George001

Over the past week, the strength of the La Niña has drastically increased. After the development of La Niña stalled out for a bit, we have more than made up for that lost ground with the Enso 3.4 region dropping from -.4 to -.9 degrees Celsius, which is already borderline moderate La Niña conditions. To put this into perspective, right now the enso 3.4 region is cooler than the last CFSv2 runs mean peak for the entire winter, which was -.8. Another thing to note is that if you look at the blue members, which are the most recent forecast members, all of them are below the mean of -.8. This suggests that the strength of the La Niña is being underestimated by quite a bit on the models. At this point, the question isn’t whether or not we get cold neutral or weak La Niña, but whether we get a weak-borderline moderate La Niña at -.8 to -.9 and it stalls out (possible if the subsurface doesn’t keep cooling off, it has stalled in recent weeks), or it keeps strengthening and we get a 2010-2011 redux (-1.6 peak, -2.4 MEI. Extremely strong La Niña).

True, It doesn’t mean good winter at all, but it increases the chances of North Atlantic blocking in my opinion. The issue is the entire pacific is just too warm, which fuels the pacific jet to strengthen rapidly. We have had North Atlantic blocking and had bad winters anyways several times. Sometimes blocking can be bad too if you have a moderate or stronger El Niño, then everything misses to the south like 2009-2010 (in general). I would rather see signs favorable for blocking with a La Niña coming up than an El Niño. In 2014-2015 if I remember correctly the solar activity was high, and we had little to no North Atlantic blocking that winter. Yet that was the snowiest winter on record in southern New England.

-.9 already? WOW. That is already borderline moderate strength and summer hasn’t even ended yet. It looked like the La Niña was slowing down for a couple of weeks but we made up that lost ground fast. 2010 sticks out like a sore thumb when looking at the similar ONI and SOI readings by late August. When looking at both the ONI and SOI and comparing similar readings, more strong la ninas show up than weak ones.

In 2010-2011 the solar was on the lower side but on the rise like this year, and the geomagnetic activity was very low. This winter will be similar in that area but you bring up a good point about the Enso state of the previous winter. The enso state the previous winter in 2010 was strong El Niño, the previous enso state last year was moderate La Niña. That is the exact opposite which is not ideal for an analog. I have read on Isotherms blog, in the forecast for the 2010-2011 winter he mentioned the geomagnetic activity has a much stronger correlation with North Atlantic blocking than the QBO (Isotherm, if I misinterpreted or misunderstood what you wrote, feel free to correct this). I thought the QBO was more correlated with the polar vortex than north atlantic blocking, with positive QBO being correlated to lower chances of a severe polar vortex event. My understanding of the QBO and polar vortex is low so that may be an oversimplification, but that is what I got out of the reading I did on it.

The low is not going to go out to sea. It is moving due north right now, if it were going out to sea you would already see signs of the low slipping to the east, but that isn’t happening. An eye is forming which suggests the strength of the low is also increasing.

It’s definitely not good with the blob of warmth in the pacific right off the west coast being too far west. I don’t like seeing that, but at least the rest of the pacific is more mixed of warm and cool anomalies rather than the entire thing being on fire like last year (other than the Enzo region). Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t last years even worse? If I had to give it a rating on a 1-10 with 1 being terrible and 10 being great, I would give last years a 1.5, this years pacific a 4, and 2010-2011 a 9. How would you rate the pacific sst in terms of how favorable it is for winter in those 3 years?

Wasnt 2010-2011 strong Nina not moderate? The oni peaked at -1.6, which is strong. The MEI peaked at -2.4 in the fall, going by that the 2010-2011 is a super Nina. Either way when taking both ONI and MEI into account it was a strong La Niña that was dominating the pattern for the entire winter.

I already told my family there is going to be a massive hurricane headed for us. With a storm like this id rather be overprepared than underprepared. I noticed that some posters here aren’t really taking the storm that seriously, which I kinda get because the low doesn’t look all that strong on the models. If anyone is planning on going on like normal with their plans tomorrow, I strongly recommend reconsidering, even if it’s unlikely you do not want to get stuck driving home in the middle of a stronger than expected category 2 hurricane. I am aware that is not the forecast right now, but with how the storm looks right now the possibly that it strengthens more than expected is there. I hope it doesn’t get that strong because I’m not a big fan of hurricanes like I am blizzards, but I just can’t see how this ends up being weaker than expected looking at the storm right now.

That looks extremely powerful. When you see an eye like that it’s a sign that the low is going to strengthen more than expected. I have never in my life seen a storm with an eye end up being weaker than expected. In my opinion the models will start increasing the strength of the low.

I haven’t noticed any east trend at all. On the euro, navy, and short range guidance like the nam, rgem, href ect the low makes landfall around eastern long island, comes up right over Rhode Island and then moves west into the Berkshires and right over the Hudson Valley. This storm will be extremely powerful, blowing it off is a big mistake in my opinion, with how far west the low is moving we could see tropical storm conditions as far west as Albany. The low has actually moved west since yesterday, before they were saying it was going right over eastern mass and now it’s going over western mass.

The models are looking weaker with the winds than they were yesterday due to a decrease in the strength of the low. This will still be a severe tropical storm, but maybe with 70-80 mph winds instead of 90-100 mph.

Definitely something to watch, and is going to be a reason why how this winter plays out in my opinion will be determined by how much North Atlantic blocking we get. In 2015, we had little to no North Atlantic blocking, but had a west based El Niño, so the dominant storm track was farther south. This year we will likely have a west based La Niña like 2010-2011, which is a year that we did have severe North Atlantic blocking. The next year had no blocking whatsoever with again a west based Nina, and that winter sucked. I have noticed that the recent trends in the Enso region have moved away from my idea of a strong La Niña. Although it appears like your idea is going to correct about a weaker strength La Niña, what do you think about 2010-2011 analog? I was thinking it could still have some merit if the ONI of this La Niña can sneak into moderate territory due to the west based nature of the La Niña, stronger mei as well as other similar drivers like the increasing solar activity.

This is going to be the second tropical storm or stronger to hit the New England region this year and we still have a long way to go before the end of hurricane season. In my opinion, this year will go down as one of the most severe hurricane seasons on record.

The low is headed right over my backyard. This storm is terrifying, the extreme wind being forecasted in my area remind me of Irene. That was the worst storm I have ever experienced in my lifetime, the wind was so extreme that the trampoline was blown off the ground and started bouncing around my backyard. We lost power for a week, with fallen trees and branches everywhere. My area only got like 2-3 inches of rain, but the extreme wind is what made that storm so devastating in my area.

I just looked at the models and it looks like they are taking the low just to the west of my area. Should I start preparing to lose power? I live in the middle of the woods so in big storms I often lose power.

I 4 and 5 put sometimes, my putting definitely needs work.

I’ll try #3 that seems like a good tip, something I struggle with is I try to sell out for power and hit the ball as hard as I can. When I do that the ball ends up only dribbling a 10-20 yards or it goes far, but in the woods. I have been trying to increase my distance on my swings because right now my 9 iron goes 130, 7 140, 5 150, ect which isn’t that far. I’ve been experimenting with my swing some to try and find something that will help me hit it farther, but haven’t had much luck yet. I feel like I would be better off just trying to get the basics down and hit the ball straight, in the air, and just make solid contact. I do eventually want to increase my distance but without sacrificing my form, would a better idea for that to go to the gym and start building some muscle, while on the course just focusing on technique and consistency?

A good way to lower your score is to take a lot of mulligans. That’s what I did the other day, I kept hitting it in the woods and one one hole i took like 4 or 5 mulligans and was able to get a triple bogey instead of a snowman.

I thought La Niña is still good for northern mid Atlantic like NYC area, North Jersey ect, even moderate and strong ones. 1995-1996 and 2010-2011 were both La Niña winters and the La Niña was not weak in either year. Those were both really good winters.

What golf handicap do you guys have? I’m not sure what mine is but I average 60-70 for 9 holes, so it’s fairly high. I have been told I need to keep my head down and watch the club head hit the ball.

In the winter of 2010-2011, the consensus by most forecasters was that winter was going to be awful due to the strong La Niña in place. Sometimes La Niña doesn’t couple with the atmosphere so it ends up not being a major driver of the weather pattern, but in 2010-2011 that was not the case. The 2010-2011 La Niña was strong no matter how you look at, ONI, MEI, subsurface, SOI every indicator you looked at reflected strong La Niña conditions. Going back and reading several winter forecasts, the consensus was that strong La Niña was not only in place but would be the dominant pattern driver, so winter would suck. That is one of several reasons the 2010-2011 winter is really fascinating for me, it was not only the winter that sparked my passion for severe blizzards, but it was supposed to suck and ended up being one of the snowiest winters on record in my area. I ask myself, how did this happen? If you look at the SST configuration in December 2010, you have an extremely strong west based La Niña, but even outside the Enso region temps were well below average in the entire eastern Pacific Ocean. On top of that you had warm waters slightly west of Greenland, which is an sst configuration that favors severe North Atlantic blocking, with the polar jet being forced to the south into the United States rather than locked up in the North Pole. While most forecasters missed this, there were a couple who did forecast a big winter despite the narrative that strong La Niña= ratter. Isotherm I know went big that year and discussed how the severe North Atlantic blocking as well as strong la nina would be the dominant pattern drivers, which would bring a big winter to areas farther north like New England a big winter, since while the storm track would be more north due to La Niña, you had severe North Atlantic blocking causing these lows to redevelop and come up the east coast rather than just cutting into Wisconsin and bringing us a rainstorm. However he did not go big farther south like DC due to the La Niña. This idea ended up being correct. If you compare that with the current sst pattern, the La Niña is much weaker, and the Pacific Ocean is warmer. However, there is that big area of warmer waters near Greenland. That was there last year as well, not quite as pronounced as 2010-2011 but still there. Last year we did get severe North Atlantic blocking at times, but the pacific jet was so strong that even with the blocking we would get several storms with a perfect track and just a cold rain with all that warm pacific air flooding the country. The SST configuration is even more favorable for North Atlantic blocking than it was last year, it looks more like 2010-2011 in that region. The pacific is more mixed, not on fire like last year but not well below average like 2010-2011 either. Things are looking really good right now for an above average winter.

The pac jet has been brutal for all of us but you guys in the mid Atlantic especially already don’t have as much room for error to begin with. I do agree with the narrative that what we have been seeing with the pac jet is more than just a cyclical thing that will revert eventually, while that plays a role in my opinion the biggest culprit is climate change. The climate change induced well above avg temps in the Pacific Ocean seems to be making it easier for the pac jet strengthen and go ballistic. Fortunately even if things are tougher than they used to, we are still going to have severe winters, just not as frequently. It is promising that the Pacific Ocean as a whole is much cooler than last year, hopefully the cooling of the Pacific Ocean continues.

To me it looks like there is a growing signal for a weaker pacific jet, if this trend continues this could mean this winter will look nothing like the 2015-2016 to 2020-2021 winters did in regards to the pacific.

In El Niño since there is limited northern stream interaction with an active southern branch dont you want less blocking because otherwise the storms go too far south and you get the blizzard of 2016, congrats mid Atlantic? Though that was really good in NYC and the coast of southern New England, more north areas got skunked due to the severe blocking. 2009-2010 also skunked areas north of NYC while NYC south got hammered with the strong nino+ severe North Atlantic blocking. Then in 2011 we had strong North Atlantic blocking again but a strong Nina instead and NYC north got hammered, my area got so much snow that year the weight of the snow on the roof it caused a leak with the paint dripping in. That happened only twice I can remember, the severe winters of 2010-2011 and 2014-2015. Do you by any chance have analogs of the severe North Atlantic blocking years for different enso states? I am curious to how that would impact the snow chances in southern New England. edit- lmao you already posted em before I finished writing my post

The next couple of weeks will be very telling about what the enso state is going to look like for winter. I’ve seen predictions for anything from weak El Niño to strong La Niña on this board, but the general consensus seems to be weak La Niña . That is consistent with what the CFSv2 is forecasting so there is alot of merit to that idea. I’m leaning stronger right now but it is very possible I am putting too much weight onto the MEI and subsurface as has been mentioned. However, I do expect the chances of La Niña this winter to increase to over 80% in the next update from roughly 60-70% in the July update. If we do get severe North Atlantic blocking this winter, which is what the early signs I’m looking at right now indicate, as crazy as it sounds my analogs for moderate or stronger la ninas are more favorable than the weak Nina or cold neutral (both of which are still more favorable than an average winter, but not as much as my early thought strong and moderate Nina analogs). Even if it’s not quite strong, I do think the La Niña will influence our pattern in the winter more than expected due to the low mei values, as well as the La Niña peaking in the fall which makes it so by the time December comes we are already in a full blown La Niña pattern. When a La Niña develops late like 2017-2018 (weak La Niña), it didn’t really influence our pattern a whole lot until later in the winter. On the other hand a winter like 2010-2011, La Niña was strong and well coupled with the atmosphere, so it was the main driver that influenced our weather that year the entire early December- late March period. An important detail that I confused in my earlier posts is that how much the La Niña is influencing our weather pattern isn’t necessary related to the strength of the La Niña. Last year while the La Niña was on the stronger side at -1.3 oni, it wasn’t dominating the pattern due to the weaker mei values. There were times where the pattern was more La Niña like but NYC getting more snow than Boston is not Nina like at all. I do think we will see a more La Niña like pattern this year, what that will look like depends on the strength. A low end moderate nina with severe North Atlantic blocking can lead to extreme winters with 3-4 severe blizzards as well as many decent sized storms on top of it. It seems like in stronger la ninas December and January are more favorable where as February and March are less favorable. Idk what the exact stats are but it seems like February usually sucks in ninas regardless of strength, where as March is decent in weak ninas, bad in Moderate or strong. Based on what ive read Strong La Niña is the most favorable Enso state there is for December and it’s a really strong signal too, kinda like Feb being big in weak ninos like 2014-2015.