raindancewx

Might have to hit the slopes next week. Euro has had enormous precipitation totals. Not too far out now - since it starts Monday. This is actually comparable to what happened in October. The MJO did the 1-2-3 thing 10/1-10/16, then it died, then it rained like crazy - we had 1.35" in Albuquerque - monsoon like - but in late October from tropical moisture. I did a query on some of the old data here, Albuquerque has only had 17 days with over 0.4 inches of precipitation in March since 1932, so these are probably near record totals if the Euro is even half right. I'd expect the GFS, which has never really shown more than 0.5" or 0.6" is probably a lot closer, but the Euro did have the big October rains/snows before the GFS did. So we'll see.

Billings, Montana had its coldest February since 1936. Here is an interesting comparison, just for fun - Feb Nino 4 Nino 3.4 Nino 3 Nino 12 2019 28.92 27.43 26.95 26.66 1936 28.31 27.25 26.72 26.52 Yup...almost identical. February 2019 was essentially 1936 +0.15C in all zones but Nino 4. So Billings had its warmer version of February 1936.

That's a tornado pattern. Also, the storm depicted on 3/11-3/12 is the most precipitation I've ever seen a model show for March in New Mexico. The Euro has had over an inch of precipitation for several runs now, and the start of the event would be Monday morning. I'm sure it would find a way to snow even toward El Paso if the storm verified as depicted.

The Euro has been showing pretty huge moisture for the storm on 3/12. These figures are consistent with a pretty powerful storm, and they'd certainly end our 2008-2018 streak of dry Marches. In fact, I think this is the most precipitation I've ever seen depicted for a March storm in New Mexico - 90% of it is for Monday morning to Tuesday evening. I'd have to look, but you have to think if Eastern NM is getting that much rain/snow, there is substantial Gulf moisture coming up.

I'm kind of amazed how wrong my winter outlook ended up being in the Northern Plains - Dec+Jan was +3F against 1951-2010 high as I expected for those areas, and then February absolutely destroyed it, with 20-25F below normal readings for Montana. The Plains flipped cold too, but not quite as hard. I was "only" out by 6F in Bismarck in winter after being within 2F as late as 2/10 when I started to evaluate my outlook. Even though the numbers I had came in a different order than expected, most parts of the US were within 2-3F of my high forecast blend, outside the Northern Plains and coastal SE.

How about this for your crazy February 2019 analog re-creation? To be fair, Montana was -20 to -25 v. 1951-2010 averages, so the severity isn't right, but spatially it isn't bad. I had the wrong top matches for February 2019 in the Nino zones - it is actually 1995, 2003, 1993, 1973, 2010, 1966, in that order for closeness. Best blend for re-creating February 2018 in the Nino zones I could get was: 1958 (x3), 2007 (x2), 2010 (x1), 2015 (x2), 2016 (x1), 2017 (x4). In the Southwest, 1958, 1973, 2003, 2007 are all pretty wet in March. 1958 and 1973 are actually top five for wetness in the last 100 years. Feb 4 3.4 3 1.2 Weight 1958 29.12 28.24 27.44 26.36 3 2007 28.66 26.88 26.49 26.21 2 2010 29.08 28.01 27.28 26.22 1 2015 29.07 27.17 26.46 25.57 2 2016 29.41 29.01 28.38 27.40 1 2017 28.11 26.67 26.83 27.46 4 Blend 28.75 27.42 27.02 26.62 2019 28.92 27.43 26.95 26.66 Feb 4 3.4 3 1.2 1966 28.64 27.55 26.90 25.49 1973 28.59 27.95 27.20 26.26 1993 28.30 27.16 26.80 26.40 1995 28.91 27.49 26.85 26.20 2003 28.88 27.39 26.84 25.98 2010 29.08 28.01 27.28 26.22 2019 28.92 27.43 26.95 26.66

Looks to me like Billings, Montana has been below 32F non-stop, except for a brief foray to suana territory (33F) on 2/23, since February 13th. So except for maybe an hour, that's roughly three weeks below freezing non-stop.

When I did objective matches to Nino 1.2, Nino 3, Nino 3.4, Nino 4 for February, I think the top years came out as February 1995, 2003, 1973, 2007, 1987, 1966. It's interesting, a blend of Feb 1987 and Feb 1988 is actually dead on for Feb 2019 in Nino 3.4, and Nino 3, but too cold in the other zones. I'd have to double check my records but I don't know of any double El Ninos where both El Ninos are during low solar activity if we are to move into another El Nino next winter. If you consider 1952-53 an El Nino (I do not), the 1952-53 to 1953-54 double El Nino is probably the only transition where both El Ninos were low solar since 1931. 1977-78 and 1987-88 both had low solar initially, but rapidly transitioned to high solar activity in the July-Jun years. That may be possible but it doesn't look to me like a rapid uptick is coming with the last minimum being centered around February 2009. July to June 1987-88 had 29-140 sunspots per month, 65 for the 12-month average, and July to June 1977-78 had 30-135 sunspots per month, 84 for the 12-month average. 1913-14 and 1914-15, and 1899-00, 1900-01 were both low solar El Ninos if you believe the extended data, so might have to look at the 1914-15 and 1900-01. I know supposedly Albuquerque had 40 inches of snow in 1914-15, with 27.5" falling in January 1915 with temperatures below 0 at a site a couple miles - and lower elevation - than the airport. Would love to see the setup for that. For being 100+ years ago, those winters are actually not that cold nationally.

Generally when we get snow here (Albuquerque) in Spring down to the valley floor in Mar-May - keep in mind our highs are 57F (3/1) to 85F (5/31) in Spring - I find the Plains or South do tend to get pretty nasty outbreaks. We had about an inch of snow in town on 4/29/2017 for instance (during the day no less, amazing cold with that system). The European system shown on 3/12 is probably powerful enough to bring snow down to the valleys almost to El Paso if it verified as shown.

CIPS has an interesting analog list for the outbreak. DATE 300HGHT 500HGHT 850HGHT 850SPED PMSL THICK 850TMP 2mTMP PWTR 925MIXR 2mDWP F120 F132 F144 FINAL 20120123/0000   0.842 0.798 0.751 0.880 0.755 0.780 0.729 0.853 0.932 0.936 0.855 11.074 12.279 11.514 11.622 19840218/1800   0.912 0.918 0.807 0.859 0.787 0.718 0.626 0.807 0.933 0.873 0.887 10.362 12.240 12.101 11.568 20010225/0000   0.740 0.788 0.860 0.888 0.841 0.876 0.756 0.850 0.942 0.914 0.893 12.276 12.738 9.237 11.417 19920218/0000   0.863 0.874 0.793 0.884 0.796 0.689 0.733 0.840 0.892 0.929 0.912 8.962 12.456 12.326 11.248 19920215/0000   0.769 0.745 0.810 0.900 0.695 0.616 0.506 0.759 0.861 0.784 0.627 11.960 10.979 10.524 11.154 20070301/0600   0.800 0.782 0.770 0.841 0.647 0.826 0.609 0.825 0.855 0.736 0.733 10.684 11.312 11.203 11.066 19820403/0000   0.764 0.778 0.690 0.851 0.755 0.680 0.788 0.663 0.889 0.867 0.826 10.639 11.585 10.907 11.044 20130210/1800   0.719 0.708 0.785 0.860 0.798 0.702 0.614 0.742 0.895 0.932 0.818 12.112 11.690 9.194 10.999 20070225/0000   0.866 0.831 0.689 0.874 0.773 0.739 0.720 0.875 0.906 0.873 0.761 9.104 11.880 12.004 10.996 20090405/0000   0.851 0.847 0.618 0.794 0.615 0.516 0.731 0.787 0.864 0.828 0.847 11.598 11.093 10.293 10.995 19860318/1800   0.543 0.612 0.791 0.836 0.788 0.758 0.538 0.683 0.917 0.880 0.811 10.248 11.155 11.549 10.984 20060129/0000   0.713 0.707 0.790 0.837 0.852 0.693 0.799 0.820 0.930 0.868 0.838 10.544 12.094 10.243 10.960 20020219/1800   0.710 0.716 0.708 0.763 0.717 0.806 0.592 0.702 0.849 0.832 0.815 11.357 11.050 10.254 10.887 20080411/0000   0.835 0.895 0.898 0.872 0.895 0.679 0.838 0.788 0.935 0.889 0.802 8.264 12.851 11.290 10.802 19820122/1800   0.636 0.675 0.708 0.863 0.773 0.863 0.632 0.823 0.810 0.698 0.526 11.846 10.754 9.800 10.800

Once the MJO wave dies, hopefully in phase 3 and not in phase 4, I think a lot of these relatively moisture starved storms should have a lot more juice to work with. That is what happened in October, AZ, TX, CO got nailed for moisture first, and then late in the month we had rain for basically a non-stop 30 hour period in NM, almost unheard of without tropical juice. That was a week after the phase 3 collapse in October (1.35" or so on 10/22-10/23 in Albuquerque). The thing is, unlike in October, there should be much more cold air around this time for a lot more snow. My rule for Albuquerque is first 75F high and the SOI in February predict March highs well. The SOI was -14.6 in February, and we have yet to hit 70F, let alone 75F. CPC seems to be on board with major tropical moisture from both the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of California returning to the mix in its outlooks too.

You had a big spike in the -PDO era in the 1950s too, with the double El Nino of 1957-58 to 1958-59. I'd call it 2014-2017 positive, 2018 neutral, with 2013 still negative mostly. In the 1950s, it was kind of mid-1957 to mid-1960 that was mostly positive. 1957 -1.82 -0.68 0.03 -0.58 0.57 1.76 0.72 0.51 1.59 1.50 -0.32 -0.55 1958 0.25 0.62 0.25 1.06 1.28 1.33 0.89 1.06 0.29 0.01 -0.18 0.86 1959 0.69 -0.43 -0.95 -0.02 0.23 0.44 -0.50 -0.62 -0.85 0.52 1.11 0.06 1960 0.30 0.52 -0.21 0.09 0.91 0.64 -0.27 -0.38 -0.94 0.09 -0.23 0.17

Logan averages 43.8" using the 1981-2010 mean. At 26.5" through 3/4, there is about a 10% chance historically of getting to average numbers by May using the data from 1892-2018. The storm snapped Boston much closer to my blend, so I was pleased to see that - 10/1-3/4 Boston Snow 1953-54: 21.1" 1976-77: 47.3" 1986-87: 36.3" 1994-95: 14.5" 1994-95: 14.5" 2006-07: 6.4" Blend: 23.4" - damn near the actual of 26.5" My hunch is there isn't much more snow for the NE from DC to Boston this year, but we'll see. Phase 2 of the MJO is pretty wet in the NE so wasn't too shocking to see the little reversion toward average. My blend had 35" for Boston, I assumed it'd be somewhat less, but it doesn't look too bad given that only 1/10 years will get to 44" from 26.5" on 3/4.

February saw a steady anomaly in Nino 3.4 on the CPC data - https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt YR MON TOTAL ClimAdjust ANOM 2018 9 27.19 26.80 0.39 2018 10 27.62 26.75 0.86 2018 11 27.61 26.75 0.86 2018 12 27.49 26.65 0.84 2019 1 27.21 26.45 0.76 2019 2 27.45 26.66 0.78 For DJF 2018-19, that's a 27.38C El Nino. My analogs for winter were 1953-54, 1976-77, 1986-87, 1994-95, 1994-95, 2006-07. Blended together, that was a 27.4C El Nino too. 1953 12 27.01 26.18 0.83 1954 1 26.98 26.18 0.80 1954 2 27.03 26.39 0.64 1976 12 27.08 26.43 0.66 1977 1 27.32 26.39 0.93 1977 2 27.13 26.59 0.55 1986 12 27.71 26.47 1.24 1987 1 27.68 26.46 1.22 1987 2 27.89 26.66 1.23 1994 12 27.85 26.66 1.19 1995 1 27.57 26.59 0.98 1995 2 27.49 26.79 0.71 2006 12 27.74 26.65 1.09 2007 1 27.25 26.45 0.80 2007 2 26.90 26.66 0.23 1953 (27.00C), 1976 (27.18C), 1986 (27.76C), 1994 x2 (27.63C), 2006 (27.30C) as a blend: 27.42C March only has to finish above +0.0C for JFM to be the 5th El Nino tri-mester, once that happens this event will be colored red - Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 2010 1.5 1.3 0.9 0.4 -0.1 -0.6 -1.0 -1.4 -1.6 -1.7 -1.7 -1.6 2011 -1.4 -1.1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.5 -0.7 -0.9 -1.1 -1.1 -1.0 2012 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.0 -0.2 2013 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 2014 -0.4 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.7 2015 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.4 2.5 2.6 2016 2.5 2.2 1.7 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.3 -0.6 -0.7 -0.7 -0.7 -0.6 2017 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 2018 -0.9 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 0.9 0.8 2019 0.8 Weeklies are now very similar to 2009-10 for strength. I do like that year for Spring after not liking it for Winter. A +1.0C Nino 3.4 in March would be pretty strong historically if the level of warmth were to remain. A lot of the strongest El Ninos were not too far off from that in March. A +1.0C March is like a blend of 3/1973 and 3/1983 were it to verify that warm. Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA 05DEC2018 23.1 0.8 26.2 1.1 27.6 1.0 29.7 1.2 12DEC2018 23.4 0.8 26.1 1.0 27.7 1.1 29.7 1.2 19DEC2018 23.7 0.7 26.2 1.0 27.6 1.0 29.5 1.0 26DEC2018 24.1 0.8 26.0 0.7 27.3 0.7 29.2 0.8 02JAN2019 23.9 0.2 26.1 0.6 27.3 0.7 29.1 0.8 09JAN2019 24.6 0.5 26.1 0.6 27.0 0.4 28.9 0.6 16JAN2019 25.4 0.9 26.3 0.6 27.1 0.5 29.0 0.7 23JAN2019 25.1 0.2 26.2 0.4 27.0 0.4 28.9 0.7 30JAN2019 26.3 1.0 26.3 0.3 27.0 0.3 29.0 0.8 06FEB2019 25.9 0.3 26.5 0.4 27.1 0.4 29.0 0.8 13FEB2019 26.6 0.6 26.8 0.5 27.3 0.6 29.0 0.9 20FEB2019 26.4 0.2 27.0 0.5 27.5 0.7 29.1 1.0 27FEB2019 26.6 0.4 27.6 1.0 28.0 1.1 29.2 1.1 24FEB2010 26.5 0.3 27.4 0.8 28.0 1.1 29.2 1.1

Boston is up to 16.6 inches through March 3rd. Boston, NYC and Philly all reported low snow ratios for the 3/3 snows they received with much of the snow falling above freezing.

36F snow starting at 9:25 pm at the official Boston site. https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/timeseries.php?wfo=vef&sid=KBOS&num=48 Philly hasn't really been below freezing at all for this storm, and they're back to rain on the latest observations. NYC hasn't really been below freezing either so far.

I'm very curious to see what CPC has for February Nino 3.4 data. I think it's +0.7C or so, but we'll see. The MJO for 10/1-10/16 is similar to 2/24-3/9, i.e. migration through 1-2-3 and then the wave goes null for a bit. I can't find any Marches on record in Albuquerque without at least one or more days with a high of 54F or less, so I'm on board with what CPC shows in the long-range, cold gradually retrogressing to the West. March 1975 started very warm in the Southwest, like this year, before cooling. It had the big +SOI in Dec, and then a -SOI in January. Big warm up (+1.3C) in Nino 3.4 from the much stronger La Nina of 1973-74. The rains depicted on the GFS for 3/8/2019 in New Mexico are consistent with the first good storm of 3/1975 - also on 3/8. None of the plants or trees are in bloom yet here - so I suspect there is more severe cold (for Spring) yet to come. In 2018, the SOI went very negative in February and then popped positive in March (-7.7 to +8.4). Doesn't look likely this year - so March should end up pretty different nationally. On the European, the SOI looks pretty negative overall for the next week, with a neutral day or two thrown in.

The pattern as it is now should break later in the month. CPC shows a warm East / cool West again long-term. That gels with the long-term records here, every March in the past 100 years will have at least one high here <=54F, and we have yet to see that. I've been impressed with close 1974-75 has been to the past four months, and it is still holding up, at least locally - was very warm early in March (70F ish) before turning very cold in the SW. Some of my Spring/Winter analogs are showing up as good matches for how CPC is building their maps, so that's promising too. 19770307 ---> analog (DJF) 19680324 19990319 ---> analog (MAM) 20000227 19530315 19770302 --> analog (DJF) 19530323 19990324 --> analog (MAM) 19930302 20050331 --> analog (MAM)

Happy March. Right on cue, the potential for rain today in Albuquerque turned into nothing. I still like this March as the first one to top 0.5 inches of precipitation (1932-2018 average) in the city since 2007, but we'll see. The transition into and out of MJO phase 3 can be a pretty good pattern for NM/CO for snow - that's coming up in a few days. October 2018 will probably look fairly similar to March 2019 for temps/precip adjusted for time of year when all is said and done given the MJO did the 1-2-3 thing 10/1-10/16, before going into the null phase, and 2/24-3/9 will be 1/2/3 before retiring into the null phase.

The North Pacific in Fall kind of reminded me of a warmed up 1994-95 honestly. Very warm waters east of Japan that winter too. Atlantic not super different either. My blend +0.1C wasn't too bad for winter. El Nino structure was right, with the Atlantic the cool spot in the Northern Hemisphere.

In a month or two this may go back to having an East based look, at least for a little while. That cold blotch east of 100W is surrounded by warmth.

For Dec-Jan, snowfall, and precipitation overall, I'm pretty happy with what I had this winter, it was the analogs +1F generally for Dec-Jan. February is super different though - it went to the +9 SOI map you'd expect. Overall, still close for highs in most parts of the US outside the Dakotas, Montana, and coastal SE.

I think the ONI number will be in soon since the CPC ONI site is down, but for now, the subsurface warmed up to +1.07 in the 100-180W zone. Most similar DJF transition for the subsurface is 1989-90. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt

Pretty good pattern for California?

Yes. I thought with the MJO and ENSO similarities in Fall, 1976-77 would briefly appear with incredible cold shots in the Midwest and East, and it was a convenient way to balance out 1994-95 doubled. My forecast will end up pretty decent for DJF even though I got February pretty wrong, since no on El Nino (my definition being >27.0C for an extended period centered on DJF in Nino 3.4) had that damned +9 SOI in December back to at least 1930, and there are no cold Februarys in the South with the SOI that high in December. Albuquerque finished with above normal precipitation and a high of 48.1F, 6th or 7th coldest in 30 years. Will be curious to see if we get our first wet March in the southern 2/3 of AZ/NM since 2007. Looks promising to me. Keep your eyes on that system coming through here around 3/3 - you had a 15 point SOI drop in late February. Even the Superstorm of 1993 had only a 25 point drop ahead of it in early March.