George001

Isn’t the best month in La Niña patterns usually January? Yeah the blocking breaks down in Jan but often that’s when you get the strongest blizzards, when the blocking breaks down (like during late Jan last year). Then yeah, Feb and March are usually ass because like you said, the same forcing that helps in earlier in the winter starts working against us later on.

Is Isotherm still doing winter forecasts?

Yeah I don’t understand the anti La Niña sentiment among snow weenies especially NYC north. The negative PDO just means the Nina is coupled or acting like a Nina right? If so then yeah the PDO will probably negative again this year because we have a La Niña and the MEI is -1.8. That will probably drop some but if the models have the right idea the Nina should be well coupled and act like a Nina, which really isn’t anything to be afraid for weenies NYC north. Didnt pretty much everywhere NYC north get buried 2010-2011? My area got around double our average snowfall that year.

Well I’ve never once seen you bullish on a winter or specific snow threat. That’s fine, you are entitled to your opinion but whether you realize it or not your bias is as obvious as Bastardis. You actually make good posts and seem to know your shit, but like Bastardi in my opinion your bias is so strong it negatively impacts your forecasts. I agree with you on Bastardi though, the big issue I have with Bastardi is his climate change skepticism. He is very knowledgeable about meteorology but his refusal to incorporate AGW into his forecasts is making them worse and worse as climate change accelerates. Ignoring climate change when making a winter forecast is like trying to build a championship baseball roster while ignoring pitching (This is why the Red Sox sucked ass this year).

And you aren’t biased? You always call for a blowtorch winter with no snow which makes no sense. Hedging warmer than average when 50/50 due to climate change? Yeah that’s reasonable, and most of the long range guys I follow are hedging that way. But calling for a 2011-2012 type winter every year or downplaying every storm threat makes you just as biased as Bastardi. Some winters like 2015-2016 the signals were overwhelmingly pointing to a blowtorch, others like 2014-2015 they overwhelmingly pointed towards an icebox. This fall is in between, with signs pointing towards neither a blowtorch or icebox, just an average New England winter that will be decent for some areas, bad for others (like the past couple winters).

A lot of North Atlantic blocking, nice.

Yeah it’s way too early to write winter off. The La Nina = bad thing is nonsense, we have had plenty of great winters in La Nina’s. Even if the La Niña is moderate instead of weak that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a blowtorch with no snow. 2010-2011 was a strong La Niña, much stronger than this one is expected to be and had several monster blizzards.

Negative NAO for Dec, Jan, and Mar, neutral for Feb. If that’s right the mild and snowless Jan and Feb calls are going to bust big time.

Im extremely bullish on this coming winter for our region, I’m not buying the mild Jan and Feb at all. The late increase in tropical activity this fall is leading to us avoiding a low ACE season. The early Siberian snowcover data, La Niña peaking in the fall instead of later in the winter like last year, ect makes me think we have a good chance at getting buried. It will likely have its mild periods as all winters do, but the rapid weakening of the Nina I think could lead to a monster Feb and or March. Nina climo is favorable during Dec and Jan, and unfavorable during Feb and Mar so the early peak of the Nina could mean that we are getting the typical Nina Dec and Jan, but not the mild Feb and Mar. It’s weather so there’s never any guarantees, but I like our chances right now. I’ll take this look over a moderate or strong nino any day.

Active northern stream with lots of Miller Bs instead of southern stream driven Miller Asshole? Sign me up!

I don’t think getting the enso state wrong 6 months out from winter means you are a terrible forecaster. Maybe it looked like it would be warm neutral at the time, but things change.

Wow. There are a few lows deepening to the 950s and 960s. People wrote off this hurricane season as a low ACE season too soon. 150 ACE can’t be ruled out based on what the models are saying.

The ACE index is increasing a lot after a slow start. Average is around 120, and we are currently on pace for around 110 but the models are showing a more active pattern coming up. Due to this it may not be a low ACE year after all.

The interesting thing about Ninas vs Ninos is Boston is better off with a super Nina than a moderate Nino, but is also better off with a weak Nino than any Nina (in general based on the data). In practice it’s more complicated than this, it would be interesting to see how the data looks if you break it down by structure, when said enso event peaks, the impact the enso state of the previous winter has, ect.

For what it’s worth the MEI is already starting to rise. Ray mentioned in his blog that this is something to watch out for. It peaked at -2.2 and the latest update had it rising to -1.8, this could be a sign that the dynamical guidance has the right idea of weakening the Nina earlier vs the statistical guidance having a moderate Nina into late winter.

yeah I’m just rooting for a weak PV and good pacific, no need for an SSW or anything crazy to get a good winter here. If anything SSWs can hurt sometimes if the polar vortex goes to the wrong side of the globe.

Yeah being unwilling to use other people’s ideas is not a good mentality to have. This is true for just about everything, when I first started playing chess I tried making up my own openings and didn’t want to castle because everyone else did it and I wanted to be original. I sucked, and got my ass kicked over and over again until I started reading books and applying the ideas from them to my own games. Even the best chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen has a team of coaches to help him with opening prep. There are a lot of great minds on this site, if you are making a forecast without trying to incorporate research from others you would be doing yourself a disservice.

Holy shit that Nina looks stronger than 2010-2011. Yeah the other guidance disagrees with that and there are already signs that the Nina is starting to peak with the subsurface warming up. It’s weird that it has a ridge in the west and east though, I would think there would be a trough out west if there is a ridge in the east.

I’m all in. Big Greenland block, weak La Niña and a ridge out west. If this develops December and January could end up both being great months.

Yeah that seems right, would still be a lot of snow with the same setup in winter but nowhere near 9 feet. Unfortunately, science won’t let my dream become reality haha. What you are describing is why late winter/early spring storms when we get them can be really big. It can be tough to do due to climo, but if we get a well timed cold blast, that combined with a lot more moisture to work with due to the warmer ocean temps can lead to some very big storms (March 1993, April fools blizzard).

Yeah it looks like the recent rise in subsurface temps is hinting at the dynamical guidance camp (faster decay of the nina) having the right idea rather than the statistical guidance that Keeps the La Niña at low end moderate well into winter. If that is the case, the MEI number will start increasing soon. It will be interesting to see what the September guidance looks like.

Imagine if this storm hit on a day when the temperature was 40-50 degrees cooler…. Some areas in Rhode Island had 9 inches today…. of RAIN.

There was an event in 2013 where the European model insisted on there being potential for a massive blizzard a week out. I pulled multiple all nighters tracking that due to how much snow the euro was projecting, I had never seen anything like it (was fairly new to tracking and we came off a really mild winter). The gfs disagreed, but the Euro didn’t back down. The euro had multiple runs in a row bringing a monster blizzard with feet of snow to the area. Eventually the other models realized that that slow moving Miller B low wasn’t going out to sea, but it was going to undergo rapid cyclogenesis and come up the coast. The Euro nailed what ended up becoming the historic Feb 2013 blizzard (Nemo) a week out.

Yeah it was bad for most areas. My area did decent (mostly due to the monster blizzard in late Jan, 20 inches here) but areas to the north and west didnt which is unusual for la ninas. It looked like a great pattern was coming in on the models, but then winter just kinda died after that. A lot depends on what the polar vortex does, last year it deepened to record strength so even just an average polar vortex would be an improvement.

The crazy thing is the snowiest month in history in eastern mass was a raging +NAO, yet we still got buried with the pacific cooperating well (weak west based El Niño in action). I’m hoping the dynamical guidance is onto something about the rapid decay of the Nina if we get a positive NAO again. I know you mentioned how the active sun and quiet tropics this year favors a positive NAO this winter. If the NAO is positive a weaker Nina or even enso neutral instead of moderate would be better for us. It seems like with ninas (especially stronger ones) we are more reliant on NAO help than ninos. We haven’t had a big December in a while so I’m hoping some of those analogs you mentioned pan out (average ish winter with a big December). We haven’t had a big December in a while, so it would be cool to have a big December nor’easter this year. Looks like while we aren’t looking at anything near 2014-2015, we aren’t looking at a 2011-2012 type winter either. Maybe something similar to last year but a bit more in December, less in Jan?