down, it's more likely just that way it goes sometimes. Dems da'brakes son lol

If the pac jet has a propensity to buckle before hitting the west late this fall into mid Dec, it will make me feel a lot better about my gut intuition. I'm not going to trust any long range guidance though. 3 years of getting killed by that is enough. I'm not wasting any time trying to watch or predict a favorable shift in the pac jet if it's being a little bitch again. LR models haven't got that right in years lol. 

 

 

 

 

 

[psuhoffman]

If this exact same look leading into winter was happening during a less hostile pacific and Atlantic cycle I’d be way more optimistic. But one been doing some work on incorporating the long term cycles to other more common analog metrics and it seems applying this method retroactively would have made my forecasts much more accurate. The same factors don’t lead to the same results when supplanted into different cycles.  I’m not optimistic that the same set of factors that lead to 2014 would have nearly the same impact now given we were in a generally favorable pdo then and we are in about the worst possible now. 
 

That said I don’t expect a total dud either. I think we have enough in our favor (I do agree that the signs indicate a more poleward pac ridge) that we should get some snow. I expect more of a just typical crap v omg this is god awful crap. Something like 2018 and 2022 maybe. 

[stormy]

I'm not getting caught up in the futility of any long range models this winter.

I remember last February and March all too well for that Nonsense.

I totally agree with Bob when he talks about the disappointment of believing long-range stuff.

I will soon post 60 years of analogue enso winters and results.

 

[AlexD1990]

21 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

If this exact same look leading into winter was happening during a less hostile pacific and Atlantic cycle I’d be way more optimistic. But one been doing some work on incorporating the long term cycles to other more common analog metrics and it seems applying this method retroactively would have made my forecasts much more accurate. The same factors don’t lead to the same results when supplanted into different cycles.  I’m not optimistic that the same set of factors that lead to 2014 would have nearly the same impact now given we were in a generally favorable pdo then and we are in about the worst possible now. 
 

That said I don’t expect a total dud either. I think we have enough in our favor (I do agree that the signs indicate a more poleward pac ridge) that we should get some snow. I expect more of a just typical crap v omg this is god awful crap. Something like 2018 and 2022 maybe. 

In the new normal, I would take that and run(of course, that's location dependent, I'm sure.)

[CAPE]

Latest CFS. Fwiw. Why not roll with the good vibes heading into Winter. The destruction of hopes and dreams can wait lol.

[Terpeast]

My outlook for the mid atlantic. Thoughts are welcome!

 

[TowsonTownT]

On 10/6/2024 at 9:44 AM, Bob Chill said:

Either way produces actual winter precip and personally, I'd just like to see frozen stuff in general and not get bogged down in the "if only and what if" thought loops. Not to mention how fun this place is when a 3" snowfall produces unhappy bitter posts 4x1 over those who are just happy it snowed. I'm starting to think that an entire cohort of people only feel good when they are deeply unhappy surrounded by lots of company. Time alive is the most valuable commodity we have. I don't waste those minutes focusing on the negative and my appetite for seeing/hearing it has vanished lol

If you told me up front the number will be 16" for the season, count me in the group that would rather have 8 events of 2" snowfall rather that 2 events of 8" snowfall.

[WxUSAF]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

My outlook for the mid atlantic. Thoughts are welcome!

 

Snowfall IMBY for your analog years or at BWI:

99-00: 25.9”

08-09: 9.1”

10-11: 19.7”

17-18: 19.2”

21-22: 18.2”

22-23: 0.4”

Average of 15.4” and median of 19.5”. That’s right in the 15-20” range for MBY for the “good” Ninas I mentioned the other day. Sign me up. 

[Terpeast]

6 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Snowfall IMBY for your analog years or at BWI:

99-00: 25.9”

08-09: 9.1”

10-11: 19.7”

17-18: 19.2”

21-22: 18.2”

22-23: 0.4”

Average of 15.4” and median of 19.5”. That’s right in the 15-20” range for MBY for the “good” Ninas I mentioned the other day. Sign me up. 

Those are much better than IAD numbers. I made a mistake and included 16-17 instead of 17-18, so the average is actually 11.8" not 10". But still... it's a sign that the NE areas like Balt-DE may do better with coastals if we get them this year.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

 

[psuhoffman]

I have been experimenting with finding a way to superimpose the long term cyclical phases of the pacific and high latitudes over other variables in seasonal forecasting.  My methods have boiled down to taking the long term mean 500mb phase of the central pacific, AO and NAO domains and using that to weight analog years produced by other variables.  This method significantly improved the ability to forecast the coming winter. 

For example:  last year this new methodology would have given me 4 different top analogs.  At BWI the result of the snowfall for those 4 seasons after applying a sliding reduction to older analogs for warming would have given me a predicted BWI snowfall of 10.5".  The actual total was 11.3".  

I found the results to be similar for most years, not to that extreme, but the prediction became much closer to reality when applying this method.  

However, there is one HUGE catch... we cannot always predict when a long term cycle is about to change.  So every once in a while, when a phase change happens during a winter season, it would produce a huge error. 

As of right now this method has a predicted snowfall at BWI of 10.2".  I will update this again sometime in November with an actual seasonal forecast and explanation.  Some of the factors and variables could still change some.  

 

[Terpeast]

52 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I have been experimenting with finding a way to superimpose the long term cyclical phases of the pacific and high latitudes over other variables in seasonal forecasting.  My methods have boiled down to taking the long term mean 500mb phase of the central pacific, AO and NAO domains and using that to weight analog years produced by other variables.  This method significantly improved the ability to forecast the coming winter. 

For example:  last year this new methodology would have given me 4 different top analogs.  At BWI the result of the snowfall for those 4 seasons after applying a sliding reduction to older analogs for warming would have given me a predicted BWI snowfall of 10.5".  The actual total was 11.3".  

I found the results to be similar for most years, not to that extreme, but the prediction became much closer to reality when applying this method.  

However, there is one HUGE catch... we cannot always predict when a long term cycle is about to change.  So every once in a while, when a phase change happens during a winter season, it would produce a huge error. 

As of right now this method has a predicted snowfall at BWI of 10.2".  I will update this again sometime in November with an actual seasonal forecast and explanation.  Some of the factors and variables could still change some.  

 

Looking forward to seeing more details of your analysis. I’m curious about the distribution of snowfall when you say the mean prediction is 10.2”. Whether the median is also close to that, or whether one season is skewing the mean. 

In my case, my analog set was fairly balanced where the median was close to the mean, with one outlier on the high side and one on low side. 

[stormy]

It is easy to see that the rest of October will be very dry.

What will November thru March bring??????

This will be crucial to any snowfall probabilities.

What are the thoughts of our experts??????

[psuhoffman]

14 hours ago, stormy said:

It is easy to see that the rest of October will be very dry.

What will November thru March bring??????

This will be crucial to any snowfall probabilities.

What are the thoughts of our experts??????

 

[Bob Chill]

Predicting nina climo with a warmish background is a pretty safe and easy guess this year.  My problem with that is over the last 5-10 years there has been an against the grain longwave feature more often than not and few if any point it out in advance. Mega epos, ninos strangely behaving like Nina's and vice versa producing confusing periods of met winter, pac jets on meth, and all that jazz. 

So what's it going to be this year? What's the key unusual feature(s) that will rear its head? I'm not a big fan of right for the wrong reasons with snowfall. Personally, I'd much rather see a long ranger blow the snow side of forecast but nail the red headed stepchild in the upper levels. That's a show of deeper skills and ability to think critically no matter what books and other people say (IMHO only ofc). Far easier said than done but we're in a string of winters with unexpected dominent LW features. There seems to be a propensity to buck climo. Chaos or more volatile climate? Beats me but things going as planned seems to be no longer part of the plan. Hahaha lol

I'll take a crack at it....

No deep analysis here. Just intuition and observation. In a nutshell, I think the -epo is coming back. That doesn't mean easy snow without precise alignment. If anything it favors cold enough for snow but it doesn't want to snow lol. 

Below normal temps for DJF are never coming easy again for large swaths of the NH I don't think. Oceans are fighting that. But cold outbreaks in the east are always possible. I expect some in each month of DJF. 

Storm track is always a problem so it will be again but my intuition says there will be some setups that look more like a nino than a nina. A hangover of sorts. I don't expect an active or hibernating STJ but i do believe it will be present at times and briefly remind us of a nino.

Lastly, I have a hunch we get some blocking and it will include Dec. Doesn't mean cold and snow. Just means tracking won't be boring or hopeless. 

On the balance I believe this winter will continue being weird and make people scratch heads but in the end it will be acceptable. That's all I got. 

[IronTy]

It's not possible for this winter to be worse than last winter so I'm hopeful.  Even a single snow squall will be more snow than last winter and if it's torch all winter then at least I'll save on heating costs.   

 

Man how I miss a strong now squall or a heavy snow shower.  Swear it's been years since I've seen one of those.  

[NorthArlington101]

Good news sickos. In one month:

EURO OP is going to 360 hours.

Off hour runs are going all the way to 144.