raindancewx

It snowed a lot in Mexico in the 1960s...and the best objective match to Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, and Nino 4 SSTs in November was a blend of 1966 (x3) & 2007 (x2). So I'm on board with Mexico getting some real, accumulating snow this week.

King NAM and the latest GFS each have some snow in West TX and SE NM. Hoping it trends North.

Didn't really "design" my analogs for November, but the years I picked for winter (in Oct) did pretty well for the month. Anomalies will be closer once the maps become available only for high temperature departures, which is all I care about, lows are just about always way warmer than older years now.

Canadian model has trended somewhat colder (to only a bit above average) and much wetter for this area of the US, as the Jamstec did last month, and as I forecast(!).

If the MJO really does get to phase five at coherent magnitude, I have little doubt we have at least some kind of cold spell. 18z GFS and most recent Euro were back to some kind of precipitation event for NM, but still not looking great overall.

If the Modoki value stays around 0 we'll probably stay fairly dry and warm here - if Nino 1.2 warms before Nino 3.4, we could get wet quick. If Nino 3.4 warms before Nino 1.2, would think we cool, but stay dry. I had the Modoki value at -0.2 for winter, that doesn't look great right now with Nino 1.2 so cold, but would shift the cold East into the Midwest from where I had it by NV/UT/ID.

http://weather2020.com/2017/11/27/the-2017-2018-winter-forecast/

I like some of the ideas Gary has for long-range stuff, but to me he gives too much power to Oct-Nov. If Oct-Nov just repeated over and over again without much more than a shift north/south, we'd get no rain where I live for a year? That doesn't happen (we had 0.04" in Oct-Nov, lowest 12-month total is maybe 3.3"?). If you included Sept 26-30, when we had 2.2", then we'd look wet, since we had 2.2", but he doesn't. To me the patterns reset in July when the Southern Hemisphere is in winter, that is when the changes in Nino 1.2, south of the equator, start to bleed into our hemisphere to set up the pattern.

I think the MJO activity this winter is going to be on/off this winter but at short intervals, so at some point (maybe Dec 5 as the models hint) Dec 5 is in the pattern for winter via the late Sept set up.

GFS - 8 day snowfall on the left. Euro precipitation on the right (as snow) through 10 days. Both have 4-6" for even ABQ in the fantasy range.

I've never looked into this, but does TX tend to have dry winters after big hurricane years? Certainly seems like it in some of the analogs I liked.

My analogs for winter v. November 2017 so far -

Correct pattern, not great on anomalies.

My winter analogs, applied to November, produced a near perfect match of temperature anomalies for the last week. Don't think the month will end up being quite this close unfortunately. South started too warm, NW started too cool. Sometimes I think I should put in some kind of timing variable for analogs, but not sure how.

Been doing research trying to predict the PDO. Seems like the March-August PDO values (Mantua) are either "eaten away" or "reinforced" by whatever the temperature anomaly is in Nino 1.2 during October. In other words, if its a positive PDO in March-August, but Nino 1.2 is cold in October it will trend to lower values in winter. If it is a positive PDO March-August, and a warm Nino 1.2 in October, it stays positive or becomes even more positive and so on.

Well anyway, we had a positive PDO in March-August 2017 (+0.62), but a cold Nino 1.2 in October - and so the general idea on my end was that Nov-Apr would trend down from Mar-Aug levels. October PDO value just came in --> +0.05 --> lowest value since December 2013.

Depending on the data-set you use, the blend of Mar-Aug 2017 and Nino 1.2 implies +0.1 for the PDO in Nov-Apr, +/- 0.4, at around 90% certainty going by 1994-2016 (excluding 1997, since Nino 1.2 has never been that nearly warm since 1930)

The JAMSTEC has switched to a slightly cold winter for much of the SE / SC US. Kind of went from what I expect (cold interior West) to a blend of what cerakoter had and what I had. Very different from what it forecast last November.

It won't be of much use for this winter, but I've been working on a "Modoki" calculator for winters - will be useful if we go into an El Nino. Works fairly well using Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, Nino 4 SSTs (raw) in October, with a recognition that each Box, Box A, B, C, must be calculated separately for the Modoki number to work correctly. The weak La Ninas and weak El Ninos seem to have their cold directly controlled by the structure of the Modoki signature, and with Box C warming quickly over time relative to the other boxes, certain types of events are becoming more likely.

My winter analogs weren't really "designed" for November, but they had everyone east of a line from Biloxi to Billings cold, and everyone west of that line warm. So far the cold has been more centered over Montana, but it does look like it will drain East for a while now.

On 10/31/2017 at 0:07 PM, Cerakoter1984 said:

Gonna throw this map up. I'm still leaning pretty hard towards this.

I'm somewhat familiar with ONI/PDO/AMO/Solar values for years before 1950, but I generally forbid myself from using anything before 1931 because there is no snow data for where I live, so its kind of pointless to look at for me. But I did want to ask you...what do you like about 1917-18?

The thing about this winter is I think there are three components to the pattern:

1) Cold interior West, very warm elsewhere, wet NW, near avg moisture SW (Sept-Oct)

2) Warm SW/SE, Cold Midwest, Mild NW/NE, Wet South (June) 

3) Mild/Dry SW, Very Hot NW, Coldl/Dry (MW/NE), Mild/Wet (SE)

Congrats Texans on winning the World Series - we gave you Giles & Bregman from ABQ - so pleased to see them get their rings.

One of the things I've always struggled with is trying to figure out the moisture signal in the SW in the cold season, since it is so dependent on the PDO. PDO+ seems to largely cancel out La Nina effects here except in November, April & May. But it looks like the PDO can be predicted by matching the Nino 1.2 reading in October before Nov-Apr, and also the PDO value for March-August before the Nov-Apr. There are never a whole lot of blends that allow an acceptable close blend on those two factors, but when blended correctly, you predict Nov-Apr surprisingly well, at least for the 10 years I have tested so far.

Long and the short of it is that Nino 1.2 was frigid in October, which should keep the PDO somewhat negative, but it was still positive in Mar-Aug, which favors for somewhat positive. So I don't think this La Nina forces the PDO super negative just yet. Going by the Nino 1.2 weeklies, Nino 1.2 was -1.4C in October, v. +0.3C last October.

(the blurred out years for 2009 are 1967, 1991, 1991, 1991) Oh and I left out 2011, which is a blend of 1952, 1971, and 1999.

Any of you use Weather Trends 360? Don't subscribe, but they linked this on Twitter yesterday - thought it might make some of you happy.

Puerto Rico isn't directly hit by hurricanes super often - but the years it has been smacked around by big time hurricanes produce a pretty good match to October for a one variable match. Hot lakes, cold ID.

I don't think this is a terrible winter for cold in TX or the SW. Might be for moisture...but it should be much colder than last year. The cold in October is displaced much deeper into the West than last October, which is what my analogs had for the winter. So its not going to be cold...we're just closer to the cold sourcing, so the cold shots will be more frequent and stronger.

I think is kind of a nuts winter personally, even though on aggregate it will probably come out relatively close to average in a lot of places. Part of me thinks TX could see some kind of fluke storm in late winter, like a blend of a Blue Norther with subtropical jet moisture.

October here is directly correlated to December in La Nina, so if we end up 3-4F colder, that alone favors more cold in the SW in Dec.

2016:   75.9F (+4.6F) -->49.7F

2017: ~72.5F (+1.2F) --> ??

I put this in the MO thread, but some of the analog years I like had good snows pretty deep into the South.

I dunno if the "snow" anomalies I'm linking include sleet/freezing rain, etc, but this forum region did pretty well in terms of snow anomalies in a lot of the winters I like. If SSTs mean anything, its a good sign, since the blend is very close to current conditions.

Sanity check for analogs in Oct of analog year v. Oct 22 2017:

I don't have much faith in the CFS this early, but it continues to insist on a dry NW for the winter...AND a La Nina.

36 minutes ago, radarman said:

nice job, and GL

As an aside, hiked Mt. Wheeler on 10/1... snow began to appear around 11.4k', ramped up sharply above about 12.2k'.  Stray post holes might swallow up your whole leg in places... And the wind was out of control near the peak as the late Sept trough finally ejected..  Beautiful, incredible place. 

Even in populated areas of New Mexico it can occasionally snow in June & September. Snow is favored precip time above 7,000 feet or so from October to May. Nice pics. Was hoping for some snow in the city this October, but not looking likely. It only happens once a decade though. Suspect my forecast will do OK, with some issues, something always comes up. Last year it was pretty good for January nationally, less so Dec/Feb. As far as I know New Mexico doesn't have any glaciers, the permanent snow/ice line here would be like 15,000 feet above sea level, but obviously the big time mountains get close - I think July is really the issue - even at 13,000 feet its rarely cold enough to snow here in July.

"Beautiful Incredible Place" is how I'd describe most of New Mexico really. If you're back by June you will be able to see the white stuff on the higher peaks. Mountains will keep getting snow into mid to late May most years. Even in the city we had an inch of snow in some areas on April 29th this year. The volcanoes (5800 feet) outside the city were the lushest I had ever seen them a few days after it melted, covered in beautiful green grasses, flowers, mud, and wildlife.