raindancewx

Nov 1991: 1.93" precip in Albuquerque. Nov 2019: 1.99" precip in Albuquerque. (1991 was the record for Nov here for the past 100 years). I think because the IOD is enhancing the response you'd get from the subtropical jet-stream for an El Nino this weak, 1991 is probably a good precipitation analog nationally. Not really convinced for temperatures. The models depicting a positive SOI for December may not be too wrong - it looks neutral to positive for most of the next ten days on the European, although their might be one big drop in a a couple days which would support a big storm in the SW mid-month, and then maybe a pattern change nationally. The Canadian may actually be trying to do 1965, 2018 for its forecasts because of the SOI pattern. SOI Sept Oct Nov 1965 -13.5 -11.0 -16.7 2018 -8.5 +2.6 +0.6 Blend -11.0 -4.2 -8.1 2019 -12.7 -5.2 -9.5

My basic idea for December for New Mexico & Colorado & West Texas is that the storminess of November dies off somewhat, but we still finish wetter than average, with temperatures probably not that far from average either way, despite impressive cold at times later in the month. In recent El Ninos, the US temperature pattern for Oct 16-Oct 31 has tended to become the December temperature pattern nationally, but shifted somewhat East. We had near to record cold in that period this year. My objective high temperature & precipitation matches for the July-November period include six very cold Decembers locally, including the record and near record cold of 1943, 1952, 1953, 1992. Only 1939 was warmer than normal, and that was the weakest of the ten objective matches. Objective matches for the subsurface in the Tropical Pacific, years with a big warm up Sept to Oct, and then a cool off in Oct to Nov also support somewhat cold temps in the SW. Additionally, if you blend all years when Nino 4 is above 29.3C (there aren't too many of them) in Fall/Dec, the composite looks a lot like the map below. The top SOI matches for Sept-Nov also look like the map below. Years with positive NAO readings in December. I do expect the pattern in early November to repeat at some point later in the winter - probably January, but its worth remembering most of the severe cold was destroyed pretty quickly. It's obviously amplified, but the very warm coast/colder middle thing repeated last Nov 1-15 in January. It's just it came in much more severely, even though it was similar spatially.

The 10/31 forecast from the Canadian for November, as well as the 11/30 forecast for December both look like a blend of 1965 & 2018 on that model. The Canadian forecast from 11.30.18 for December 2018 was actually pretty bad, unlike the winter forecast. The subsurface data for November came in for 100-180W, top 300m. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt Best blend I could find was this - 100-180W Sept Oct Nov 1986 0.65 0.95 0.52 1986 0.65 0.95 0.52 1991 0.60 1.41 1.22 1991 0.60 1.41 1.22 1991 0.60 1.41 1.22 1991 0.60 1.41 1.22 1998 -2.15 -2.35 -2.33 2005 -0.33 -0.14 -0.57 2005 -0.33 -0.14 -0.57 Blend 0.10 0.55 0.27 2019 0.00 0.70 0.26 Crazily enough...it looks identical to last year? So I am skeptical. I tried to respect the subsurface features though - big warm up in October and then the big cool down in November.

The Canadian Model has the El Nino for winter now. I don't think this is right, but it has the "Nino 4 warm" pattern, with the US roasting in December, except the SW. Interestingly, it has the NE somewhat cooler. I think there will be more cold in the middle of the US than shown, a lot of snow pack is coming to the middle of the US and western Canada from what I can see. 11.30 run for Dec 10.31 run for Dec The winter look is a drier 2004. Last year, the November idea for Dec-Feb wasn't completely wrong, for what its worth.

For the 2010s (2010-11 to 2019-20), snow frequency has really improved quite a bit over the 2000s decade. We're pretty likely to get several more snowy months by May so this graphic will have to updated when the eight month cold season is over, instead of just 1/4 over. If we finish the season above 13.5" snow - a coin-flip at this point - that 6.9" for the decade would match or exceed the 7.34" for the 2000s but without the heavy concentration of snow this decade in December 2006. We're already at four Oct-May periods with over 7 inches of snow in the 2010s (2011-12, 2014-15, 2015-16 2018-19), the 2000s had two (2000-01, 2006-07). We'll likely have a fifth in 2019-20 too. Statistically, the seasons with at least two inches of snow in Albuquerque are far more likely to be snowy or even very snowy. None of the years with over two inches of snow in November have had under 5.5" for Oct-May. Years with at least two inches of snow in Albuquerque average 10.6 days with accumulating snow - all others are only 8.1. So we likely still have around 8-9 snowy days left here. We're about due for a season in the high-teens for snow here and it's ~4x more likely than usual now, although still less likely to happen than to happen.

We're at 3.9" officially in Albuquerque for November 2019, and a lot of the front range cities are well above average too. In years with at least two inches of November snow in Albuquerque, we average another 10 inches of snow from Dec-May. Historically 3:1 to see above average snow here after at least two inches in November. It's a pretty reliable indicator statistically. If we get to 13 inches or more, that's typically bad for the NE in El Ninos. Nino 3.4 has been over 27.0C since late Sept, with the subsurface warm and the SOI negative. So I consider this an El Nino.

If you use absolute value to score past 100 years for how they match to the observed highs from July-Nov in Albuquerque, you get this as your expected blend for December, ranked by how good the match is: 1960 1943 2011 1982 2018 1953 1983 1997 1948 1959 Believe it or not, that blend actually has the core of cold in November by the Mississippi river, like this November. 1943, the second strongest objective match in 100 years, is actually the coldest December in the last 100 years for a lot of the Southwest. None of those Decembers are warm in the Southwest, but most are very cold (1943, 1953, 1960, 1982, 1997, 2011). If soil moisture means anything, the record moisture in November in Arizona and New Mexico should prevent significant heating for a while. (This map doesn't even include today - I'm running over 4x average precip in Nov now, literally 1.99" v. an average of 0.46"). Big wildcard is if the SOI really does go positive in December like the CFS has been showing for a week. The dry central/eastern US did warm up a lot in the last week.

The CFS is still showing a +SOI look for December. Part of me thinks some kind of reigning in of the subtropical jet stream is due. November 2019 has just topped 1991 to become the wettest November in over 100 years in Albuquerque - and it happened in essentially two weeks.

I had 7.5 inches of snow in my backyard with the Nov 27-28 storm. The airport had 3.9". The general totals city wide seem to have been 4-8 inches. Mountain snow pack is in excellent shape as of this morning.

You guys make assumptions all the time about the NAO, PNA, EPO, WPO, etc being in the correct phase when only 30 years in a given phase exist. Bit inconsistent there?

SOI is -9.8 for the past 30-days, -9.3 for the past 90 days, and -10 for November to date. I've got 7.5 inches of snow in my backyard, with near record precipitation for November (1.65") through 11 am 11/28. A lot of that near record precipitation is snow...which is certainly more of an El Nino thing than a Neutral thing here - PDO still looks somewhat negative to me for November - you can have warm waters on the NW North America coast if they are relatively cold compared to waters off to their West and have a -PDO month. It's a relational calculation, not absolute like ENSO, where warm is El Nino, cold is La Nina. Subsurface still looks warm to me. The little cold pocket is going to get its ass kicked in the coming weeks. The warm waters continue to surface by Peru as we transition out of the Modoki El Nino to a basin wide event.

I use all the El Ninos since 1930 - close to 30 now. It's not that small. The weeklies have been over +0.5C for two months now, each week. The government declaring an El Nino is always a lagging indicator. The Jamstec news blurb has been calling this an El Nino Modoki for months, if you really want some kind of official statement, as if it matters. The SOI is going to be around -9 for the past 90 days too, which basically doesn't happen in non-El Ninos. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/aplinfo/sintexf/e/seasonal/outlook.html These are your drivers - ENSO forecast: As predicted earlier, the El Niño Modoki-like state is observed now. The SINTEX-F predicts the El Niño Modoki-like state will persist at least until early winter. We need to be careful of its impact, as it may be different from that of the canonical El Niño. Then, the model predicts that the tropical Pacific will return to a neutral-state from late winter through year 2020. Indian Ocean forecast: The positive Indian Ocean Dipole is now fully established reaching a level similar to that of the extremely strong events of 1994 and 1997. The model predicts that the positive Indian Ocean Dipole will persist in late autumn, and then decay in winter. We may observe co-occurrence of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and an El Niño Modoki-like state in autumn and winter; this is as we observed in 1994 and 2018.

Yes. I keep saying it, in El Ninos, we're strongly negatively correlated. If I get to my seasonal total in an El Nino, it's very rare for the Boston to DC corridor to all hit theirs.

I'm up to eight inches now. Airport is about 0.40" that fell as snow, likely well over four inches now, maybe five or more already. Oct-May average is 9.6". Would be very hard to not have a snowier than average total in Albuquerque. This isn't really early for snow here, it's about an average date for first snow, just a lot.

I had 3.5" with the New Mexico storm by 10:50 pm on 11/27 in my backyard, about 10-miles due north of the airport site, at the same elevation. As of 1:30 am on 11/28, I'm up to 5.0". Airport in Albuquerque has had 0.19" fall as snow with temperatures between 28-32F the entire time. I think they're probably around 2.3" so far. The cold dry air has really held it's own so far. We went from 37F / 14F dew point to 32F / 25F dew point in an hour flat from 6 pm to 7 pm.

I've got 3.5" with the current storm over New Mexico as of 20 minutes ago at my place. Airport is around an inch, but the heaviest snow should come in over the next six hours. We're negatively correlated to snow in the coastal NE in El Nino years, and only average about 10". Obviously 3.5" isn't 10" - but the odds are 6/10 here for an above average Oct-May when November sees accumulating snow. Philadelphia correlation (r-squared) in 28 El Ninos through 2018-19 is close to 0.3 with El Nino snow in Albuquerque. Not as strong for Boston/NYC/Baltimore/DC, but it's not real weak either.

Definitely a real snow storm here - this is I-25 and Paseo Random Twitter pics -

Albuquerque went from around 40F with a 12F dew point at 2 pm, to about 31F with a 25F dew point at 7:30, thanks to the magic of evaporative cooling. Some accumulating snow already where I am, with the airport already seeing some too officially.

I went with 0-3" <5200 feet, 2-5" 5200-5600 feet, and 3-7" 5600-6100 feet in Albuquerque. It's a wet bulb storm for us in the city, we'll begin the day with temps in the low 20s or high teens (thanks for the cold dry air), before warming to the high 30s or low 40s, then the rain starts, but the sunsets, the dew point rises, but it cools the air as the moisture evaporates. Window for Albuquerque is likely 8 pm to 4 am for accumulating snow if you buy the 3-km NAM. Higher areas will start out earlier and last longer. But it's a 16 hour precip event before the next storm, and something lie 8-12 hours of it should be snow for the city. But, it is complicated here. I generally like this setup though, we had very low dew points in Feb 2015 at the surface, and then subtropical moisture moved on top of it. The subtropical warmth won, eventually, but first we had 6-12 in the city, 2/26-2/28. It's not super different from this setup.

My concern for later periods is the the Indian Ocean Dipole. Can't hang on as strong as it is for much longer. Near impossible to get sustained low pressure by Australia with it in place, and so the SOI keeps going bonkers, more than you'd expect from an El Nino this weak. Speaking of the SOI...another big 10 point drop. You know the drill. Watch for a big storm in the SW in ten days...and actually the GFS already has something in the vein of the current pattern: tropical input from the subtropical jet, coming in roughly the same time as a big low from the northern branch entering California. I'd have to look at the maps of 1992-93, but if this continues for any length of time in winter here, we've got a shot at record or near-precip this winter. These storms coming in have 0.50-1.00" precip each - huge for the interior SW.

For anyone curious, here is a list of the major Indian Ocean Dipole events in Sept-Nov for 1880-2004. This is built into my analog system when I look at the Pacific to some extent, although I don't give it much weight in winter, except as a tie-breaker. It's more important in Fall. Part of how I had 1994 last year. https://iri.columbia.edu/~blyon/REFERENCES/P38.pdf

I had some pretty big Novembers in Colorado in my analogs. 1992 has had some similarities in recent weeks, and has been a strong precip analog here since July - near identical monthly totals excepts in August when a thunderstorm missed our airport. Even blended in with some of the lesser years, there was a pretty good signal for snow for Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico in November this year. December will likely quiet down some for Colorado, but we'll see how that goes.

Weaker and more West based than last year, but certainly a Modoki El Nino at least for Fall (we seem to be transitioning to a basin-wide look though for actual winter). Japan uses 165E-140W, 10N-10S as their Nino 3.4 ("Box A") - that zone is definitely in an El Nino look. The waters by Peru are colder too. So more of a Modoki than last year. Will be curious to see if the +SOI the CFS continues to show for December has to do with the Indian Ocean Dipole flipping this month, hard to get the Australia part of the +SOI without that.

I went with 1-4", 2-5", 4-8" for Albuquerque by elevation Wed-Thu tentatively - but may change tomorrow. The models all have at least some kind of transition to snow in the city late, it's just how quickly, and how much moisture. European keeps showing 6-12" for the whole city, which I think is way too high for most. NAM has 1-4" which I think is probably too low for some areas. GFS is 0-1", with hardly any rain even.