psuhoffman

You’re right we should stick to the CFS

2017-18 was weak. Peaking at -1.0 on the tri monthlies. 2016-17 was actually borderline cold neutral as it peaked at -.7 in fall and dropped below Nina status by the DJF period! But there is a lag and enough of the other factors were crap that it didn’t matter. I am not saying the correlation isn’t accurate. Although now I’m curious and will look when I get the chance. Simply saying off the top of my head knowing the enso of some years he included in his “weak Nina” dataset is flawed I wouldn’t take that product very seriously. But in general we do want the qbo negative. So the idea is correct. I doubt that map accurately depicts the correlation though. Wait for the “it’s never going to snow again” crowd to notice the QBO suddenly has tended to want to stay in unfavorable phases lately! Just one more thing for them to pile on! Actually one thing positive to note from recent results. Despite a recent bias to spend a lot of tome in unfavorable phases of pattern drivers (qbo/NAO/AO/EPO/MJO) we have still managed to have a few snowy periods in the last 5 years. Is seems like we do hit more often when we do line up a good pattern. But getting a good pattern is less frequent. If we can ever get into a period of more favorable longwave pattern influences and keep the penchant for frequent big precip events...we could get an epic run! Hopeful I know but why not inject some positivity now.

Possibly but 2015 was a weak nino and 1982 wasn’t cold neutral it was just neutral. Spent DJF at 0 and JFM at +.1. How much is that chart skewed by those 2 years? And counting 1963 which never came close to nino status and fell in the middle of a cold -NAO period is dubious at best imo. I think he just made a mistake inputting some years. Oddly wrt QBO the last 2 cycles failed to ever attain a deeply negative phase. Perhaps that muted their impact.

Maybe there is a correlation but I would take that product with a whole cup of salt. First of all 1963, 1968, 1982 and 2015 weren’t la Nina’s. 2015 was a weak modoki Nino and the others were neutral.

I know a dropping qbo that’s transitioning to negative correlates to colder. Last year was pretty good wrt qbo but did us no good. We wasted it. Frankly other than the solar minimum I see nothing that looks favorable att. There is always dumb luck though.

I haven't done any data digging yet. I’m way too busy and it’s too early. But there are other factors that can portend a “colder” Nina. QBO phase and whether the Nina is west/east based factor in. NAO is huge but it’s not predictable. If you get a colder variety Nina we usually do “ok”. At least some snow which for us is “ok”. Once in a while you combine a colder Nina type with a rare -NAO and you get 1996. There was another early 1900s Nina that while not as good was an example of lucking into a colder archetype Nina and a -NAO. Or we can get lucky with just a -NAO period like 2000 and score big in that window. But if you get a warm archetype Nina like 2008/2012 and no NAO help...then you get last year again. In summary can do well but it’s not the favored outcome. Doesn’t mean we don’t get lucky. But I doubt anyone’s feeling lucky right now.

It’s what we know about probabilities in a Nina. A couple decent years. A whole lot of crap. A few years about as bad at last year even. Then there is 1996 teasing and giving hope to weenies. Ill try to re-create it if I get the time (I lost the data when my hard drive crashed years ago) but I did a weekly Nina case study (took forever) and found that If you actually get a -NAO during a Nina your odds of snow are just as good as a -NAO in any other pattern. Recent history supports that. We only had 2 brief -NAO periods in 2017 and 2018 but both produced a frozen event. We only got 2 weeks or a -NAO in 2000 and we went on an epic tear. There are some examples of wasted -NAO in a nino but no more than examples in other enso conditions. The problem was 2 things. A -NAO is much less frequent in a Nina. The typical tropical forcing association with a Nina favors conditions disruptive to blocking. And our chances of snow in non NAO blocking go way down, even more so than normal. I found warning level snowfalls almost non existent in +NAO regimes during a Nina. So this winter turning out well pretty much comes down to needing NAO help. What could go wrong?!

Cape: there are decadal trends within those even broader periods. From 1904 to 1940 the NAO was predominantly positive. It was more negative from 1940-1972. It’s been in another predominant positive phase since. Then within those decadal trends there are small scale variations. We are due for both a decadal and or a shorter duration winter phase change. However predicting the flip is impossible. And I’ve even read speculation the slightly more negative period in the late 90s through 2011 was the phase flip only the NAO is trending more positive overall. I don’t know if I buy that yet. A few more years of this and I probably would. Maestro: wrt the shorter term NAO drought...it’s bad but not quite to unheard of territory. First of all we have had some negative NAO periods fairly recently. January 2016 was actually a really favorable NAO and we were unlucky to only cash in once. Of course it was a jackpot so can’t really complain imo. March 2017 and 2018 both featured blocking that brought us frozen events. The NAO wasn’t actually awful in 2019...both the pac and atl were just “ok” but we had expected great so it felt like a letdown. Last year was just a train wreck. But the positive NAO periods have been so anomalously positive such to hide any negative periods in a seasonal or even sometimes monthly mean The other problem is parts of our area (DC/Balt) have been kinda unlucky, making a not so good period seem even worse. 2017 and 2018 actually could have been much better. Not saying they should have been good winters. They were Nina’s (weak though). But some Nina’s (especially east based) can be decent. Those winters featured decent patterns and bad luck with storms missing every which way and dc being a meso scale snow minimum. 2019 was a decent winter but “felt” worse due to expectations. Here is the problem (and I tried to warn about this and got some angry kick back) the large scale weather patterns don’t care about our feeling and perceptions OR our local bad luck. The fact that we missed a lot of chances in an otherwise decent pattern 2017-2019 and felt unsatisfied didn’t change the probabilities. We actually were due for a total due. The kind of winter where the whole east coast suffers. They happen every 7 years or so and there hadn’t been one in a while. Just because we got unlucky locally recently didn’t change that. It’s like if you strike out with your two best hitters in baseball. That is unlucky but it doesn’t mean the next guy who sucks is now more likely to get a hit. It just means you blew your best chance and your probably screwed. Sometimes we get lucky and a not so good pattern over achieves. You could argue we got a lot of that in 2014-2015. We just paid the piper!

It’s hard to be very positive about the pacific. We’ve been in a very Nina ish hostile background state even when the SSTs weren’t that bad across the pacific basin. There has been good discussion and speculation about the SST patterns near the maritime continent and correlated mjo impacts being a cause. But it’s hard to imagine an actual Nina would improve that. The Atlantic side is always the wildcard though. At some point the NAO will go negative again in winter. Anyone holding their breath died a long time ago though.

You are describing the micro effects of the macro pattern I discussed.

Split flow progressive pattern with lack of phasing (until OTS). Southern stream moisture stays south. Northern stream races by to the north. It happens. But it’s unlikely to persist forever. Especially as we move into Summer patterns when different factors become more critical to our precipitation prospects.

At least this time the map agrees with your point. But a 30 day anomaly over such a relatively small geographic area isn’t that significant. If that kind of pattern were to continue another 60 days or so it would become a problem. My guess is it won’t. These things tend to naturally balance out. These short term anomalies aren’t even really anomalies. The mean is just a bunch of anomalies averaged together. You are missing the forest from the trees.

You might want to learn how to read that map before using it to make a point...

A small area receiving 50-75% of normal precip for 1-2 months isn’t that significant. That happens quite frequently. For some reason no one makes a big deal everytime we get 150% of qpf in a 60 day period. The drought thing is overblown almost everytime it comes up. We haven’t had a true emergency level drought in a long time. The droughts being trumpeted lately are just typical variance that happens several times a decade. And before some brings up water restrictions...just because some localities didn’t properly plan their water usage when zoning doesn’t mean it’s a true anomalous drought everytime they run out of water due to poor planning and over population for the local water availability.

It hasn’t rained here in about 20 minutes. Good thing we are already sheltering in place.

Here we go...

I think the coop they used there is right on the bay so it skews low.

@RevWarReenactor they might not have "lied" to you, simply fallen to a common misconception. West can help wrt snowfall...but only if you get far enough west to enter another climate zone. The reason west helps is because of the contour of the elevation zones in the mid atlantic. If you go far enough west you get out of the coastal plain and into the Piedmont. Go far enough west and you get out of the Piedmont and into the mountains. With each elevation increase you enter a better climate zone for snowfall. But within each zone...north/south matters more than east/west. You can see that with these snowfall maps here...I continued the approximate contours from the NJ map to help show how once you hit the fall line...snowfall totals turn southwest due to the climate zone change...but within the coastal plain the contours run more west to east. You can see on the Maryland snowfall map how there is a tight gradient along the fall line. Had you moved 15 miles further northwest THEN you would have seen a dramatic change in your snowfall. But moving east and west within the coastal plain won't make much difference. Within each climate zone local meso scale terrain features like ridges and water matter more. So being right along the immediate coast...like on the barrier islands...will get less snow than 10 miles inland. But once inland a little snowfall won't usually change much going another 10 miles east or west. Someone right along the Delaware river will get less snow than someone 250 feet higher up in South Jersey for instance. Look at where you are on that MD map...you had the misfortune of moving into a local snowfall minimum also...a region that is between the Chesapeake bay and Delaware river...at very low elevation. Warmth floods up the bay and river.... you have a downsloping wind from every direction...and a wind off water from many directions. You are in a bad local area also. When I moved from southern NJ to northern VA I did see an increase in snow...but only because I went from the coastal plain to the Piedmont. Had I moved somewhere 15 miles further southeast in VA I would have actually gotten less snow than where I used to live southeast of Philly. Elevation is the reason going west helps...but if you go west and do NOT increase your elevation...you really aren't doing yourself any good. And if you go west and put yourself into a local snow hole due to terrain features you can even get less. I get way more snow than places west of me in the valley there. Hope this helps explain the real phenomenon you are describing.

First of all I hope you don't find this antagonistic. I don't find any of this to be hostile. We have different opinions but it's an interesting conversation that is all. It has been a crappy run for snow. I am not happy with the results either. But I am taking a purely statistics and probabilities side here. In the last 10 years DCA had 4 years above average. That still holds with the long term "normal" frequency. Those years can sometimes come in chunks with long periods in between...that has always been the case. There is a very random distribution to our big snowfall years. You have to look at the frequency over longer periods of time when you have that kind of distribution to see real trends versus just random noise. Like a coin flip. You can get 5 heads in a row...and think that is a trend...but if you step back and look over 20 or 30 flips you are more likely to see it even out towards the 50/50 probability. Over the long term the odds of a big snowfall year is about 30% and we will have runs of good or bad within but over the longer term it usually ends up evening out to about that 30% chance. I am not trying to say its been a good run for snow. Its been crappy. But the problem is we live somewhere that crappy is kind of the normal base state most of the time. I am just accepting that reality. Not saying you should be happy about it. WRT your take on different years...and how snow comes. Again you feel how you feel...no changing that, but what you describe...late snowfalls (or even mid winter ones) that melt right away...or turn to rain and get washed away...or imperfect storms that dry slot us...that describes A LOT of our snow. If you start to toss years that got to a decent result but did it with "flawed" storms you end up making our already crappy climo even worse. For instance if you remove the "good snow years" in DC where most of that snow came from one big storm OR most of that snow came late in the season then you end up tossing "good years" like 1960, 1972, 1983, 2000, 2015, 2016, 2019... take those away and now your probabilities of a "good year" go down to like 20% if not worse. On top of that a lot of the "mediocre" years become awful if you toss one big storm years...like 2006, or years where most of the snow came from flawed melty storms or late season storms....like 2018. Do that and now the chances of a total crap season goes up even more. So I get why you don't "like" those storms as much...I just don't think you get how rare what you "want" really is. How common has it been for us to get a winter where we get a lot of snow from multiple "cold" storms? How many of those have happened in the last 30 years? 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015... is that it? Am I missing any? If not that is 5 times in 30 years... that's only 17% of the time. You only have a 17% chance of getting that in any given year. I am not saying that isn't what you should want...and I want that too...I just realize how rare that is around here. I also think you are mis remembering some years. 2002 DC only had 3.2". It was 2003 that was great and that was a nino year. 2004 was only 12.5" so it was decent but not a "good" year, especially by your standards. 2006 DC had 13.6" and most of it came from one storm that was a meltathon right after so doesn't that fall into the type of years you say you don't like? 2008 was only 4.9 all of it came from a clipper in early Dec and then two 1" slush storms. I highly doubt you really thought that was "decent" at the time. 2009 was 7.5" almost all from one storm in March that melted the next day. So.... You are saying some of those werent that bad but they were every bit as bad as some of the years in the last 10 that you complained constantly that they sucked as they were happening. They were all way worse than 2018 was in your location and you hated that year when it was actually happening. I think time has a tendency to edit our memories. 15 years from now maybe all I will remember from this winter is that one good snowstorm I got in January and the day in the snow with my children and it won't seem as bad. But the numbers don't lie.

Nino winters using January for the year 2003,2005,2007,2010,2015,2016,2019 nina years 2001,2006,2008,2009,2011,2012,2017,2018 neutral years 2002,2004,2013,2014,2020 Let me explain my rationale. This year has been awful. It’s not normal. But it is normal to get a year like this every 8 years or so. This one ended up even worse then some similar comp years with a similar pattern like 1989, 2002, 2008 but only slightly because each of those years lucked into one storm and this year didn’t. But it ended up similar to some other years like 98, 73 or 52 that also ended up pretty snowless. But these type years have been trending worse for a while. 2017 was another example where similar comp pattern years in the past might have produced 8” but recently that’s been trending down so the 3” result wasn’t shocking to me. That this year ended up with almost nothing vs the 3-4” it might have produced in a similar year 30 years ago also doesn’t shock me. That just seems to be the new normal now. But that doesn’t bother me that much because honestly would you feel better if we had eeked our way to 5” from a couple minor slush events? You know not, you complained non stop in years like that also. So who cares if our awful years are 3” instead of 5” or 1” instead of 3” now. The frequency of our “good winters” actually hasn’t changed and is still about 30%. Those are the only years you and most would be happy with the results anyways. The other 70% is some variation of suck that are mostly warm with little snow and most of that snow is flawed minor events that you toss and those years won’t make you happy whether the final total is 2” or 5” or 8”. So im not obsessing over the fact that in our typical run of 4 crap years we get every decade we end up with 27” total instead of the 32” we might have gotten 20 years ago. That seems to be the expected result of the recent trends. Im not saying this is normal. I’m saying there is no normal but that this run doesn’t fall outside of an expected result to balance out the run of luck we had earlier in the decade. I never hear you complaining about how not normal it is when we get a lot of snow.

Too much bitter for some

As @C.A.P.E. said there is no "normal" for us. Statistically normal is usually anything within a standard deviation. I don't remember exactly what it came out too but I ran the numbers once and one standard deviation wrt snowfall here is useless. Because our snowfall year to year is so varied it was something like anything between 1 and 40". We have no "normal" snowfall distribution...we don't live somewhere that has a typical expected snowfall each year. We can get 1" and 40" with about equal probabilities...and everything in between. WRT this current 4 year run...look if it makes you feel better to cling to the idea that it isnt normal and is the worst spit in our eye of mother nature fine. I have no idea what that would make you feel any better. But if you keep expecting things to be better than recent history and trends suggest its likely to be year to year...you are just going to keep being frustrated and disappointed most years. I have no idea if this is a more temporary climate cycle (some of it probably is wrt NAO) or a more permanent shift due to warming (some of it likely is) but the bottom line is there has been an observable change. Nino years havent changed much. We still average about 25" in a nino since 2000. That was about the same before that. Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino. But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap. We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year. The other 12 were all some variation of garbage. That didn't used to be the case. Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past. Not so anymore. On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing. When you combine those FACTS it makes what is happening now totally expected and inevitable. I don't know if this trend will continue but until it changes we should expect similar results. Some good years surrounded by long stretches of really really bad is the new normal. It's been that way and trending worse for over 20 years now. For some reason you seem to want to set your expectations based on how things USED TO BE 50 years ago instead of what the evidence suggests is a reasonable expectation in our current climate cycle.

You could make it harder to attack you if you didn’t post absurd nonsense. You recently criticized us for not using analogs when the long range and seasonal thread is filled with analog discussions. I made a post months ago showing the analogs to this year and how awful they were. And many others said similar. Just because you didn’t read it...which is fine but then to criticize a thread you obviously don’t bother to actually read makes you look bad. You make rants about NWP (like it hadn’t improved in the last 20 years) that are easily disproven as false. You make up crazy conspiracy theories that insult the integrity of some of our best professionals in here who would have to be part of that conspiracy, ignoring the insult to logic that is your theory. Then you start this thread acting like there was and is no way to know what went wrong when we have been discussing that for weeks now and this exact type season has happened before and we do and have known “what went wrong”. Sorry but you make yourself an easy target.

@C.A.P.E. Tenman and this thread is absurd Weve known for months this winter was a turd numerous posters said without a lot of luck how bad this season was going to suck he complains we don’t use analogs obviously he didn’t read the long range blogs a central pac ridge +AO is crap once that set in we knew it was a wrap but he is still trying to figure what went wrong Long after the rest of us moved on but I’m sure he won’t listen to me And blame it on a government conspiracy.

There was a man in Delaware who loved snow I told him dude you got to go Somewhere up north I would find henceforth For the sake of your sanity oh and lay off the Hannity The population density might be crappier but you will be much happier In a place where the nao isnt needed to get snow so for the love of god GO