George001

If all my forecasts came to reality

My area has been getting skunked lately, since that awful super nino I’ve had 2 average winters (2016-2017, last year), 1 decent winter (2017-2018), and 3 garbage winters (2015-2016, 2018-2019, 2019-2020). As good as 2017-2018 there was only really 2 massive blizzards, last winter with 3-4+ blizzards was 2014-2015, every year I get my hopes up for some reason or another and then something goes very wrong and we get 70s in mid winter! Hopefully this year things will be different, with not even one 60 degree reading the during the Dec-Mar period. This is probably unrealistic especially early Dec and late Mar, but I’d like to see a winter with no 60+ readings late Dec to early Mar, those really warm days are a snowpack killer.

Maybe the truth will be somewhere in the middle, the earlier runs were saying the polar vortex would be extremely weak and not recover at all, now they are saying that while it will be weak, it will start to recover and drastically increase in strength. A middle ground solution might still be good for us, something like the polar vortex recovering some, but moving to eastern Canada instead of the North Pole.

Shit that’s not good. If the polar vortex recovers, it’s possible that the Boston area ends up with yet another garbage winter with less than 40 inches of snow the entire winter. That’s awful, hopefully the polar vortex doesn’t recover at all. edit- just watched the animation on that particular model and not only does the polar vortex drastically increase in strength, but it moves over the North Pole. If that happens 2011-2012 becomes a good analog, which means cancelling winter is in the cards. I’m not ready to give up yet, but seeing that it makes sense why many people here are being cautious about forecasting a big winter.

the models are saying the polar vortex is expected to be weak to start the year. Thats a great sign, and should lead to severe north atlantic blocking. I have read that a weak polar vortex has a strong correlation to blocking from 2 weeks out to like 8 weeks out, so that would result in an early window from early December to mid Jan.

I don’t get it things look really good with the La Niña and expected weak polar vortex+ expected North Atlantic blocking. This winter should at least be better than last, hopefully a lot better.

2007-2008 was pretty good in my area, that pattern as a whole doesn’t look terrible. If we can get that cold in Canada a little farther south that pattern would be great even in NYC. I do believe the models are underestimating the North Atlantic blocking.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/10/14/la-nina-winter-forecast/ On Thursday, NOAA officially declared that we are in La Nina.

Looking at the picture above, the following things stand out: the strength of the La Niña has increased. a cold pool is developing close to Newfoundland. It’s not in the perfect location, but is close to that Tripole look mentioned earlier, a strong indicator of North Atlantic blocking. The pacific is still kind of bad. I hate the warm blob being that far west, that could be a sign that there will be a trough in the west at times in the winter. In 2010 it wasn’t great either but the size of that warm blob was smaller. However, the pacific does not appear to be as bad as last year. Last year had a more expansive warm blob, and pretty much the entire pacific was a furnace. This year outside of the warm blob there is colder waters surrounding it, the structure looks similar to 2010-2011 more so than last year. From what I have learned from Rays blog (easternmassweather), the structure of the La Niña favors more east coast troughing when the colder waters are displaced to the east, with a less favorable pattern and more of a trough out west when the Nina is west based. This la ninas structure actually looks a little better than 2010-2011 (though the strength is much weaker at least right now, by October 2010 the La Niña was already strong). It is a subtle shift, but the cooler waters appear to have moved east a bit as it strengthened. It’s fairly basin wide right now, we will have to see how it looks in a month as the Nina continues to strengthen, but if it maintains or moves east that’a good.

Update: the ssts have improved.

I’m just glad the polar vortex is expected to be weak. The timing of a severe polar vortex disruption can be figured out later. If it happens in January instead I would think that means our best pattern would be mid Jan to mid Feb. Hopefully the polar vortex is farther east than last year when the severe polar vortex event caused it to intrude into the west instead.

Yeah that’s a huge difference. 12 degrees above average for December is insane. The 2015-2016 winter was horrible with the super nino. Fortunately this winter we won’t have anywhere near a strong El Niño.

I stand corrected. I don’t remember 2009-2010 being quite cold here but I was just thinking both were warm and lacked snow in my backyard, both strong ninos, ect. I thought 2009-2010 was only snowy in the mid Atlantic and not New England. That 2009-2010 winter really pissed me off because everything kept missing to the south so I am admittedly a bit biased. Do you guys think that maybe the 2009-2010 pattern wasn’t bad but we just got unlucky?

How strong do you think the Nina will get looking at the latest trends? I do think that is overdone, but it is telling that the models aren’t backing down at all and are getting even more aggressive with increasing the strength of the La Niña with the latest forecasts. I’m thinking around -1.6 or so for the peak right now.

The next month will be very telling, as the cfsv2 is forecasting a rapid strengthening over the next month, bringing the Nina from weak now to strong by early November, and then peaking in December as a borderline super Nina at -1.9.

09-10 was a fairly strong nino. I am very critical of Joe for his views on climate change, 09-10 actually ended up being a decent analog for the 2016 winter (both winters sucked up in New England, great in the mid Atlantic). I don’t consider either 09-10 or 15-16 to be snowy or cold winters at all, so Joe wasn’t entirely off base there. That said, this winter there will be no El Niño. It is more likely that I die tomorrow from a giant meteor strike than it is of an El Niño developing for the winter. La Niña is increasing in strength, and is already up to weak territory. It is around -.7 right now in the enso 3.4 region, and the strength of the La Niña will only continue increasing with the subsurface being even colder than last years at this time. I could be wrong here but I do believe the surface will catch up, and it will catch up fast. In my opinion, the La Niña will not be weak. The CFSV2 is forecasting the La Niña to peak at nearly -2 in the Enso 3.4 region, which is borderline super Nina territory. This is likely overdone, but other models have increased the strength of the La Niña as well. Euro moved from weak to moderate, NMME moved from moderate to strong. I am actually thinking that it is more likely that the La Niña peaks at strong than it is for La Niña to stay weak with how things have progressed recently. High end moderate/low end strong is where I am leaning, a middle ground between the cfsv2 and less aggressive guidance like the euro.

I’m very excited for this upcoming winter, it’s a great sign that the polar vortex is weak.

That’s only true for the lower mid Atlantic. NYC North does just as well in strong Nina as enso neutral. Strong Nina+ severe North Atlantic blocking is an extremely good combo for snow in New England from what I have read. If the polar vortex was forecast to be strong then I would be worried about storms burying Wisconsin while we rain, but it is forecast to be weak. I do believe the strength of the La Niña will increase to just below 2010-2011 levels. Many weenies panicked and canceled winter that year too when they saw how powerful the La Niña was, but then us New England weenies got buried. It’s not like the La Niña drastically weakened or wasn’t coupled to the atmospheric pattern either, it was well coupled and while we got buried by blizzards in December and January, the La Niña was strong.

Ok that makes sense, so even though a trough in the west is more likely in Ninas it’s not necessarily bad here if we get blocking. With blocking it would force the lows that initially cut into Wisconsin due to the trough in the west to redevelop off the coast and turn into Miller bs that bury us with feet of snow. That explains why the risk with stronger ninas is rain while Wisconsin gets buried, where as the risk with strong ninos is DC getting buried. I do believe the North Atlantic blocking will be severe so maybe when combined with the trough out west, it will still end up being an epic Miller b pattern with 5-6 blizzards in eastern mass this upcoming winter.

What? I don’t understand….. how is that possible, if it means a trough in the west how are we averaging more snow in La Niña than moderate or stronger ninos? How is weak La Niña the second snowiest Enso state. I thought La Niña meant a more active northern branch and a weaker pacific jet due to less warm air flooding the country. I hate it when there is a trough in the west, it seems like when that happens it always gets too warm for snow here and the blizzards end up burying Colorado instead of here.

As long as we don’t have a trough in the west with the expected North Atlantic blocking the La Niña should help us prevent storms from missing to the south and burying DC and Philly.

Where’s the 2010-2011 winter? There was over 80 inches of snow that winter, and the La Niña was strong. The chart I saw had strong La Niña, moderate La Niña, and enso neutral all at roughly the same snowfall average. This chart also had the 2010-2011 winter with the highest dot in the strong La Niña category being at right around 80.

Only 2 blizzards the whole year

I was not aware of that, that is good to know. That is a valid concern, the water is just too warm off the Newfoundland coast. Hopefully the ssts there start to cool. However, the models are still saying the polar vortex will probably be weak, and the pacific ssts are still looking great so if we can get the polar vortex to cooperate this winter should be much better than last winter.

The panicking about the increase in strength of the La Niña on the models is becoming widespread. It is justified for mid Atlantic people but for us if anything with the sst profile and expected weak polar vortex it is a good thing.