George001

Now this is something we can work with. Big difference between +0.5-+1.0 DJF and a +5 blowtorch. It also matters how you get to those anomalies. Say winter A is +10 Dec, -2 Jan, -2 Feb, and winter B is -2 Dec, +3 Jan, +5 Feb. Both winters A and B are average precipitation. Despite both winter A and winter B being +2 DJF, I would expect winter A to produce as much snow as 3 winter Bs. The way I see it, whether you are +5 or +10 you are getting skunked. I would rather punt a month with marginal climo (Dec) than peak climo (Feb). And that’s not even including March (which is snowier than Dec). This Euro run verbatim is a less extreme version of winter A (much cooler in Dec but still a torch, probably a bit warmer Jan and Feb but still good).

I’d take a 2017-2018 type winter and run. It had some really mild stretches, averaged AN but overall but was very snowy winter with 2 blizzards. March 2018 was incredible. I had never seen so much snow in March like that before. There was about 30 inches of heavy wet snow (from 2 back to back storms) piled up, and the snowpack lasted nearly the entire month despite us missing out on the next couple of storms. That more than made up for the mild temps the previous month.

I just dug up the exact numbers instead of eyeballing it, and my previous post was wrong. The dynamical guidance had a mean of +1.3 for JJA, and the actual mean was +1.1. I see why you were saying I was incorrect about the dynamical guidance (since it has been too aggressive the past couple months). It appears like you already did this, but I went back to June and looked at what the JJA forecast was, and it forecasted a mean of +1.12! That’s pretty much dead on. I still think it’s interesting though that the dynamical guidance keeps upping the strength despite having been too aggressive the past couple months.

Yeah, I didn’t have a problem with that comment. I was actually kind of poking fun at myself a bit, since I don’t really understand the meteorology behind what drives ENSO I’m just deferring to Paul Roundy since he does. I don’t particularly care about trying to sound smart or pretend to be the smartest person in the room, if I did I wouldn’t post. Im more concerned with tracking the event and learning more about enso development.

Even with the Euro backing off a bit the low end of the envelope is what, 1.8-1.9? I would still favor a super nino as the most likely outcome, and even if we are wrong I would still say Paul Roundy had the right idea. He said in March “it’s going to be a big one, it will build from east to west”. If we get a +1.9 nino that built from east to west, that means we still got a big one that moved from east to west.

I am mostly referring to the statistical guidance, there has been a large gap between the statistical and dynamical guidance and according to the latest data the OBS have been running significantly warmer than the statistical guidance mean and slightly warmer than the dynamical guidance mean. For some reason I can’t post pictures here so I’ll just post the source I used. Snowman19 was talking about how the models have been underestimating the +IOD, which could potentially enhance the development of the El Niño even without a big MJO wave. I am also skeptical of the MJO forecasts, they have been awful in the winter, changing wildly every update. We will see though. I’m mostly going by history (the history of stronger ninos developing after multi year ninos, what ninos were a similar strength to this one now and how did those develop) what the El Niño looks like right now, and the dynamical model prorjections. I am ignoring the statistical guidance because it has been underestimating the strength of the nino, shown by the IRI charts showing trendline of the the OBS over the past 22 months compared to the various dynamical and statistical guidance. You did bring up some good points that I didn’t really consider, so I’ll look into those. I am more of a stats guy with fairly large gaps in my understanding of the actual meteorology, so I am open to being corrected if I get something wrong about the actual processes that drive ENSO. That is very much a work in progress for me haha https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/?enso_tab=enso-sst_table#

I’m mostly going by the history of how this El Niño has been developing more than MJO forecasts. A lot of the conventional tools (MJO wave, -PDO, etc) are supposed to be working against El Niño development, but the strengthening has been in line with the more aggressive end of the envelope despite that. The subsurface is starting to warm up rapidly, and Paul Roundy told me that all that warmth in the eastern regions is going to continue building west. He has been right about how this El Niño would develop since early spring, and I don’t see why that will stop.

Whenever I start using that logic in poker, typically in about 10-15 minutes all my money is gone.

I would be excited if I lived in the mid Atlantic for this coming winter. I’m fairly down on winter for my area in SNE, but I think you guys have a good chance of doing well relative to climo. Super nino with a juiced STJ and some blocking is a good snow pattern for the mid Atlantic. Cold will be tough to get with a nino this strong, but you guys just need things to line up once (like 2015-2016 which I think is a decent analog for this winter).

On the weeklies absolutely, I actually think it’s going to end up around +2 on the weeklies. I think for the monthly average 1.9 is a bit of a stretch but not impossible. At the current rate of strengthening it would likely be 1.7-1.8 for September.

1.9 would be tough to get for the monthly average, but I do think we will breach 2.0 by late month on the weeklies, with maybe a 1.7-1.8 on the monthlies. Either way, 1.6 on the weeklies in early September is very impressive and is even more data in support of this El Niño becoming super.

That’s why In terms of winter prospects I really hope I am wrong about the polar domain and the seasonal models have the right idea. We are likely punting December regardless, those tend to suck to begin with in strong or super Ninos. For this winter, I think something like 14-15 or 02-03 (both cold and snowy) are not in the cards. The path to a decent winter is something like 12-13, where overall it’s a mild winter but when we do get our windows later in the winter we capitalize. I don’t remember that winter having a ton of storms, but at least for my area we had 2 huge ones with 2 feet+ (early Feb and early Mar blizzards). I am fairly down on this upcoming winter overall, but I will acknowledge that if we can get things to break right something like 2012-2013 (mild but snowy, capitalized in Feb and Mar) is in the cards. If I’m going to be wrong I think it will be like that, I would be shocked if we have below normal temps though.

The pre big xmas event sure, I’ll give you that one, but what about the earlier month storm that had a decent track and just was a few degrees too warm? The pre Xmas storm very well might have been rain 300 years ago, I don’t know for sure but that one wasn’t close to being snow for us. It’s the strong mid month storm that was being compared to Dec 1992 for a while that I think we really got boned by AGW. The storm track was decent but it ended up being rain outside of the deep interior and mountains. Hell, even Dec 1992 probably would have been much better for the immediate coastline with a slightly cooler thermal profile. It’s kind of a double edged sword. You get more moisture (can actually lead to more snow IF you are cold enough), but for areas like mine closer to the coast the warm Atlantic SSTs and more marginal climo to begin with makes us susceptible to reaching a “tipping point” where the increased moisture and stronger storms no longer outweighs the milder thermal profile leading to a quicker reduction in average snowfall.

Yeah shit like “nao blocks linking up with the SE ridge” seem to happen more often. I have a hard time believing that the AGW induced near record warm atlantic SSTs did not play a role in us getting skunked last December. (Possibly acting to pump up the SE ridge and infuse more marine air into storms, screwing the SNE coastline). There was a storm in mid Dec I remember that was a decently favorable track but was all rain outside of the well interior, but the temp profile was just a couple degrees too warm. December climo in general seems to have deteriorated much quicker than Jan-Mar, likely because it was the most marginal to begin with. If you add a couple degrees to the ocean temp in an already marginal temp profile, that can easily take storms from a foot of heavy wet snow to 36-37 degrees and rain. March has much cooler Atlantic SSTs, so we have a bit more “room for error” with the warming oceans. Eventually that will get fucked over too, but I think it’s going to be a favorable month for quite a bit longer than December.

That’s why I think it’s a mistake to use older analogs like 57-58 and assume it would lead to similar results. The climate is completely different now, that’s part of why Joe Bastardi keeps busting too cold. He likes using old analogs but fails to adjust for AGW. If he could accept that AGW is indeed real and adjusted the temp profiles accordingly for his analogs, he would be a better forecaster.

You bring up some great points here. The pacific warm pool that has been linked to climate change has been fucking us over the past few years. In 2014-2015 it was displaced east, the past few years it’s been more west. This year it looks very similar to the past few winters, not 2014-2015. I am on board with a super nino, but even if I am wrong about that and the El Niño peaks at strong instead, there are still so many things working against us. We have extremely warm ssts in the Atlantic, the west displaced pacific warm pool, high solar (+NAO signal especially in Feb), -PDO, etc to worry about. I hope I am wrong but things are not looking good if you want a cold and snowy winter in the east.

Right now I’m thinking this: October: 2.1 November: 2.4 December 2.3 January: 2.0 That would be a trimontly peak of 2.26, would be bumped up to 2.3 OND (super). The reason I am going big on the strength of the El Niño is the latest obs. I know there are a lot of factors like the MJO, -PDO, etc that would argue against rapid El Niño strengthening, but the past couple months the nino has been strengthing rapidly even with those factors working against it. Makes me think that if things tilt even a little bit more favorable for El Niño development (stronger MJO wave, weakening -PDO, +IOD development, etc) the strengthening will accelerate. We already are at +1.5 on the weeklies, and August finishing in the +1.3 range is in line with the more aggressive dynamical guidance.

Just curious to see what the distribution is. Seems like most posters are on board with a strong or super nino, but I’m curious to see if a consensus is beginning to form or it’s still an even split. I’m going to start by putting in my vote for super (I’m thinking a peak of 2.3 or so).

Thats fair, my track record is really fucking bad. I let bias cloud my judgement and see the same from a lot of posters (to a lesser extent), so I’m probably projecting a bit. I remember arguing that it we would get a blizzard despite being on the east side of a 940s mb low last December. Deep down I always knew that was far fetched, but I wasn’t thinking rationally, I just saw a red L on tropical tidbits and went off the deep end ya know? I will always have that bias, but I am making a concentrated effort to be more realistic and science based rather than looking through the lens of thick snow goggles. Ray mentioned that he thinks I’m overcompensating a couple days ago, which is very possible. If you have a bias and you know you have one, to become a better forecaster you pretty much have to compensate in some ways. It’s all about finding the right balance.

I don’t think he does seasonal forecasts anymore, but I’d put Isotherm in there too. He nailed some tough ones that fooled a lot of other people (2019-2020 being mild, went big in 2010-2011 even with the strong nina, etc).

I don’t know… maybe you think it will even out with a bigger sample size and we have just been “unlucky” would be my guess. I don’t think you do it on purpose (like Joe Bastardi does), but I do think that a desire for snow is seeping into your winter forecasts and leading to a cold and snowy bias. As for snowman19…. He has the opposite bias that you do, he likes warmer weather like Torch Tiger.

Is it really unhinged? This is straight from Rays blog (posted 2 years ago, so it does not include the disaster that was last winter). The mean forecasting error with respect to the eight seasonal snowfall outlooks are as follows: 2021-2022: 25.4% 2020-2021: 11.7% 2019-2020: 678.3% 2018-2019: 90.4% 2017-2018: 15.6% 2016-2017: 36% 2015-2016: 71.4% 2014-2015: 13.7% Eight season running mean error: 117.8% 29/117 (24.8%) of snowfall outlooks have been under forecast. 61/117 (52.1%) of snowfall outlooks have been over forecast. 26/117 (22.2%) of snowfall outlooks have verified within the forecast range. Still need a bigger sample size, but this indicates a strong snowy bias in his outlooks. That said, I respect the transparency but frankly that is straight up a horrible track record and backs up what Snowman19 is saying.

Yes, but I’m expecting the MEI index to peak around +2 (super) as well.

Speaking of ENSO, I’m curious what the official ONI will be for JJA. I’m guessing in the +1.2 range? August had a lot of warming, enough to easily get the nino into moderate territory on the latest trimonthly update.

I don’t buy it (too early, it will change a million times for better or worse) but verbatim I actually think March looks the best. Dec is dogshit and likely part of Jan too, but I would take that and run. We would make up for lost time fast in Feb and Mar if the cansips is right. The pacific isn’t good, but it is better than I expected.