raindancewx

Total precipitation in August & October has a lot of predictive power here for when the snowiest month will be within the Oct-May cold season. If you throw out 1948-49 when April was snowiest and the three years with "ties" for snowiest month, some pretty distinct patterns emerge for what to look for if a certain month is going to be snowiest. Snowiest August October Nov 1.74" 0.51" Dec 1.71" 0.94" Jan 1.47" 0.61" Feb 1.13" 0.70" Mar 1.44" 1.40" 2018 0.95" 1.64" Prior to the heavy rains over the past two days, February's composite was closest to what we observed in August & October. With the huge rains in October, MARCH, which hasn't been wet in Albuquerque since 2007, is now the closest composite. That being said, some years when December is snowiest have big Octobers too, but the data at least implies a secondary stormy period in February-March. My main issue is Albuquerque has only had over three inches of snow in March one time since 1931 in a year without high sunspot activity (3/1975). "High" I define as an average of at least 55 sunspots per month from July-June. Every 100 sunspots on an annualized basis is worth about 0.11" in Albuquerque, so the March number for precipitation would be 1.10" if the blend below holds. Snow would also be lower if the sunspot idea is correct, closer to four inches instead of six, and even four inches of snow would be the highest March snow total in Albuquerque in a low-solar year since 1931. The other (low) possibility is that the solar minimum is now, i.e. Oct/Nov 2018, and we will rapidly ramp up in activity by March allowing a big snow total as shown below. If the composite idea is correct, 1957, 1972, 2004, 2004, 2004, 2015 blended together is a near perfect match to July-Oct precipitation by month here, and all of those years but 2015-16 had their top snowfall in March. Snow Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Total 1957 0.0 0.0 2.9 2.3 0.5 7.3 0.0 0.0 13.0 1972 0.0 2.9 1.2 9.5 1.8 13.9 8.1 0.0 37.4 2004 0.2 1.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 4.2 0.5 0.0 6.9 2004 0.2 1.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 4.2 0.5 0.0 6.9 2004 0.2 1.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 4.2 0.5 0.0 6.9 2015 0.0 0.0 7.2 2.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 9.8 Mean 0.1 1.3 2.0 2.3 0.5 5.6 1.6 0.0 13.5"

Against 1931-2017 means, the 10/1-10/23 mean high here is still running 5.6F below average, behind only 1984, 1986, and 2000.

Phoenix, for 10/1-10/20, is having its second coldest observed mean high since 1895, of 81F. That is around 20F below the record heat in October 1991. Albuquerque is seeing the 6th coldest high for 10/1-10/20, at around 16F below the record heat for the period in October 1979.

Going forward, this is probably a decent way to estimate final El Nino / La Nina strength in winter. The 100W-180W numbers come from here - http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt Implies around 27.6C for Nino 3.4 this DJF, give or take 0.55C or so, peak ONI of right around +0.5 to +1.5 against the 1985-2014 base NOAA uses (26.58C), just like the models show.

This October cold spell here is already basically as cold as it got all of last winter for any sustained period. My analogs had an October high of 68F here. That may end up too warm....since through 10/17 we're already down to 68.4F for the October high. The high of 68.4F for 10/1-10/17 is actually the 4th coldest in Albuquerque since 1931.

Looks like the high here was 43F today. That is colder than...99.6% of all October highs since 1931 here. Record coldest high is 36F.

Increasingly looking like October 2018 will be the first cold month here since August 2017 on a mean high basis, relative to 1931-2017.

This region does pretty well for snow in my analogs - I have snow anomaly maps for each analog toward the back if you all are curious. This is what I have - https://www.scribd.com/document/390797995/Winter-2018-19-Outlook

I think the NE US and Ozarks are risks for ice-storms in this winter. I also think there is a lot of snow in MO and other areas nearby this winter. You guys tend to get a lot of snow when we do in NM, and it looks good for us, and it hasn't in a while. I don't think it will be super cold personally, but it will be stormy.

The thing that strikes me about the Euro / Jamstec runs is you rarely have +1.2 (Euro) or +1.8 (Jamstec) readings in February - the events tend to be lower if they are weak and weakening, and the super-events are still around +2 or more. The only real years like that are 1941, 1969, 1973, 1987, and most of those are double El Ninos.

Thew new Jamstec run has corrected to anomalies that approach Super-Nino territory in Feb/Mar 2019. I really don't know what to make of it. The Euro went to +1.2C or so for its peak, but the Jamstec is +1.8. The look of the winter looks like my outlook - pretty severe for the SW and MO/AR etc. It looks like 1968, 1986, 1991 all peaked around Feb at +1.0 to +1.8, might have to look at those.

Looks like we may get snow even in Albuquerque. I think the models are a bit under done on Sergio, although they have kind of trended up two steps, down one for the last few runs. I like 0.05-0.25" locally more.

Potential tropical remnants middle of next week? I buy it. Balloon Fiesta is in town, biggest tourism event of the year in the whole state. Nice to see rain and mountain snow coming though.

Still looks good for the mountains to get snow here soon.

Assuming the El Nino does develop - and it looks like it is to me - 15 rainy days during the Monsoon is a lot historically, and corresponds pretty well here to a lot of snow in our snowiest month of Nov-Apr.

I've done some research on the SOI for snowfall here. It isn't a great indicator for individual months, except a -SOI in Aug/Sept/Oct all pretty strongly favor snow in November here. High Oct-May seasonal snow, and a high single month for snow is favored with a -SOI in those months too. The NAM is bringing pretty good rainfall here Tues Night/Weds Morning, with snow for the tallest peaks.

Let's go King NAM.

I remain optimistic for this winter. There isn't a huge signal for extreme cold or extreme wetness here, but compared to last year, average is going to seem pretty great. My winters with <=50% of normal DJF precipitation and highs 3F or more above the long-term mean are pretty rare - 1933, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2008, 2013 and then last year. The following years, 1934, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2009, 2014 are varied, but overall, the signal is for a somewhat wet winter with average highs. Most of these years feature one fluke snow event outside Dec-Feb, Oct, Nov, Mar, Apr, May all had measurable snows. My winter last year was close to a blend of 1933-34, 1985-86, 2005-06, so tentatively looking at 1934-35, 1986-87, 2006-07 for this year.

Officially got 0.31" of rain today. That brings June 15-Sept 9 to 4.50" exactly for Albuquerque. The 1931-2017 mean for June 15-Sept 30 is 4.32". So we've had an above average monsoon here now. For June 15-Sept 9, against 1981-2010 we're about +17% now, against 1931-2017, +28%. El Nino cold seasons after a wet monsoon tend to be snowy here - (long-term snow mean is 9.6")

The big SOI crash in recent days implies a fairly cold Texas in November if we finish well into the -SOI territory.

Sept 1-3 average high temperature (77.33F) is the third coldest start to September in Albuquerque since 1931. We're 10% of the way through the month, and more rain seems to be coming this week, so will be hard for highs to rebound much. Pretty decent odds of a cold September now.

61F at noon here in Albuquerque. We had a rare significant rainfall event in the morning - easy way to get a cold day here in the Summer. Likely our first day not hitting 80F since June 16th.

I've decided to roll with 1934, 1976, 1986, 1994, 1994, 2006 as my Fall analogs. Cold AMO ring, slightly positive PDO, El Nino developing, La Nina in prior winter, low-solar, similar Modoki structure, and similar Monsoon conditions. So we'll see how it does. We had near record November highs here last year (65.4F, average in Nov is 57.3F), so that is the main reason for the huge drop off expected. Going from +3.3F for Fall highs to -1.4F for Fall highs against 1951-2010 is what the analogs get for Albuquerque.

Sea Ice Extent on 8/17/18 was 5.568 million square km. That is above 2017 (5.371), 2016 (5.398), 2012 (4.691), 2011 (5.495), and 2007 (5.322) for the same date (8/17). Will be curious to see how the annualized AMO v. ice extent on 8/1 plot looks after this year is over.

Starting to think we have a shot at >=5 inches of rain for June-August here. Well over four inches through 8/17 at 7:30 pm.