raindancewx

I love watching people deep in TX/MX and the South react to rare snow. It's neat to see. The 2008-09 winter was an analog that I used for my winter outlook, and it snowed in Houston & New Orleans - so not too surprised to see it. It was a low solar La Nina, after a La Nina, two years after an El Nino, and with impressive Gulf of Mexico hurricanes. https://twitter.com/deweythoms/status/938942069116194816 Accumulating snow in San Antonio https://twitter.com/mattbonner_15/status/938934812106162176 https://twitter.com/damaya14love/status/938932177663922176 Snow in Austin https://twitter.com/KHOULauren/status/938953217521672195 Snow in College Station, TX

Its amazing seeing snow forecast at short ranges SW of Brownsville TX in MX, and also by New Orleans, Houston and other places that almost never see it.

This setup is early days of "pattern b" to me. One of the three patterns my analogs had for the winter. The precip by El Paso and up the entire East Coast is consistent with it.

King NAM has snow for much of TX, NM and NE MX.

It has snowed some in the northern mountains, its the valleys and central areas that are lacking. We're in a top-30 dry stretch for consecutive days without precipitation in Albuquerque back to 1892. The record is 109 days, currently at around 60. Would assume the streak ends way before 109 days though.

It snowed a lot in Mexico in the 1960s...and the best objective match to Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, and Nino 4 SSTs in November was a blend of 1966 (x3) & 2007 (x2). So I'm on board with Mexico getting some real, accumulating snow this week.

King NAM and the latest GFS each have some snow in West TX and SE NM. Hoping it trends North.

Didn't really "design" my analogs for November, but the years I picked for winter (in Oct) did pretty well for the month. Anomalies will be closer once the maps become available only for high temperature departures, which is all I care about, lows are just about always way warmer than older years now.

If the MJO really does get to phase five at coherent magnitude, I have little doubt we have at least some kind of cold spell. 18z GFS and most recent Euro were back to some kind of precipitation event for NM, but still not looking great overall.

GFS - 8 day snowfall on the left. Euro precipitation on the right (as snow) through 10 days. Both have 4-6" for even ABQ in the fantasy range.

I've never looked into this, but does TX tend to have dry winters after big hurricane years? Certainly seems like it in some of the analogs I liked. My analogs for winter v. November 2017 so far - Correct pattern, not great on anomalies.

It won't be of much use for this winter, but I've been working on a "Modoki" calculator for winters - will be useful if we go into an El Nino. Works fairly well using Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, Nino 4 SSTs (raw) in October, with a recognition that each Box, Box A, B, C, must be calculated separately for the Modoki number to work correctly. The weak La Ninas and weak El Ninos seem to have their cold directly controlled by the structure of the Modoki signature, and with Box C warming quickly over time relative to the other boxes, certain types of events are becoming more likely.

Congrats Texans on winning the World Series - we gave you Giles & Bregman from ABQ - so pleased to see them get their rings.

One of the things I've always struggled with is trying to figure out the moisture signal in the SW in the cold season, since it is so dependent on the PDO. PDO+ seems to largely cancel out La Nina effects here except in November, April & May. But it looks like the PDO can be predicted by matching the Nino 1.2 reading in October before Nov-Apr, and also the PDO value for March-August before the Nov-Apr. There are never a whole lot of blends that allow an acceptable close blend on those two factors, but when blended correctly, you predict Nov-Apr surprisingly well, at least for the 10 years I have tested so far. Long and the short of it is that Nino 1.2 was frigid in October, which should keep the PDO somewhat negative, but it was still positive in Mar-Aug, which favors for somewhat positive. So I don't think this La Nina forces the PDO super negative just yet. Going by the Nino 1.2 weeklies, Nino 1.2 was -1.4C in October, v. +0.3C last October. (the blurred out years for 2009 are 1967, 1991, 1991, 1991) Oh and I left out 2011, which is a blend of 1952, 1971, and 1999.

Puerto Rico isn't directly hit by hurricanes super often - but the years it has been smacked around by big time hurricanes produce a pretty good match to October for a one variable match. Hot lakes, cold ID.

I don't think this is a terrible winter for cold in TX or the SW. Might be for moisture...but it should be much colder than last year. The cold in October is displaced much deeper into the West than last October, which is what my analogs had for the winter. So its not going to be cold...we're just closer to the cold sourcing, so the cold shots will be more frequent and stronger.

I think is kind of a nuts winter personally, even though on aggregate it will probably come out relatively close to average in a lot of places. Part of me thinks TX could see some kind of fluke storm in late winter, like a blend of a Blue Norther with subtropical jet moisture. October here is directly correlated to December in La Nina, so if we end up 3-4F colder, that alone favors more cold in the SW in Dec. 2016: 75.9F (+4.6F) -->49.7F 2017: ~72.5F (+1.2F) --> ?? I put this in the MO thread, but some of the analog years I like had good snows pretty deep into the South.

I don't have much faith in the CFS this early, but it continues to insist on a dry NW for the winter...AND a La Nina.

Even in populated areas of New Mexico it can occasionally snow in June & September. Snow is favored precip time above 7,000 feet or so from October to May. Nice pics. Was hoping for some snow in the city this October, but not looking likely. It only happens once a decade though. Suspect my forecast will do OK, with some issues, something always comes up. Last year it was pretty good for January nationally, less so Dec/Feb. As far as I know New Mexico doesn't have any glaciers, the permanent snow/ice line here would be like 15,000 feet above sea level, but obviously the big time mountains get close - I think July is really the issue - even at 13,000 feet its rarely cold enough to snow here in July. "Beautiful Incredible Place" is how I'd describe most of New Mexico really. If you're back by June you will be able to see the white stuff on the higher peaks. Mountains will keep getting snow into mid to late May most years. Even in the city we had an inch of snow in some areas on April 29th this year. The volcanoes (5800 feet) outside the city were the lushest I had ever seen them a few days after it melted, covered in beautiful green grasses, flowers, mud, and wildlife.

I have the West pretty warm in Nov, but should be fairly cold TX to ND and east.

The biggest thing the ice has going for it in the winter is that the AMO anomaly tends to end up at about 60% of its Summer values in Winter - which would be a much colder Atlantic than last winter. Last Summer was like +0.45 and went to +0.279 for Nov-Apr. This year, more like +0.325 in July-Sept, been assuming +0.15 or so for Nov-Apr, which is much less rare in terms of warmth.

We've had some really nice days here lately - down to the 30s the other night, with highs in the 60s, and then low 70s today. Some of you seem interested in skiing, and others talk about "snow fixes" so I included some snow data for the high country in winter outlook if any of you are interested. I'm expecting a pretty decent season up by Chama & Red River against their long-term averages. https://tinyurl.com/yam55n95

I'm somewhat optimistic for a cooler winter than last year for the SW & SE - in my area two big early predictors both favor less warmth - the number of 87F days (we had 96!) and the AMO in July to Sept. AMO in July to Sept was 0.325 or so. Last year, 0.460. That's worth around half a degree of cooling. The increase in 87F days, fro 83 to 96, is worth about a degree of cooling. Expecting the winter here to be around 49.6F, +/-2.2F. Will put up my winter outlook tomorrow.

Pretty sure it will be warm in Louisiana for the winter, but a lot cooler than last winter. None of that +6F to +8F garbage like last year. Maybe +1 to +3F? I have to re-do my simulations with the heavy rain we've gotten in TX/NM lately. The soil moisture does seem to impact the placement of the highs some. I think effectively there is something of a wake in zone where the sub tropical high will be because of Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia, and Maria beating the day lights out of it and upwelling some colder ocean temperatures. My area is colder (not actually, you know cold) in La Nina winters that follow relatively long duration periods of heat. We've had (at least) 96 days 87F or higher, that tends to lead to near normal temperatures here. My area is colder (not actually cold) in La Nina winters when the Atlantic is cooler. My area also has exceptionally variable winters near the solar minimum - record heat / record cold are all near the minimum. Barring a complete bust over the next two days for highs, these years were the objective analogs that popped up for winter based on my Summer conditions - its heavily weighted to temps and preicp with low weight to ENSO. This is one method I use to look at winter - I'll give it some weight, but it isn't my forecast. The big big wild card for the winter especially late is if Mount Agung or one of these other suddenly active Ring of Fire volcanoes is going to erupt in a big way soon enough to screw up the Earth's heat intake.

I've had at least 0.64" rain today, one of the biggest precipitation days of the year here. Basically 48-50F from 6 pm to 9 pm with steady rain. Feels great actually. I had a wet September in my Summer outlook (from mid-May). Looks pretty good now if the NAM is right about the city getting another 0.6"-1.2" rain by Sept 30. I think I had 1.25", and we're at 0.74" right now. The link has the newest NAM outlook through 9/30/17. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKx3ktNU8AE9-V2.jpg:large Will be issuing my winter outlook (snow and DJF temps) sometime between Oct 7 - 15. I'll link it on here if anyone is curious.