raindancewx

Several of those winters were pretty warm in Minneapolis. Couple cold ones, but that five year period is held up by two or three cold winters of the five.

Warmest Minneapolis winters since 1870, following winter in () 1 2023-2024 29.9 0 2 1877-1878 29.0 0 (16) 3 1930-1931 26.9 0 (22.5) 4 2001-2002 26.8 0 (13.1) 5 2011-2012 26.3 0 (19.8) 6 1881-1882 26.1 0 (9.3) 7 1997-1998 25.9 0 (21.6) 8 1986-1987 25.8 0 (16.4) 9 2016-2017 24.3 0 (17.1) 10 2015-2016 24.2 0 (24.3) 11 1982-1983 24.0 0 (14.3) 5 warm / 5 cold against 1870-2023 median (16F) for DJF. 6/10 cold against 1991-2020 median (~19F) Non-El Nino winters since 1980 following near-record Plains winter heat - fairly standard La Nina.

In terms of actual SSTs for Nino 3.4, these are the years within 0.20C (+/-) the 27.89C observed in June 2024. 27.69-28.09 1951, 1958, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1977, 1980, 1993, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018. Some of the late forming La Ninas like 2005 and 2017 get pretty cold in Nino 3.4 for where they are in June. But you can see most of the years (12 of 18) go to El Nino from similar SSTs. 1980 (27.94C), 1993 (28.08C), 2005 (27.77C), 2012 (27.75C), 2016 (27.69C), 2017 (28.06C) are the non-El Nino winters of the bunch. June 2013 actually looks a lot like SSTs if you just eyeball It. Of course it's a non-La Nina. Just a cold Neutral. I'm assuming the RONI crowd doesn't consider it a La Nina because it's kind of a good winter for the East. The Indian Ocean is warmer and the Atlantic is warmer. But the Atlantic has the right shape with cold SSTs by Africa/NW Europe. Tropical Tidbits has 2007 & 2013 as top SST matches globally since 2000. I think if you warmed up oceans by 0.1C globally that's probably about the right idea. Thee seasonal models seem to be trying to go to something like this for the winter now. This makes sense to me intuitively, the Plains likely won't see record warmth two years in a row. At some point I'll run the winters after the hottest winters in Minneapolis out of curiosity.

I mentioned a while ago that the upper level high over Mexico had to move or get destroyed as a condition of the hurricane season ramping up. Check out May v. June 2024.

CPC still has ONI / RONI in non-La Nina status for Apr-June by the way. Not sure even on the RONI scale we'll be there in May-July. For June CPC still has +0.16C for Nino 3.4 on the ONI basis. One thing I dislike about RONI is if we have a particularly active hurricane season, the tropical oceans would likely cool right? That would screw up the sliding scale nature of the baseline, which makes it unreliable. Beryl is forecast to be around in some capacity through Sunday. Every day with at least 100 kt sustained winds adds at least 4 ACE. We have a shot at nearing 40 ACE by Monday morning in the Atlantic - definitely a bit nuts.

You were never going to have a big Aleutian low last year with the PDO near -3 to -1 the whole time. The north pacific stuff is tied much more to the PDO than ENSO. The ENSO stuff has direct control over the subtropical jet which was very strong last year.

Presumably the entire plume will shift warmer with the Euro miss for June. Subsurface heat content also weakened a lot (i.e. it warmed) in June from 100-180W. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt 1999 and 2007 seem to have had similar June thinning of the subsurface. 1999 by itself is a good match - that's a fairly cold / wet Summer here, which is kind of the right feel for how things are trending with a late start to the heat and a lot of rain. Lot of Caribbean hurricanes in those years. Apr May June 1999 -0.91, -0.81, -0.52 (x3) 2007 -0.59, -0.58, -0.18 (x1) -------------------------------- Blend -0.83, -0.75, -0.44 2024 -0.81, -0.80, -0.46

La Ninas / El Nino function as an evaporation v. precipitation constant locally. We seem well on our way to an exceptionally wet Summer that is only somewhat warm (+1 or +2). When we get 'too much rain' in the Summer in La Nina, a very dry winter almost always follows. Given the hurricane season, the trend toward an east-based La Nina instead of a Modoki, the -PDO, and the potential for the -WPO to flip, I'm actually getting a lot more bullish on winter for the East. If we finish with a wet Summer and an active hurricane season, I'd bet at least on an exceptionally dry winter here, even if it isn't blazing hot. At 180+ ACE or more I'd be pretty tempted to put a +7F over the entire western half of North America with cold draining into the East. At 120-180 ACE it's more of a tough call. Beryl alone could jack up ACE to 30-40 before it dissipates, 1/4-1/3 of a normal season, and it is only July. But we could also do the 2007 thing where we have two huge systems, and a bunch of weak ones that hit Central America. Too early to know.

My only hesitation with a hyper active season is that we've seen some similarities globally at 500 mb to June 2007. That season had two category five hurricanes, and many storms impact the same areas of Central America (Barry, Dean, Erin, Felix, Lorenzo, Olga)...but it still wasn't super active. Tons of storms - just mostly weak systems with the super systems sprinkled in. The Atlantic is much warmer than 2007 right now. So I wouldn't go as low as 2007 ACE. But something like a 2007 / 2017 blend (150 ACE) seems possible still.

Also, the MJO now looks like a coherent phase 4/5 blend on the global DJF precipitation map from the Canadian.

Help us Roni-Wan-Kenobi, you're our only hope. Actually, that's a much colder winter for the east to be honest. Old New Aug-Oct is when I thought the -WPO might start to break from last year and stick around. The Canadian has that period pretty cold now in the US, with -WPO conditions in Sept/Oct it looks like. Looks like a classic cold North-Central, warm rest of the US La Nina look. That's not crazy to me if the hurricane season doesn't go ballistic, especially if the -WPO remains negative. La Ninas tends to dump cold North Central or into the West, it just depends on the WPO / La Nina state.

New Canadian run should be in shortly. July is often the first decent read for winter SSTs. Some of the recent La Ninas didn't really develop until July. 2017-18 is one that comes to mind. That year the subsurface dropped off a cliff in July after muddling around in the Spring. Will be curious to see how that goes. We're not really near La Nina conditions yet at the surface. The -0.5C or colder waters are all in Nino 3 or east. The dark blue has to fill in from 5N to 5S from 120-170W.

If Hurricane Beryl hits Central America, South TX or Eastern Mexico next week, I think we're set up here for a pretty active monsoon in July. The colder La Nina winters out here tend to be very hot and dry all Summer. Hot / Wet Summers tend to be mostly warm with brief severe cold waves, that still average out pretty warm. We've had rain already almost every day for ten days. It's been quite active. The whole city is actually flooding right now with close to an inch of rain in 30 minutes. The heat is actually quite fragile out here. The 97 at 3:30 is 63 now. Atlantic ACE is still running below normal as of this afternoon. But it should catch up to normal and then jump above it over the next few days. MJO hasn't been particularly active in a while. I think it has to emerge and stay in four at high amplitude at some point over the next few months for the hurricane season to be hyperactive. May happen, but not sure yet.

https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data QBO is behaving like 1959, 1966, 2022 and a few others. Still not convinced it actually improves seasonal forecasting very much. I remember going into 2020-21 the idea for most was a pretty warm winter - no mention of the TX destroying cold In most forecasts with a +QBO La Nina. Same for 2022-23, no one really expected the blizzard warnings in San Diego country in March 2023, or the persistently severe cold in the West that winter. Years like 1995-96 and 2017-18 do of course have the -QBO/La Nina combo that we won't see this year. The QBO is also a quasi-cycle, so the timing of -/+ readings at various heights drifts over the years. A lot of past years that have nominally similar values are at different points in the cycle due to leading/lagging the east/west peak of the 2023-2024 cycle by a few months.

I took the heatwave in MX in May as the displacement of the Southeast ridge with the -PNA, but I haven't really looked. I've assumed the displacement was tied to the weird placement of the Bermuda High. It's been kind of elongated west this month. We've had a lot of volatility for June here, with highs not being able to stick. Summer is typically very stable for highs here. The developing La Ninas that have volatility in the Summer tend to retain it into the winter out here. Still like 2016, 2020, 2022 among the more recent La Ninas. As far as La Nina strength goes the subsurface isn't exactly trending toward anything severe. Still very curious to see what the hurricane season does. A lot of times the hyper-active seasons have already had several major systems by now. But we've not seen that. My present assumption is a pretty decent cold 'peak' for SSTs in Nino 3.4 that is somewhat early - October/November. Then a rapid degeneration to neutral conditions in Feb/Mar/Apr. La Nina conditions will be met for something like July or Aug to Jan or Feb. I say this because the subsurface was basically in La Nina in mid-Feb, so Jan/Feb 2025 would make it one year for La Nina conditions.

Another pretty cold June day here. Only 72 or so at 1 pm. It's actually been very cold this month in Western Canada. I'm curious to see if that will hold and continue building as we get closer to the winter. If nothing else, it favors some early season cold shots that are stronger than average if it persists. I believe June 2020 was also pretty cold in Western Canada. There were obviously some pretty incredible cold pushes in the Fall of 2020.

Alberto hitting NE MX as a weak tropical storm from the east in June is likely pretty rare. Been trying to see if other La Ninas had similar storm trajectories. You can sort of see the impacts. Boston hit 98F today, whereas the Highlands of Central MX will see highs in the mid-60s for the foreseeable future with the extra moisture. Droughts end and old Mexico is in a bad one. Suspect this storm will prevent the day 0 stuff you see in the media about Mexico City running out of water. I'll be watching the path of the remnant moisture of Alberto as it could really help us out in NM and TX if we get some long-duration steady rain. I don't think we'll get much in the city. I think the wet footprint this month may be enough to prevent a scorching hot Summer along the NM/TX border which is nice to see. That area has been roasting and stupid dry in La Nina winters in recent times. Amarillo had that ~5 month streak without precipitation in the 2017-18 La Nina.

June has been just a bit different than last year so far. July was very hot here last year. Average high of 99F was just about all-time heat here. No rain either. July still looks warm, but much cooler, and definitely wetter. We might already be past our hottest days here. No 100+ heat looks likely in the near term. Some indications we may have a pretty cool period in August, which has implications for winter...but that's for another day.

Also, past nine years for snow. Substantial variation within seasons though. Once we started to see higher solar conditions around 2021, snow switched to ~incredible volume in the interior West in March again, which is a long-term signal I've noticed. March has more or less single-handily saved the Rio Grande water supply in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 offsetting either failed monsoon moisture or poor moisture winters.

Heat in the old Mexican Highlands has now been fully destroyed, and then some. Highs will be in the mid-60s (5-10 below average if it verifies) there at approximately the same time frame places as far north as Boston could see mid-90s. June 2021 locally had both near-all time record warm highs and near-all time record cold-highs locally (103 and 67 respectively). A similar thing happened in June 2022 (101 and multiple days in the low 70s). This month has already seen several days hit 100 with another day only hitting 72. Both 2021/2022 had highs in the low 70s / upper 60s late June, which is actually super cold here (20-25 below average), while 100-103 is only 8-12 above average even in early June. We're not really in La Nina conditions for what it's worth. Nino 3.4 is still warm west of 140W. I read a paper a long time ago that said cold water by New Zealand is like a teleconnection for a wet/dry winter in the Southwest (NV, AZ, CA, UT - notably not New Mexico or Colorado) but it has to be cold there July-Sept to be reliable. Notably, July-Sept of 2018, 2019 were not cold by NZ and were not wet in the SW US. Years like 1997 and 2004 were much colder (though not frigid) as were other years like 2016/2022/2023 to a lesser extent. Also 2017, which was absurdly dry here, was quite warm too by NZ). The effect is diminished by NM/CO as a lot of our moisture is from storms getting stuck in the mountains for 1-3 days, not from extra storms or a better storm path per se. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180613101946.htm The New Zealand Index (NZI) teleconnection depends on a western Pacific ocean–atmosphere pathway. a Negative SST anomalies (blue shading) in the NZI region cascade in the northern hemisphere through a late summer interhemispheric atmospheric bridge and are maintained by air-sea coupling until the following winter. The SST anomalies affect the atmospheric pressure in the US west coast and strengthen the regional jet stream which brings more winter storms in the SWUS; b Late-summer positive SST anomalies (red shading) in the NZI region deflect the jet stream to the north, leading to dry conditions over the SWUS

Just for future visual reference: We remain very far behind the 2022-23 La Nina so far since we started from a warmer point last winter. The 2020-21 La Nina isn't super far off but we seem a bit ahead of it.

Nino 3.4 was 28.25C in May. The years coming off an El Nino winter that are with 0.2C of that (28.05-28.45C) are: 1958, 1969 - El Nino 2005, 2016 - La Nina conditions observed briefly 1980, 1983, 1987, 1998, 2019 are all following El Nino (ish) but either a bit too warm/cool or don't go to La Ninas. 1980, 1983, 1998, 2005, 2010, 2016 look ~correct as a blend for estimating the La Nina strength at the moment. 26.32 + 26.01 + 25.08 + 25.80 + 25.22 + 26.3 --> 25.78C in DJF Keep in mind, none of Dec-Feb periods in 3.4 have finished below 25.5C since 2010-11. The 2020-21 La Nina had an Oct-Dec with all three months colder than 25.5C, but it faded fast. I expect 25.8 - 26.2 for DJF, with a colder peak in Oct-Dec or Nov-Jan, but we'll see.

My forecasts actually seem to be getting more traction each year. I don't have a website, a Facebook, or anything like that. It's just one link posted here and on Twitter, but I get several thousand reads, or at least views now. I try not to post on here more than 1-3 times per day, as I consider it a waste of time in most respects. So I think the low interactions when I post my forecasts are more about me not posting too much than anything else. I could easily see the US (lower 48 anyway) average +3 to +10 for the winter, with a cold spot from Billings to San Francisco, but I really have no idea yet. It's too early. The global upper level pattern that matches with SSTs for JJA or JAS will be pretty telling. That combo almost always rolls forward correctly.

https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/wp.data Looks like it already flipped? 2018 0.43 0.40 0.84 -0.67 -0.19 -0.44 -0.81 -1.38 -1.78 -1.14 -0.61 0.11 2019 1.05 2.09 0.88 -1.30 -0.63 -1.92 -0.27 -2.19 0.86 -0.81 -0.12 0.74 2020 0.69 1.46 1.29 -1.34 0.12 -1.25 -0.54 -0.21 -2.44 -1.18 0.72 0.99 2021 2.45 0.76 2.05 -0.12 0.18 -0.82 -0.44 -1.94 -0.65 1.74 -0.15 0.48 2022 -1.44 -0.39 0.58 0.31 -1.38 -1.66 -0.52 -0.41 1.82 1.04 0.34 -0.02 2023 1.99 2.50 0.65 -0.24 1.02 0.33 1.33 -0.37 1.34 -0.83 0.59 1.21 2024 0.67 1.56 0.97 0.73 -0.27 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 -99.90 CPC has monthly cross-correlations for all indices. No one ever bothers to look when I post this, but you can see what things tend to occur with WPO flips if you want to see if I'm crazy or not. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/table/ This thing called ESPI which measures how ideal a tropical precip pattern is for an ENSO event (El/La) seems to correlate most with the WPO tendency in the winter. Almost reads like it is looking at the interaction of the IOD and ENSO as the driver of the WPO. That actually makes a lot of sense to me since prior to the past 20 years most La Ninas had -WPO signatures and now they don't. But the Indian Ocean is warming faster than the other oceans and so you get different interactions than before. ESPI looks a bit like a poor man's MEI, so I doubt it would really much to analysis. https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/dashboard.html ENSO Precipitation Index. The index is based on rainfall anomalies in two rectangular areas, one in the eastern tropical Pacific (10°S-10°N, 160°E-100°W) and the other over the Maritime Continent (10°S-10°N, 90°E-150°E). The first step of the procedure involves moving a 10° by 50° block around each box; the minimum and maximum values of all possible blocks is obtained for each box and these are combined to estimate an El Niño precipitation index (EI) and a La Niña precipitation index (LI). The EI and LI are in turn combined to create the ESPI index. Finally, the ESPI index is normalized to have zero mean and unit standard deviation. Calculated at UMD.

https://x.com/Claudiashein I'm kind of tempted to ask Mexico's new president about seasonal forecasting models in Mexico or in general. It's a weird thing, thinking a politician could answer that or discuss that with a US president to improve our weather forecasting. The heat wave in MX seems tied to delayed monsoon onset as much as anything. Here is what AI had to say. It's pretty consistent with my own research. I've also found August/Sept tend to be wetter than July at statistically significant levels locally using a difference in proportions test at the 0.05 level with high v. low, July-June annualized solar activity. What kind of winter does the US tend to see following a delayed start to the monsoon in Mexico? Answer Based on the provided search results, a delayed start to the monsoon season in Mexico tends to be followed by a drier than normal winter across the southwestern United States, including states like New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Texas. Here are the key points: There is an inverse relationship between winter precipitation in the southwestern U.S. and the strength/timing of the subsequent North American Monsoon. A wet winter is generally followed by a weaker/later monsoon (Me: we had a wet winter in 2023-24), while a dry winter precedes a stronger/earlier monsoon onset. If the monsoon gets a late start in Mexico, with precipitation increases delayed until late June or July, this tends to signal an early end to the monsoon rains in the U.S. Southwest as well. The monsoon moisture surge progresses northward from Mexico. A late monsoon onset in Mexico is often linked to cooler sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific (me - which we have), which can suppress the monsoon circulation and moisture transport. Warmer Gulf of Mexico temperatures (me - which we have) can enhance moisture flow into Mexico and the Southwest during an earlier monsoon onset. When the North American Monsoon starts late in Mexico, climate models project a decrease in monsoon rainfall over the southwestern U.S. in July and August, followed by an increase in September and October compared to normal. This suggests a delayed, shorter monsoon season. The delayed timing of the monsoon rains may be more impactful than the total precipitation amount. A late monsoon onset preceded by a dry winter would likely lead to an extended dry period in the fall across the Southwest before the arrival of winter precipitation. So in summary, when the monsoon rains are delayed in getting established over Mexico, it serves as an indicator that the upcoming winter is more likely to be drier than average across New Mexico, Arizona and surrounding states due to the inverse relationship between winter and monsoon precipitation in this region.