LakePaste25

Agreed. La Nina’s generally being drier east of the appalachians would probably be a true statement however. Northern stream dominated systems that get shredded by the mountains.

Correct, March 2012 probably becomes a once per generation event at most under 2C. Would need way more warming for that to even get a return interval of once per decade. Unfortunately for winter weenies, December 2015 style winter warm events do become far more frequent under 2C. Once per decade at least.

The reverse of this also exists. A nino-style pacific jet extension that blasts warm air into Canada and the E US typically correlates to a weak +PNA.

i’ll just agree to disagree that the weak nino classification itself matters more than the SSTAs. 18-19, 19-20 were also weak ninos. yea, i agree that weak ninos, on average, tend to have the favorable central pacific SSTAs that produces good winters for boston. also when i say “traditional standards” i’m referring to canonical east based.

14-15 was hardly a nino and didn’t really fit the traditional standards of one (if it did then DCA would have had a far better season than BOS). the reason it was less of an analog IMO was because it had a warm pool spanning into Nino 4 and Nino 3.4 which really helps with late winter -epo development. just how i look at it, people can disagree here.

one thing i learned is that every springlike warm pattern is just like Feb 2018 and March 2012. Every Nina is just like 1995-1996, and every Nino will be like 1976-1977, 2004-2005, and 2014-2015

Sustained blizzard conditions (so far) at EWR.

Who is ready for more winter at the end of March?

cold arctic/warm mid latitudes pattern we saw back in 2020.

yeah i agree with this. i might have recency bias but getting a somewhat cold and snowy march here tends to correlate to a warm april, and the other way around: 2025: torch in march, cold rainy april 2024: very late season cold/snowy after mid march, record warm april 2023: SSW leading to cold and snowy march, a stretch of very nice weather (including 80+ days) in april 2022: little snow in march, cool and rainy april the all-timer was of course the historic march 2012 warmth which caused record earliest leaf-out, then lead to multiple freezes in april that damages a lot of plants and other crops. i’d be happy with a repeat of spring 2024, but that was a strong nino.

i’m fine with spring warmth. 40s feel like heaven here after that cold snap. obviously can’t really say i am done with snow here though because march can be quite wintery here in the great lakes.

That baja ridging is going to be key if we are getting any help with blocking on the atlantic side.

May be lingering effects, but it’s safe to say that La niña is done for.

What??

All 2m temp forecasts are the same though. It’s just how the anomalies are interpreted. Would agree that EPS are running slightly cold of GEFS/GEPS suites.

Happy to dig deeper into this. I always thought actual 2m temps were universal vs. the differing anomaly datasets.

Who said there was going to be a torch in Feb? Seems like a straw man.

I believe the ECMWF native site is still using 1981-2010 climate normals, while the wxbell site is using the warmer 1991-2020 normals. The actual 2m temps should be the same, but the newer 1991-2020 normals will appear colder because the baseline is warmer, which is what we should expect in a warmer climate. Raw 2m temps are produced by the models themselves. It’s up to what dataset you want to use for the anomalies.

I highlighted a colder risk for the last third of february this morning and gave reasons…low-medium confidence for now. I’m also a little too regionally biased/focused with this because even if the blocking pattern breaks down and a cutter pattern develops, i tend to be in a better spot being 300-400 miles west of I-95 in the eastern great lakes.

More serviceable after mid month due to it flipping from a -WPO induced -PNA rather than a +WPO jet extension induced -PNA. Restores true cold into Canada. It won’t be like December where the -WPO alone will be enough due to shorter wavelengths, but if other factors align such as better angle of -PNA troughing and atlantic/arctic blocking, then it’s absolutely a decent pattern to work with for the northern tier. It’s why i put the last third of Feb as colder risks, but more TBD.

If I were to break Feb roughly into thirds, this is how I would lay it out: First third (1-10th): Very cold/well below normal Second third: (11-20th): Milder risks, but not well above normal. -PNA Third (21-28th): Potentially return to colder than normal with established -WPO + blocking (this period more TBD). Not nearly as cold as the first third. Still -PNA

Feb 2020 had above average snowfall here (24.9”, Feb average is 20”). The worst Feb here was 2024 (strong nino), which featured a paltry 0.8”

I do think an ENSO Feb mismatch in the NE is plausible when it comes to the surface temps vs. H5. Nina-like aloft at 500mb, but Nino-like below normal surface temps.

I haven’t seen any +PNA Feb predictions on twitter, even from BAM. Seeing a ton of “look, it’s not a torch posts” which is weird because I also can’t find any reputable post that predicted a torch.

Feb Nina -PNA is serviceable here. Averages around 50% of normal (10”). Would say that weak-warm +ENSO Feb performs the best here, however. Such as in 2020, 2019, 2015, 2007.