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December Medium/ Long Range


Terpeast
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3 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Because this cold period wasn’t well predicted, and we were coming off a record warm November. 

And I’m not saying we’re getting a snowy winter. I said I think we’ll see more variability. 

Most of the analogs I identified were a torch in the fall similar to this year then flipped colder sometime in mid to late November. But the true flip back to a dominant SER didn’t happen until closer to Jan 10-15 in many of the years.  Our best window before March might be from Xmas to Jan 10 or so.  Quite a few comp years had a cold shot and some snow during that period. For a few what little snow we got was in that window. 
 

From Jan 15-March 1 it was very ugly in most of them. March was a wildcard. A few flipped cold again. Some went warm. 

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12 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Most of the analogs I identified were a torch in the fall similar to this year then flipped colder sometime in mid to late November. But the true flip back to a dominant SER didn’t happen until closer to Jan 10-15 in many of the years.  Our best window before March might be from Xmas to Jan 10 or so.  Quite a few comp years had a cold shot and some snow during that period. For a few what little snow we got was in that window. 
 

From Jan 15-March 1 it was very ugly in most of them. March was a wildcard. A few flipped cold again. Some went warm. 

Dang they had the Fall torch too? It just had to be a perfect match didn't it <_< For all the chaos in weather, this seems kinda set in stone. I know the scientific folks will say ya don't know, but I mean...if it's never been different on the analogs...

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2 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Dang they had the Fall torch too? It just had to be a perfect match didn't it <_< For all the chaos in weather, this seems kinda set in stone. I know the scientific folks will say ya don't know, but I mean...if it's never been different on the analogs...

Weak Ninas are especially bad for snowfall for the DC area. Pretty sure every one has produced below avg snowfall. Now that doesnt mean no snow. Folks need to keep expectations realistic. Last year was a strong Nino winter and there was one 10 day stretch where it was cold and snowed twice, and that was it here. I'll gladly take that again this winter.

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14 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Weak Ninas are especially bad for snowfall for the DC area. Pretty sure every one has produced below avg snowfall. Now that doesnt mean no snow. Folks need to keep expectations realistic. Last year was a strong Nino winter and there was one 10 day stretch where it was cold and snowed twice, and that was it here. I'll gladly take that again this winter.

That's actually not true. 95-96 was a Weak Nina. Weak Nina's were actually a cold composite (random coincidence from not enough samples) until the early 2000s. Now I think 5 in a row have been warm. 

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47 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Weak Ninas are especially bad for snowfall for the DC area. Pretty sure every one has produced below avg snowfall. Now that doesnt mean no snow. Folks need to keep expectations realistic. Last year was a strong Nino winter and there was one 10 day stretch where it was cold and snowed twice, and that was it here. I'll gladly take that again this winter.

95-96!!

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To my eye, all 3 ensembles appear in the process of redeveloping western ridging at the end of their runs. GEPS is fastest and GEFS is slowest, with EPS in the middle. Also been a notable guidance trend toward more ridging over the pole the last couple days and it continues through the ensemble periods. That can’t hurt. 

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Sterling watches the storm for the 12th....

 

Looking ahead a little further, the aforementioned trough diving out
of the Pacific Northwest moves into the Central Plains Tuesday. This
will set the stage for a strong surface low to develop late Tuesday
into Wednesday over the Arklatex region. This will be the system to
watch in terms of any potential hazardous weather as we head into
the middle/later portion of next week. The Canadian and Euro remain
a bit more robust with a potent trough that becomes negatively-
tilted over our region. However, the GFS is much less impressive,
only showing a passing shortwave, similar to the early-week system
but further south. Will have to see how things trend in the days
ahead, but this continues to bear watching.
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1 hour ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

54-55, 64-65, 83-84, 00-01. They were all below average temps, but I don't know about snow

We talkin snow. 

95-96 was borderline weak-moderate, so historically not considered weak?

Seems to be the case.

https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

And that is certainly implied in the quoted discussion below.

From NOAA ENSO blog-

Map of North America showing the La Niña pattern of snowier-than average years across the northern United States and below-average snowfall across the southern United States

Quote

January–March snowfall during 9 weak La Niña winters from 1959–2024 compared to the average for all January–March periods from 1991–2020. The long-term trend in snowfall over this period has been removed, meaning the maps better show the influence of weak La Niñas by themselves. NOAA Climate.gov map, based on ERA5 reanalysis data and analysis by Michelle L’Heureux.

This winter, if a La Niña forms, we’re expecting it to be a weak event. If you remember, a weaker La Niña means a weaker punch on the atmosphere and a less consistent impact on climate across North America. In the nine previous weak La Niña events, the pattern of snow was similar to that of all La Niña events with above-average snowfall observed, on-average, across the northwest and north central U.S. with below-average snowfall farther south.

The count of how many (out of nine) weak La Nina events had below-average snowfall also showed similar patterns, with some bad news for those in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., where every single weak La Niña winter had below-average snow.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/revisiting-la-nina-and-winter-snowfall

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5 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Most of the analogs I identified were a torch in the fall similar to this year then flipped colder sometime in mid to late November. But the true flip back to a dominant SER didn’t happen until closer to Jan 10-15 in many of the years.  Our best window before March might be from Xmas to Jan 10 or so.  Quite a few comp years had a cold shot and some snow during that period. For a few what little snow we got was in that window. 
 

From Jan 15-March 1 it was very ugly in most of them. March was a wildcard. A few flipped cold again. Some went warm. 

Yeah, I’m thinking Feb torch. More interested in early Jan when the mjo gets out of the warm phases. 

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27 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah, I’m thinking Feb torch. More interested in early Jan when the mjo gets out of the warm phases. 

My wag is we will have opportunities throughout Jan. Fwiw the Euro weeklies look cold from Jan 1 through Jan 19(end of run). It will go back and forth but some cold shots should continue. Who knows about Feb. CanSIPS suggests we are close to the thermal boundary on avg. That implies some cold periods plus precip chances.

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17 minutes ago, 87storms said:

Just noticed it’s now gonna be in the 50s from Sunday to Wednesday. Sounds kind of awesome tbh. Would be cool to get snow chances returning in time for Chrismukkah, though.

What I’m hoping as well. Let it fade for a week or so then come right back around The 20th. It’ll be close but if you go by the 6 week rinse repeat schedule it may work out. 

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3 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

That's actually not true. 95-96 was a Weak Nina. Weak Nina's were actually a cold composite (random coincidence from not enough samples) until the early 2000s. Now I think 5 in a row have been warm. 

 

2 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

95-96!!

@CAPE Is right  

96 was always an outlier where we had a positive PDO Nina in which the Nina never coupled with the long wave pattern. For a while it skewed the composite of weak ninas due to small sample.  But it easy to solve this, exclude +pdp Nina’s in years that are obviously -pdo. And -pdo weak Nina’s are just awful, every single one. 

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2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

54-55, 64-65, 83-84, 00-01. They were all below average temps, but I don't know about snow

They were all below avg snow except 65 but same as 96 I exclude that as an analog due to being an outlier with the PDO and the predominant cycle we were in. Nothing about that period matches this one. 
 

If we just look at weak Nina’s that occurred during a strong -pdo they were all really bad wrt snow. Most weren’t complete shutouts though. But no examples that were snowy. 

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9 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I'd like us just once to have a good analog. Feels like every year now the top analogs are crappy...but then again when you're in a -PDO cycle how many good ones actually exist? Lol

P.S. Folks are annoyed by my lols but it's in place of the crying laughing emoji I use often that's not available on here.

Last year, during the period when the models were spitting out THE epic pattern, I believe the analogs were good.

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9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

@CAPE Is right  

96 was always an outlier where we had a positive PDO Nina in which the Nina never coupled with the long wave pattern. For a while it skewed the composite of weak ninas due to small sample.  But it easy to solve this, exclude +pdp Nina’s in years that are obviously -pdo. And -pdo weak Nina’s are just awful, every single one. 

And after digging a bit (see my post above) 95-96 is considered a moderate event. So all 9 weak events since 1959 produced below avg snow for the DC area. 

Not that big of a deal to me as any winter can be a ratter these days. I never expect 'normal' snowfall anymore.

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3 hours ago, winter_warlock said:

Sterling watches the storm for the 12th....

 

Looking ahead a little further, the aforementioned trough diving out
of the Pacific Northwest moves into the Central Plains Tuesday. This
will set the stage for a strong surface low to develop late Tuesday
into Wednesday over the Arklatex region. This will be the system to
watch in terms of any potential hazardous weather as we head into
the middle/later portion of next week. The Canadian and Euro remain
a bit more robust with a potent trough that becomes negatively-
tilted over our region. However, the GFS is much less impressive,
only showing a passing shortwave, similar to the early-week system
but further south. Will have to see how things trend in the days
ahead, but this continues to bear watching.

Certainly the weather discussions have become more interesting since Garrett County was added to Stirling's coverage area.  Kidding aside,  outside of 6 days anything is possible - and phrases such as potent trough and negatively-tilted are music to most of our ears. 

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4 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

To my eye, all 3 ensembles appear in the process of redeveloping western ridging at the end of their runs. GEPS is fastest and GEFS is slowest, with EPS in the middle. Also been a notable guidance trend toward more ridging over the pole the last couple days and it continues through the ensemble periods. That can’t hurt. 

Only the op GFS and Euro erode the west coast ridge in the long run it seems. Evening else, even the EPS and GEFS, maintain or reinforce the -EPO. 

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2 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

ICON is a good model, IMO. Like seeing it on board. Can’t hurt. 

If it looked like that 24 hours before it was suppose to start I'd be nervous AF. 

A system that starts cranking over us is always playing with fire lol

It will look different in 12 hours anyway

 

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