raindancewx

Still looks like 1984 to me. I'm not a huge fan of that year, but it's the best match I've found.

You do copy everyone. I saw you show my exact November image of spectacular Plains warmth in your thread when you were doing you outlook, only to finally realize a week before the cold coming it was unlikely to verify as I had it, and then you were complaining "oh shit my analogs aren't right". Jesus, if this is what you're hoping for with the -NAO mattering, god bless all of you. It sure looks like a +NAO pattern to me, when the West tends to be cold. That's my only point. The PNA / NAO interactions kind of wash out year to year over which is more dominant early on. It's not like this is changing in the long-run.

You're kind of missing the point aren't you? I'll gladly take whatever the NAO does if December verifies cold in the West again. I could very well be wrong about the NAO/AO in December, but it's kind of an irrelevant temperature signal for most of the US at this point in the year. I would have liked November to have been warmer, closer to what I had, but ultimately, the eastern half of the US was warm, western half was cold, rather than 1/3 v. 2/3 split. It's actually kind of amazing that the mid-month cold snap wasn't enough to fully wipe out the heat honestly. I'm assuming you're concerned because you copied me again? I've not read your forecast, but I'm 99% certain you put the West colder than the East in December, given that I did, and your comment here. You guys all do this stuff backwards to me - it's much easier to come up with temperature profiles in certain areas of the country and then try to figure out the teleconnections from that. But you guys do the opposite. The Cold West idea for me assumed a cold West would probably have a +AO/NAO, especially since that was favored by the ACE stuff. If we get a cold West, and it wasn't via the +NAO/+AO, I'm still good with it. The signal for ACE in the West is cold - it's there for other teleconnections, but it's really much stronger as a cold signal than anything else statistically. Certainly doesn't look warm West like in 2010 or 1995 with the -AO/NAO in those years.

This is why I went warm in November in the Plains/Midwest. Most of the analogs I had flipped warm late month central/east after a big cold snap mid-month. I suspect the greatest extent of the cold by severity and area was on 11/22 this month - but we'll see. GFS has pretty warm temps for the next week in the general area of red below. The final weeks of Nov 1984, 2011, 2016, 2020 in my analog set are all pretty warm, with 2012/2021 as near opposites, and then the -high ACE years also favoring the look above generally.

Isn't 1995 one of the warmest Novembers on record in the West? It's honestly been f-cking freezing here. It's like 50/50 this is a top 20 cold November locally for the past 100 years honestly. Coldest November month to date here since 2000. Still ~5F warmer than 11/2000 though. I have a hard time seeing how 1995 is anything like this year really. It's not like the cold is forecast to retreat out here anytime soon either.

Not a lot of week long, nationwide severe cold this part of November in La Ninas if you look. But I did mention 1984 as probably the single best match for the winter...and sure enough - pretty damn cold in the matching period nationwide. Florida is in its own little world, but -3 or colder nearly everywhere in Farenheit. You can sort of see that the origin source of the cold in 1984 is NE of where it was this past week. I'm up to 12 days in ABQ in November that finished at least 5 degrees below normal. So the low ACE correlation to cold snaps in the West is holding up rather well. For reference, all of Nov 2017-Feb 2018 had only 10 cold days (10/120) v. (12/22) in 2022-23.

Nov 16-Dec 15 peak idea for this event still looks plausible to me. Only 25.9C at the surface in Nino 3.4. Even using the absurdly warm baseline in the weeklies, that's a pretty weak La Nina as we get close to when these things peak.

-NAO period that I mentioned in my October forecast for November is coming now. Should last about two weeks. NAO has no real correlation to temperature in November in most of the US, so this -NAO period should actually coincide with the Plains warming up, at least relatively. -NAO +NAO

Average high in Albuquerque in La Nina November is about 59.3F, around +2F against the 100-year average. The cold November La Ninas are an interesting bunch, if we do manage to hold off the warmth that should come back late month. 56.3F or colder highs in La Nina, 1931-2021 Nov 1938, 1956, 1964, 1984, 2000 (1938 also had record early Nov NE US heat, btw).

I see people referring to 2010 November as a decent match to this November. Is 2011 really that off though practically? The timing is off a bit - but my scale below is -7 to +7 in increments of 2F, so it's not like I picked some near average period. I've not been a fan of 2011 for precipitation patterns at all, but it's definitely been a strong match for temps most of this year.

The very high ACE / active 2017 hurricane season had only 10 cold days in Albuquerque from Nov-Feb. Should match or beat that total this week,~1/6 of the way into the Nov-Feb period. Good sign for the correlations posted in my initial post. CPC has bought into the "cold sandwich" idea for the month now. I hope the last week or so of the month is enough to hold the warmth about where it is now. There were all kinds of severe heat waves and cold snaps in November in my analogs - it was quite a challenge to figure out what the hell was going to happen when it was blended back in October.

Signal was there in May for rapid improvements in moisture out here.

I mostly asked because your profile lists you as a man in his 70s. Probably not the worst idea in the world to detail the way things in your research work with instructions for how to use it, and what you'd like to see tested further in the future. I keep pretty detailed notes of weather things I expect to happen in the 2030s/2040s/2050s/2060s if I'm still alive. That way even if I die early someone can go through it all and see if I was just another crazy crank in the end.

I'm pretty convinced the cold dumps are going to continue into the West, or at least the Rockies for the next four months. The mechanism(s) for that of course will vary, since the PNA/AO/NAO/EPO/WPO all are basically irrelevant for temps in a correlation sense where I am until early to mid-January. The years I mentioned with the severe NE US heat in cold-ENSO are actually fairly cold nationally in November on balance, and then typically cold in the West, and warmer East. 1938 in particular interests me since Fiona was not that different from the system in 9/1938. One thing that would bug me about 2010 is the WPO actually. I'm pretty sure it's consistently negative that Nov-Mar year, and there have been lots of pretty powerful lows in the NW Pacific, I'd imagine it's going to finish positive this November, and that often ties in with stuff that happens in the West, Plains and South pretty directly. It really seems to weaken cold in otherwise cold patterns. By the way: I saw Weatherworks has a winter outlook up without you. I think you should start a new service and call it..."Weatherjerks"

I'm pretty sure my analogs were -PNA for December, but if the WPO/AO/NAO are positive like I expect with a +PNA it hardly even changes the real ground outcomes v. the temp profile I had. PNA is not a strong Dec temp signal in the US, especially for where 80% of the forum lives. You can see outside 2004, 2003, these are generally low-ACE years, and near all are El Ninos. Throw out the hyper active Atlantic years and you get this, which is I think what you mean by "fake -PNA", hard to say your posts are hard to read clearly. Some colder years like 2007 in there, but still, pretty warm.

What is the point of your posts? I do enjoy weather. Why can't you?

It's not, but are you going to cry if I've already doubled your total for the year? I mean, you're seeing record heat and late season tropical activity. You can make the case you guys haven't even entered Fall yet, it's more of a September pattern. If I saw a path to decent snows for the area, I'd mention it. Last year at this time I pointed out that 150+ ACE seasons are often (50/50) good for your area, and then DC got 13 inches of snow - near average. So it's not like I'm incapable of seeing good outcomes for you, I know that's hard to understand, but there are actual long-range indicators that work for snow in various areas of the US. You're just too lazy to bother investigating any of them.

I've been meaning to ask you for a while - when you say energy levels - what exactly are you measuring? Also, how? I'm always interested in adding new datasets to test for statistical relationships, but your stuff to my knowledge is not defined on the board.

My issue with using 1996-97 was how rapidly that year collapsed into the big 1997 El Nino. By early 1997, the subsurface was super warm, and you got some real interesting patterns, since it was developing from east to west. I wanted to use that year. But I don't quite trust how it played out, it's been different enough that I threw it out. A lot of the cold-ENSO years with similar early November heat waves for the NE US are kind of interesting - 1938, 1948, 1959 were years I saw today for similar Boston heat. I tried to pick Fall years that had major heat and cold waves. I know 2016/2020 were both very warm early November among my group, and then 1984, 2011, 2020 got pretty cold mid-month. Mid Nov 1984/2011/2020 is actually pretty decent for how mid-month will look as the cold drains into the US. 1984 goes to this, but still manages to be pretty warm in December in the east as an example for how I see it playing out. The purples are -5 (light) and -7 (dark) in degrees Fahrenheit. My gut is once the hurricane hits Florida, you'll see some stuff evolve differently on the models for late month and beyond.

I have some research on what the most active Novembers in the Atlantic correlate to later in the season. But have to see if the system shown on the models blows up as hits Florida as I suspect it will. I was expecting about 10 ACE for November, but we'll probably get to 15-20, since we're near 6-7 so far I believe. Over 25 in November is vanishingly rare, so I do think this little burst of activity is the end of it. I'm a bit jealous of the eastern warmth - we haven't been in the mid/upper 70s here in close to three weeks already. Have already had to clean off snow on my car twice. Not a fan of dewpoints in the 60s though.

You all should come visit. It's been a lovely Fall so far.

I defined "cold" and "very cold" days in Albuquerque as 5F or 10F below the daily average. My research indicated that ~100 ACE this year would translate to about 25-35 "cold days" from Nov-Feb, around 1 in 4 days for that period. So far, we're four days into November...and today was quite cold - with a high of 48 and a low of 33 so far, certainly more than five degrees below average, and consistent with the idea, as the average temperature is about 50 this time of year. I wanted to track this live to see how the distribution shakes out. "Cold" / -5F or colder v. daily average days in Nov-Feb: 25-35 expected. Will update throughout the season. Forecast analogs had a 7/10 frequency of a cold snap in November where a five day period averaged at least 5F below average, with each of the five days cold. We've achieved that now (11/12-11/17, and ongoing). November: 11/4 (48/32, -10.4) 11/5 (58/29, -6.5) 11/11 (48/26, -10.5) 11/12 (54/24, -8.1) 11/14 (49/32, -5.7) 11/15 (49/26, -8.3) 11/16 (44/26, -10.4) 11/17 (47/23, -10.0) 11/18 (40/28, -10.6) 11/19 (46/24, - 9.2) 11/20 (50/23, -7.0) 11/22 (49/25, -6.0) 11/23 (55/20, -5.1) 11/24 (47/25, -6.2) December: 12/13 (39/24, -5.4) 12/16 (37/22, -6.9) 12/17 (37/16, -9.8) 12/18 (36/22, -7.7) 12/23 (41/19, -5.9) January: 1/19 (41/21, -6.7) 1/22 (44/22, -5.0) 1/25 (41/25, -5.4) 1/26 (40/19, -9.0) 1/27 (43/17, -8.7) February: 2/9 (40/27, -7.2) 2/10 (43/21, -8.9) 2/11 (49/21, -6.1) 2/15 (41/25, -8.9) 2/16 (34/19, -15.6) 2/17 (44/17, -11.8) 2/27 (55/21, -6.8) "Very Cold" -10F or colder v. daily average days in Nov-Feb: November: 11/4 (48/32, -10.4) 11/11 (48/26, -10.5) 11/16 (44/26, -10.4) 11/17 (47/23, -10.0) 11/18 (40/28, -10.6) February: 2/16 (34/19, -15.6) 2/17 (44/17, -11.8)

The actual analogs Larry Cosgrove uses are pretty warm honestly. https://groups.google.com/g/weatheramerica/c/ZM4CTyKXDSE 1992-93, 2012-13 (x2), 2013-14 (x2), 2016-17, 2021-22 "synoptic analogs" (I do like March 1993 in there, as there should be some very powerful systems this March, but not a fan of 1992-93 otherwise). The issue with years like 1992, 2000, 1985, etc that people throw around is you had widespread, month long near to record US cold in many places that just is not going to be verified at all this year. 1950-51, 1955-56, 1956-57, 1971-72, 1975-76, 1985-86, 1999-00, 2011-12, 2021-22 for ENSO I used 2011, 2012, 2016, 2021 at various weights - so I agree with some of these years. I thought 2013 was a pretty good analog for the Fall in the Summer, that was how I came up with the "wet Oct-Dec" period for the West back in June, but I don't like it for winter. I saw Paul Pastelok the Bastardi long-range replacement at Accuweather say in an interview the other day he thought 2011-12 & 2013-14 as a blend was a decent guess for the winter. Not particularly blend-able years though, outside both being cold where I am in Dec - given the very different Feb/Mar outcomes as an example. These are the Cosgrove years at the link - at his weights:

Want to store this here for posterity. I've never tried to score precipitation outlooks on the models at this range -

Can't remember the exact time frame, but I think there is research saying that when the MJO gets stuck in 6/7 for a while, as it has been, you see blocking (-NAO) in 2-3 weeks as the pattern loosens up. That would be consistent with ideas for a late November period of blocking. All that said, +/-NAO isn't much of a warm or cold signal in the US in November compared to other months - it's broadly irrelevant outside the far SE portion of the US (FL/GA/eastern NC/SC). Locally, the +NAO is actually a decent wet signal in November - so I'm hoping it remains positive. Part of why I had Nov quiet locally is the expectation of a brief -NAO period. Also, the Euro plume had Nino 3.4 around, but a touch warm of -1.0C for October. I know people are obsessed with calling these events moderate, but come on, we're coming up on 15 years without a 25.5C or colder La Nina (-1.0C v. 1951-2010), and the weeklies have yet to fall below 25.7C at any point this Fall. Almost all La Ninas fall to 25.7C at some point...they kind of have to, to be La Nina.