raindancewx

As a sanity test, I did a bunch of quick statistical tests to see which months, filtered by ENSO state - L/N/E - are most predictive of a wet or dry March here. For La Nina, the best two are Aug+Oct as a unit, and January. We had a very wet January here, and an OK Aug+Oct for precip. When I ran the numbers, 1973-74 popped up as almost identical to 2016-17 - huge January, nearly the same numbers in August & October. Despite the differences in the AMO, the MJO timing seems similar. La Jul-Jun Jan Aug + Oct March Formula Error Err, All Avg 1933 0.06 2.66 0.01 0.50 0.49 0.35 1938 0.70 0.80 0.67 0.60 0.07 0.31 1942 0.25 2.15 0.23 0.35 0.12 0.13 1949 0.02 0.86 0.04 -0.11 0.15 0.32 1950 0.41 0.09 0.29 0.18 0.11 0.07 1954 0.29 0.90 0.00 0.13 0.13 0.36 1955 0.46 1.38 0.00 0.33 0.33 0.36 1956 0.78 0.96 0.52 0.68 0.16 0.16 1964 0.47 1.02 0.49 0.32 0.17 0.13 1970 0.27 2.49 0.03 0.42 0.39 0.33 1971 0.12 2.02 0.08 0.29 0.21 0.28 1973 0.88 1.54 0.85 0.71 0.14 0.49 1974 0.26 2.75 0.95 0.48 0.47 0.59 1975 0.00 1.40 0.09 0.06 0.03 0.27 1983 0.33 1.47 0.62 0.25 0.37 0.26 1984 0.49 5.74 0.70 0.79 0.09 0.34 1988 0.57 3.61 0.48 0.49 0.01 0.12 1995 0.17 0.74 0.02 -0.02 0.04 0.34 1998 0.12 2.68 1.10 0.49 0.61 0.74 1999 0.30 3.30 1.27 0.58 0.69 0.91 2000 0.28 3.23 0.27 0.58 0.31 0.09 2005 0.04 1.52 0.14 0.12 0.02 0.22 2007 0.39 1.22 0.00 0.26 0.26 0.36 2008 0.00 2.42 0.31 0.43 0.12 0.05 2010 0.07 1.21 0.00 0.03 0.03 0.36 2011 0.40 2.41 0.20 0.41 0.21 0.16 2016 1.04 1.60 0.87 0.87 0.36 I was pleased to see it, 1973-74 was one of my analogs for the winter. The precip anomaly map today looks like 1973-74 but upside down - i.e. it's a warm AMO/PDO version of 1973-74 instead of the cold AMO/PDO version. The super heat is still in the SE though. Just for kicks, I tested what predicts March precipitation in a Neutral too. It's July, November & February. Using Neutrals, 1981-82 and 1996-97 are probably the best matches (which is interesting - given that they went into huge El Ninos fairly early). 1997 had a snowy, very wet and very cold April here, but 1982 was wet in March. 1981-82 was another analog I had for winter here. The Neutral predictors say we get 0.23", instead of 0.87", but in an ONI sense I'd bet on the La Nina number being closer given the La Nina conditions from July to January. Anyway, it's interesting looking at this because the months that are predictive for March moisture in El Nino implied a dry March last year, which verified, but this year, the numbers imply 0.87" precipitation in March, which would be our biggest March total since 2005. I'm cautiously optimistic that we kill the nine-year drier than average March streak this year.

Albuquerque (officially) got 1.1" snow at the airport on 2.12.17 after being 75F on Friday. Maybe another 0.2" to 0.5" midnight after, but no report yet. It's winding down for now, but should snow again tonight. I think I only got 0.5" or so, but generally seems to have been 1-3" to the South & West, with a coating to two in the north and east. We've already matched January, our prior "high" month for this snow season. Kind of nice to see. My analogs and some tests I've developed suggested February was most likely to be the snowiest month based on Summer observations. Looks fairly likely now, unless March comes through. Pretty rare to get an over 1.1 inches of snow in April here (14% of Aprils in 85 years). So...our snowiest month will probably be February, March, or a Jan-Feb tie I guess if none of the snow that's fallen since midnight added up to over 0.1". Snow pack state wide fell from 139% of normal (Jan 25) to 91% of normal (Feb 12). Hopefully we can recover a bit before it all starts to rapidly vanish in mid-April.

I'm starting to get excited for March - the European weeklies if anything keep getting colder for much of the West. The CFS seems to be slowly trending in that direction too, and Canadian has been trending colder in its monthly outlooks since December. The deeper the European weeklies get into March, the greater the precipitation anomaly forecast. The ensemble mean and control run show a ton of snow falling in the SW & CA over the next 45 days too. If the temperature pattern verifies, cold West, very warm SE, the area in between is going to have to deal with a lot of nasty tornadoes in late Feb & March.

Sad thing is our snow pack was at 139% of normal statewide on Jan 25, 13 days later, it's 113% of normal state wide. Been losing 2% a day on where we should be with the lack of snow and gradual warmth. Good news is this system coming in over the weekend looks pretty strong and snowy. European has two inches for Albuquerque. The CFS monthly, European weeklies, and Canadian monthly all show a fairly cold March for much of the West, and CPC has wet conditions for 2/13 to 2/17, 2/15 to 2/21, and 2/18 to 3/3 for New Mexico. Albuquerque has been drier than the long-term March average every year since 2007, would love to see the dry-streak break this year. The MJO is also about to go through phase eight with near record magnitude since 1975. The years where the MJO goes nuts in Feb/Mar tend to have big snow storms out here if it gets to 8-1-2-3. I think Jan-Mar 1988 is the best match to what has happened recently and what is forecast since 1975, but we'll have to see. Would really like to see the wave move intensely into 1-2-3 again, got super cold here in late January when it did that before, but too early to know if that is in the cards or not. We haven't had a cold March in a non-El Nino here (ABQ) since 1975, so I'm a bit suspicious of that part of it, but we keep getting these 25 day dry spells followed by a ~ 20 days where it is very wet for three weeks, with four to five storms, with some trend towards a wet week with one-two big storms instead in a week more recently. Dry Spells: July 3 - July 28 Aug 21 - Sept 10 Oct 10 - Nov 1 Nov 22 - Dec 16 Dec 24 - Jan 13 Jan 22 - Feb 12/13? Mar 8 - Apr 1? Apr 24 - May 17? Wet: July 29 - Aug 19 Sept 11 - Oct 9 Nov 1 - Nov 21 (Dec 17-23) (Jan 14-21) Feb 13 - Mar 7? Apr 2 - Apr 23? May 18 - Jun 8?

The Canadian, European, and GFS all have a pretty big snowstorm for New Mexico next weekend. Focus right now seems to be Southern & Eastern NM.

If the MJO forecasts are correct, the last time the amplitude in 8 (and maybe 1-2-3) was anything like what was forecast, it was 1988 & 1978. So...that'd be fun.

I put out a Spring outlook if anyone is curious. In terms of oceanic conditions and the observed weather here in Nov-Jan, Spring 1997 did pretty well (borderline La Nina '96-97, wet in the SW, warm AMO, positive PDO, likely heading into an El Nino, nearing solar minimum, and so on). If you all like the cold weather in the Northwest...it's not going anywhere. Anyway, link is below. https://t.co/GZ6OMiARuU Be curious to see if anyone has thoughts...it's going to live/die with the MJO.

Canadian said super torch for March in the NE again today. Canadian called it last year too nearer to March. We haven't had a wet March where I live since 2007, so I'm begging you people, talk to your weather gods: let New Mexico have our March trough back. We like snow in March out here, it's our best snow pack month. Last March was particularly infuriating with the snow in Guadalajara/Jalisco, the blizzard in Denver and not even a drop of rain here.

It's interesting looking back at the Canadian last year. Initially (Dec 1 2015) it had the West cold in March, and then it trended warmer each month, until realizing on March 1 that the whole country would blow torch, which happened. This year initially (Dec 1 2016) it had the West warm, and has been trending much colder, with the East warm each run. The Canadian is fairly useless for precipitation, but it does OK with sniffing out the cool/warm split, an area that trends blue/red tends to show up as white initially two months before as it tries to figure out anomalies, and then it tends to fill in as red/blue right before the month.

The Canadian came in - trended wetter/drier for New Mexico in February...but interestingly it did trend much colder in March. Has no wet months in the Southwest for six months...which I don't buy.

Winter to date - temperature anomalies. I didn't have the cold centered far enough West (pending February of course), but I did have the entire East warm. That looks good. Had the cold centered on eastern Montana not western Montana. I did have California wet, north of Los Angeles, kind of proud of that given all the "warm and dry" forecasts in the SW. The entire West has either been cold (NW & CA) and/or wet (SW). Not the usual doom and gloom La Nina / Cold Neutral winter out here.

I realized the other day that if Albuquerque and much of the Southwest doesn't get near-record precipitation this Spring, it will be the driest ten-Spring period on record. For Spring 2007 to 2016, we're just above the lowest ten year period on the backs of 2007 and 2015 which were wet Springs. But we're about to lose 2007. So we need >2.83" precipitation in Spring 2017 to avoid having the driest decade of Springs on record. We've had ~7.86" precipitation from Spring 2008 to Spring 2016. Mean is 1.54" per year...so 2.83" would only get us to match the low point over a ten year period, and that level alone is nearly top ten for wetness, and over 80% above the long-term mean. Spring precipitation trends have beens very different from Winter here. Winters are ~25% wetter or so against the beginning of the period of record, while Springs are a bit drier.

Just for kicks was looking back at precipitation maps in January in the West ~2 years before the solar minimum year and you have a similar pattern. Very wet in Northern California, somewhat wet in much of the West, dry in parts of the Ohio Valley and Southeast. Solar controls the QBO to some extent.

The European has had snow for San Angelo since Tuesday guys Don't know the implications for the rest of the country, but expecting it to be wet in the Southwest for at least part of the Spring. March is the wildcard. Probably warm though. Have to say, I'm looking forward to the Canadian update for February, seeing lots of mixed signals for everything. March is probably a split of the Dec/Jan pattern. February might be the Nov pattern though...but with more cold.

Was doing some research earlier - when Albuquerque has more than 1.54" precipitation from Nov 1 - Jan 31, we are slightly more likely to have a Spring at least 20% wetter than normal than a Spring at least 20% drier than normal. We had 2.58" precip from Nov-Jan, since it won't rain/snow the rest of the month. The least likely outcome is a Spring within 20% of normal. Wet Nov-Jan Wet Spring: 11/29 Dry Spring: 10/29 Moist Spring: 8/29 Believe it or not, the wetness in Nov-Jan offers essentially no clues on Feb-Apr wetness. The seven Nov-Jan periods w/in 10% of the observed wetness Nov 1 2016 to Jan 31 2017 averaged 1.53" precip for Feb-Apr, and 1.87" precip from Mar-May, i.e. a "wet" Spring (>1.2*mean) and a moist Feb-Apr. May after a wet Nov-Jan is almost 70% wetter than May after a dry or near normal Feb-Apr, only month where it made a big difference.

You guys may want to look at WT360 has for March (Jan 23 Captain's Log). Much wetter/colder than last year.

Do any of you follow Weather Trends 360? They have a pretty impressive track record for timing long-range precip/temp anomalies. They have 6"+ snow in March in Albuquerque. Almost the entire country 1-5F below last March (when it torched). Texas drier than last March. They have NM >=2x wetter than last year...but that isn't saying much, it basically didn't rain or snow the entire month. I've put the image below. Snowline is into the Texas Panhandle in March.

Nice and cold here. My forecast from October had 2-3 major 5-10 day cold snaps of 5-15F below normal in New Mexico after Jan 15th, so far so good. 1/24 to 1/28 is going to be around 10F below normal for most of the state. Will wipe out much of the warm anomaly for the month here.

I'm pretty sure February will have some incredible cold shots in the middle of the country. Generally speaking when August is cold here it tends to be very cold in the middle of the US in Feb...and it was cold last August. It tends to be very cold East of the Rockies when Albuquerque is cold in August (see image). For what it is worth, the local NWS agrees with you on the progression, they think it is coming sometime late week one of February with changes in the Gulf of Alaska.

My original idea for February, the first image was for it to be cold in the middle of the country. Still like that, but it's probably centered further north than I had it.

I think this might be the first wet March in New Mexico/Arizona since 2007. Look at January temperature anomalies ahead of the 20 wettest Marches v. the last two years (El Ninos) and then this year. The composite "super warm SE, coolish West" signal is readily apparent in 2017, and that is the signal for a wet March here.

I've been trying to figure out what to expect in Spring but the AMO/PDO/ONI configuration doesn't really support any huge areas of anomalous cold/warmth at the moment. Looks fairly wet again in the West, dry in the mid-south, with the exception of maybe April.

I have a long standing theory that there is some kind of major storm here around Feb 1 give or take a couple days, but it isn't showing up anywhere on the models, so may be wrong. Santa Fe will likely be in the 40s during the day and pretty cold at night. The mountains will be pretty. Been a top ten January out here for precipitation. There is more snow coming tonight into Tuesday morning. All the ski resorts have a lot of snow right now. Even Ski Cloudcroft which is south of Ski Apache and only 9,100 feet up has a 28 inch base. Ski Santa Fe has 80 inches right now. We seem to be having a bastardized version of the wet & warm weak La Ninas, cold Neutrals out here. Super wet, not really cold. Unfortunately, I think the wetness is going to break for a while in February. I'm starting to think this may be the year we end our decade of dry BS Marches in Albuquerque though.

Have you guys seen this? A meter of snow in the Sahara. https://t.co/Kbh5hSeuwz The 1978-79 analog seems to be working...in the Sahara.

This was a pretty interesting read from Larry Cosgrove earlier, regarding February. He's been pretty consistent since November in thinking it could be a crazy month. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/weatheramerica/lqwBkN3XVkM Here is what we do know. The hue and cry over La Nina has given way to the realization that ENSO is as neutral as can be. The Madden-Julian Oscillation continues to each ever slowly eastward, now resting in chaotic fashion over the Maritime Continent and western equatorial Pacific Ocean. As long as the MJO is percolating and feeding both the polar and subtropical jet streams, apparent weather in North America will be mostly cold, and quite often stormy. Snow cover is most dense through northern/central Eurasia but is at near normal levels in Canada and the U.S. The January Thaw influence in reducing the continental snowpack has so far been fairly limited, especially over the West Coast and Intermountain Region.Put these trends together, and the weather map for February 2017 looks similar to December, but with the cold dome set a bit more to the south and east. The colder transition occurring during the new week should last until the first day or so of the new month, so January mean temperature anomalies will not look as warm as is the case between January 1 - 20. Precipitation is again a tough call, if only because of the tendency for systems to avoid the West Coast and dig into Baja California before ejecting. In a -EPO scenario, the disturbances would eject through Texas, pass through the Deep South, and ride along the Atlantic shoreline. That more suppressed south and east trajectory will favor more snow at lower latitudes, probably affording the Eastern Seaboard cities their first chance at significant snowfall. The potential for such an event is sooner than you might think.If you accept the CFS series depiction of the 500MB flow, but avoid the warm bias of the 2m temperature anomaly forecast, then the skew of a warm/dry West vs. cold/stormy Central, East alignment is evident. Alaskan blocking signatures occurring in tandem with -EPO or +PNA styled ridging can help to deliver far-flung cold intrusions that can reach Mexico and Florida. A potential for a deep closed 500MB low in western Ontario also allows for an active storm track with the cold air. I can see the possibility for the Old South and Mid-Atlantic states falling under a mild/moist regime around February 4 - 7 with a brief resumption of a subtropical high across Cuba and the Bahamas. But another hammer of cold event should return soon after. The western states, much of the time under ridging, may finally take on a milder and drier pattern. This after a major assault of storminess and cold from disturbances digging south from Alaska.