George001

I would take a -5 degree Celsius Nina over a moderate or stronger nino regardless of structure. 2009-2010 was supposedly modoki and that didn’t stop it from giving DC blizzard after blizzard while we got screwed. I can’t think of a single strong nino that produced an epic winter here, modoki or not. That said, I looked at another chart and it says that weak nino is the best for us out of all Enso states like you said. For my winter forecast, if I see a mod or strong nino I’m not forecasting more than 35-40 inches in Boston and that’s if every other factor is favorable. Only weak nino is good otherwise it’s congrats DC, Richmond, Baltimore, ect.

according to this chart, Boston averages around 40 in strong ninas and low 30s in Strong ninos. Weak ninos are actually really good here, but moderate and strong ninos suck here. That’s why it’s weird to me to see the strong Nina=ratter idea being thrown around on a New England forum, our chances in a strong Nina are around the same as our chances during an enso neutral winter. The only enso states that signal below-well below average are mod-strong ninos.

In DC I agree, but in southern New England ninas are generally better. I would rather have a record strong Nina than another strong nino, those always seem to screw us. http://www.solarstorms.org/Boston.html data shows that Boston averages more snow in ninas than ninos overall.

I agree, this winter left some on the table considering the pattern. A great example of bad luck is 2/1, I got about 8 inches but just a 30 min drive to the NW and there’s 18 inches of snow. My area wasn’t even the area to get screwed over the most, Boston got like 2 inches and just 10 miles to the NW had nearly 2 feet, thats about as sharp a gradient you can get. That’s just plain bad luck, in my opinion 9/10 winters with similar atmospheric drivers to this one would have SNE getting hammered with 70+ inches of snow (except maybe the cape, r/s lines are extremely hard to avoid there). The polar vortex was just a bit too far west, but it was close. It’s not like the last 2 years where it was sitting over the North Pole.

Yeah I misunderstood your point, I thought you were saying Strong ninas in general are bad. I haven’t dug up the data yet on 2nd year mod-strong ninas yet but just off the top of my head we have 2011-2012, 2017-2018, and I believe there was one in the late 90s that sucked as well. If 2011-2012 is an analog that’s a very bad sign. I would have thought with 2 ninas in a row the Nina pattern would be more “set in” the second year so it would give us better chances and better winter patterns. It seems like the data is indicating the opposite, so how I thought it works is incorrect. Maybe it’s more like Rays load blown south west idea in that a miller a bombing out really far south isn’t necessarily good for us compared to a Miller B that bombs out over Nantucket. For the La Niña maybe the Nina “blows it’s load” and gives a more Nina pattern the first year but by the time the second year comes around the Nina, while still in place, isn’t really driving the pattern anymore. Another tricky aspect of forecasting is climate change, as certain atmospheric drivers that did one thing in the past may not do the same now with the warmer temps. For example a pattern with a bunch of marginal wet snow storms 50 years ago might just give us rain now.

I disagree, the dead ratter Enso state in New England is a strong El Niño, that’s the enso state we avg the least amount of snow in. I’ll take a record strong Nina over a record strong El Niño any day. In fact the strongest La Niña on record, 2010-2011, was an epic winter NYC north. This winter ended up as an avg-above avg winter here, but was very close to being more. From what I read over at the pattern drivers thread the nina pattern didn’t really take over until Feb, which is when we got our snowiest month. I don’t really understand the anti Nina sentiment here, our area does fairly well in ninas, it’s the mid Atlantic that gets screwed by them. Ninos tend to screw us and be congrats DC when moderate or strong (we can do well in weak ninos though).

Right now I’m leaning big NYC north, because I believe there will be a record strong La Niña next year that will overwhelm and dominate the pattern (strength exceeding -2 degrees Celsius on both the ONI and MEI chart). I posted my reasoning behind why I believe we are going to have a record strong La Niña next winter, however it is WAY too early and if my idea about the enso state is wrong then I am going to have to adjust my preliminary thoughts. This is why I’m not planning on writing up my forecast until November.

Strongly agree that long range forecasts should hedge AN until proven otherwise. The world is a lot warmer than it used to be. Next year is going to be my first official winter forecast, I have already shifted my focus from this winter to next winters atmospheric drivers. My official winter forecast will be released in November 2021.

I just looked at the long range data and the La Niña has strengthened yet again, especially in the central and western pacific, with 1.2 degrees Celsius below normal in regions 3.4 and 4. This La Niña was approaching high end weak/low end moderate levels as in mid Jan but the La Niña is now back to solidly moderate strength La Niña, this isn’t quite the borderline strong Nina it was during late fall/early winter, but this restrengthening could possibly be the start of a second La Niña in the spring and summer. From what I know about la ninas is they typically peak in late fall or early winter, so a restrengthening in the spring is quite unusual, with the only years I can find doing this being 1975 and 1955, which isn’t enough of a sample size to draw any conclusions. Also both these were weak events at the time (this La Niña is moderate and peaked borderline strong) and the climate is much different (warmer) than it was then, so the only conclusion I can draw from this is that what is happening right now is very unusual. I’m not sure what is going on, but my hypothesis is that this restrengthening is the start of what will be a double peak La Niña event, with the first peak being late fall/early winter, and the second and much stronger peak being next fall, potentially rivaling the strength of the record breaking 2010-2011 La Niña (I know it is considered just a regular strong Nina going by ONI, but this La Niña was extremely west based so ONI undersells the true strength of this La Niña. According to the Multivariate Enso Index, which captures all regions of the pacific, this was the strongest Nina on record).

There’s always next year, way too early to make a forecast but the long range models are hinting at the possibility of another La Niña, possibly even rivaling the strength of the 2010-2011 La Niña. if that verifies I’ll have lots of chances to become crowned King George.

I decided yesterday that I’m going to be checking out of this winter as long range guidance indicates the polar vortex is headed to the North Pole, and as long as that’s there I don’t expect another inch of snow this winter. I have been following this storm though and will report that I am at 4 inches or so, with what looks to be another inch or two as the final band of snow moves out, so it looks like I will end up at about 5-6 inches.

welp, I busted. My forecast was awful, there were a couple of red flags, such as the Euro and Navy being too far south with the low. I was banking on ratios to save us, while that idea of us getting good ratios was right (many areas received 20:1 ratios), there wasn’t enough QPF to get us anywhere near a foot. I’m probably going to end up around 5-6 inches when all is said and done. It was foolish of me to ignore the navy and euro, and to only side with the guidance that gave my area the most snow. Out west especially some areas got around 1/4 of what I forecast. unfortunately, the polar vortex looks like it’s headed to the North Pole on the models so it looks like winter is coming to an end. Can’t complain though, this winter was great compared to the last 2 winters, which were as terrible as my forecasts.

It appears that the models have the polar vortex going over the North Pole in early March. I’m not optimistic at all anymore for March, in my opinion this is going to be the last storm we see this winter. It looks like my area is going to end up with 50 inches or so (10 more, from this storm+everything rest of feb into March) The pattern left a bit on the table but a 50 inch snow year is nothing to complain about in interior southeast mass, that’s a decent winter and way better than I thought with how things looked in November. My March forecast is gonna bust bad, I didn’t think the polar vortex would go to the North Pole but it looks like it will now. Oh well, at least the warmer weather will make for nice spring skiing as we head into mid March. It has been fun tracking but I’m gonna dip until next winter, and will definitely be taking advantage of what appears to be an early fishing season coming. Im going to use the site that was reccomended to me to do some reading over the summer, hopefully that will help me develop a better understanding that is reflected in the improved quality of my posts next winter. I will always be a weenie like Anthony and James are, but I would like to be a more knowledgeable weenie. One thing I will say, NNE posters like Dendy and Phineas will likely be very happy with the upcoming pattern, as it appears that there will be several rainstorms right over my house as we enter March. That’s usually good for you guys up there in terms of snow.

it seems like the shredder caps the ceiling, but doesn’t stop us from getting frequent 4-8/6-12 type events. It’s extremely problematic if you want a 2ft+ blizzard though. Fortunately it looks like it isn’t going to last for the rest of winter according to the long range data, so we should have our chances at least in the early part of March before we warm up. edit- nevermind, while pattern is more amplified on the european guidance the polar vortex is over the North Pole so it torches us. We need changes to that, otherwise winter is over.

I have no idea at this point, I learned today that my beliefs in how the atmosphere works was WRONG. The se ridge+polar vortex in Maine actually does the opposite of what I thought, it does not create a boundary for cyclogenesis, but it shreds storms. Also we are in a fast flow pattern which makes bombogenesis more difficult to occur. La Niña also apparently doesn’t cool off the oceans like I thought, meteorology is complicated and not intuitive at all. My forecast could still be right, but if it is it will be because of the wrong reasons. I have a confession to make, I don’t really know anything whatsoever about meteorology, but I am trying to learn by making forecasts and when they bust doing a post Mortem to figure out where I went wrong. Regardless it was fun to track this storm and the post mortem analysis will be interesting. One things that gives me hope though is often the bands push farther west than expected, which may help my forecast not turn into a total bust.

Agree, hopefully it fills back in a bit so we can squeeze out an inch or two before the bigger storm tomorrow. Looked good this morning but it got SQUASHED.

Yep ensembles want to squash the storm because they believe the flow will be fast. Operational runs have a more amplified system.

Dendy would love this. Feet of snow for him with rain over my noggin.

My forecast busted. This fast flow is a pain in the ass, hopefully it goes away in March.

Im not sure I understand completely what you are saying, so correct me if I’m wrong. What I got out of this was my idea that we need a storm bombing out in the Atlantic to fix the flat flow problem isn’t correct, and it is the pacific side that is the problem here. From what I am seeing on the pacific side we have 2 competing factors, there is a strong La Niña in place to help cool off the oceans, which has allowed arctic air masses to enter the country and come south without much modification via pacific air. However right now the polar vortex is too far west, the energy rotating around the polar vortex is crashing into the west coast, not allowing western ridging over North America to develop. To fix this flat flow problem that is leading to shredding of storms we need the polar vortex to be farther east. I thought things were fine at least in New England unless the polar vortex was over the North Pole, but it appears that if we want something huge we need the polar vortex to be in central or eastern Canada. I’m not going to give up just yet though, I have been reading that there might be 1 more disruption to knock the polar vortex away from Alaska, and the key will be where does it get displaced to? If it’s over the North Pole we are getting an early spring, but if we can get it over central or eastern Canada we could get an epic March.

Vertabraim this is not a good euro run, the flow is too fast which won’t allow storms to amplify or slow down. We need some help via the 22nd storm bombing out more to buckle the flow. Even if this happens to late to give Eastern Mass a blizzard, If it can amplify to the 960s even if it’s in Nova Scotia, a storm that big will change the pattern to a more amplified one. We have the cold in place to get a historic blizzard, but this run the flow is west to east and that won’t work if you are looking for something big. If we can get the changes we need the 22nd, even if it’s not enough to bring snow to eastern mass, then I will get more excited about the 26th. I really don’t like the setup on that euro run even if it has a big snowstorm, the pattern isn’t right with an extremely fast flow. I don’t buy that snowmap one bit with the flow like that, if that doesn’t change I would be shocked to see more than 2 inches in my backyard.

I just took a look at the long range on the main models I use for my analysis (Euro Canadian and Navy) and I this is what I see: Right now the Miller B threat on the 22nd is low probably as it develops too late based on what I am seeing on the Navy Euro and Canadian. The 26th storm threat is cutting to the west on the Canadian, on the Euro it appears to have some front end before going over to rain as the low passes to our west, and the navy appears to have plenty of precip with lots of warm air ramming into a cold airmass. Extrapolated, my analysis is that the navy would likely be a more euro type solution with a front end and then changeover to rain as the low looks like it is moving west. Both threats need work, but the main takeaway here is at least the models have a low for both threats. The risk with the 22nd is it develops too late and crushes Downeast Maine and Nova Scotia, and with the 26th the risk is like with Mondays system it tracks too far west, bringing the warm air in and changing us over to rain. The key will be if we can get the 22nd low to dig more, that will result in earlier cyclogenesis, bringing the risk of blizzard conditions for a few hours to Eastern Mass as well as Downeast Maine and Nova Scotia. This will not be a Feb 2013 situation due to a more progressive flow, and the storm will likely be a fast mover. However fast movers can still produce decent amounts of snow, and more importantly if this storm undergoes earlier cyclogenesis and peaks farther south that will buckle the flow, making it so instead of being west to east it is more SW to NE, giving future storms room to dig as the northern stream energy stops crashing into the west coast and instead drops into the middle portion of the country. This would allow storms to amplify instead of getting shredded by the flow, leading to miller Bs redeveloping farther south, undergo earlier cyclogenesis, and move slower, giving us the potential for historic slow moving blizzard that we haven’t had in years.

Light snow here in Foxbourough Mass now

The NWS has us eastern Mass getting 6-8 with the 2nd low after this first one shunts east. Yeah I know I was wrong about that, I thought we would get a few inches out of it but several people here did try to tell me. Damn snow goggles got in my way yet again. I personally believe that low will surprise people and deliver more snow than expected but it’s a tough call, 20 miles even makes a huge difference so a lot of bust potential.

Thanks for the explanation, hopefully we can get a nice one in March before it really warms up to the 60s and 70s. The first thing I thought of when reading this was April 1st 1997 blizzard, I have been told that was one of the biggest blizzards ever in Eastern mass with 2ft+ being common.