psuhoffman

What criteria did you use to identify analogs? I ask because there is almost nothing that all of these years have in common which is odd for an analog set. They are incredibly divergent and at glance seemingly random, with respect to every major global climate indicator we track. For example wrt enso its almost an even mix of Nina, Nino, and neutral seasons. Equally with PDO, QBO, Solar there is a mix of divergent seasons. What do these seasons have in common that makes them analogs to this year?

I just woke up

I agree with this. I don’t want people to misinterpret my bleak assessment of how cc is impacted our snowfall results during less than ideal patterns and cycles to mean I think we don’t get snowstorms or anomalously snowy seasons anymore. We can and we will. Even if the worst case is true and 2016 was a tipping point and the climate zones have shifted, say we do have a climate more like Richmond VA now….even then we would still get snowy seasons. Just less often. Brooklyn: I’ve often compared the last 7 years to the early to mid 1970s. Both featured generally hostile pac patterns. Both were our least snowy long term cycles. But the mean pattern in the 70s was actually WORSE! Look at the mean h5 from 1971-1976. The pac is very similar to 2017-2023 but the high latitudes was much more hostile also in the 70s. Yet the snowfall results were even worse in the current hostile pac cycle. Obviously without running a sophisticated model with initializations from both periods and adjusting for cc we can’t say for sure, but I suspect that’s where cc comes in. Without the warning since the 1970s the last 7 years would still have been a low snowfall period, but probably slightly better than that comparable period in the 70s which featured an equally hostile pac in conjunction with an even more hostile atl. None of that means we can’t get snow when the pac and Atlantic patterns both cooperate. My pessimism revolves around the fact that more of our seasons are flawed not good patterns. It always was that way. That’s not CC. But CC is making it harder to fight to a respectable snow total in those not great pattern seasons imo. This study seems to support my gut based on anecdotal evidence on that.

This was one of the best posts ever on here. Thank you! Truly epic. I was thinking this same thing with regards to how the statistical analysis could be conservative on the results because the whole storm track is likely also shifting north with increased ridging. Think back to all the times we popped a huge SER despite a stout NAO block. Such a shift could accelerate the negative impacts for snow, especially at our latitude!

33 and rain would still show up as a cold anomaly lol

You lose interest as soon as the back edge snows up on radar.

Yup and as incredibly rare as it is…some in here regularly complain about even some of those events on that list!! Lol

This happens after almost every big storm I can remember. Some might have a handful of cold days before the warm up…but invariably it warms, whether it’s the day after or 5 days, and everyone acts shocked how fast the snow melts. But fact is 20” will get obliterated FAST as soon as dews gets above 40 and that happens here regularly so it’s almost impossible for the DC area to get snowcover to last long no matter how big the storm.

Oh I'll read, probably way too much, on anything remotely related to this...actually am reading it now, just didn't notice the link.

I remember that I was pretty excited about 2002/3 pretty early on in the fall that year. There were quite a few signs that the enso was going to continue to evolve into one centered fairly far west, but this year I am more cautious because of the fact the north pac basin and atlantic are also on fire and I am just not sure what all that heat is going to do to the pattern.

I just added this to my post above, I wasn't even aware there was a blog link, I saw the map and thought the text above was just the headline... sorry that was my mistake and caused me to take the map out of context, which was again my mistake.

My comment was on the analog map you posted not the blog. And it wasn't meant as a critique of you, the best SST analogs often are useless in a vacuum since we've had radically different outcomes from some similar enso events. I wasn't saying your forecast is useless...just that list of enso analogs by itself is, in terms of predicting snowfall here which is what 99% reading this care about. ETA: I honestly wasn't even aware there was a blog link attached to that, I saw the map and thought the text above was just the headline.

I don't think this will happen...at least not 100%, but if we do get a canonical nino pattern and its simply too warm all the time and we get perfect track rainstorm after rainstorm...then at least we know.

That's pretty useless as a seasonal predictive tool since it includes some of our snowiest and least snowy winters lol

PAC base state FTL

I replied to your comment on twitter, but I agree with Ken, JB changed significantly from back when they worked together. I actually had some personal correspondence with JB back when I was a meteorology student at PSU. I can't say if he has changed personally, I never had a negative interaction with him personally, he was always friendly, willing to answer questions and help me out. My issues with him are not personal in any way, he was never anything but nice to me. But, over the years, I disagree with your assessment that he hasn't changed much. Back in the early 2000's, yes JB already has a snow bias and a tendency to gravitate towards the extreme, but his forecasts and blog posts were mostly grounded in sound reasonable science, and he rarely went off on total political driven rants. But over the years that has changed, his posts are more and more political driven, he seems angry at times which was never his MO back in the day, and his forecasts often seem to be based more on some crazy unproven theory in a quest to justify his political stance rather than sound meteorology. In short he has gone way off the deep end. And it must be extra difficult for those who knew him personally before he got this way.

lots of underwater volcanoes

Hope you're right Chuck.

But if it get's displaced too far east it simply floods N Amer with pac puke

The biggest problem is...with as bad as things have been lately, and the hope the nino has given, if this ends up being a dud its going to get really really really ugly in here.

We're playing with fire IMO. Both in a good and bad way. If we can get a basin wide that is better than east based. It's a sliding scale of course and other factors will come into play...but the results of basin wide events are on the whole better than purely east based. Typically basin wide events have had variance with some very warm periods but also some periods favorable for snow. I think DC underperformed a bit in 2016. There were several other opportunities for a big snow in January, February and March that winter but only the one worked out. It was THE ONE...but still it could have had more than one hit with some luck. But the warm periods were also crazy torches. However, if we get a strong central based nino I do worry given the current extremely warm background base state... if the warmth just overwhelms everything.

The nino is a little more east based looking than I would prefer right now...

He will get tired of it when people stop paying for it.

The best was that year he used the snowfall at IAD to verify his forecast for DCA.