PhiEaglesfan712

Looks like a pattern change is coming as we begin August: Is a below average August temperature departure in the cards?

The most amazing thing about the winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11 is how that much snow fell in such a short window of time. The snow during those winters ended abruptly (although 2011 did have a small storm on President's Day and a last hurrah at the end of March).

Yeah, I really don't care about a record high temperature in Montana. It has no bearing on our area. There were a lot of record high temps in Montana during January, February, and March 2015. It's not going to take away from the fact that it was the coldest JFM since 1978 where I live. Or the fact that Montana had a +10 temp departure last December. Temps were near normal last December in my area, and it was the coldest winter of the last 10.

We haven't seen those types of temperatures here since January 1994 (and I was barely young enough to remember that). Before that, the last time it happened was in January 1985 (before I was born). We haven't had a legitimate cold shot in this area so far this decade. The last one was the end of January 2019.

I'll only take it if the sharp snow cutoff is somewhere south of PHL. 2007-08 and 2016-17 absolutely sucked for me.

Yeah, even without the blocking, we still had one final hurrah during the final third of March. 2011-03-23 40 32 36.0 -8.8 29 0 0.87 T 0 2011-03-24 44 30 37.0 -8.2 28 0 0.09 1.0 1 2011-03-25 42 28 35.0 -10.5 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-26 40 26 33.0 -12.9 32 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-27 45 28 36.5 -9.7 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-28 45 26 35.5 -11.1 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-29 49 31 40.0 -6.9 25 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-30 53 36 44.5 -2.8 20 0 0.01 0.0 0 2011-03-31 43 37 40.0 -7.7 25 0 0.13 T 0 This turned a solid warm first two-thirds of the month into a negative departure.

As they say, the strongest el ninos are followed by a strong la nina. Such transitions happened in 1973, 1988, 1998, and 2010. Even in years when a strong el nino didn't transition into a strong la nina, strong el ninos are almost always followed by a la nina. 2024 is only the 2nd time (dating back to the 1972-73 super el nino event) that a strong el nino didn't immediately transition into a la nina (1992 was the other). A strong el nino following a strong la nina is pretty much unprecedented. Usually, there is a buffer year in between a strong la nina and a strong el nino (like 1956-57 and 2008-09). The only time an el nino immediately followed a strong la nina year was in 1976 (the year the PDO flipped from - to +). In short, a la nina event is more likely to run in a continuum (see 2020-23 triple la nina, which peak was almost the same each year). El ninos running in a continuum is very rare (the most recent one was the 1986-88 event).

I'm always surprised by the fact that the winter of 2010-11 didn't end up colder than the winter of 2009-10, especially considering that 10-11 was a strong la nina and 09-10 was a strong el nino.

The 80s warming didn't really happen after the 1982-83 el nino. I feel it more happened after the 1986-88 event. Global temps in 1982 and 83 weren't much higher than 80 or 81. It didn't really didn't break through until 1988. We were still getting below 0 temps at PHL in January 1984 and January 1985. After the 86-88 el nino, below 0 temps only happened once at PHL (1/19/1994).

The last 4" snowfall for NYC is still 1/28-29/2022, correct? Also interesting to note that if not for the late January/early February 2021 snowstorm, NYC would be working on nearly a decade since the last 10" snowfall. I remember someone saying that 2021-22 through 2024-25 joins 2016-17 through 2019-20 as the only 4-year periods without a 10-inch snowstorm. If that's the case, then if we don't get a 10-inch snowstorm this year, it will be the first 5-year period and 9 out of 10 years without a 10-inch snowstorm.

Of all those years listed, 2013-14 is probably the only one that's reasonable, as it really wasn't a +PDO winter. It generally moved toward a positive direction (neutral), but it was mostly a -PDO winter. In fact, I think it's a better analog than 1916-17 (it's hard to ignore the fact that global temps are ~2C warmer now than in 1916-17). I'm not saying that the PDO will make it all the way back to neutral by the time the winter is over (the big difference between now and 2013 is that the PDO is at -3 to -4 now, whereas the PDO was around -1.5 in the summer of 2013), but a -2 PDO at the start of winter and a -1 at the end is doable. But it's all going to depend on the WPAC jet. This winter has a high variance of outcomes. I can see a 2013-14 type winter happening, but by the same token, I could just as easily see a 2011-12 type winter (say the -PDO stays deeply negative, a la nina, and the WPAC staying the same).

1916-17 was one of the strongest la ninas of all time, on the level of years like 1973-74, 1988-89, and 2010-11. 1917 was when global temperatures were at their minimum (2024, the warmest year on record, was nearly 2C warmer than 1917). I'd be willing to bet that either 1916-17 or 1917-18 was the coldest winter on record CONUS.

Come to think of it, we really haven't really had an arctic outbreak in the mid-Atlantic/Northeast in the 2020s decade. The last one that could qualify as one was the one in late January 2019, but that was for about a few days. Before that, late December 2017/early January 2018. But the last real sustained arctic outbreak was 2015, which lasted for the greater part of 3 months (January-March). I still can't believe the Aetna lake in Medford, NJ was frozen in late February/early March.

The Nino 1+2 has been in an el nino for pretty much the last 2 years, ever since the 2023-24 strong el nino started in the summer of 2023. If we were to get a strong or super el nino in ENSO 3.4, the Nino 1+2 is going to really go off the chart like in 1982-83 and 1997-98.

Yeah, they need to like cut that 140 ACE in half. It's shaping up to be a low activity season, like 2013 and 2014. This was my forecast in mid-June: 11 named storms (range 8-14) 4 hurricanes (range 2-6) 1 major hurricane (range 0-2) 51.5 ACE (range 36-67)

The biggest takeaway here is that we didn't even have that record warm in west coast like we did in 2013-14 and 2014-15.

But we all know that an east-based la nina has close to zero chance of happening, with Nino 1+2 being in a solid el nino state. I feel like the next strong/super el nino is going to take 1+2 off the charts, like 1982-83 or 1997-98.

Even New England had the one snowstorm that made the season memorable, on 1/19/2002. Who could forget about the Tuck Rule game? I mean, Raiders fans won't care that the winter of 2001-02 was one of the warmest and least snowy winters in New England, all they'll remember is the one night it snowed that winter and their team getting screwed by that call. Even this year in Philly, we didn't get a snow season. But we did get that memorable snowstorm on that Sunday we played the Rams in the playoffs.

I mean, it was only fitting that the torch winter of 2001-02 ended with an early season heatwave in mid-April, as a cherry on top.

I'd argue the extreme winter warmth started in 2011-12. That's around the time the frequency of record low seasons picked up in Baltimore and DC. Baltimore 2011-2012 0.0 T T T 0.0 T 1.3 0.5 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.8 2012-2013 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 1.4 2.9 0.5 3.2 T 0.0 0.0 8.0 2013-2014 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 2.9 9.8 14.2 12.1 T 0.0 T 39.0 2014-2015 0.0 0.0 T 0.0 0.3 0.2 5.9 14.6 7.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 28.7 2015-2016 0.0 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 30.0 2.6 2.5 T 0.0 T 35.1 2016-2017 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 0.7 T 2.3 0.0 T 0.0 3.0 2017-2018 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.3 2.2 2.2 6.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 15.4 2018-2019 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.7 0.0 7.8 6.1 2.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 18.3 2019-2020 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 0.3 1.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.8 2020-2021 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.6 4.3 5.0 0.0 T 0.0 0.0 10.9 2021-2022 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 13.3 0.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 14.4 2022-2023 0.0 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 0.2 T T 0.0 0.0 0.2 2023-2024 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 9.1 2.2 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.3 2024-2025 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 8.9 3.8 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 12.7 DC 2011-2012 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 0.0 T 1.7 0.3 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.0 2012-2013 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 0.2 0.9 0.4 1.6 0.0 0.0 T 3.1 2013-2014 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 1.5 6.6 11.2 12.7 T 0.0 0.0 32.0 2014-2015 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 3.6 9.8 4.9 T 0.0 T 18.3 2015-2016 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18.8 3.1 0.3 T T 0.0 22.2 2016-2017 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 1.4 T 2.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.4 2017-2018 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.9 1.2 0.2 4.5 T 0.0 0.0 7.8 2018-2019 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.4 0.0 11.5 3.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 16.9 2019-2020 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.2 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.6 2020-2021 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 2.6 2.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 5.4 2021-2022 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12.3 T 0.9 0.0 T 0.0 13.2 2022-2023 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 0.4 T T 0.0 0.0 0.4 2023-2024 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 7.8 0.1 T T 0.0 0.0 8.0 2024-2025 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 0.1 8.3 6.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14.9 However, if you take a closer look at the last 2 years, you'll see an increase in snow. I wonder if this is the start of the tide turning, or if it's just a tease. But it's important to note that Baltimore and DC have seen snow the last 2 years, especially in 2024-25. That didn't really happen much from about 2016-17 to 2022-23.

Maybe in your place it was about normal snowfall, but in most places, especially Philly on southward, it was a well below normal snowfall winter. For Baltimore and DC, it was a Top 10 least snowy winter. Plus, it torched from November-February, with very little snowfall during those months. Only March was colder than average and had above average snowfall. Easily one of the most depressing winters ever. Besides, I'm pretty sure either 2020-21 or 2021-22, depending whether you're inland or on a coast, was better than 2016-17.

16-17 had a very sharp cutoff right around PHL, which had 15 inches of snow that year (which was even below the 18-19 total). DC and Baltimore had about 3 inches of snow the entire winter, which puts it as one of the Top 10 least snowiest winters for those cities. I personally don't want that type of season again. The next time, the cutoff may be further north, and it may make 01-02/11-12 look like child's play.

AMJ ENSO (ONI): -0.1C AMJ RONI: -0.49C June PDO: -2.51

Oh gosh, I hope not. There is nothing more depressing than that combination. I'll take a colder than average January, December, heck even November or October. Even a 2011-12 type winter would be better than this. A colder than average March after an above average Dec-Feb would be a complete waste.