psuhoffman

I saw something similar when researching something else last year but the correlation was very low. However, what it definitely indicated was a summer/early fall -NAO has absolutely no predictive value to a winter -NAO. I brought that up when DT used the prevalence of last simmer/fall -NAO in his winter prediction. I’m not sure a summer -NAO necessarily has high predictive value of a positive winter NAO though. Some correlation though but low from what I remember. Makes sense. The mechanisms that could cause higher polar heights when the pole is at its warmest and the atmosphere is thicker would differ from what might impact and weaken the TPV when at its strongest! It’s a totally different situation.

Yea except you don’t know our climo. In a nino winter our area and NYC can often have similar climo. It’s not that unusual for places in our region to best NYC snowfall in a nino. But in a Nina it’s a different world. Almost all the “good” Nina’s you refer to from time to time 2001,2009,2011,2013 (yes that was cold neutral but it followed 2 Nina’s and behaved like a cold Nina archetype) 2018 were utter garbage crap snowfall years here! 1996 was the only truly “good” snowfall Nina winter in the last 50 years here and 2000 was about avg across much of the area but memorable for an epic storm and 10 day period. The rest were pretty much garbage snowfall. We’re too far southwest to cash in on the northern stream miller b’s that are the main snow threats in a Nina. It took ridiculous blocking in 1996 (and March 2018 for a more contemporary example) to get our area into the action in a Nina.

When it’s January 15 and we’re analyzing the 800h Gefs for a possible March save...

Do we ever this time of year? But we can be fairly confident there won’t be a nino. And the sad fact is in the last 25 non nino years only 2 were above avg snowfall in DC. So simply using that we only have an 8% chance of a “snowy” winter. And if you remove the 2 extreme outlier non nino years (95/96 & 2013/14) the avg snowfall in the other 23 years is only 8.6”. So purely from a climo probabilities standpoint the odds say to expect about that. And there is currently nothing that would scream to throw those probabilities out. All that said pure probabilities aren’t a sound forecast because outliers are a very real thing. Maybe we get another 2014. But the odds aren’t good and att there is nothing that would hint that’s coming.

I’m not sure he realized my shot across his bow the other day was simply his own post to me from last December copied word for word.

I think DC has a very good chance to get 200 to maybe as much as 300% of last years snowfall this year! I know I’m a weenie optimist...

Cape was just having fun and laughing about something none of us has any control over. I’m honestly concerned about you. If snow (and everything related to it) affects you so much then you REALY need to move somewhere it actually snows regularly.

It’s really only a handful of people acting like clowns. The vast majority either don’t post at all or make quality contributions.

By Phin? Lol. Cape is typically guarded about snow chances. That’s called being knowledgeable of our climo! Oh how are the cfs mjo plots looking???

I can understand the lack of snow affecting your mood...(to an extent) but when other people's response to lack of snow starts affecting you so deeply it might be time to examine how you cope with things.

Sir you have zero idea where the pattern is headed. Nothing personal but it’s just a fact. You think you do but in reality no one does. Take it ten days at time. Why not relax and just take it one period at a time and not be so gloom and doom all the time??

Right now everything looks completely awful wrt snow prospects. Everyone knows it. It’s just hard to stomach given how awful last year was. That said...sometimes the winter turns out completely different from how it looks this time of year. So nothing is set in stone. But truth is every long range clue att is lined up wrong.

I’ve seen some postulation that an east based Nina is better than west. Makes sense. Whatever forcing there is we don’t want it Centered just off the pac coast pumping a downstream ridge over the eastern conus. But I don’t think the difference is as great as with a nino.

@CAPE Other than 1996 you have to go WAY back to get another Nina of any kind that ended up better than about normal snowfall in the DC/Balt corridor.

87 was a moderate possibly modoki Nino. There is some debate whether it was a central or basin wide or modoki and I’m not interested in that debate again but it was not a fully east based nino. In other words it was a typical setup for a big snow year in the mid Atlantic.

True...but due to several other related influences the pac base state has tended towards a Nina ish configuration even when we were in a neutral or warm enso state. So I am somewhat pessimistic about how an actual Nina, even a weak one, plays out in that background state! Hope I’m wrong.

I don’t have time for details but most Nina’s feature a suppressed weak STJ and thus dryer then normal here. Some can be colder/warmer depending on the axis of the pac ridge and EPO. So it’s usually warm/dry or cooler/dry. And it’s a 50/50 split about. The colder variants (2009/2011/2018) typically end up mediocre in snow. Between median to mean. The warmer variants typically are our absolute dreg total awful crap winters like 2008, 2012, 2017.

I think at this point factoring in warning trends simply makes sense. wrt to this upcoming winter...agree. There is way more in the “that ain’t good” side of the ledger right now for our snow prospects and needs. That said things can change. The QBO has been behaving erratically lately. Honestly the last 3 years are unprecedented in QBO behavior. Maybe try current rise is only temporary and by winter it tanks again. Or maybe we get lucky with a one week epic run like 2000. That winter was utter garbage in every way from a pattern and long range drivers POV but we got a 10 day period with a good pattern and hit the jackpot. Take the 2/3 storms that affected us in that week away end 2000 would have been a historically crap year. Instead we remember it fondly. Dumb luck is always possible. I don’t base my forecasts on it though!

JB is an awful example because he doesn’t even believe his own forecasts imo. He is just a click bait machine at this point. I’ll give you one example of proof. Several years ago JB was calling for cold (shocking) but at the same time his colleague JoeD was posting warnings that based on the QBO the analogs were actually warmer. Then later when his forecast busted JB used that same argument to explain why but acted like he simply missed it. Some live and learn crap excuse. Except he used that exact correlation (although the opposite one) years before in a forecast so he was lying. He knew full well the correlation and he simply ignored it. He knew his forecast was BS. Im not saying analog forecasting isn’t being impacted by climate change but using someone who does a piss poor job if it (intentionally imo) isn’t a good source of evidence. It’s ironic you use JB since you are the antithesis. Your points would be taken more seriously if you weren’t always anti cold/snow. I happen to agree with what your saying right now but how can people trust what you’re saying when frankly you would be saying that even if it looked good for cold/snow. You constantly beat the drum for warm no matter what and so people have tuned you out for the same but opposite reason we tune JB out!

A faster mid latitude jet would make it a lot harder to get the buckling and blocking we need. We are usually too far south for a zonal flow to work. Especially when that flow is dominated by pacific air blasting across. As cape said there will still be variance within the mean and times it relaxes but if the expanded Hadley cell causing a tighter mid latitude gradient and thus an enhanced jet is a permanent fixture it would have a negative effect on our prospects for cold/snow.

Since the panic room isn’t open yet I’ll post here. This from typhoon tip wrt the expanding Hadley cells. “I've thought about this, how it almost seems there are contradictory result sets ..setting stage for argument. The system has immensely undocumented moving parts - hahaha, to put if droll. But, the "gradient" I was discussing pertained to changes along subtropical interface latitudes with the westerlies. This was/is the northern best perceived termination where the HC fades into the mid latitudes/westerlies. The gradient associated with the westerlies in the winter ...causing all these record breaking, ground based west-to-east commercial airline velocities is because of a different response... Firstly, it is taking place well displaced outside the termination zones where the ENSO extends beyond the equator (N or S)... Yes the arctic is warming faster, but...it's still providing deep/steep hydrostatic well compared to the encroaching warm heights as the HC grows. We probably slow the the mid latitude, wintertime maelstrom down at some point in the future as said cold well continues to elevate ... but I think we suffer some decades of unusually fast atmospheres in the winter, depending on how long it takes. “ Translation: the pac firehose jet could continue for DECADES. Lol

@CAPE I wonder how much 1996 skews the Nina QBO correlations? Interestingly on the whole since then there hasn’t been much difference wrt cold/snow. A pretty even mix of mediocre and crap in both sets fwiw + QBO Nina’s 1997-2020 1998-99, 1999-00, 2008-09, 2010-11, 2016-17 -QBO Nina’s 1997-2020 2000-01, 2005-06, 2007-08, 2011-12, 2017-18

Speaking of the MJO one lesson we should remember in the future, when the mjo has a weak wave through phases out of phase with the base state it will have very little to no impact on sensible weather. A weak phase 8 during a La Niña Pac base state isn’t going to save us usually. Conversely a weak phase 4 during a cold winter won’t have the same disastrous impact as last years.

It’s about setting proper expectations. When I saw the pattern that was setting in around Xmas I set my expectations so low that even though it was the worse season I recorded out of 15 up here I felt lucky and enjoyed what little snow I got. Some of the other comps to that were almost complete skunks even up here! I knew it was going to be pretty awful so I wasn’t that upset when it was. People that put any stock into Merskys CFS MJO predictions on the other hand...

Portugal first.