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But that doesn't mean we cannot speculate.
We are coming off two years of La Nina in which the first year was quite kind to us as most remember (the 2010-2011 "snow pack" winter) but the 2nd year was just as evil to snow lovers as the first year was kind. Boston made a run at their least snowiest winter on record but fell a few tenths short.
So enough with history, you are all asking "what the hell is 2012-2013 going to bring us? I couldn't care less about yesteryear"....so this is where we begin.
At this stage in the game as we close in on June 1st, the most predictable aspect of next winter is going to be ENSO....the AO/NAO are just really out of our reach at this point....they are hard enough 2-3 months out, nevermind 8 months out. So we will focus on ENSO and then issue the caveats as needed.
Current ENSO is in a decaying La Nina state from the last two winters. The current La Nina has actually decayed into a neutral state as I make this post and most dynamic and statistical models support the formation of an El Nino by the fall of 2012....however, its a bit tedious. This does not currently look like the strong El Nino of 2009-2010. This is weaker in nature and some of the models actually try and form another weak La Nina...but those are the outliers at this point. The most likely ENSO state for this upcoming winter is a weak El Nino or maybe a low-end moderate. But this can change quite a bit from this far out. The most skilled ENSO model is the Euro SIPS system and the current forecast is as follows:
Now at first glance you might think we should prepare for a big El Nino....but not so fast...the Euro SIPS is good, but it often overdoes things and can be very warm biased. For example last winter at this time, it was going for a neutral, but we ended up La Nina and during the 2009-2010 El Nino it was going like +2.4 so it can go a bit over the top....but generally if this model says it going to be an El Nino, then it probably will be, but just tone down the profanity a bit. That's not to say it cannot nail it here, but history says to tone it down a bit.
If we assume a weak El Nino, then Ray will start doing naked cartwheels at the next several GTGs as they have been mostly blockbusters in SNE and the jackpot has often been specifically in metro-northwest BOS suburbs....but we aren't quite there yet so no need to get the blind folds out yet. We still have several other options on the table such as a moderate El Nino and a warm neutral. I am leaning toward an El Nino of some kind.
There are legit atmospheric reasons why weak El Ninos are good for southern New England and legit reasons why neutral or moderate/strong El Ninos might be a little more precarious. For one, a weak El Nino supplies STJ moisture without the STJ becoming too dominant and the northern stream dominates the pattern but it gets extra gulf and southern moisture from the semi-weak STJ...so what you essentially get are more Miller B storms and many of them are on steroids with the extra moisture. This is why winters like 2004-2005, 1977-1978, 1976-1977, 1968-1969, etc were so prolific, particularly for the eastern MA region of SNE where Miller Bs do the most damage. They had some STJ involvement but not enough to distort the northern stream from being the main player.
With a stronger El Nino, the STJ can become a bigger factor and also the Aleutian low can become larger and a risk of being displaced in a position that doesn't support cold and snow for us. When the Aleutian low stays far enough SW, we are fine in a mod/strong Nino such as 2002-2003, 1987-1988, 1986-1987, 1965-1966, 1957-1958.....but it can backfire on us too like 2006-2007, 1994-1995, 1997-1998, 1982-1983, 1972-1973, etc. So there is more of a coinflip there....the 2009-2010 El Nino had a great Pacific for us, but we still got screwed...but that was mostly bad luck and not a symptom of a long wave cancerous pattern for snow. We just got screwed and it happens. The stars aligned for us to get shafted while snow meccas like Philadelphia got 80" of snow. That was one of the rare times in history we got the shaft when they cleaned up....the NAO block became so strong, and also some unlucky pertubations in the vorticity field contributed.
Luck or non-luck aside, a weak El Nino is good for New England with some legit meteorological support. That is what we will hope for. I won't post the snowfall stats yet, I will wait until later in the summer to do that, but they are telling. We don't know what to expect yet, but I think in my own opinion we can expect an El Nino of some kind, and my hope is that it is weak. We can deal with moderate or strong too....but the best by far (and its not even close) is weak. So we will hope that moving forward. Right now the PDO remains heavily negative which is a positive as stronger EL Ninos do not like that and they tend to progress a bit slower in that type of Pacific setting. The NAO can tip many of these uncertaint situations big time. A mod El Nino with a near neutral or negative NAO is a really good producer for us most of the time, but a big +NAO is a massive dead ratter. Part of the ongoing research (which won't be resolved for probably years or decades) is the tendency for a weak El Nino to always have a near neutral or -NAO...or weakly positive. That is probably for another thread but it indirectly relates to us here because we obviously do not want a hugely +NAO....we can get away with a +NAO more than other areas on the east coast, but that usually occurs in a La Nina and not an El Nino...big +NAO El Ninos tend to be a complete disaster for New England.
And BOO...I'm not a ghost.
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