raindancewx

Oh and for what it's worth...the blend of the closest years already seems to have some skill, assuming we stay in La Nina for winter. 1st 90F Sunspots July-June Average ACE for Atlantic Hurricane Season 1954 9 19.2 104.4 1974 9 34.6 68.4 2000 10 (x2) 163.4 119.1 Blend 5/9 or 5/10 95.15 102.75 2022 5/7 100(est) 115(est) I've mentioned that there is a signal for a wet Oct-Dec in the West before a dry winter - October is very wet in the West in this particular blend. Actually a pretty severe Oct-Dec in the Southwest, with lots of cold and moisture. My inputs are not likely to be completely correct for solar/ace, so I'm sure I'll change the blending. I doubt it will be nearly as cold nationally in November-December. Almost all years (11/12) are cold or average winters for the SW with the very early heat though, so I am relatively confident in that aspect of it. It's sort of a super +WPO look outside December/March. So we'd likely have a lot of western storminess in brief windows that would correspond to major eastern "heat waves" to offset strong cold shots. You'd probably see one to two major Nor'easters when the Northern Hemisphere upper level patterns get screwed up by the WPO flipping phases and pushing everything out of the way downstream. Low Ace is also negatively correlated to high-snowfall totals in the Northeast in La Ninas - so I get 70-90% of average snows for Boston, NYC, Philly, falling to 40-80% by DC and Virginia, with that 1954-55, 1974-75, 2000-01 (x2) blend, despite the cold early. The main issue with the cold December in this blend is how much warmer the IOD zone, and that's the December killer for the East since it creates pseudo MJO phase five conditions. Suspect the AMO/PDO looks are wrong too, but haven't checked.

Locally, La Nina winter highs tend to mimic a blend of heat timing (first 90F high), ACE in the Atlantic, and solar activity. Right now, ACE is low, with no imminent spike in activity. Solar is high. Heat came early May. These are the early heat La Nina winters - i.e. hit 90F before May 15th. You can see solar activity is similar to where we should end up for the July-June annualized number - around 80-120 if I had to guess. ACE is currently well below average, but could change. Last year was a warm winter, with no 90 degree heat until day 36 (June 5th) - quite late historically. The trend line for the heat-timing formula implied 52.0F for last winter, it was 51.4F - damn close for a reading I can pull 6 months ahead of winter. Hit 90 on May 7th this year, like in 2020. ACE index was 145.7 last year and implied a high of 51.07F - actual was 51.4F. Last year had four tropical storms and a July hurricane by this point, so we are tracking well below last year. ACE was 12.8 on 7/24. https://web.archive.org/web/20210724155022/http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/

July has been impressively different from last year so far. Good sign for December here. July & December have decent long-term correlations in some parts of the US. Coldest where it was hottest last year for July & December, and vice versa. Core heat / cold a battle between TX & Montana in both months. The coolness West month to date / intense heat Plains (especially in the past week) is vaguely reminiscent of a major +WPO look in Fall or late-winter/Spring. Last year, we had a -WPO winter for the first time in a while. I suspect we're getting a hint right about now. Dirty little secret for you global warming obsessives - these big Summer heat waves are way more common on the Western portions of the continents at high latitudes because of their proximity to deserts and cold ocean currents. An easy way to analog for the winter is just to look up major heat waves in Western Europe and Western Northern America by timing and then roll them forward.

One reason I'm expecting a fairly rapid weakening in any cold event this winter is the forecast change in the Indian Ocean Dipole. The Aussies have it quite intensely negative in Fall, before a rapid reversion toward normal conditions. Some of the years I like for winter do have the -IOD. In some ways, 2016-17 is actually emerging as a good match, even though it has some obvious dissimilarities too. If the hurricane season were to remain quiet by ACE in the Atlantic, that'd be a big hint. There just aren't many years recently with Cold ENSO / Low ACE. It's like, 2013, 2007, 2000, 1988 in my lifetime. Tentatively looking at 1996, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2020 among recent years for winter. It is not super uncommon for Texas to get nuked with severely cold February cold snaps two years in a row. It is basically unheard of three times in a row though. Just from that, the winter should evolve pretty differently than recently.

The Jamstec is on board with my earlier idea. Near La Nina or La Nina in winter, fades rapidly to El Nino by late Wnter or early Spring.

Always fun to see the local landscape look like the Scottish highlands after a good bout of rain. I call it the Don Sutherland curse. Every time he writes about it being four degrees above normal we get 400% of normal rain, and then he mysteriously disappears.

I've been looking at a lot of the La Ninas with "cold" look Atlantic setups recently. I don't remember any of the recent La Ninas with the Atlantic this cold well into the hurricane season. Tropical Tidbits has a lot of pretty shitty hurricane seasons, in terms of activity, as current top SST matches globally - 1970 (40 ACE), 1971 (97), 1975 (76), 2011 (126), 2013 (36). Impressive how much colder the Atlantic was compared to the most recent 10 La Ninas given 0.1-0.3C warming since 2000. Of course a lot of research shows that the "Indonesia warm pool" and the Indian Ocean are generally warming faster than the other oceans. So the most warmth is in that MJO phase five zone you all love so much each December.

Subsurface matches for Apr-June were 1979, 1985, 1996, 2000, 2013 1979: -0.21 / +0.06 / +0.35 1985: -0.24 / +0.09 / -0.02 1996: +0.01 / -0.16 / +0.17 2000: -0.31 / -0.18 / +0.08 2013: -0.06 / -0.14 / +0.26 2022: -0.34 / -0.10 / +0.33 1979/2000 blend is pretty close: -0.26/-0.12/+0.22 2022: -0.34/-0.10/+0.33 In winter, that would be Neutral by Peru, slightly cold by Nino 4. I consider 1985-86 and 1996-97 cold-neutral, rather than La Nina. Both died pretty early and went hard to El Nino status. 1985-86 stayed warm below the surface from Nov-Mar and cold above it. 1996-97 was warm from January on.

I don't have a problem with breaking La Nina conditions short term, that's already been observed. But the cycle since 2020 has been for gigantic brief warm ups below the surface and then long-duration, slow cool downs. We'll likely see the warm up continue for at least a little while, and then flip again. The real trend for the winter seems to show up in July. The correlations between the subsurface and the following winter are basically useless before July from my testing. Cyclically, many of the objective best two-year matches to each month of precipitation from July 2020 to June 2022 locally by summed absolute value are in that group of similar Nino 3.4 Mays I listed. New Mexico is the most statistically sensitive part of the US to changes in ENSO, so that's a good sign to me. A stupid thing I look it is just the parameters of change. How many Dec-Feb in Nino 3.4 are warmer than the preceding May since 1950? It ain't many guys - it's eight years from 1950 to 2021. May was 26.78C in 2022, and winter El Nino conditions start at 27.0C historically (warmer if you use the warmed up baseline CPC likes for 1991-2020). 1968, 1972, 1982, 1986, 1991, 1997, 2009, 2015. Almost of those are pretty strong El Ninos. Largest ever warm up from May to the following Dec-Feb? It was 0.40C in 1982. Sorry - I'd love an El Nino, but it's not super likely to me. We've had brief surface warming in all of these recent events that fizzled. So...in 72 years, matching, or even doubling the largest ever Nino 3.4 May to Dec-Feb warming would only get you to weak El Nino conditions. (26.78C+0.4 to 26.78+0.8 is 27.18C-27.58C.) (27.0C is +0.5C in Nino 3.4)

For some context, here is Nino 3.4 in May 2022: 26.78C. What happened after similar Mays? 1955 25.61 25.81 26.22 26.60 26.66 1964 27.34 27.13 27.02 26.95 26.82 1971 24.81 25.18 25.92 26.63 26.95 1973 28.34 27.95 27.55 27.24 26.96 1974 24.46 25.10 25.84 26.46 26.64 1975 26.09 26.07 26.19 26.86 26.80 1985 25.38 26.03 26.50 26.64 26.90 1988 27.45 27.03 27.38 27.38 26.68 1999 24.86 25.43 26.33 26.70 26.79 2022 25.59 25.85 26.30 26.70 26.78 June 2022 is around 27.0C on the weeklies. 1971, 1973, 1985 looked closest to June 2022. Jan-Jun trends are close to a blend of 1955/1985 in terms of similar warming so far. Worth noting that 1985-86 had mostly positive subsurface anomalies, despite cold surface conditions. Also followed two La Ninas.

With solar above 75 sunspots month-to-date for June, we're officially out of "low solar" conditions for my purposes, with annualized sunspot activity above 55/month once again. The annual average since the SILSO observations began is about 85 sunspots per month. Subsurface has been positive in the 100-180W zone for a little while now. But soon I think it's going to decay negative again for a while. After that, expecting an early peak for La Nina, and then pretty consistent warming through winter to El Nino conditions by Feb/Mar/Apr. Something like this is my current thought. June: +0.1 July: -0.1 Aug: -0.3 Sep: -0.6 Oct: -0.8 Nov: -0.5 Dec: -0.2 Jan: +0.1 Feb: +0.3 Mar: +0.7

We'll likely see the wettest June since 1996 for at least portions of New Mexico. I've been looking at 1996 more as a potential analog lately. Not in love with it, but there just aren't many Junes with widespread 2-3+ rains in New Mexico. It's vanishingly rare, assuming that verifies. The subsurface of the tropical Pacific for May-July in 1996 does look similar to where we are/where we are heading. The 1996 Summer was fairly cold here after the early rains nuked the heat. I've noticed that for the past 90 years, when Albuquerque hits 90F at least once by 5/10, you don't get "warm" winters - and that includes recent years like 2018 and 2020. 1996 was 89 on 5/8 and 93 on 5/13, so close enough. It's like a ~15% outcome for hitting 90 by 5/10, but it's a pretty strong cold signal for winter here, because it implies the heat was enhanced by the correct positioning of the MJO in late Spring for the colder cycles to come through in winter. The pretty severe dryness in the past winter nationally (~80% of the Continental US was ~20%+ drier than average) is likely to snap back the other direction, and that in sense, the transition from 1995-96 like-dryness to 1996-97 like-wetness is in line with my expectations for winter.

Probably time for me to start looking at June 1986 and June 1996 as analogs for later in the year. It's been a long long time since there was a universal agreement for this much rain in June in the Southwest. It's very rare to get this much rain in June, and a lot of the time it does accompany eastern heat waves. I consider 1996 a better match conceptually, it's a "near-La Nina" to me, not an actual one, in part because 1997-98 started to show up in March, and the 1996-97 event collapsed from the East via warming. The cold/wet period in the Northwest, with a heat dome to the east is pretty close to a canonical ideal monsoon look. The wet period in the SW and Eastern heat wave was later in the month in 1996, so the timing is a bit off. Looks like Chicago had some mid-90s the last few days of the month, corresponding to our heavy rains in June 1996. 1996 subsurface Apr/May/Jun: +0.01 / -0.16 / +0.17 and then -0.18 in July 2022 subsurface Apr/May/Jun: -0.34/ -0.10 / +0.02?. Will probably fluctuate pos/neg for a while. Subsurface might end up as a pretty good match for May-Jul to 1996.

It's very early, but compared to last year I'd wager - - Less blocking, even thought it was only transient last year. - Much wetter nationally, with a stronger subtropical jet, especially early and late winter. - I do think where I am is favored for a cool winter believe it or not. It's unlikely we'll match the coldness of the 2021-22 La Nina. Any warm up in the tropical Pacific y/y favors cold in the Southwest. It won't be wet though. There is a window in the years with matching temperature and precipitation data nationally that consistently shows a wet period in the West in Oct-Dec though. If an El Nino somehow developed, I would expect a very wet winter nationally, with no particular severe cold or heat. The dryness last winter was mostly ignored - but it was remarkable. It's one of the stronger correlation to -PDO winters though. Something like 80% of the country was drier than average by at least 20%?

Nate Mantua (JISAO) sent out the May 2022 PDO value. Pretty impressive https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO 2022 PDO Index monthly values: January -1.24 February -1.08 March -1.00 April -1.51 May. -1.92 Subsurface is marginally positive on the latest ENSO weekly data. Solar data has shot randomly up to 150+ sunspots again too for at least a little bit. Bit hard for me to imagine an El Nino at this point with the PDO so negative. -PDO with El Nino is probably the best pattern for the Southwest to be cold and wet, but I don't really expect it. Statistically the magic trio is El Nino following La Nina with a low-solar setup here. Without low solar, El Nino after La Nina is more a wet pattern here than anything. In the meantime, the usual transition is underway in the Southwest. There is almost always a significant run of warmer-than-average temps right before the monsoon starts. My research shows onset follows final snow melt by two weeks. When I went hiking in early June, the highest peaks were just losing their snow - pretty early. But it does mean this is right on time. It's nothing like early June 2019 when the peaks had five+ feet of snow still in early June.

My point is we have direct evidence from population growth that warming places that are already very hot have no impact on moving or home buying / rental decisions. On a relative basis, you'll never ever see the types of "record" heat relative to averages in the Southwest that you can in other places. Any run of the mill +5 to +10 day for highs in July is within spitting distance of all-time record heat for large portions of New Mexico, Arizona, etc. It's nothing like cooler climates where you can feasibly get +20 to +30 or more warmth in the Summer with much greater probability. The difference between normal and near-record heat is barely even noticeable to most people who live in these places.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/articles/2021-08-12/census-phoenix-goodyear-buckeye-among-fastest-growing Phoenix was the fastest-growing big city in the United States between 2010 and 2020 as it added 163,000 more residents, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. ....

Subsurface matches for March-May for 100W-180W are not that strong v. 2022 in most cases. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt 2000 is best. 2007, 2008, 2004 are not bad. My criteria here is similar negative values in March, trending warmer. Year March April May 2000 -0.64 -0.31 -0.18 2004 -0.10 +0.21 +0.30 2007 -0.72 -0.59 -0.58 --------------------------- Blend -0.49 -0.23 -0.15 2022 -0.47 -0.34 -0.13 That's an interesting mix of years for sure - hurricane season was pretty dead in 2007, but the blend is around 140 ACE in the Atlantic, similar to 2000. These matches usually look like temperature patterns in the US when I do them correctly - so far so good. By the way, that blend is the December you all want.

Solar activity is really gaining fast. The July-June year for 2021-22 will finish over 55 sunspots rather easily. July 2021-May 2022 is 56.5 on average. Highest since at least 2015-16, probably since 2014-15. Pretty likely we'll top 55 again in June. July-June years that average under 55 sunspots have interesting precipitation and temperature correlations at different times of the year in different parts of the US. We're losing the solar thumb on the scale now for the more infrequently favored events long-term. High solar El Nino is actually an excellent snow pattern in the East generally. For whatever reason, when I look at it you get fewer mix and rain to snow, or snow to rain events. March always seems particularly responsive to solar locally, but sometimes I wonder if its because the magic correlation spot via the Bering Sea Rule has the strongest response anywhere globally in March. You put enough lows over southern Kamchatka in Feb-Apr and we get blitzed with snow here. If you play around with maps on the correlation site for the entire world, I'd say there are five-six important interactions with ENSO & Solar that change by the point in the solar cycle. WPO in March seems to be one of the more important mixtures.

*winks*

I'm expecting a break to wetness in New Mexico with some signs of a pretty wet month showing up for June. Keep in mind, it hasn't rained in Albuquerque in since 3/30, so it'd be quite a change to get this - There is a strong negative correlation between full high-terrain melt off and when the monsoon begins in earnest for timing. June 2018 was very wet here, with snowpack at Taos Powderhorn (11,000+ feet) fully melted by 5/16. Snow this year should fully melt off Taos Powderhorn on 5/29 or 5/30. Even since 2010, far more common for snow to melt off around 6/10-6/20, and good years can be close to 6/30 at that elevation. The monsoon benefits from high level heat sourcing, so it is beneficial to the process when there is more time for the high terrain to warm up. For comparison, last year had 37 inches of snow in late May. The 2018-2019 snow pack was excellent still in late May - 63 inches (5+ feet) on 5/31/2019, ahead of a very weak monsoon. Not expecting a super hot Summer down here. Also don't think the hurricane season will be too much like the recent ones. Suspect you'll see more focus on Florida than in recent years. Sea ice extent is also currently higher in the Arctic than each year from 2014-2021, 2011, 2010, 2007, 2006, 2005, 1995. That should have some effect on the Atlantic circulation patterns. Still expecting a warm December for the East unless we start to break down that warm pool by Indonesia. Would love to see a flip with super cold waters by Indonesia and the entire Pacific warm at the equator, but don't know if it will ever happen.

For what it's worth - years when Albuquerque hits 90F for the first time by May 10th in the past 90 years. Most of these years (all but 2009 and 2018, which are also cold here) are cold-ENSO. But there is what I can an evaporation constant here, the hottest/driest Summers flip to colder and/or wetter winters. July-Sept is hot. Dec-Feb is not.

Currently like a blend of 1962, 1989, 2018, exaggerated more extreme for the Summer.

Tonga has been confirmed as a VEI 6 eruption, largest of the current century. https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/impact-2022-tonga-eruption/ Cooling in the 20S/175W vicinity was pretty massive for SSTs in month one. If you do 5/10 minus 1/10, the effect is still there. It will be interesting to see what happens as those waters should migrate about. I was going to look to see if winds were predominantly blowing from the NW to SE in the area of the volcano, but not quite sure what level to look at for the Sulfur movement. Ash made it 58 km up into the atmosphere.

My research going into the 2020-21 winter showed that intense early heat waves in the SW US typically precede severe cold waves/months/or even winters down here during La Ninas. I defined intense early heat as hitting 90 or hotter in early May, when average highs locally are still in the mid-70s. We've got several chances at hitting 90 again this week, and a La Nina could easily hold through winter - might even hit 90 again for the first time on the same day as 2020 on 5/7. It's much more typical to hit 90 for the first time in late May. This is for the past 30 La Ninas over the past 90 years or so. I had lows bottom out at 40 ish with rain in September 2020 within 36 hours of hitting 96 degrees, and then snow, with lows at 19 degrees after hitting 76 within 48 hours in October when the MJO phase repeated. Close to 9 inches of snow that October at my place. Severe cold and a lot of snow in February too obviously. March was active too. The 2021-22 winter was 36, 51.4F, very near the trend line, and 2020-21 was 7, 49.6F, also very near the trend line. Actually, the two most recent winters increased the correlation quite a bit. P value is low enough for me to believe it's a pretty robust relationship locally. I guess my point is, the billion forecasts calling for a hot SW winter with a La Nina will probably be wrong given the heat coming so early this year.