ORH_wxman

Unless there was a revision to past area, I have 2023 as 4th lowest. Either way, this is one of the stronger late melts on record post-August 1st. 2012: 2.228429 2016: 2.463209 2020: 2.5859 2023 low so far is 2.63, but it's only at 2.67 right now, so it could fall further into 3rd still. The area file I used to reference is no longer active, so I don't have a good way to look up revisions. But I do have the old data saved. Is there a good archive of the data somewhere now? I only have cryosphere computing, but that only gives us a single day shot and doesn't seem to archive the daily numbers.

Yeah they are definitely “seeing” something. But it’s hard to weight it too much this far out. If it stays that way when November updates are coming out, then I’ll be more intrigued.

I wouldn’t much stock in any of the seasonal models yet. If they are still all agreeing with eachother in November then I think there’s probably some predictive skill….but there’s been so many times they just shat the bed.

I dunno. You just told me the Baffin differences Re: 2009 vs 2023 were due to high Atlantic SSTs….that seems like a claim very similar to my other examples which haven’t held up over time. Also, doesn’t the literature show a lot more cloudiness in recent years over the arctic high latitudes? That wouldn’t square with more sunshine being the primary culprit in heating the sfc. But I also realize these debates are better suited for another thread rather than detracting from the ENSO discussion.

Yeah I disagree with his attribution claims RE: 2009 vs 2023. I’ve found over and over again that SSTs being blamed for extreme patterns seems to not hold up against time. We saw this with the low sea ice (which makes the sfc much warmer in the arctic) claims as being the reason for big -AO patterns in the 2009-2013 period or the Pacific warm blob being blamed for the exceptional PNA ridging in 2014 and 2015. Local SST anomalies can enhance a mid-latitude pattern, that is pretty well known…but they are almost never the primary cause. The only region where the literature is extremely robust is in the tropical pacific…though that doesn’t affect a pattern directly by raising heights, but rather it does it mostly through convection.

I don’t think those patterns are THAT similar for summer. Look how much further southwest the ridge axis is over the west in 2009. This year essentially had a block over the Beaufort/CAA instead of just a ridge over the GOA. That’s a pretty big difference IMHO for cold delivery. In addition, this year has a relative min over Baffin on the Atlantic side while 2009 had a relative max there which is more favorable for driving cooler air into SE Canada.

CC should be a non-factor on an 11-15 day forecast for typical NWP guidance.

It's a pretty weak R squared value at 0.12....probably falls below 0.1 if you remove the crazy 2014-15 outlier.

Oh I thought I remember seeing reference to it earlier as a super Nino. I know the data from back then is pretty spotty anyway.

I think there's plenty of reasons to not assume the usual monster GOA low or even if there is a GOA low, there's reason to assume it won't be as overpowering as other super ninos: 1. Our sample of super Ninos is really small. If you include 1925-26, then we get another and that Super Nino did have a further west Aleutian low. Also, you left out 1965-66 which didn't match any of those examples....1965-66 almost acted like a La Nina at times despite being borderline super at 2.0 ONI peak. I supposed you could put '65-66 into very strong territory, but I'm not sure the usefulness of parsing 0.1C to eliminate it from the already tiny sample. 2. Relative to the waters near and just west of the dateline. this Super Nino isn't as "super" as the others on your list. So does that make this act more like a strong Nino ala 1957-58 where there was a GOA low but not so strong to overpower everything? Hard to say. 3. This isn't guaranteed to even be a Super Nino yet. It's probably still favored, but it might end up closer to 1.8-2.0 range too. But again, is the ONI peak all that matters here? RONI and MEI are severely lagging the other super ninos. They will need to make an incredible surge to reach those years. 4. Our sample of Super Ninos is really small. 5. Our sample of Super Ninos is really small. Sorry I repeated the sample size issue, but I believe it's very important to acknowledge.

There won't be a La Nina pattern this year....agreed. None of the seasonal models show a La Nina pattern either....they all show big +PNA with STJ riding underneath it. The polar domain and the Aleutian low position will determine whether it's a good pattern for the northeast or not.

The late Jan/early Feb 2021 period was really driven by an exceptionally favorable Atlantic....the PAC pattern was a -PNA, but the trough wasn't digging into Baja CA/S CA like we saw last winter and for a time in Dec 2021 too....so because it wasn't digging that far southwest, it allowed the NAO block to successfully produce a classic height response over the Northeast and Atlantic region. Late Dec 2010 through first half of Jan 2011 also saw this pattern though the PAC was even a little more favorable (though still a -PNA) to produce an even colder height response than the 2021 pattern. These are aren;t super uncommon for "good" La Nina patterns. I'd expect a lot more +PNA though this winter.

Here's 2008-2015 when we had a lot of colder winters mixed in. Total from 2008 to present: You can see southeast Canada is the warmest on both outside of the arctic sea ice regions further north.

Last year we couldn't buy even a stale polar high to our north. Doubt we keep up that weird anomaly. Even a marginal polar high in some of those storms last year would've made the entire complexion of winter different as some of those storms wouldve been large snow events much closer to the coast or even right to it. This is as good a season as any for some positive regression in our source region in SE Canada/NNE for colder temps and right down into much of the northeast....they've been the most anomalous for warmth in the past 8 seasons. No surprise who has been the coldest (that -PNA region from W Canada to N plains/N Rockies)

Boston has had some weird quirks of very large seasonal snowfall during strongly +NAO seasons....1992-93 and 1993-94 also are in the group....or even strongly positive NAO months like Jan 2005.

EPS mean doesn’t even get it to 70W…there is still a lot of work needed on this one to make it compelling outside the Cape/Islands.

The only thing that gives me a bit of pause is really haven’t seen a N PAC like that in a super Nino. Even the great Jan-early Feb 1966 period was mostly driven by an ideal Atlantic pattern and the PAC was just kind of meh…but not hostile enough to ruin the great NAO block. But the sample size for super ninos is admittedly pathetically small….and I don’t think enough people take that into account when expressing high confidence in pattern tendencies. Also, if this is effectively just a “strong Nino” (RONI, MEI, etc), then that changes things too I’m sure.

Big difference there is the Aleutian low and corresponding downstream ridging....in the Feb 2016 pattern, the low is well east in the GOA and therefore, the western ridge couldn't pump up as much. That kept the bulk of the cold in Canada in Feb 2016 while we had pseudo-zonal flow and mild temps in the mean...but in the Euro and CanSIP seasonal forecasts, it is further west and the downstream ridge is pumping the best height anomalies into the NW Territory/Yukon/AK instead of being flatter down in the US like 2016. This also allows the STJ to flow nicely underneath in classic split flow pattern. Regardless of the ENSO strength, this is the type of pattern you want to see. If that Aleutian low ends up in a 2016 position, then it will be a much warmer outcome.

If it moves 100-150 miles west then I'll be interested.

An awful lot of seasonal guidance has the Aleutian low well west in a favorable spot that we typically see during a weaker or modoki El Nino....that is really the main key for any eastern winter enthusiast....where that Aleutian low sets up. In previous torchy Super Ninos, the Aleutian low is displaced pretty far east well into the GOA and enlarged which sort of destroys the benefit of split flow and a colder southeast Canada/Northeast US.

Might have been weaker when it hit Yucatan or by the time it reached the more populated wets side of Cozumel....I know it was weakening pretty fast though regardless. If it had been holding more steady or intensifying, it would have been way worse than it was....and it was still really bad.

Yep....I remember Gilbert all over the news in 1988...probably one of my earlier Tropical cyclone memories. Its aerial coverage was insane....something like 600 miles IIRC. I still say that Cozumel/Yucatan peninsula used up 8 of their 9 lives on that one....it encountered some unfavorable upper air right before landfall there and weakened to a cat 4....otherwise it would have been an epic catastrophe. Hurricane Gilbert is still pretty well-known in Texas not for the tropical winds, but for all the tornadoes it spawned. It caused a bunch of tornadoes, several of which hit San Antonio where I had just moved away from back to New England.

Allen was 1980...but yeah, crazy strong that storm got.

You can see how little NW CCB was present in that....def like a WAA thump running into a brick wall on the NW side. That would be consistent with a dampening upper level wave which I believe this was. It was not amplifying on approach and throwing moisture 400 miles NW....it was getting squeezed which helped wring out that obscene snow in a narrow area.

Yeah that 3/4/19 storm def trended SE pretty decently in the final 24 hours. We never got that little bump back NW with the bands that we often see right at game time. That was legit stuff though. I think I had 17” and about a foot of that fell in 3 hours.