95 replies to this topic

[NE Balti Zen]

General spring chatter ftw?

And, on a more specific question note...

This will be my 3rd spring since moving to the MA, and am still getting a handle on the weather patterns here. I think it is a factual statement that we don't get the same numbers or ferocity of severe storms as one might see across the south, midwest, and certainly the plain states. But presumably there are weather patterns that setup that are conducive to spring storms over this way, at least more conducive than I have observed in the previous two springs.

While I am not as big a fan of severe storms as Ian or Mark, for instance, I do love a good spring storm season (living in the mid-South (Memphis/Nashville) for 13 years prior to moving here was a good spot to be in for severe storms).

So...while this winter has been pretty crappy for snow lovers, does a moderate 2nd-year Nina offer a greater chance at seeing a more robust spring severe weather season than we have seen the last few years? I guess I am asking what the "general" atmospheric regime is that is most conducive to a good storm season in the MA.

If I am asking that in a manner that is less than bright, my apologies ahead of time.

Thanks.

---Aaron

[NE Balti Zen]

For those who have asked elsewhere about a spring thread, there was this one from a week ago.

My question still out there for the severe weather guys, and a more general one, what kind of spring is "typical" for a 2nd year Nina in the MA? Cool and wet? Warm and wet? Dry? Stormy? Or do those concepts not really apply to the spring regime like they do for winter regimes?

[nj2va]

Looking forward to spring - at least this winter wasn't cold and dry; those are the worst.

[eurojosh]

This forum needs a "dislike" button.

[brad1551]

Love the severe weather. I also love snowstorms and hope we can squeeze one out before spring.

[Noreastericane]

This spring will be a complete blowtorch just like the last two. Death ridge ftl

(I know, I know- you don't believe me. No one believed it last year either when I posted the same thing on Accuweather forums- everyone was expecting their nice, cool spring. We all know how that turned out.)

I wish we'd get a cool spring/summer like 09 again though.

[Clueless]

Yes. I would like to hear the mets on the prospects for the Spring given this winter "pattern," ahem...

[marked8]

I am betting we look back in a few months and realize that Spring has sprung. I have Daffodils coming up in my yard and other plants have buds on them.

[mattie g]

I'm loving the bits of spring we've had all winter long. I've been planning my spring/summer garden for a few weeks now, and am getting antsy enough to go check on my garlic almost every day.

Can't wait for the stripers and shad in the Potomac, either. Such a great time of the year...

[LongRanger]

if today/tomorrow are warm enough perhaps some peepers will emerge

[mattie g]

if today/tomorrow are warm enough perhaps some peepers will emerge

That would be really weird. I don't know if i could handle peepers that early!

[Bob Chill]

Today is pretty darn nice. I'm breaking out of work early to enjoy the weather.

Anyone else concerned about Mar-Apr being cold, dreary, and wet? Just a hunch but I think we might pay for having such a mild winter. If it does happen, insult added to injury would be an understatement.

[Fozz]

Today is pretty darn nice. I'm breaking out of work early to enjoy the weather.

Anyone else concerned about Mar-Apr being cold, dreary, and wet? Just a hunch but I think we might pay for having such a mild winter. If it does happen, insult added to injury would be an understatement.

I sure hope not, and it doesn't always happen. For example, I recall April 2002 having an epic heat wave.

[NE Balti Zen]

Bob, yes, I am. Which is why I started the thread wondering what a "typical" Nina spring is for the MA? Should we be expecting cold, dreary and wet as a norm?

[Bob Chill]

Bob, yes, I am. Which is why I started the thread wondering what a "typical" Nina spring is for the MA? Should we be expecting cold, dreary and wet as a norm?

I have no idea what a normal nina spring should be like. I spend all my energy thinking about djfm every year. Once we hit mid March I stop paying attention to lr stuff and just stick to keeping an eye on the next 5 days.

The nina this year is kinda weak and it's probably going to wane as we go through spring. I'll pull a temp and precip composite for nina springs with tri-monthlies below 1.5 and see what it looks like. I'm not even sure if nina's drive spring patterns but they might. Nino's are generally cooler springs? I'm not sure but it rings a bell.

[nj2va]

I'm loving the bits of spring we've had all winter long. I've been planning my spring/summer garden for a few weeks now, and am getting antsy enough to go check on my garlic almost every day.

Can't wait for the stripers and shad in the Potomac, either. Such a great time of the year...

Just started thinking about my garden as well! I love making that first spring trip to Home Depot to get top soil, mulch, etc.

[mattie g]

Today is pretty darn nice. I'm breaking out of work early to enjoy the weather.

Anyone else concerned about Mar-Apr being cold, dreary, and wet? Just a hunch but I think we might pay for having such a mild winter. If it does happen, insult added to injury would be an understatement.

I have no idea if there's really any correlation between winters like the one we're having and cool springs, but it certainly has crossed my mind. If it did happen that way, it would be unappreciated, for sure.

I'd like temps be normal to slightly above in March and April, and for the summer to cool down some (i.e. "evening things out"), but that's just personal preference.

[H2O]

It will snow more in spring than winter this year. Mark my words

[Clueless]

Today is pretty darn nice. I'm breaking out of work early to enjoy the weather.

Anyone else concerned about Mar-Apr being cold, dreary, and wet? Just a hunch but I think we might pay for having such a mild winter. If it does happen, insult added to injury would be an understatement.

AHHHHH, YEA.....THAT WILL REALLY BRING ME TO THE EDGE.

[FrederickWX]

Amazing outside today. I'm so ready for Spring!!

[WinterWxLuvr]

It will snow more in spring than winter this year. Mark my words

Well, the bar isn't too high for that.

[FrederickWX]

Well, the bar isn't too high for that.

Depends on whether we are talking met spring (March 1) or astronomical spring (march 21). A moderate event of just 3 inches would do it for most people.

[arlwx]

Daffodil shoots already are poking out in VA near the Potomac River.

Of course, something COULD come along to s*** on my parade this winter, but I don't see a reason (yet) to immediately prepare my flamethrower for action to defend DCA.

1.3" so far since September.

[pazzo83]

Daffodil shoots already are poking out in VA near the Potomac River.

Of course, something COULD come along to s*** on my parade this winter, but I don't see a reason (yet) to immediately prepare my flamethrower for action to defend DCA.

1.3" so far since September.

The amazing thing about the Manhattan heat island, I am ~230 miles NE of you, and we are seeing the exact same thing. In fact, things have been starting to bloom here for the past few days (ever so slightly, I noticed the daffodil shoots yesterday). We haven't been below freezing since 6pm, Sunday Jan 22.

[Ellinwood]

Typically spring coming out of a La Nina winter would mean more severe... but this hasn't been a regular Nina.

To get more severe, one typically looks for a pattern that would allow for more upper-level cold air to come into the region via the polar jet, with a "clashing" of air masses (continental Polar from Canada vs. maritime Tropical from the Gulf of Mexico) over the region. La Ninas usually allow the polar jet to dip down from western Canada into the central and eastern US during the winter and early spring. However, this year the cold air has been locked up in Canada along with the polar jet, so I'm not sure if severe season will be booming around here unless we can get a pattern change that allows the polar jet to push further south.

[zwyts]

hopefully March will be a -5

[WinterWxLuvr]

This thread should be locked on general principle alone.

[Ian]

This thread should be locked on general principle alone.

then we'd have to lock all the other spring weather talk that's been going on in every thread since december

[haudidoody]

In some south facing locations, I've noticed forsythia in bloom for much of the winter. I've seem them in bloom in January before, but never for such an extended period.

I did notice the last few days a bunch of shoots popping here in Alexandria.

Also, none of the permanent palm plantings I know of were covered this year. Hopefully some of them are healthy enough to bloom this spring.

[WinterWxLuvr]

In some south facing locations, I've noticed forsythia in bloom for much of the winter. I've seem them in bloom in January before, but never for such an extended period.

I did notice the last few days a bunch of shoots popping here in Alexandria.

Also, none of the permanent palm plantings I know of were covered this year. Hopefully some of them are healthy enough to bloom this spring.

That's something, along with daffodils, that I've seen talked about here for a while. At least in Winchester, I'm not seeing any of that. The only thing I've seen are those little yellow flowers that kinda look like impatiens. Those things didn't wilt with temps in the teens. I don't know what those are.

[NE Balti Zen]

Typically spring coming out of a La Nina winter would mean more severe... but this hasn't been a regular Nina.

To get more severe, one typically looks for a pattern that would allow for more upper-level cold air to come into the region via the polar jet, with a "clashing" of air masses (continental Polar from Canada vs. Maritime tropical from the Gulf of Mexico) over the region. La Ninas usually allow the polar jet to dip down from western Canada into the central and eastern US during the winter and early spring. However, this year the cold air has been locked up in Canada along with the polar jet, so I'm not sure if severe season will be booming around here unless we can get a pattern change that allows the polar jet to push further south.

Thanks Mark, much appreciated.

[Bob Chill]

Had some time to dig into stats a bit. I pulled a list of most second year Ninas and all Ninas that averaged -1.0 or less in the DFJ monthlies. Not a perfect data set here but not a bad one either.

I got a little excited when I saw the temp gradient set up in April. That has a better chance of severe look to me (any thoughts Ellinwood?). Could be wrong. Below normal precip anom isn't much of a signal. We average plenty of precip in April. Half inch below normal isn't much.

March is interesting overall. Pretty clear cold signal in the middle of the country and pretty wet on the EC. Rodney S, zwyts, or Ian, can one of you guys pull the Mar snowfall data for the years selected? I have additional years that are decent enso analogs but I didn't include them because the Nina was too strong and I already had some second year nina's in the data set that exceeded my -1.0 baseline.

My guesses or interpretations of all this stuff are always based on what I think the "odds" are. Kinda like if I had to place a wager on what the weather will be. My wager would be on a colder and wetter than normal march and a temp battleground april with good boomers but what the heck do I know.

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[Ellinwood]

Had some time to dig into stats a bit. I pulled a list of most second year Ninas and all Ninas that averaged -1.0 or less in the DFJ monthlies. Not a perfect data set here but not a bad one either.

I got a little excited when I saw the temp gradient set up in April. That has a better chance of severe look to me (any thoughts Ellinwood?). Could be wrong. Below normal precip anom isn't much of a signal. We average plenty of precip in April. Half inch below normal isn't much.

March is interesting overall. Pretty clear cold signal in the middle of the country and pretty wet on the EC. Rodney S, zwyts, or Ian, can one of you guys pull the Mar snowfall data for the years selected? I have additional years that are decent enso analogs but I didn't include them because the Nina was too strong and I already had some second year nina's in the data set that exceeded my -1.0 baseline.

My guesses or interpretations of all this stuff are always based on what I think the "odds" are. Kinda like if I had to place a wager on what the weather will be. My wager would be on a colder and wetter than normal march and a temp battleground april with good boomers but what the heck do I know.

The regular Nina analogs would recommend an above average severe weather season, but there is probably going to be a lingering warm signal from the winter that will degrade the cold/warm gradient across the U.S., so I'm not that confident we'll see the more active spring (unless we can get a pattern change and develop the temp gradient).

[Bob Chill]

The regular Nina analogs would recommend an above average severe weather season, but there is probably going to be a lingering warm signal from the winter that will degrade the cold/warm gradient across the U.S., so I'm not that confident we'll see the more active spring (unless we can get a pattern change and develop the temp gradient).

Yea, this has been one tough year to understand. I don't think any lr forecasts saw Dec-Jan coming. Feb isn't shaping up too hot either.

I think we probably have an equal chance at a distinct pattern change in Mar-Apr that would basically "look good if it was winter" kinda pattern. We'll see I guess. I don't like wet aprils at all becuase I fish alot for trophy stripers in the bay. Rainy springs screw it all up so I always root for dry. We can get great storms in a dry regime though. Probably moreso than a wet one becuase the atmophere is less stable for convection. Bring on the se ridge and canadian cold fronts.

[Jebman]

La Nina means horrific tornado season - likely 2011 all over again, maybe far worse.

Storm chasers will be soaring all over the place come late march