LakePaste25

The models have certainly trended towards a pre-christmas cold shot, on average lasting about 5 days. The only thing I will point out is that we shouldn’t verify a forecast with a forecast. Before jumping the gun on calling certain outlooks wrong, we should wait and see how this actually plays out.

The Christmas pattern change idea floating around social media is likely rushed (when hasn’t it?). Most of us enjoy cold weather during the Christmas holiday, so the usual wishcasting ensues. We are likely dealing with phase 6 before the pattern potentially becomes more favorable after the New Year.

Most of Canada stays cold through the entire run. While we will get warmer, it is a far cry from last December when we had the pacific jet extended all the way to the west coast, and it was just torching our cold source region with mild pacific air. Our source region for cold will get some nice chilling hours, which means any favorable pattern shift will easily bring cold air south later in the month.

House cam update. Down in NoVA visiting family, but I’ll be back up there tomorrow.

I’m about 6 miles southeast of Erie, PA.

The long-term climate models expected us to be in more frequent el niño episodes as SSTs and overall background state warmed. Recently we have seen the opposite - more frequent la niña events. It could be that we will eventually see the expected increase of el niño events, while this recent streak of la niña was just a temporary state.

The correlation you’re showing makes sense, but I would add the caveat (in my opinion) that PNA doesn’t have as much of an influence on our summer compared to winter due to shorter wavelengths. You can have indexed - or + PNA that occupies different real estate that might give us a downstream ridge. I do think the NAO blocking however, has a big influence. Here’s two of our recent hotter summers for example (you can find plenty more), 2018 and 2021 which had a predominately +PNA, but also an upstream eastern US ridge. Not a lot of -NAO during both of those.

Not to derail the conversation, but one must also look at snowfall frequencies and amounts, i.e. climates that rely on “big dog” events versus those that rely on more frequent, smaller events to reach snowfall averages. Here, we are finding that cities such as Buffalo are not seeing the same regression to lower snowfall seasons as places like Syracuse, Erie, and Cleveland where all 3 cities are 5+ years in a row of below normal snowfall. Places that rely on more frequent smaller events are finding that the increase in moisture does not outweigh the decrease in # of events due to more frequent warm spells. For what it’s worth, I generally lump most of the I-95 cities into places that favor “big dog” events just like Buffalo, which means these areas can withstand some warming and even see increases in snowfall averages, simply because you don’t need it to be cold all winter to get these huge events. The 15-16 winter is a great example of this for NYC.

Winds and waves were roaring at Ripley Beach. Generally just 2-4” at my inland area but will stay very cold through this cold snap with temperatures struggling to get out of the teens during most of the week.

The last time that Caribou recorded less than an inch of snow on the ground was December 2010. In the same winter (2010-2011), EWR recorded 68.2” of snow.