raindancewx

March 2001, 2012, 2017 v. 2023 month to date. It's not perfect, but I've not found any single developing El Nino or blend of El Ninos closer than those three. You can get cute with 1997/2012 or 1972/2012 as a blend or something but the oceans are so different everywhere. The gigantic cold pool in the southern hemisphere is likely from the very low sea ice down there melting off as a very cold body of water, with maybe some influence from Tonga too. The Indian Ocean (cold), Atlantic (warm by US), N Pacific (-PDO) are conceptually right though, the ENSO also conceptually right. Naturally, the US temp profile is completely horrible as a match - so I'm not suggesting these are good analogs. But the oceans are similar. It's mostly that the MJO is horribly off timing wise I think.

If you look at average snowfall annually/snowfall frequency in North America and plot it against average temperature annually, most of the continent sees sporadic snow up to climates with average temperatures of about ~60-65 degrees. El Paso, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chihuahua, and Norfolk are all examples of places with that level of warmth that see snow in 1/4 to 3/4 of all years still. The rate of warming since the Dustbowl, even if it were to double, implies Boston has 200-300 years before reaching the El Paso / Atlanta / Charlotte / Chihuahua / Norfolk range of 2-10 inch annual snow totals. You'll not live to a see a 10, 20, 30 year period where Boston gets no snow in under 80-90% of the years. That said, you're not too far from the next level, 55-60 degrees, which includes Philadelphia, Albuquerque, St. Louis, Amarillo, etc. The 55-60 annual temperature zone tends to see median snowfall in the 5-20 inch range, with infrequent total dud years and infrequent heavy snow years. That's what I'd expect Boston to look like in 100 years, a slightly snowier version of 1991-2020 Philadelphia averages, which means some near 0 duds (1997-98, 2019-20, 2022-23 for Philadelphia), some great years (2014-15, 2013-14, 2009-10), but rarely outside a 10-30 inch range for snowfall. Locally, we're essentially split into thirds long-term - the dud years are 3 inches or less, the near median years are around 3-13 inches, and the good years are 13+. The difference is, Boston will always have far less sunlight in winter than a place like Philadelphia or Albuquerque in winter, so even if your high low split is 45/25 on January 18, 2125, you'd still have more hours near the 25 than St. Louis would with an identical high/low split. For reference, Albuquerque has an average annual temperature of 58F, Philadelphia is 56F using the current 30 year averages. St. Louis is about 57F, and averages 17 inches of snow. Amarillo is about 59F annually, and averages 18 inches of snow. My guess is Boston will have an average temperature of 55-56 degrees for the 30 years centered on 2120 (up from 52 or 53 from the 30 year period centered on 2020).

Here is the great "El Nino" of 2012 v. current SSTs. Similar features include: -PDO, very warm by Peru. - Very warm western Atlantic - Cold Indian Ocean, warm by Australia. Summer 2012 I don't expect to warm up a ton and cool off a ton immediately after. But hopefully this shows why I'm still skeptical. By the way, 2012 is a very hot Summer, very active for hurricanes, despite how warm the ENSO zones are.

As I went to bed last night, with all my lights off, I was trying to figure out why my rug was pink and glowing. Sure enough, the aurora borealis made it this far south. Pretty neat. Light went through the skylight window. Another sign of high solar activity. Fairly similar to the major solar storm of March 1989, although in that event, the northern lights were visible down to Honduras. From around the USA. Not like we need the extra beauty here anyway -

I normalize all Nino 3.4 temperatures winter to a 26.5C base. On that baseline, the largest y/y warm up is ~2.7C for winter. 2022-23 was a 25.93C La Nina in winter - not impressive at all. So 25.9C + 2.7C = 28.6C (+2.1C). CPC would call it +1.9C or something since they are using a warmer DJF base than I am. Biggest y/y gains in winter (at least a 2.0C gain): 1971-72 --> 1972-73 1975-76 --> 1976-77 1981-82 --> 1982-83 1996-97 --> 1997-98 2008-09 --> 2009-10 2014-15 --> 2015-16 Once in a great while, you do get a huge warm up without an El Nino: 1988-89 to 1989-90 is nearly +2.0C as well. But since 1950, even a 2C y/y warm up is rare. Six times in 75 years, but with some clustering evident. I'd throw out 2015-16 for following an El Nino, and also 1976-77 and 2009-10 for occurring at the solar minimum and after very different winters (both 2008-09 and 1975-86 were dry in California). I suspect 1972-73 is actually one of the better matches, as it's a pretty healthy event but after a weak La Nina that was cold in the West. But of course the volcanic aspect of 2023-24 will need to be blended in. Have to see what Spring/Summer/Fall temps and precip do nationally. I'm also still a bit wary this is some kind of 2012 head fake, where it Spring-Fall warmed to near El Nino conditions and then collapsed back to cold-neutral in winter. You had huge MJO movement in Feb-Mar 2012 too, at about one month off the timing to 2023.

The mountains locally are dressed in their finest with the subtropical jet waking up very quickly. We have the strongest correlations to ENSO in the whole US here. So the cloudiness and late cold are a good sign. All the trees and local vegetation are still dead - something I've not seen this late in the season locally. SOI has flipped negative month to date as well. Suspect this will be the coldest March for us in 20 years or so too. Conceptually, our coldest winters are major La Nina that turn to major El Nino with low solar. We don't have that. But our wettest winters are a big Nino 3.4 warming y/y with high solar - which we could have. Actually, truth to be told, years like 1939-40, 1963-64, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1997-98 are all pretty good. March 22-April 5 1973 is legendary here - 23 inches of snow in Albuquerque. Kept snowing into late April too. 1963, 1982, 1991 arguably 1992 in some ways, are the recent "Volcanic El Nino" years. Unfortunately, most years that become El Ninos don't look like this March.

This article references a paper stating that although Tonga added record amounts of water vapor to sky globally, it also had the biggest aerosol eruption globally since Pinatubo in 1991. https://t.co/kMtmm098aC This past winter you had 10-15% extra water in the sky. That enhanced rainfall/moisture saturation in any given column of air. But you also had unusual cold pockets from dimmed solar radiance. If you look around the US, most places, even very warm spots in winter, had at least one record cold snap (like Boston at -10). I'd expect the weirdness with the cold pockets to continue cycling through in light of the aerosol effect. But I don't think it will ever tie in timing wise with the extra water effect. As far as ENSO goes, the events tend to move like a conveyor belt. Whatever is happening at the surface probably won't persist unless it has mirrored support "up-current". Western Subsurface +3 months = Eastern Subsurface trend. Eastern Subsurface trend +3 months = Eastern surface trend. Eastern surface trend +3 months = Western surface trend. Conceptually, October-November 2023 should once again see extraordinarily powerful storms moving across the US, as volcanic periods tend to. But the Fall should be pretty different from last year. There are a handful of volcanic falls with extraordinarily expansive snow-cover in North America, with much tamer winters that follow. Could see something like that. My instinct is next year will still be a wet/cold winter for CA, but the entire Southern US is cold, rather than the Western US. I don't think we're done with atmospheric rivers until the excess moisture is drained from the sky to at least some degree. Arid climates are designed to handle this type of imbalance I think.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-risk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/ Volcanoes are a big deal. The good news is we'll likely pass that stupid 1.5C threshold of warming everyone worries about. So we can see much sooner than expected what will happen.

March has largely done what I've been expecting since October nationally. Record heat, record cold, record rain/snow/flooding in various parts of the US at times this month. There will be more storms for California and one more Nor'easter before we quiet down fully. Locally, we may see the wettest March in over a decade too. West is theoretically in excellent shape, with drought destroyed during La Nina, and an El Nino incoming.

As much as I hate La Ninas, if we're going to have these big Modoki events most of the time, I'm pretty OK with them. The trend locally is for more snow in Fall/Spring than a normal La Nina in the Modoki events, particularly in Oct-Nov, and late Feb to late Mar. I'll never understand why people were expecting the event that just ended to be a basin-wide or east-based La Nina. Been impressive seeing the cool down in the Indian Ocean this winter. A lot of winters in the 60s had that feature, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Eastern Atlantic didn't really do what I expected, but kind of irrelevant since the cold showed up consistently in the West via its partner in crime over NE Asia. I believe this is most +WPO winter on record using the index, but I'd have to check. I know it went super positive in February, which is when the pattern started to get real crazy for California, and it's a very strong warm signal in the East. -WPO is basically mirror image of the winter. https://www.worldclimateservice.com/2021/10/04/western-pacific-oscillation/#:~:text=The Western Pacific Oscillation is a pressure dipole that exists,than a week or two.

La Nina / La Nina-ish winters that are cold West and then go immediately to an El Nino the next winter are pretty rare. Not convinced we get an El Nino just yet, but it's probably the plurality outcome at this point. Clear cut examples are 1938-39, and 1971-72 since 1930. Debatable to include 1996-97, 2001-02, and then 1968-69, 2014-15, 1951-52, 1957-58 as anti-logs. Something like this? This is actually a pretty harsh winter for most of the US even though it only looks cold in Oklahoma. December and January are pretty cold in the East, it's just offset by blazing heat in February-March. As these are east-based El Ninos that turn into Modokis late, you get the cold early in the East (as it will be trending colder by Peru like in a strengthening La Nina), and then everybody flips warm by March when the El Nino collapses cold.

In a global sense, using 1940-now ERA data from the Europeans, the cold West / hot East really stands out. I definitely had the right idea with a harsh Western winter. California is about to get nuked with snow again too. It's always interesting to look globally and see the "correlation points" in Asia - typically if the Indian subcontinent south/east of the Himalayas is hot, so is the Eastern US, and if Central Asia up to Kamchatka/NE Asia is cold, so is the Western US.

I had mentioned the NE not doing well for snow either in the urban corridor. Also, had the NW dry in my outlook. I'm fairly happy with the results - I tried to incorporate the volcano into the forecast.

Eh close enough

Heading into this winter, my research indicated that volcanic winters tend to precede extremely harsh weather in the West during seasonal transitions. That's largely played out quite well this season, with October and the current period seeing extraordinarily powerful systems in the West. There is some tendency in the second volcanic winter for craziness as well, but at different times and locations. The winter of 1932-33 was extremely harsh in the West following Cerro Azul (VEI 5) in April 1932, and also Volcan Fuego in Guatemala in 1932 (VEI 4). Fuego also erupted in Fall 1974 (VEI 4) ahead of a harsh winter in the West, and again in 2018. I used 1984 as well, in light of the volcanic idea. March 1993, 2019, and some of the other Marches with extraordinary low pressure readings are in the mix both this year and next year - hold on to your butts.

If I did my winter forecast correctly, you guys may actually have as many as three of these in March before you flip very warm again. Obviously, I have no idea if they'll all be snow. Good luck.

My gut says no El Nino or La Nina next winter. I'd like to be wrong though. In recent La Nina to El Nino transitions, the SOI has gone pretty negative in February or March. Not gonna happen this February. My winter outlook called for a very active March, with very powerful storms entering the West as the catalyst. We seem to be trending that way. Check out this bullshit in ABQ today -

I'll verify my snow forecast nationally once March is over. Most areas will be done with snow by the end of March. March should be a wild month. I don't really expect it to be particularly cold overall. But I'm expecting 2-3 blizzards, and 2-3 pretty major tornado outbreaks. A lot of cold dry air will still be present in the northern and western US entering the month, but the east will be muggy/hot. Expecting some very powerful storms to run along those gradients.

I didn't have the monthly progression right. The severely warm/cold periods I had forecast in Nov-Feb, have shown up, but at the wrong times. But the seasonal look is going to be close. Keep in mind, it's been cold in the West in Feb, and that will continue through the 28th. Once February has the weighting of 1/3 of winter instead of 1/6 you'll see the relatively cold area expand. The conversions from K to F on the second map work out to a -7F to +7F range in increments of 2F as the conversion from K to F is 9/5 x the K value. If I had excluded the two hurricane/SST and the timing antilogs (2004, 1995, 1962) the cold and heat in the West/East would have been dulled. So that process was kind of a wash - it correctly added much more warmth to the East but also likely too much cold to the West. Locally, in the context of the past 30 years, this is like a -1F to -2F cold winter, longer term, more like average to -1. The wetness I mentioned relative to last year has also verified - this has been a very wet winter nationally. We've already reached average winter precip totals with 1/6 of winter left, and likely 1-3 rain or snow events left by month end.

I'll just leave this here.

Anti-2005 (one of my three winter analogs) is still holding up: Look at the Nino zones, Indian Ocean, SE Atlantic, etc.

Impressive how much colder the Indian Ocean has been year/year with this La Nina. The volcano likely helped destroy the warmth east of Australia too. My idea from October was a wetter than average / colder than average winter in the Southwest. That's pretty likely to verify in at least some spots despite the La Nina. The localized +5F winter for New England may also verify.

I say it every year, but low ACE is correlated to low snow totals in the NE US. Here is a look at the latest first snowfall dates in Philadelphia, limited to after Christmas only, since 1960: 1965-66, (27.4 total) 1974-75, (13.6) 1990-91, (14.6) 1991-92, (4.7) 1992-93, (24.3) 1994-95, (9.8) 1996-97, (12.9) 1997-98, (0.8) 1999-00, (12.5) 2001-02, (4.0) 2006-07, (13.4) 2015-16, (27.5) 2021-22, (12.9) Average for no snow through 12/25: 13.7", range: 0.8" to 27.5". La Nina average for no snow through 12/25 is about the same.

Here is how the -NAO worked out for H1 December v. long-term correlations. It's not particularly dominant when other factors get involved. Anyway, I've been impressed with 1984 as a match for the cold season so far. You may want to look at what happens later in 1984-85 on the off chance that it continues to hold as a good match for a while. I'm fairly sure I mentioned 1983 was a similar match on my NAO scoring system, and that year had about a 2-week -NAO period in late Nov or early Dec if memory serves, before reverting to slightly positive for most of December. It's been similar in that sense.