Bob Chill

Yea, keep it simple. Anything that shows the monthlies for Dec are in trouble is worth mentioning. Like this:

I suppose the most important thing to watch now is whether or not seasonal guidance is onto something or just another terrible bust. We certainly don't want what the cfs or euro monthlies are showing. Barf I am curious as to how the weeklies roll the current d15 forward. Dec is only 3 weeks away now...

True but the anomalous cold shot was nailed at long range. Just a timing deviation. The cold front itself has been well modeled by the ops. When they showed a trailing wave snowstorm we all assumed it was fantasy. I get what you're saying pf course. A synoptic even at 7 days on an op has equal chance at any outcome including nothing at all. Lol

Every winter month needs a day or 2 like today. Had a great trail ride in the woods and saw bucks all over the place rutting around looking for some action.

@PSU It is an interesting look and there's been a slow but noticeable trend with all guidance showing the NAO may start to cooperate. Or at least not be super hostile. The GFS op started spitting out panels like this 3-4 days ago and it caught my eye because it was one after another and not fleeting. This is just a recent run. A bunch of previous op runs kept showing different variations. Now the GEFS are catching on so maybe it's not fantasy. Does it really mean anything though? Too soon imo but if there's a continuation and verification as we close out the month then all seasonal/weekly guidance for Dec starts looking very suspect. Which is a good thing in this case. haha @WxUSAF Yea, no sense worrying about mid latitude patterns yet. Nov is notorious for fooling us with good and bad mid latitude looks. The high latitudes are different and they already look far better than I thought before Nov started. Having favorable high latitudes but crappy mids isn't that bad because it can flip good quickly. Takes a lot more work when high latitudes suck...as we've seen for way too many years in a row now...

Figured I'd open a thread for Dec specific discussion now that it's almost in range with ens guidance and it will soon be a hot topic as we roll through the second half of November. As I've said multiple times, I don't have high expectations but that doesn't mean I think a lame Dec is a lock. Seasonal/weekly guidance is pretty unanimous with Dec featuring a mean +AO/NAO. And that's certainly possible as it's been a recurring theme for quite awhile now. It's worth discussing the opposite because the Nov mean AO is looking likely to go down as a solid -AO month. If ens guidance is right, the Nov AO should finish at least 1sd BN. There is a decent correlation with Nov AO readings below -1 and December also featuring a -AO. I dug this spreadsheet out of my archives showing Dec -AO lower than -1.0 and the seasonal snowfall at DCA. Not a bad list but like all lists like this... there are notable outliers and ENSO plays an important role. Overall as a group, having a -AO points towards higher odds of near to above normal snowfall than a disaster. We've discussed this at length so nothing groundbreaking here. 1961 has been showing up at the top of CPC analogs for a while now and it caught my attention so I pulled some composites for Dec 1961. The 61-62 year as a whole kinda sucked in our area for snowfall but that stat is so volatile so you can't just look at that and expect the same result. One notable thing about Dec 61 is it featured a fairly stout -NAO (especially second half) on the means. Total coincidence or possible clue? Not sure but worth taking a look at. First half Dec 61: Second half: I'm not thinking Dec 61 overall is a good analog for this year and even with a -NAO the general pattern that year was so-so at best but looking at the NAO in isolation it does pique my interest a little. Ops and ens have been consistently hinting at fairly stable AN heights in the NAO region during the second half of Nov. I don't see all of this as a screaming signal for a -NAO or AO in December yet but looking at all guidance right now it makes me wonder if in fact all these little hints are legit signs that Dec may be a blocky month even though seasonal and weekly guidance says hell no.

Nah, I like the guy. He's funny AF and he's never broken character once in the 13 years I've been on these forums... however.... too many people like being Ji themselves and collectively it becomes steaming pile.

Exactly. 2 weeks is the only thing worth focusing on with weak or neutral enso. I got rabbitholed last year because the consensus was as stunning as the pattern being shown. Fool me once... There are some features where skill is notably higher in the weekly/seasonal guidance. The no brainer stuff is mod or strong enso. You won't find many of those years that behaved far differently than expected. Outside of that it's no longer worth it to to me to spend time overanalyzing anything way out there in time. It's futile. Idgaf about qbo, sswe, or mjo or any other secondary feature. As a matter of fact seeing lots of chatter about the strat or qbo or mjo or AAM or mountain torque is typically a great indicator that we're in trouble or things arent going as planned The AO is the next best predictive feature other than mod/strong enso. Especially in Dec. A nasty -AO or +AO has like 80% predictive skill in our region for better or for worse. Imho- the AO is the single most important thing to focus on for the next 6 weeks. So far so good there... MJO is a great signal when it correlates and a complete headfake when it doesnt. We've had cold and snow in all warm phases of the mjo or vice versa. From what I've seen the mjo has good predictive skill but only when something(s) else are working with it. What those "somethings" are is complicated and muddy. I'll just stick to the simple stuff like the AO and the persistant long wave pattern in the nPac this year.

Our winters always feature warm stretches and I'm not concerned about mild periods unless they are warm AND hostile against snowfall for weeks on end. I know you feel identical on this. If this ends up being a notable cold winter I (and everyone else) will be surprised. But we care most about snowfall so my focus is always exclusively on that. Seasonal guidance for Dec looks really crappy for the east coast in general and has yet to waver. This plot really sucks... lol. Euro seasonal and cansips are similar enough to worry a little. The good thing is seasonal and even weekly guidance busts horribly as much as it gets it right. I really like what's been happening this month and long lead stuff the last few months didn't show the strong height anomalies in good places that we're seeing now. That's encouraging because persistance in the med term is often a sign that it will continue instead of flip to crap. That cuts both ways of course like last year being the ultimate tease of the promised land just around the corner but persistance held on for months. The million $ question is will the current height pattern or some decent variation persist or reccur in Dec? No way to know yet but I'm not buying what Dec guidance is showing until it actually starts happening. If we roll into Dec with a nice -ao and pna and/or epo ridge then all bets are off on a warm shutout Dec. The case for this is slowly building at least.

I say this every single year in the SE sub and I'll say it again... I root for you guys every single year and very much enjoy sharing my thoughts when things look good down there. I always root for underdogs and not trying to put down the SE by calling you guys underdogs. Just that you need the most things to go right and the struggle is real at times. You guys can get some big hits and that's why everyone is here... nothing quite like a big dog coastal.

The only thing I'm doing different from now on is when a shutout pattern shows up I'm embracing it and not chasing the flip. I'll just step away from wx watching and go hiking and mountain biking then jump back in when it looks better at a believable range. It's a shame what the board has evolved into. It was a lot more fun with eastern and early amwx. I think the entire social flow of the internet has degraded in general and it's unlikely to change for the better. Keyboard warriors, contrarians, and trolls are having too many kids I guess,

Last year got on my nerves like no other. A combo of a relentless terrible pattern and relentless whining, crying, and complaining made me realize that for the first time in 13 years I was having zero fun participating so I walked away. This hobby is supposed to be... well... a hobby and the entire reason for having hobbies is to escape the notsofun part of life. Once I realized the fun part was completely absent I took a much needed break. And bought an rv and travelled all over the place. Now that S is fun man. Lol I never mind any outside the area posters dropping in or even hanging out all season with a few important exceptions: 1. Trolls acting in bad faith have no business here or anywhere spreading their disease. Passive aggressive trolls are the worst and should be exterminated from the planet 2. Posting pics and obs from outside areas while we're getting shafted is disrespectful and in very bad taste and it completely escapes me how someone doing it doesn't see how sh!tty it is 3. Rubbing better climo in our faces is about as mature as middle school. Nobody knows our climo better than the regulars and no matter where someone lives there's better snow climo somewhere else. If someone needs an ego boost by putting our area down then I hope their winters are nothing but fireballs, flooding rain, and the biggest accumulation in their yard is steaming dogsh!t

I'm always in on that. More importantly... I'm looking for anything and everything that points towards Dec not being a disaster. If the seasonal/weekly guidance is right there won't be very many happy weenies in the MA this Dec.

Had a hunch the flip to warm will be delayed. Very impressive high latitude AN height/pressure pattern going on. A setup that typically fights back before caving. Def not the same pattern that displaced the tpv during 13-15 seasons. The longer it holds on the better the odds of a recurrence after it takes a break. Starting Dec with an anomalous -AO would be a solid reason to turn optimistic for early winter snowfall.

It does and it gets on my nerves. My fall leaf clearing process includes a prelim blow and mow in late Oct so my grass is nice and tight for when the big drop happens. Wind blows my leaves into my neighbors' yards when it works. A warm stretch in early nov fooks up my system by causing the grass to grow an inch and leaves get trapped in my yard. Very annoying some years.

Definitely try and time an upslope event. It's a different world worth the 2.5hr drive and then some. Upslope isn't as good as a synoptic event in our yards locally but it's pretty awesome having convective snow squalls off and on for days. Last time I timed a trip up there it snowed 2-4" of high ratio every day for 4 straight days. The crunchy dry packed snow on the roads reminds me quite a bit of my years in CO.

@PSU sooo.... you and I basically agree top down on everything leading in. So the next topic of discussion is since we both agree on what we see right now, what is the most likely culprit to destroy our hopes and dreams and end up having a dead rat? I suppose the answer is consolidated in one single place... Iso's seasonal outlook. LoL

You guys keep hearing me talk about a +PDO so here's a quick visual post to make it easier to understand if you're not familiar with the PDO region and what is good and bad etc... Here's a textbook +PDO. Nino years almost always feature a +PDO because warm enso coincides with BN SSTs in the werstern side of the north Pacific. However, a +PDO during enso neutral years is not as common and it's a net positive as shown in my previous post with enso neutral/+PDO years. Right now the npac basin is right in between a + & -PDO. Basically ambiguous. The blue circle is the area to watch. There's plenty of work to do as the + SSTA's near Japan are pretty damn warm. But the trend in general since Sept is slow cooling of the region. The eastern side of the NPac already looks good. Here's why I think the trend towards a potential +PDO will continue. Over the next 2 weeks the height patterns and surface temps are prog'd to be below normal for most of the period in the west NPac at the same time the PNA will be turning positive. Between the PNA ridge in the east and the persistent troughing in the west, it's reasonable to expect SSTs to continue to cool in the western region and warm near the coast of north america. 2 weeks isn't long enough magically fix everything and have a classic +PDO. It takes a lot of energy to bully ocean SSTs. It is encouraging seeing a good longwave pattern in the Pac for the next few weeks and just hope it continues all Nov into Dec. If it does then my guess is the early winter pattern may be showing its hand in a good way.

@PSU It's a tough year with no "easy" signal basically anywhere. Everything from top to bottom looks right in between good and bad to my eyes.

You must be looking in the mirror

TLDR: way too early to expect or rule out any outcome this winter If you look at all current data objectively the sum points towards a rather boring winter. Nothing screams cold and/or snow and everything is at least whispering to not expect great things. But it's Nov 8th and the next 7 weeks or so is the window that most often throws a curveball at seasonal forecasters. Just as lack of blocking has baffled many over the last 5+ years, who's to say that a roaring -AO doesn't lock in during Dec/Jan? Or the Pac jet base state won't setup highway lanes that roll up and over the top of a PNA ridge and dig down to the gulf? These things have proven to be extremely difficult to forecast with any accuracy at 1+ month leads during enso neutral years. Dec is notorious for having a persistent longwave pattern upstream. And it's shown us many times that the persistent pattern in Dec likes to repeat throughout at least a portion of met winter. Do I think I know what kind of persistent pattern may set up in Dec? Nope, I really have no thoughts on that at all yet but I'll be watching things close AF as we roll through the second half of Nov. Dec could be quite variable with no recurring theme or it could tip winter's hand. Won't be too long before some clarity shows up there. Sometimes it's more of a timing issue versus a blown seasonal forecast. Like last year when it finally "got right" it was simply too late. Think about how bad d10-15 ensembles and CFA/EPS weeklies did last year? They ALL kept showing the same good thing run after run but the atmosphere didn't oblige until it was too late. The unexpected pac jet pattern in Dec-Jan basically committed felony larceny for 8+ straight weeks. That took every single wx enthusiast, professional, and weather supercomputer by surprise. What if the opposite happens this year and we "luck into" a nice longwave pattern even though the signs and data says we shouldn't? How can you confidently rule that out considering how many "surprises" winter has delivered over the years? I've only just recently started to see things that may break in our favor but my expectations are still pretty low and I'm fully prepared for an underwhelming snow season. The most promising thing that's happening in real time is the AO. Ens forecast over the next 2 weeks take it as low as -4. I have to dig around my files to find it but I did do a Nov AO analysis not too long ago. Having a mean -AO of at least 1sd below normal in Nov does correlate with a -AO during Dec and Jan. I have no idea if this winter will be blocky or not but seeing a pretty stout -AO in Nov is never a bad thing. If the PDO region starts setting up a +PDO as we close the month out that's not a bad thing either.

I don't have much to say about "Victoria mode" as I've never paid any mind to it. Right now the Pac basin is ambiguous irt the PDO. If this was say mid Dec or later I wouldn't like what I see at all. However, this transition time of year can drop some clues and what I'm seeing over the next several weeks is a favorable pattern from Japan to the central pac basin to shuffle SSTAs around towards +PDO. Based on the warm anoms in the eastern npac near Japan, there's a good bit of work to do to get things looking more promising. Next couple weeks look decent but it's going to take more than a couple weeks to get a legit +PDO.

True but I was mostly thinking about the type of setup more than Nov being hostile in general. We'd struggle with this identical setup in Jan/Feb so Nov makes it that much harder. I will say the cold front itself is pretty exceptional for Nov. Record lows might get broken. Getting a wave with a narrow 100mi stripe of precip to line up right is asking a lot. When I first saw this pop up on guidance my first thought was the precip will most likely roll through as rain before the front. We can't write it off yet as fast moving shortwaves like this typically aren't modeled with accuracy until 72 hours or so. It could pop back up at any time but once we get to 72 hours or less it needs to be either really close or overhead on guidance.

Pretty much what I've been expecting unfortunately. It's exceptionally hard to defy Nov climo.

That's if we survive that long. We may be down to half staff before the end of Dec. Iso's forecast already took out the weak. I'm all in until I'm out