Stormchaserchuck1

I don't think it was a true disaster because we had 4 Stratosphere warmings (if you include the one projected to come in March). The QBO does not effect the surface directly, all of its linear correlations are weak. It's an upper atmosphere oscillation. 

I did pick the -QBO/Nino, and record global precipitation in the Fall to have high totals in the snowfall forecast. I did not really think we would be that cold, but I thought our opportune times (When -NAO's came in El Nino) could give us big storms (in contests you do not want to not be near the majority).  I underestimated the effect of the PDO, and that the global pattern is very stagnant right now (High pressure systems). 

13 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Context. Markets are wisely responding to the warm first 2 weeks which are the colder half of March and look like a torch!  Even if we bet a colder back half and a few truly cold days and some snow March is going to end up below avg demand for nat gas. 

Because models had been showing that for a while, I think it was already factored into the price. The Natural Gas market was jumping way before these models came within range. 

I think there was always potential for a near average mid-late March, and in my opinion that's what the move today was about.. 

Again though, long range weather forecasting methods should be able to beat that, ideally, or normally... that's the challenge given lol

41 minutes ago, Ji said:

was the can kicked here? I thought it was the week before

I would say the can was kicked today.. Natural Gas fell 8%, I've found a high correlation with March above average temperatures in the NE. 

There does seem to be a lot pointing to a -NAO though, I think if the -PNA sustains past March 10th, a -NAO will develop with it. 12z GEFS has a nice west-based -NAO starting around the 8th, but let's see if that holds.. 

12z GEFS has the Aleutian High pressure going strong at 384hr, Alaska trough too.. no signs of a pattern change in the Pacific.

13 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Let me know what you guys think...here is what I had for DM vs reality through 2/19:

After the next few weeks, the Pacific is going to look nothing like that. You underestimated the PDO. You'll score really high in the Atlantic. 

I don't mind having troughs digging into the SW, US, to be honest. That sets us up for future Winters. 

I made a prediction a long time ago

The warmth has actually gone extreme in the last 2 Winters, so I think we have knocked a good amount of this "5 year variable" out, although I still wouldn't be surprised if the average of the next 3 Winters is above average in the same area. 

I found on micro and macro-scales, pressure in the SW leads us. 

59 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

wouldn't shock me to see blocking return in some fashion in mid-late March. a brief reversal of 10mb winds already occurred, and another is expected to occur during the first week of March. the upcoming 500mb pattern fits that of the 2018 and 2023 blocking events quite well, which were also from SSWs. not sure if it means any more winter weather, but it's something to note

I was just noticing how common this PNA pattern is Feb 22-Mar 5, since 2013. I came up with 7 analogs (64% of dataset). and the roll forward into March carries a >+200dm -PNA!  https://ibb.co/JkDgZ6J

But the analogs also develop a west-based -NAO (which agrees with Stratosphere warming +time). Actually gives the NE almost a below normal March. 

https://ibb.co/yyJxPgw

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Precipitable water also increases because of CC though

 

Believe it or not, the lowest year on record (since 1948) was 1995-6

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[url=https://imgbb.com/]fast picture upload[/url] 

[img]https://i.ibb.co/rwQBn5L/1.gif[/img]

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no? 

I recently had 3.4MB cleared free space and it was such a help! People could easily see what I was talking about in discussions, instead of having to click on the links (I estimate by the "likes" when I post a picture of snow or something that about 40% of people reading the post click on the link to go to the image). 

Does anyone know of a good site to embed images from? Imagebb doesn't work for some reason. 

Here is what the El Nino was doing before the Winter.. 

TNA data: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/tna.data

Tropical Northern Atlantic Index

2023     0.47    0.22    0.64    0.78    1.04    1.41    1.41    1.36    1.43    1.32    1.09    1.17

We are, by a pretty good margin, the highest on record for this index [2023]. 2nd place was year 2010, and here is that season: 

8 hours ago, bigtenfan said:

Question:

With the  greatest abnormalities in SST so far east would that increase the chances of early recurves? My understanding is that storms will lift poleward as they get stronger especially east of the islands.

La Nina in general supports patterns that are associated with long track storms across the Atlantic basin vs easily recurving out to sea. If you look at Atlantic hurricane tracks by year, there is a pretty big difference historically between La Nina and El Nino years. A lot of El Nino storms recurve, and some La Nina storms recurve, some don't. It's not a perfect correlation though. 

I don't really know if warmer SSTs in the SE N. Atlantic would be a big enough factor to favor more recurves, it's probably a small difference. 

7 hours ago, dseagull said:

Honest question, which is not in any way accusatory or meant to spark climate debate.

First, let me begin with a statement.   NOAA AND NHC are now seemingly willing to name storms which up until the mid 90s, would have never been closely watched and/or named.   With satellite tech. advancing exponentially, and more funding being allocated towards meteorology in the public sector, this is understandable.  

However, it is a fact that benign storms that have little impact on any landmass other than PERHAPS a ground swell, and mainly just shipping interests, are now often named.   There are plenty of examples of non-comvective swirls being named, only to dissipate within 24 hours.   Prior to the 90s, only professionals would ever know of these tropical or extratropical systems.  

Now to my questions....

Is it disingenuous to use these "named storm" stats within historical data that is used for climatological trends?   Correlation and causation are convoluted as a result of "named storm" statistics. 

I'm sure this is a topic that some people have addressed.   Unfortunately, the general population is unaware of this topic.  They focus solely on headlines and "scary" numbers and perceived trends.   

I'd love to hear some feedback, as it's a question my father and I often have discussion about. 

I think we had satellite technology going way back into the 1970s and 80s. There is maybe 0.4-0.8 storms per year that are named now, that weren't named several decades ago. I know as a kid in the 1990s, I was always watching every little swirl, and they almost always were named. The uptick in 1995 was more a matter of Atlantic SSTs getting warmer, vs new guidelines. 

The MJO went through phases 3-4-5  the only time it was cold this Winter, Jan 11-21. The rest of the Winter was mostly warm for the CONUS

They get I think 1/3 to 1/2 of the storms we do. 

lol I love all weather.. a reason I wouldn't move up north is they don't get much of a severe wx season. The further west you go, toward maybe Buffalo though.. but not SNE, it's pretty much snow and that's it. depressing Springs. 

19 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I think they updated last year.  Ya you have to adjust for climo changes. This is the mean of we remove years prior to 1990. The only place it’s cold is where we don’t want it to be lol. 

I still think that's just La Nina cold.. not enough examples to make conclusions about the AO. After 20-25 examples, I think that would look more neutralized. 

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Those plots use 1990-2020 climo means though. 

Really? It must have updated.. weird because they go back to 1948. Must be cold 80% of the time. 

Here's the Nino 3.4 +12 months 

Default is + so warmer general Hemisphere 500mb.. somewhat the same Pacific pattern. +AO is probably the biggest variable and that carries a max correlation of 0.18, which could be near random with 75 years dataset. 

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It looks colder because several of those years are from a colder period.  That’s all imo. 

Satellite data set is 48-20, makes 1984 the middle. 5/6 are after that date. 

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@SnowGoose69 here is the Jan/Feb composite h5 for all neutrals following a Nina. 

N. Hemisphere looks colder. That's about the only correlation I'm willing to make with 6 examples and one of the important inputs being "neutral". I wonder if Neutral after El Nino the N. Hemisphere looks warmer? 

It feels a lot warmer than 44F lol. I can't wait for this warm up, it's going to feel awesome. It's also been something like 20/24 days of clear skies, since that warm day actually. 

12z GEFS has the Aleutian High near +400dm on 2/23, then goes through 4 reloads going out into March.. over +250dm the whole time on the ensemble mean.. it's going to start warming up real quick. After the next few days, expect temps to start busting high. 

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Unfortunately my research shows there is a lag time wrt fading la nina patters.  There is absolutely no evidence that a La Nina that fades towards neutral during the winter produces an increase probability of snow later in winter here.  In actuality, the Nina's that fit that category had lower snowfall in Feb/March than La Nina's that did not fade.   Snowfall can be a fluke so I also looked at the H5 patterns, and saw no evidence the canonical Pacific La Nina pattern was more likely fade late in winters where the La Nina faded.  

I can accept what you are saying about a fading El Nino might be true.  Perhaps an el nino patter breaks down faster and there is no lag.  But there have been examples of fading el nino's where the canonical nino pac didn't break down until well after the nino SST's did.  I would have to look into it more to try to understand the why behind the what.  

 

ETA:  Also...there is some evidence that a neutral following a nina is even worse than a nina.  So that might explain why a fading nina does us no good.  

I think there might not be enough examples.. there is so much happening all the time.. ENSO is just one part. Sometimes you have to just project out ideas that make sense going forward. I did notice the STJ got really juicy last March. I dont know about your snow and temperatures though, I've just tested it vs the N. Pacific pattern. The correlation wasn't really high, but it started to work this year so.. I bet if that ENSO-subsurface cold pool wanes, the -PNA/Aleutian High will wane too.