40/70 Benchmark

Yay, Windham and Salem, NH will get snow and ice, while it transitions to rain 200 feet north of my door steps.

Oh, I know that....but snowfall if the main reason I do this, so I'm more interest in that, than whether it only drops to 29 at night instead of 27 on average.

I honestly thought we would have done better for snowfall in December...man it was colder and LESS snowy than I thought. Figures-

I still think we see the +TNH @Krs4Lfe, so I get the 2014 comparison...but devil is in the details.

Ninja.

I would need to look at the phases with respect to seasonal intervals, but that may also have to do with why we couldn't buy a storm...usually stormy patterns for AK aren't so great here. The fact that it was early in the season may have allowed for colder conditions out here relative if it had occurred mid/late winter, too....wave lengths and MJO correlations change at different junctures of the season. Again, just a thought...won't look in depth at this until May for the postseason write up.

All of the good skiing is in AK.

Everyone is whacking it to the cold, but at the end of the day, the MJO still hasn't spent much time in the phases conducive for east coast phasing/major cyclogensis..it's largely been either null and void, or in the MC, which is what I forecast in my outlook. That should improve somewhat later...

I think it's a combination of that AND the predominate MC forcing directing what opportunities for phasing there are, west and east of this region. That MC forcing is a Deconstructive influence on NE US phasing, which overlayed onto the overall trend for less phasing is BAD news for us. I'm confident the MC forcing will shift eventually...it's the overall trend for somewhat less phasing that probably won't. Least of all, there is some bad luck, too...but the majority is more than that.

I don't mean to imply that a weaker RONI is never good anymore...it absolutely can be, but you have to analyze the ENTIRE hemisphere...especially the western Pacific, in order to contextualize ENSO, and discern what exactly the RONI indicator is trying to convey. It's a forecasting tool intended to bridge the gap between yesterday and today's climate...misuse it at your own peril.

Right...it had a weaker expression in the hemisphere because it was partially masked by a competing MC influence, which is NOT favorable.

Yes, read the excerpt I just posted above.

Keep in mind what exactly the implications of that are, and beware the perils of misinterpreting this. I fell into that trap leading into the 2023-2024 season. https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2024/05/winter-2023-2024-outlook-largely-failure.html Having a reduced RONI relative to the ONI as a byproduct of the west warm pool can be interpreted as a weaker El Nino in a reductive sense, however, what it really means is that the El Nino is competing with the predominate MC background forcing. The lower RONI seems beneficial on the surface, but the devil is in the details. @bluewaveis very adept at explaining this. Here is an excerpt from some of my work on this: Review of 2023-2024 & the Impact of Climate Change on Seasonal Forecasting Winter 2023-2024 represented a perfect illustration of how crucial a proper diagnosis of the extra tropical Pacific is to the success of a seasonal forecast, especially in this modern era of fairly rapid climate change. Below is the Eastern MassWeather 500mb anomaly forecast composite for winter 2023-2024 measured against the 1951-2010 climate base period. Versus the actual 500mb verification. The two most prominent inconsistencies between the forecast composite and the actual DM 500mb pattern are the much more subdued Gulf of Alaska low and the warmth being displaced to the east. In fact, the Gulf of Alaska low is so diffuse and displaced southeastward that there is actually some semblance of a ridge south of the Aleutians, which is more consistent with prominent cold ENSO episodes. Although rare, there is in fact a precedent for a robust El Niño event to have this type of cool ENSO influence and that occured during the 1972-1973 season, which was in fact a member of the analog composite. This intermingling of a potent warm ENSO amidst a prominent cold phase of the Pacific would appear to be correlated with a rather robust positive phase of the West Pacific Oscillation, since the ridging south of the Aleutians promotes troughing over the southwern CONUS. Note the similarities of the actual pattern to the +West Pacific Oscillation composite. This is depicted well by the congruence between the spacial layout of the hemispheric temperature anomalies and the WPO correlation composite. The 2023-2024 Eastern Mass Weather DM forecast composite below was much too cold for two primary reasons, which are each somewhat related to one another: 1) The forecast obviously did not consider the west Pacific enough, which is clear given that the WPO was not event forecast. This will change moving forward and it will be included beginning with winter 2024-2025. 2) Several older analogs were included in the forecast composite, many om which occurred during the negative phase of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), which correlates to colder temperatures along much of the east coast. Given that the AMO has been its positive phase since the early to mid 1990's, it was imperative to make a more of a concerted effort to account for this warmer positive phase of the AMO in conjunction with an overall warmer climate. This is especially crucial given that the rate of climate change has accelerated over the course of the past decade plus. These factors are very evident when considering how much cooler the aforementioned analog season of 1972-1973 was, which demonstrated the same cool ENSO like Aleutian ridging and strong El Nino conditions, relative to this past season. However, it occurred in a much cooler regime that was both pre-climate change and during the the cooler, negative phase of the AMO. The accelerated rate of warming in assoication with climate change is also illustrated nicely by the degree of warmth relative to the 1951-2010 longer-term mean over the past nine years. Note how the magnitude of said warmth is weighted disproportionately in that it is much more intense across the eastern portion of the country. This is due at least in part to what has become known as the West Pacific Warm Pool, which has been rapidly expanding over the last decade seemingly in concert with global temperatures. This immense warmer body of water, which is likely attributable to some combination of climate change and natural oscillations, has caused the Madden Jullian Ocillation(MJO) to spend an inordinately excessive amount of time in the maritime continent phases of 4-7 as a result of tropical convective processes. These are phases that correlate with greater heights and warmer weather over the eastern half of the country during the winter season, which is precisely what has occurred in the mean over this span of time. Usually these maritime continent phases are more prevalent during cool ENSO episodes, since El Nino normally entails that the warmer, convection fostering waters are positioned over the central and eastern Pacific. However, when that is not the case, and the western Pacific features the warmest waters during a bonafide El nino event, as was the case last year, the pronounced Gulf of Alaska low is attenuated and displaced by more ridging south of the Aleutian islands. This represents the cool ENSO like signature that triggers an intense +WPO response. While the end result is similar to that of a traditional, powerful canonical El Nino that correlates to a similarly very mild pattern over the much of the eastern US, the hemispheric layout is fundamentally different. This alternate "El Nina" phase of ENSO is due to the influence of the west-Pacific-warm-pool-induced, cool ENSO baseline acting to attenuate the Gulf of Alaska low. This Gulf of Alaska low feature is effectively deemphasized by the greater ambient heights all across the globe relative to the 1951-2010 climo base period. In summary, the most egregious forecasting error by Eastern Mass Weather relative to winter 2023-2024 was treating the adjoining of the west Pacific warm pool with El Nino as purely a more west-based El Nino event. This is also related to the accurately forecast peak MEI value of -1.1 being misinterpreted as more of a sign of a Modoki like attribute to the basin wide El Niño. When considered within the proper context of a climate change enhanced cool ENSO baseline, it was clear that this relatively meager MEI value was instead a reflection of said cool ENSO influences competing with El Nino. Hence the disconnect between the MEI/ONI and the rather meager ocean-atmosphere interface that it represented was more indicative of the hybrid cool ENSO/warm ENSO paradigm that is "El Nina", as opposed to simply a weaker warm ENSO event that could have been potentially more conducive to a colder winter season. In hindsight, it is clear that the resultant forcing pattern from the westward displaced convection did indeed mimic that of a Modoki El Niño. However, the actual pattern that evolved was vastly different from that of a Modoki El Nino. And instead reflective of a powerful, canonical east-based El Niño, despite the notable absence of a potent Gulf of Alaska Low in the mean, which is normally the primary catalyst of the mild pattern over the eastern US. The vey warm pattern was instead driven by the combination of cool ENSO like Aleutian ridging and a potent +WPO response triggered by the southwestward displacement of the Gulf of Alaska low associated with El Nino. This blended El Nino/La Nina regime essentially amplified and mutually reenforced the features of each that promote warmth over the eastern CONUS.

Right, but they were all better for snowfall IMBY....thus far. And I see very little hope of that reversing for at least 2 weeks. When it's cold, it snows south, southwest and east of me...when it's warm, it snows west, northwest and northeast of me.

You almost have to hope for a mild pattern and roll the dice with a random bowling ball...I mean, at least in a mild pattern, you have dice to roll. We just can't get any phasing or moisture in these colder regimes. I'm just completely and utterly desperate for a break at this point.

If it becomes that strong, the EMI will be crucial.....Modoki of that intensity and we are talking 2002-2003/1957-1958 analogs.....east-based would mean to shield your eyes and hope for a random juggernaut. 2009-2010 had much more favorable solar considerations...

I won't delve into that too deeply until the summer, but given that El Nino looks to become reasonably strong, I expect it to get at least neutralish...I don't anticipate a repeat of 2023-2024, which was at the height of the cold phase. Transition to warm phase should come around the turn of the decade.

I'm still around 60", that that is in decline at the moment....it probably peaked around 65" several years back, but I'm staring an 8th consecutive dud in the face. 19.9" (1979-1980) and 127.5" (1995-1996 *sorry*)

Snowfall up....heating bill and salt usage down.....

Another season that I'd take and run and at this point.

Could even be 2....we just don't know... jk love ya, Wolfie!

I'd kill for this season....more than double the snowfall, and when it wasn't snowing, it was pleasant with minimal inconvenience or salt showering my vehicle.

Do me the privilege sharing Liam's feed in one week from now....it will probably be filled with 20-something hour runs from late January.

I mean, ON PAPER...I see plenty of hope later in the season....but truth be told, I want out- Under 9" on the season headed into mid January at my locale, and nothing but misfit, orphaned PNA ridges in the imminent future? Suck a poison-d1ck and GTFO of here with that.