snowman19

Read an old article from HM, he showed that a La Niña/+QBO results in a poleward Aleutian ridge in December. A La Niña/-QBO combo results in a flatter Aleutian high in December

Interesting, because Joe D’Aleo’s research showed +QBO/Niña being a bad combo for cold and snow in the east. I wonder what he was looking at to come to those conclusions

95-96 was a weak Niña with a +PDO (strong positive at that), which is very unusual when you have a La Niña. You also were in the midst of a strong +AMO cycle with very warm North Atlantic SSTs, which favor -NAO and positive feedback into that -NAO

Assuming this actually behaves like a “normal” La Niña and is front end loaded, usually December to mid January are cold, late January and especially February usually torch, and March is a toss up, some go back to cold, some stay warmer than normal

That’s the warmest and least snowiest I’ve ever seen Weatherbell go. I was honestly shocked

I honestly thought they ended up being one of the better ones. They had been going cold and snowy until mid-December when they admitted that their winter forecast was going to be a bust and they were pretty spot on for the remainder of the month, Jan, Feb and Mar. There were several others who stubbornly refused to admit they were going to be wrong and kept forecasting blocking, cold and snowy right through February

BAMWX agrees with you. They just tweeted this morning that the signals are growing for a mild winter across the CONUS

IMO the thing that is more disturbing than the PDO right now is the -AMO. That is an ugly North Atlantic if you want negative NAO. Of course this could all be different come November....

Did the PDO state play any role in this? Right now at least, it looks like a healthy negative PDO is taking shape with that big warm pool gaining strength south of the Aleutians

Just read on twitter, supposedly JB thinks the QBO is going positive this fall/winter and he’s calling for an official Niña? If that’s the case then he can’t go cold and snowy on the east coast due to his explanation of why his winter forecast was a bust years ago. This should be very interesting, I have a real hard time believing he’s going to predict a warmer than average winter with below average snow for the east, I think he’s too afraid to lose his base, he’s going to spin this somehow

Yes, I didn’t understand the correlation he made to the summer NAO either. I think what makes more sense is what they mentioned in the New England forum....That this shift to -AMO, with the associated ice cold waters in the North Atlantic, causes a positive feedback loop into the +NAO and allows it to sustain itself. As far as the AO, no offense, but I pay no mind Judah Cohen at all anymore with his SAI. Using Siberian snowcover to predict the AO has been a bust how many times now? Also, how many times have we heard “low solar/solar minimum, -AO winter incoming!”? That’s been another bust. My honest opinion, I think the arctic sea ice melt is actually re-enforcing the +NAO/+AO and making it worse

Never heard that correlation before. The thing you definitely don’t want with a Niña is +NAO/+AO due to the crap Pacific side Ninas normally produce, especially in combination with a -PDO. If you look back at the good Niña winters, they all had -NAO/-AO blocking. 08-09 had more -EPO which was a bit unusual for a Nina. 95-96 had a decent Pacific side due to the strong +PDO which was in place and highly unusual with an established Niña, also had strong AO/NAO blocking. I’m more interested to see how the QBO behaves this fall

I see his post now. Just looked very quickly at NYC winters for the last 41 years, with cold-neutral vs weak La Niña (1979-present) and there doesn’t seem to be a big difference wrt temp and snowfall either. 95-96 and 10-11 being weak La Niña extremes of course

Was there a big difference in snowfall and temperature between weak La Niña winters and cold-neutral winters? I never actually looked into that

The Australian BOM has issued a La Niña watch: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/outlook/ Here is the summary: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

Correct and the Arctic sea ice loss seems to have enhanced the lack of -AO/-NAO blocking if anything. Some had theorized several years ago that it would enhance high latitude blocking, which it done anything but

The mets in the New England forum brought it up the other day, but they think the long term +NAO is being driven by the big -AMO ice bath in the North Atlantic positively feeding back into the positive NAO and making it sustain itself

That’s just because it’s August. Come October, he will be hyping 95-96 as his #1 main analog, 10-11 as his #2 analog

You are really obsessed with me. Wow just wow

Just to add, that El Niño falls into the larger global warming picture. It shows we still have a lot to learn about weather overall and how it’s evolving now. If you look at the theories that *should* have resulted in colder winters; solar cycle, Siberian snowcover, sea ice loss, soil moisture, etc., they are just not working at all the last several winters, the question is why....

The thing that is most surprising IMO is the QBO. Ever since the super El Niño, its behavior has been completely erratic. Just a few months ago it appeared to be going into its negative phase, now it looks like it’s going back into a positive again. That Nino event threw something off big time

Larry seems to think that this is going to be a basin-wide La Niña. The current SST configuration would give some support to that. All ENSO regions, including region 4 are dropping right now. We’re going to have to monitor whether or not this continues into November. You definitely don’t want region 4 in La Niña territory going into winter. The other things to closely watch this fall are the QBO (which rose up to neutral in July), PDO and AMO

I’m really not anti cold and snow. I usually lean on the warmer side yes but over the last several winters I see no reason not to. I will say this, if this stays a weak La Niña, and the QBO goes solidly negative/easterly in the fall, I’m more than willing to go with a cold and snowy winter even if the PDO is negative and the AMO is negative. For the most part, I don’t really care what the solar cycle or Siberian snowcover do, for the reasons I’ve already stated. In the study I linked to a few days ago, they had strong evidence that a La Niña promotes a colder stratosphere, regardless of solar cycle anyway. I think to a large extent the soil moisture theory that DT loves to use is very unreliable as well. Anyway, that said, I definitely would not expect 95-96 to walk through the door even if the QBO goes negative, besides the changed climate, that winter had a strong +PDO (very unusual for a La Niña), the AMO was strongly positive, the SSTs around Greenland and Davis Straight were very warm and well above normal, promoting the -NAO Tripole setup we had that winter, the QBO flipped negative in the fall then gained a lot of strength that winter (whether that happens this winter remains to be seen) and that La Niña stayed weak and east-based all winter. Like you said, the La Niña/QBO link is a very strong one. D’Aleo’s study was eye opening in that regard

This isn’t “parroting”, it’s fact. Like I just said, JB is a prime example, he continues to use “analogs” from 50 years ago, hypes them, then wonders why they turn into epic fails. Denying reality. It’s been happening for years yet he still continues doing it. There is no denying that our climate has changed in a very huge way over the last 15-20 years

He may well be exactly correct. There is no comparison right now to the climates of 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Joe Bastardi is a great example, constantly using “analogs” from the 40’s, 50’s, 60s, 70’s and wondering why his forecasts are a huge fail after huge fail