snowman19

I do. I like all weather. Where my beef has always been is people who blindly forecast cold and snow with no reasoning behind it but wish casting, then get nasty about it. It became tiring to watch for me. I felt as though it was making of mockery of meteorology. Instead of wanting to be right and discussing the how’s and why’s of seasonal forecasting and mesoscale snowstorm/cold forecasting, it became a matter of “if I forecast it, it will happen, I’ll will it to happen”. And if you disagree with me I’ll say you’re wrong and get nasty

Yep. Early-mid November, 2011 actually didn’t look too bad, it looked like that winter could have gone either way. Then a few days after Thanksgiving, the vortex appeared and it was lights out, say good night and goodbye right through spring. The only other total shut out winter in recent memory was 01-02, possibly even worse. There was a relentless high solar flux from September till the end of March. Not only was it a wall to wall torch-a-rama, it was dry as a bone

11-12 was more Bering Sea vortex/+EPO driven. A few days after Thanksgiving that massive Bering Sea vortex developed, became a semipermanent feature for months on end, the EPO floodgates opened and that winter was toast. NYC hit 90 degrees in March, right after St. Patrick’s Day. Earliest I can ever remember having to turn the air conditioner on

The mid-December, 2019 snowstorm was it for my area that winter. One and done. I remember BAMWX being one of the first to call their winter forecast a bust and said that winter was toast when it was apparent that the SPV was going into beast mode right after Christmas. The IOD overwhelmed everything. Of course JB was the last to admit defeat and kept hyping for months that deep winter was right around the corner…..

The thing I remember most about the 19-20 winter was all the big cold/snowy east coast forecasts that came out in the fall because of the model runs that were showing blocking, which turned out to be a huge fail. The forcing from the ++IOD and 90+ SSTs north of Australia put the SPV on steroids come the end of December, winter ended and that was all she wrote. Isotherm nailed that debacle months before it happened

This is true. The Hunga eruption is still being widely studied because nothing like that (extreme amount of water vapor injected into the stratosphere) has happened before. Actual long term effects unknown. Then we also had the cumulative VEI 5 Ruang eruptions back in April, which also reached the stratosphere. What role does that play? It’s obviously not going to have the “Pinatubo” effect, but I would think that a cumulative VEI 5 tropical volcanic eruption that reached the stratosphere would have *some* effect….what that effect actually is TBD

Drastically? Probably not. However, I do think the Euro is way too warm and in a universe all to its own. As @GaWx posted the other day, all of the other new model runs got stronger with the La Niña. The Euro is the clear outlier

Either way, we are still well below average and have been for years. AGW, Marine heat waves, whatever may be the root cause, is bringing arctic sea ice to record low levels

We’ve discussed 17-18 ad nauseam, but this La Niña is not developing like that one did. The 17-18 Niña was a textbook east-based event, started as one and stayed as one. It wasn’t just east-based, it was very east-based. This one is not. Although, according to twitter weenieland this one is developing exactly like 2017. I understand why some folks want that, but there’s a fine line between what people want and reality…..

It’s 8th now and we’re still over a month away from the climatological time of year when arctic sea ice normally bottoms out at its lowest. The question is how much lower does it go between now and then?

Your 17-18 winter forecast was one of the best I’ve ever seen. One thing is for sure, besides all the other factors we’ve mentioned, this La Niña is definitely not developing as an east-based event this time around like 2017 did. This current configuration is not even close to resembling an east-based event:

Another crazy stat and it’s not even at the climatological lowest point of the year. My guess is this is related to the marine heat waves:

This is ridiculous:

17-18 had the -QBO, low solar/low geomag, neutral PDO, east-based Niña, no record WPAC warm pool locking the MJO in 4-6, no overpowering +AMO/New Foundland warm pool. Those alone were huge clues going into that winter

17-18 starting showing its hand right around this time. The clues were everywhere. It was almost as obvious as 02-03, which was a slam dunk for a cold/snowy winter months before it even started and the signs just continued to increase in the fall. HM nailed the historic blocking for 10-11 a month before it even started. 14-15 was another example when the ++PDO showed up and you knew it was going to lead to the strong PAC side blocking. Some just tip their hand very early on….

This is easily the most impressive high solar flux since 01-02. If the sunspot number goes over 300, this will be one of the strongest solar maxes on record

Did you bother to read my entire sentence? I’ll repeat it for you again. BEFORE THEY WENT COMPLETELY OFF THE CHARTS

The entire high ACE argument is based on it adding momentum, ridge pumping, as well as latent and sensible heat to the North Atlantic tropopause through recurves, possibly leading to -NAO. Here is my question, and you and I discussed this already….would the years that were high ACE/-NAO have been -NAO even without high ACE? In other words, would the ENSO/solar/geomag/QBO/(AMO in the case of ‘95), etc. have lead to the -NAO even if the ACE had been below normal?

The factors into the 17-18 winter were screaming that it was not going to be a dud….east-based La Niña, low solar and geomag, negative QBO, (favorable for SSWs), neutral PDO, no overpowering IOD, an MJO that wasn’t perpetually stuck in phases 4-6, non volcanic and it was before AGW, low arctic sea ice and the AMO went completely off the charts

The last estimated peak I saw back in May for this solar max was the tail end of this year/early next year. Based on what we are seeing right now, that appears to be a good estimate

Sunspots are coming out even higher than expected, now over 230, this solar max has been unprecedented, continuing to overperform: Also, appears there’s even more to come. We won’t know when the peak occurs until months after it happens, however, it’s pretty obvious that we definitely haven’t reached the peak yet as the solar flux continues to increase:

Like I said I hate to use the we are due argument but the last cold winter was 9 years ago (14-15) compared to 22 years ago for the last drier than normal one lol On another note, @Stormchaserchuck1 holy s**t at that ridge in the Atlantic, showing well over 600dm! Right where that record warm pool is

Just wanted to add that the -PMM supports a weak/muted STJ. This gives your drier winter idea some validity

In a real big turnaround from the +IOD forecasts they had in the spring, the majority of models are now predicting a neutral to slightly negative IOD by October. It’s currently neutral at -0.19. Not unexpected, as +IOD La Niñas are extremely rare. It looks very unlikely that the IOD will play a big role in this upcoming winter @bluewave @40/70 Benchmark @GaWx Link: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Indian-Ocean

The last true dry/drought winter we had on the east coast was 01-02. I hate to use the “we are due” argument, but after over 22 years since the last time, one is inevitable sooner or later……