so_whats_happening

DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA 2.1 2.8 3 4.4 .8 1 -.8 -2.3 -.6

Probably nothing to actually stop it as it is a wind driven current but what could potentially slow it down would be lessening that temperature within the origination spot, GOM. It would need to be mass amounts of heat removal or tons of fresh water input both of which are rather hard to achieve in a timespan to consistently happen. So you get ebbs and flows where some seasons are warmer and some seasons cooler so there is some regulation of overall gulf stream motion but not full stoppage. If we have giant asteroid/ meteor or the earth stops spinning we would much bigger issues to worry about. I do find it interesting though that the gulf stream would take a more southerly route if AMOC shuts off I guess this does make sense though as there would be nothing really to help 'finish' the current around Iceland if there is little to no sinking occurring in this region. Would mean the Atlantic waters south of 50N would warm rather drastically over years. Interestingly enough there doesn't seem to be much of a Labrador current or a Canary current over the last few years. Maybe we start to see a more pronounced current in these regions again instead of this highly weakened state?

This has been a topic of discussion between me and another colleague. Tropical activity is the balancer to bring heat and moisture to high latitudes but with that temp increase in the northern oceans it is not nearly as imbalanced. He mentioned one thing that has increased dramatically over the last decade or so are heavy rain events. So in other words the Earth seems to be trying to rebalance itself in a different way than what it used to through tropical activity due to this gradient not being nearly as prolific. How it plays out going forward is really anyone's guess. It probably still does lead to stronger storms when they do form cause of the amount of fuel but overall less tropical activity may be the way to go or we see one basin just go bonkers while the others stay silent instead of spreading out the activity over the basins. There is no reason the WPAC should have had nearly half the typical amount of tropical activity in an El Nino year. The southern hemisphere has been on a decline for quite some time with overall tropical activity as well. There should not have been as active of a year in the EPAC at the tail end of a triple dip La Nina. Something just seems off right now with how it 'should be'. That is not to say this year won't have an above average hurricane season in the Atlantic though. While it is not all too uncommon we did have quite a few storms more than we typically would see in an El Nino year in the Atlantic, even with them following a similar path to a typical El Nino year (north and OTS). The Atlantic is right back up to levels we saw last year when it was extremely warm and for it to be at this time of year is a little worrisome to see as temps should only go up from here on. It looks like a decent tri-pole setup as well, so it should be rather interesting to see what comes of this.

We are nearing the typical final warming and destruction of the SPV so that makes sense. If I remember correctly it takes place around mid march to mid April some years earlier some later. Although im not sure this bout toward mid march will do all too much later on we should see a brief cooling take place the first week of March from the current weakening. Maybe we can pull out a last minute surprise?? but im banking on most for about 40N southward being virtually done with winter besides a cold shot.

Increase in WPAC tropical activity would definitely help in taking out that persistent warmth around Japan, unfortunately it probably means a record year or strong typhoon after strong typhoon to really churn up those waters.

I would love to see shipping lanes overlayed on SST anomaly maps in both the Atlantic and Pacific to see if that reduction in sulfur really is playing a large role in these regions. Also bathymetry is tough subject but I am curious if there is indeed something in the subsurface in these regions helping to enhance the oceanic heatwaves more than just stuck patterns.

It is no wonder with a look like this

I haven't looked much into this yet but will be interesting to see what happens. I do find it weird we haven't had much in the way of neutral years, 2019-20 being a failed Nino allowed us to have a warm neutral year. Im one for rooting for a neutral year in between these Nina/Nino episodes especially going from a triple year La Nina to strong/super Nino the last time this sort of remotely happened was in the 70s so it is not unheard of just rare to see. A tell tale sign for sure will be how this spring into summer transition will we get more plains severe weather outbreaks? will we get a warm SE coming up in early spring? will the hurricane season be above normal with activity actually reaching the US? I would assume the gulf and Caribbean will be much more active/conducive this year for landfall potential.

Harrisburg is all snow. York should be close to if not all snow. Lancaster needs just a bit until the heavier precip gets in but should go all snow.

R/S line really pushing south now as the heavier precip moves in. This was about a half hour ago too

Wow I was certainly expecting it to hold steady but that is much weaker.

By far the best forecast hands down.

DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA +1.4 +1.5 +1.8 +5 -.5 -1 +1.9 -1.3 +2 Going to a go a little more extreme than I typically do in a few locations and see how it fairs.

What I do find interesting here and this was just a quick look but something seems off. The OISST charts from cyclonic wx don't quite match up with the weekly numbers shown from this site. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for It is very possible I have it labeled wrong but I'm pretty certain that this is the site for OISST weekly values. You can see from the graph which was much higher than weekly readouts would suggest. (3rd column is 3.4) From cyclonicwx it should be around 2.1 as a weekly value for the time period ending on January 3rd. Is it possible the graphs are reading it a bit too high compared to what the data prints out? Anyway just wanted to throw it out there if we take the 4 weeks thus far (ill even include the end of December (January 3rd number) because well it was warm before and no drastic changes occurred during that time. Also an estimate on the last week ending on the 31st of about 1.7. 1.9+1.9+1.7+1.7+1.7=8.9/5= 1.78 (rough estimate for the monthly value) and assuming the relationship still holds true between the two should get us to 1.983333 (2.02+2.07+~1.86) for NDJ so rounding would take it to officially a 2 per the graph we use. Again all very rough estimates but I am curious what you think the reasoning is for the lower value on the weekly versus the chart. If that is the case the last week comes in colder than I thought even with the quick spike.

It looks like we should see a leveling off in region 3 coming up toward the end of the month and maybe even a rise again in 1+2 as the last little bit of warmth moves east. Subsurface cooling quite drastically this month really hope we don't push right back into Nina conditions by summer, hopefully can get a neutral year to show up.

We may set the record here unless we have some large negative values coming up, maybe the last day of the month can offer a large negative spike?

Not really but it also wouldnt be at that it would be flirting with 1.94-1.96 range and rounding would take it there. There actually isnt an official source that desiginates these thresholds like there is for EP and CP events, just folks trying to classify it against other ENSO events. Pretty sure CPC and BOM only mention weak, moderate, strong events which each threshold seems to be .5-1, 1-1.5, 1.5+ respectively. This has not acted like your canonical super enso event ( honestly i even question if there is a typical super nino event as we only have like 3-4 to go off of), strong may not even represent it properly. All ill say is it is nice to be above average on precip again. Sitting at about 9-10" of snow on the year so we are doing wildly better than the last 2 winters with still a month left. Just really hope we dont go into mid march with this but...

There were a few days mixed in there with some buoy issues but yo get the idea.

already looking like it is along the PA/MD border. Just north of DC to just south of Harrisburg keep an eye out for the next couple hours.

We will probably verify a little lower but yea kinda surprised myself it managed to get this high great snow growth with temps aloft near perfect.

It looks like ratios are sitting between 15 and 20:1 right now.

Lol second shift this week dealing with this, not what I wanna be doing right now. Can kinda see where the northern extent is setting up already. Should manage 2-4" still up that way thinking 3-5" back at home in Lanc.

Down here at BWI until my shift ends have about 1.5" so far back and forth between moderate to heavy snow.

OISST dip in 3.4 to about 1.68 area is the first time since just before Halloween. With Trades supposed to be rather strong for the next week and half I would expect these number to continue to fall to about 1.5 ish area before we do some leveling out at the end of the month. Region 3 also starting to take a hit as this has held rather well thus far. If we do indeed fall that low into 3.4 for the last 2 weeks of the month we probably end up again at about 1.9 ONI for NDJ. SOI should start to relax a bit coming up here and may even go negative briefly but if somehow the January mean ends up positive I'd have to look but I don't think that has happened, especially with where the Nino is standing. This -PDO pattern means business.

SOI going a little crazy right now both regions 3.4 and 4 are taking a tumble as well. Latest OISST Daily at 1.8 for 3.4 and 1.27 in 4 from about 1.6C area just two days ago. From looking at TAO the area from 140W to about 170E in the subsurface has cooled down a bit over the last week. It looks like we may have some more buoy data issues with TAO coming up giving it a funky look. Weekly OISST numbers for Jan 3rd and the 10th both sitting at 1.9 so we need those to stay around those levels for another weekly if that 1.91 ERSST as GaWx pointed out to get super ONI status.