PhiEaglesfan712

2009-10 in the Baltimore/Wash DC area is another. Baltimore had 80 in of snow in 2 months (from 12/19 to 2/10 - they even had more snow than Syracuse at that point in the season), before the snow came to an end all of a sudden. March 2010 was very warm, and it was summerlike by the first week of April 2010.

JFM 2014 and JFM 2015 was wall-to-wall cold everywhere in the East. Those were the coldest JFMs since 1978. 93-94 was another wall-to-wall cold winter.

I'm assuming he's talking about 93-94 because 94-95 was a very warm winter, especially December and January. 93-94 was wall-to-wall cold, and had the last below zero day at PHL (-5 on 1/19/1994).

Yeah, February 2006 and February 2021 are classical examples of cold/snow happening with a -PNA. This was following long periods of warm and virtually snowless weather during +PNA.

The pattern came back again for the last week of March. Turned a +4 temperature departure for the first 3 weeks to near normal. Of course, it was too late for snow here at PHL, but places more north got snow in late March 2011. PHL: 2011-03-23 43 38 40.5 -5.2 24 0 0.23 0.0 0 2011-03-24 44 33 38.5 -7.5 26 0 0.02 T 0 2011-03-25 45 28 36.5 -9.9 28 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-26 43 27 35.0 -11.8 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-27 46 30 38.0 -9.1 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-28 47 28 37.5 -10.0 27 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-29 52 31 41.5 -6.4 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 2011-03-30 51 33 42.0 -6.2 23 0 T 0.0 0 2011-03-31 44 39 41.5 -7.1 23 0 0.05 0.0 0 NYC: 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 BOS: 2011-03-20 40 30 35.0 -4.2 30 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-21 41 34 37.5 -2.0 27 0 0.16 0.3 2011-03-22 44 35 39.5 -0.3 25 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-23 40 32 36.0 -4.1 29 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-24 39 31 35.0 -5.4 30 0 0.01 0.2 2011-03-25 45 30 37.5 -3.2 27 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-26 41 26 33.5 -7.5 31 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-27 45 27 36.0 -5.4 29 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-28 48 28 38.0 -3.7 27 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-29 49 32 40.5 -1.5 24 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-30 55 34 44.5 2.1 20 0 0.00 0.0 2011-03-31 44 33 38.5 -4.2 26 0 0.35 0.6

The last week of December doesn't look like a torch after all. I don't think we're going to get the really cold Jan 4-17 the models are showing. It will probably be closer to normal. No way are we getting anything close to a 13-14 type winter, which was wall-to-wall cold from Jan-March. I think we're going to get something closer to 20-21.

About 2 in, but even as recently as the 22nd morning, temps were in the mid-60s. Earlier in the month, temps were in the 70s. That snowstorm came out of the blue.

1983-84 definitely is not because that was a +PDO winter. 1998-99 is an okay analog. That was the winter when we switched back to -PDO. Thing I don't like about 98-99 was that December 98 was really warm right up until a few days before the "Christmas Miracle" snowstorm on Dec. 23-24. We had a good 3 weeks of snow until mid-January, then nothing really until mid-March.

What's a perma-nina?

What was the PNA in February 1986, February 2006, and February 2021?

Looks like a toss-up between ENSO neutral and la nina conditions for 2025-26:

If this is right, then a January 2011 redux is almost certainly going to happen. However, I am very skeptical of any of this coming to fruition.

No "cold oval" for late January: Hopefully, this means a return to cold weather during the first week of February.

Even if we don't get a Christmas miracle this year, we'll always have 1998. On the morning of Dec. 22, temps were in the mid-60s before dropping drastically throughout the day. That set the stage for an unexpected snowstorm on Dec. 23-24.

Yeah, here are the subsequent Jan PNAs for non-Nino high PNA Dec, following warm Nov: 2021 +0.19 (Dec 2020: +1.58) 2006 +0.43 (Dec 2005: +1.38) 1986 +0.97 (Dec 1985: +1.39) Based on these analogs, the PNA should be slightly positive (between 0 and 1). By the way, all of these years had warmer Januarys, and delayed cold until February.

If the pattern supports a shift to cold, shouldn't it look something like this, and not a cold oval over the heart of I-95?

More realistic forecast (no cold oval):

Yeah, that "cold oval" isn't going to happen, lol.

PHL's last snowfall of over a foot was Jan. 22-23, 2016. In fact, we can't seem to get past 8 in. since then. Places west got foot plus totals on Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2021, while places east got foot plus totals on Jan. 28-29, 2022. Talk about bad luck.

Yeah, I also pointed out the one month gap between 2021 and this year. November 2024 = October 2021 (torch month) December 2024 = November 2021 (cool month) January 2025 = December 2021 (another torch month)? February 2025 = January 2022 (cool and snowy month)?

There were 7 Junes colder than 1992 and 2009 where I lived from 1974-2024 (including 2023). 1992 and 2009 are in red, colder years in blue. 70.3 72.2 75.2 68.6 72.6 69.1 70.6 72.0 68.7 72.0 73.0 68.8 73.8 74.6 72.3 74.7 72.2 75.7 71.3 74.4 78.1 74.3 73.0 71.1 71.5 72.9 72.6 75.2 73.9 71.3 71.8 74.8 72.8 73.8 76.4 71.1 78.2 75.4 73.6 74.6 74.5 74.8 74.2 74.6 72.7 73.9 75 75.1 74.4 70.6 77.4

Not really, 1989 turned cold well before December started. This year was very warm in November. It reminds me more of 2005 or 2020. Both years were colder than average and snowy in February. December 2005 and December 2020 were +PNA, like this December.

I'm not asking for a Top 10 cold month. I realize that JFM 2014 and JFM 2015 won't come around too often. One cold month, like February 2021 or January 2022, once in a while would be nice. Heck, we even got our coldest June since 1985 in 2023. June 2023 was probably are coldest temperature departure to average this decade. Thing is, we haven't had a sustained cold month (-1F to average) since then.

I'd argue we've been in a secular -PDO phase since mid-1998. The +PDO phase in the mid-2010s was a cyclical one, which pretty much coincided with the 2014-16 el nino. Other than that, we've been -PDO most of the time for the past 25+ years. My guess is that we'll flip to a secular +PDO state with the next el nino, either in 2026-27 or 2027-28. The last time we flipped from secular -PDO to secular +PDO was in mid-1976, and we got a nice stretch of winters that followed. 1949-1976 -PDO 1976-1998 +PDO 1998-present -PDO

I'm very skeptical of a cold January. The only time we had both a cold December and January after 2010-11 was 2017-18, and even that one warmed up during the 2nd half of January, leading into the February torch. The warm November/+PNA non-el nino cool December composites (1985-86, 2005-06, 2020-21) are saying warm January and cool February. In fact, all 3 years had below normal snow in January, and 10+ in snow in February at PHL: 1986: Jan 32.8F, 3.4 in snow; Feb 32.1F, 11.5 in snow 2006: Jan 40.7F, 0.4 in snow; Feb 35.0F, 12.0 in snow 2021: Jan 35.7F, 3.0 in snow (all of Jan 31); Feb 34.2 F, 14.3 in snow My gut feeling tells me we're in for an extended warm pattern.