ORH_wxman

Yeah I’d be shocked if your area was worse than last year. The only silver lining to such a shitty season is that even a merely run-of-the-mill subpar season will feel like a decent winter in comparison. Even in my area, I’d be surprised if we were as bad. I had something like 33” which was the lowest since probably ‘99-00 here.

It’s interesting looking at the historical climo of legit hurricane landfalls in New England. We had a VERY active period in the middle 20th century where we had 6 legit New England landfalls in roughly 50 years (and that doesn’t count close misses like the 1944 NYC hurricane or Gerda swiping ACK in 1969). But we had a similar lull to now back between the 1890s and the 1938 storm where we went over 40 years without a landfall and prior to that was very active in the 1850s-1890s. I always joke with Scott (CoastalWx) how the media is going to lose their proverbial shit when we have another active period for New England and east coast landfalls in general. The further away we get from that active middle 20th century period, the more the population becomes blissfully unaware of it.

I did make a prediction for NSIDC extent back in my prediction post (I went with 4.8 million sq km). Extent is a little harder to predict because compaction makes a big difference unlike area where compaction wouldn’t change a whole lot. In the short term (0-96h), the pattern is pretty good for compaction but the longer term ensembles aren't…however, things can always change in the arctic pretty quickly beyond 5 days. I personally forecasted a bit higher extent than I might normally would for a 3.1 million sq km area prediction (4.6 or 4.7 million sq km would be more in line with 3.1 area) due to the stronger buffer in the Chukchi region this year and lower area in Hudson Bay which melts out fully anyway…the latter was driving down the area numbers in late June. The mean pattern in August will likely have a big say in the final extent. If we get a lot of high pressure over the basin (esp skewed a bit toward North American side), then we’ll see a lot of compaction and lower extent…but if we see a lot of low pressure, it will keep the ice dispersed and the extent will stay higher by the time we get to the min in early or mid September.

What is the based on? I'll take the over.

Yes and this is what the prediction was for the minimum too based on the data at the end of June...very mundane middle-of-the-pack type season in the post-2007 world.

Update: On 7/12, NSIDC area was 5.91 million sq km. Here's how other years compared: 2022: +350k 2021: -380k 2020: -400k 2019: -580k 2018: +160k 2017: +280k 2016: -270k 2015: +140k 2014: +380k 2013: +230k 2012: -590k 2011: -110k 2010: +20k 2009: +580k 2008: +390k 2007: -140k

There will be diurnal variation on anything that gets sunlight. The question is the magnitude. The FL Keys sensors were near 7F (over 3C) variation. Ct River is much more modest variation of ~1C.

Or using the water treatment plant on deer island to measure BOS snowfall.

If they are sticking these sensors in a shallow lagoon with the sand not far below them, those water temps are going to be pretty normal in the summer. It only takes one idiot over at a news stations to equate these readings with more offshore buoys to fire up the hype machine. It’s like using Maple Hollow in the winter to talk about how cold it got in CT one morning.

Maybe it's super shallow...that's the only way you could get a 7F diurnal range, and also have the readings that high to begin with.

I’d love to see what type of production we get from that type of pattern in the modern day juiced SST environment. My guess is it would be really good.

It’s not going to be a weak Nino and probably not moderate either. Im leaning toward a strong Nino at the moment but short of “Super Nino” in the ‘82-83, ‘97-98, and ‘15-16 mold. Borderline cases like ‘72-73 and ‘65-66 are right in the mix though…and they are good PDO matches.

Yeah it prob does…esp if it is rapid, then the effects are non-linear. March is kind of weird though in that other factors start increasing in relevance too due to the strong increase in solar insolation compared to mid-winter. But if we’re focusing on the meat of the winter (mid Dec through mid/late February), ENSO stuff after new years is largely irrelevant. This is going to be an interesting evolution to follow though because of all the weird stuff going on as this Nino strengthens (the west-based forcing and the extremely negative PDO are two of the biggest unconventional factors so far)

I usually stop looking at ENSO in December. I suppose fast changes in January can still lead to a change in end-of-winter pattern ala late Feb into first half of March but the larger scale impacts mostly seem baked in by new years.

Update: On 7/10, NSIDC area stood at 6.11 million sq km, here’s where other years stood on the same date compared to 2023: 2022: +240k 2021: -240k 2020: -380k 2019: -580k 2018: +50k 2017: +220k 2016: -300k 2015: +150k 2014: +440k 2013: +260k 2012: -440k 2011: -40k 2010: -30k 2009: +470k 2008: +370k 2007: -110k

The forcing being way west all summer is definitely really weird compared to the Super Ninos....that and the PDO. I wonder if this one tops out more like 1.8 or something on the trimonthly ONI.

That band might dump like 2-3" in a short time...looking like it's heading right for my area

Ginxy Sultan Signal incoming

Ugh...that's the worst. We take our kids every year but keep flexible....usually pick the nicest weekday during out of our vacation in adjacent western Maine to drive over and spend the day. Although maybe you can luck out where the rain is delayed a bit or more spotty....we had a day like that one year and the threat of scared off all the crowds, and we basically had the park with no lines or very short lines. It was great.

That's one reason I'm annoyed they haven't fixed the sensor there yet...it's always a great proxy to use for the type of airmass we are in. Like when ORH hits 90F, it's a pretty legit hot airmass....when they start going 93-94F, it's a "high end" heat wave.

Yeah they only average about 2-3 90F per year. Some years they fail to hit it (last occurrence in 2014....though 2015 almost pulled it off too until a September 90-burger)

ORH hit 90 on 4/14 and hasn't since...in reality they probably haven't hit it all since they are running about 2F too warm still. They might squeeze out another one today. But I want to see like 92F for it to be authentic.

Official 2023 prediction on Arctic Sea Ice minimums: Area: 3.1 million sq km (+/- 300k)...this would rank 8th lowest Extent: 4.7 million sq km (+/- 500k)....this would rank 13th lowest This is based on years of using NSIDC area from the SSMI/S satellite which gets fooled by meltponding into thinking it's open water. This means that we can use NSIDC area as a proxy for meltponding and some of the most robust literature on predicting minimums in advance is using meltponding in May and June. I give more detail on my method here in last year's prediction, but didn't feel the need to repeat it every single year so I will just link it for those who are interested in how I make these predictions: I will include the graph I usually post, Keep in mind that this graph is not a graph of historical minimums....it is simply what 2023 minimum would be if we followed that previous year's melt rate AFTER July 1st. The reason this works fairly well is most of the decadal trend in ice loss has been due to increases in melting prior to July 1st, not after. But it gives us a nice distribution of possible results if we mirrored previous season's melt rate from post-July 1st.....from this graph, you can see that if we had a post-July 1st melt rate like 2016 (currently the biggest post-July 1st melt on record), then we'd end up with a minimum of 2.65 million sq km....that would still be over 400k above the record minimum in 2012 which is why we can rule out a new record this year. There just wasn't enough melting prior to July 1st to challenge the 2012 record. Likewise, you can see how even a higher retention post-July 1st would still produce a minimum below 4 million sq km....so it is safe to say that we will not have a 4 million sq km min for the first time since 2006. The distribution of this year's possible results looks quite mundane in the post-2007 context...and that is reflected in my predictions above.

We got smoked earlier. Not sure how much but it had to be over an inch in under an hour. We’ll see if any of that stuff to the west holds together.

Yeah the latest drop the past 2 days is going to put this more toward the middle of the pack in post-2007 than near the top retention years. I’ll have my official forecast out later today or tomorrow but I’m expecting a fairly mundane/boring season with no extreme results (high or low). But there’s always still the chance of a surprise.