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Bayesian stats ftw

The 2011-12 winter had a +PNA for both December and January…that’s a surprise. I thought that was a predominant -PNA winter

They're down at Canderson's place waiting so they can travel together with his cans...

I haven’t done a valley snowfall update yet this season, but now that we’ve reached the middle of the month and the snows have been rolling along well in both the mountains and the valleys, it’s probably a decent time. Last season was certainly solid as a whole with over 200” of snow here in the valley, but November was actually one of the weak spots, at least in the lower elevations. We only had 4” of snow (the lowest November snowfall total in almost 10 years), which is well below average, and most of it came at the end of the month as we were moving into December (you can see how the blue line in the plot below compares to the dotted white line for average snowfall progression). This season (orange line in the plot is off to a solid, above-average start, but up to this point it hasn’t been in the league of seasons like 2019-2020 or 2020-2021. The valley snows this season did seem to hit quick and hard (I hadn’t even finished blowing the last few leaves off the lawn or put out the driveway marker poles), so I was curious to see where we stood with respect to snowpack. The current snowpack started up on the 11th of the month, which is on the early side, so I was curious to see where it would sit if it were to persist into the winter. It turns out that if it does persist, it wouldn’t be a record, since the continuous winter snowpack for the 2019-2020 season started on November 8th, and even the 2018-2019 season snowpack started on November 10th. The past five seasons have had more typical/average snowpack starts at the end of November/beginning of December, which probably gives the early feeling to this season. Part of what’s helped jumpstart this season was simply being in that zonal flow for a while this month with modest storms/clippers passing through the area. And it looks like temperatures for Morrisville have come in right around average for the first half of the month (departure of -0.1 F), which shows that even average November temperatures can produce some decent snows for both the mountains and the valleys. That got me thinking about the weather patterns around here. More and more, I’m seeing the value of these zonal patterns with respect to getting, and more importantly, keeping snow and retaining snow quality. Every year it becomes more apparent that highly amplified patterns are just so much riskier – you basically have this narrow window/slot of storm tracks where you can get some big storms, and an average of 50% of the time you risk a storm passing to the west and putting the area in the warm sector and damaging the snowpack. The discussions around here so often cast “zonal flow” as bad, annoying, unwanted, whatever, but if zonal/average flow is not good, then that’s essentially saying “average” weather is not good. That’s a scary statement with respect to an area’s winter/snow climatology if even “average” isn’t good enough – it would suggest that only a subset of weather patterns (probably well under 50%) are going to be decent, and more often than not you’re really just going to end up with something else.

I mean we’ve had a cool few weeks. Highs certainly BN, we just haven’t had insanely cold lows.

I just looked up -ENSO winters with a -PNA in Dec to see how often it went to a +PNA in Jan. In what winters did this occur? -1954-5: -0.52 to +0.40 -1962-3: -0.08 to +0.58 -1983-4: -0.31 to +0.97 -1984-5: -1.60 to +1.63 -1996-7: -1.23 to +0.63 -1998-9: -0.09 to +0.16 -2008-9: -1.41 to +0.61 -2010-11: -1.78 to +1.29 -2012-3: -1.01 to +0.55 -2013-4: -0.86 to +0.97 -2016-7: -0.35 to +0.28 -2021-2: -2.56 to +1.01 -2022-3: -0.66 to +0.22 So, although it wasn’t common from 1954-5 through 1971-2, when only 2 of 9 (22%) switched, here’s something that just blew my mind: -ALL 11 -ENSO -PNA Decs since 1983-4 switched to +PNA Jans (listed above)! -These 11 averaged +0.76 in January! -Now, check out the -ENSO Jan PNAs since 1983-4 that had a +PNA in Dec: 1) 1985-6 went from +1.39 to +0.97 2) 1988-9 went from +0.63 to -0.72 3) 1995-6 went from +0.92 to -0.02 4) 1999-00 went from +0.21 to -0.82 5) 2000-01 went from +1.23 to +1.51 6) 2001-2 went from +0.56 to -0.04 7) 2005-6 went from +1.38 to -0.43 8) 2007-8 went from +0.14 to -0.32 9) 2011-2 went from +0.36 to +0.60 10) 2017-8 went from +0.89 to +0.40 11) 2020-1 went from +1.58 to +0.19 12) 2024-5 went from +1.70 to +1.05 -So, for these 12 -ENSO Decs since 1983-4 with a +PNA, only 50% also had a +PNA in Jan. -So, since 1983-4, whereas only 50% of the 12 -ENSO Decs with a +PNA also had a Jan +PNA, 100% of the 11 -ENSO Decs with a -PNA in Dec went to a +PNA in Jan! Thus, having a -PNA in Dec during -ENSO since 1983-4 has, if anything, meant a big increase in the chance for a +PNA in Jan whether random or not! I didn’t know this til just now. Link to monthly PNAs back to 1950: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.pna.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table @donsutherland1

Strong winds continue to be the big story this month with all the lows racing through the Eastern Great Lakes and New England.

It’s gonna be well under 50 tomorrow. Take the under for a few days there. That’s also N to BN there.

Yeah turkey pop is up up up. everywhere you go it's huge flocks

Isn’t the normal high for BDL still 52F right now? And that’s for the south shore? Looks normal, no?

That's exactly average for BDR. Torch is after that with the cutters. Average high is 53 down 50 through day 10 and average low is 38 down to 36 by day 10.

I just looked up -ENSO winters with a -PNA in Dec to see how often it went to a +PNA in Jan. In what winters did this occur? -1954-5: -0.52 to +0.40 -1962-3: -0.08 to +0.58 -1983-4: -0.31 to +0.97 -1984-5: -1.60 to +1.63 -1996-7: -1.23 to +0.63 -1998-9: -0.09 to +0.16 -2008-9: -1.41 to +0.61 -2010-11: -1.78 to +1.29 -2012-3: -1.01 to +0.55 -2013-4: -0.86 to +0.97 -2016-7: -0.35 to +0.28 -2021-2: -2.56 to +1.01 -2022-3: -0.66 to +0.22 So, although it wasn’t common from 1954-5 through 1971-2, when only 2 of 9 (22%) switched, here’s something that just blew my mind: -ALL 11 -ENSO -PNA Decs since 1983-4 switched to +PNA Jans (listed above)! -These 11 averaged +0.76 in January! -Now, check out the -ENSO Jan PNAs since 1983-4 that had a +PNA in Dec: 1) 1985-6 went from +1.39 to +0.97 2) 1988-9 went from +0.63 to -0.72 3) 1995-6 went from +0.92 to -0.02 4) 1999-00 went from +0.21 to -0.82 5) 2000-01 went from +1.23 to +1.51 6) 2001-2 went from +0.56 to -0.04 7) 2005-6 went from +1.38 to -0.43 8) 2007-8 went from +0.14 to -0.32 9) 2011-2 went from +0.36 to +0.60 10) 2017-8 went from +0.89 to +0.40 11) 2020-1 went from +1.58 to +0.19 12) 2024-5 went from +1.70 to +1.05 -So, for these 12 -ENSO Decs since 1983-4 with a +PNA, only 50% also had a +PNA in Jan. -So, since 1983-4, whereas only 50% of the 12 -ENSO Decs with a +PNA also had a Jan +PNA, 100% of the 11 -ENSO Decs with a -PNA in Dec went to a +PNA in Jan! Thus, having a -PNA in Dec during -ENSO since 1983-4 has, if anything, meant a big increase in the chance for a +PNA in Jan whether random or not! I didn’t know this til just now. Link to monthly PNAs back to 1950: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.pna.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table

What a torch with zero cold in sight..

Some legit gusts out there. Last month, I had my way too tall Leyland cypresses cut down and I think they had been acting as a wind buffer the past 15 years. The house is noisier today than I remember.

A cold front passed through the area earlier this morning and our temperatures will slowly fall into the 40's and then the 30's this evening. A Wind Advisory is in effect for winds as high as 45mph so watch for some power outages in the normal spots. A chilly week ahead with some rain chances Tuesday night and again by Thursday night into next weekend. We do turn much milder by Friday with highs well into the 50's which is about 8 degrees above normal for later November.

https://soundcloud.com/itsbri-369369283/sickbragbro

A cold front passed through the area earlier this morning and our temperatures will slowly fall into the 40's and then the 30's this evening. A Wind Advisory is in effect for winds as high as 45mph so watch for some power outages in the normal spots. A chilly week ahead with some rain chances Tuesday night and again by Thursday night into next weekend. We do turn much milder by Friday with highs well into the 50's which is about 8 degrees above normal for later November.

I haven’t done any raking yet this year, but I just looked out front under my huge swamp maple, and I think I’ll get away with just my annual late, leveling the grass, snow-prep mowing.

At least we’re not burning prime climo but I am very concerned given it being Nina and pacific heading to crap. All this blocking and +PNA we’ve had has still managed to produce a “heatwave” and northern storm track so losing blocking and pacific turning bad does not bode well

And got some nice icicles overnight lol

Snowing nicely again

Hopefully it all comes in 1 storm.

They’re running for their lives up here. Lots of good ol’ boys up the hill shooting off their heavy artillery. I don’t even dare walk into the woods out back right now. There’s been a lot of wild turkeys around lately and I often see them stopping cars when they cross.

Hopefully a latitude winter. 100" there 30" here

The snow came down furiously in the late afternoon/evening. I have some videos from then and I recently rewatched them and remembered how heavy it was coming down.