psuhoffman

I’m going to revelstoke Dec 29-Jan 4. I like my chances. Last time I was there new years was a Nina and they had about 100” otg and got about 30” the week we were there.

Not from me

Almost every Nina fades some towards spring. FMA 2018 still came in -.7 which is about avg for a Nina that late v +.1 in 2017 and -.2 in 2023. Those 2 years definitely faded to neutral by the end of winter. But this is subjective. These are arbitrary numbers, where you decide the metric becomes significant? One year can be a fluke. Small sample size. But with all those caveats admitted the results have been better when a Nina stays at least in Nina territory on the scale through the end of winter.

2017 and 2023 were actually neutral by the JFM period. So you could argue all the duds were neutral more than Nina. At the least going back 30 years one of the worst possible results is when we get a weak fall nina fading to neutral during winter. Which is why it’s weird that every Nina some contingent of snow weenies roots for it to fade to “save winter late” when in reality the evidence is to the contrary. I get logically why the thought that the Nina fading would help but in reality it does not. I’ve not looked into it enough but I have a theory that later in winter Nina forcing isn’t actually as hostile once wavelengths shorten. There is also some evidence that blocking in March is more likely in a Nina v a neutral. So we don’t actually want it to fade once the damage is done to the first half.

During this 8 year extreme +NAO-PDO cycle Nina’s have actually been the best outcomes in general. We’ve had 3 Nina’s and 3 seasons where by JFM were neutral. The Nina’s averaged 13.6” at BWI and the neutrals 1.7”. Throwing this out there because some on the main enso thread are rooting for neutral. There is no evidence that’s good for us wrt snowfall.

One possibility is that cc is affecting our snowfall during bad cyclical periods more than good ones. Winters like 1996, 2003, 2010 and 2014 would argue this may have some merit. The best historical comp to the 2017-2024 period in terms of the overall N Hemisphere pattern is 1950-1957 and 1970-1977. Both of those periods were bad wrt snowfall coming in with an avg snowfall at BWI of 12.4 and 12.6”. But the most recent period has been about 25% worse at only 9.4”. This is probably indicative that bad cycles are trending worse imo. However, we’ve had some 8 year periods prior where we did much better than 16% below the long term avg. I think that while CC is impacting even good patterns some, where we are seeing the most dramatic degradation is on our ability to snow much during hostile regimes, of which we’ve been in since 2016. I suspect over the longer term we probably are closer to that 16% still, but it’s continuing to trend the wrong way. That said, and I’ve mentioned this before, we are close to going off a snow climo cliff. It’s true we’ve had a couple of periods at least close to this bad. Yea this is worse but one or two snowstorms over the last 8 years could have made the difference and it’s legitimate to argue that could just be bad luck! But all the past periods even close to this bad were bookended by very snowy periods and we’ve now reached the point where if we don’t flip into a snowier regime within the next 2 years we will enter territory with no historically documented comparison and it will be impossible to claim “we’ve seen this before it’s just cyclical”.

There is some speculation that warming is associated with some of the sst patterns in the IO and western pacific that are exasperation the PDO. Also the expanded Hadley cell could theoretically enhance the negative issues associated with this pattern. I don’t know. But I’m open to argument on both sides here.

Luck plays a significant part in the variance, 2000 for instance could have easily been a dreg season without luck, but in general I do think there is a legitimate duality with Nina’s betweeen ones that feature a more poleward pac ridge v a flat one. Almost all the Nina’s with a flat ridge end up pretty awful. Most of the ones with a more poleward one end up frustrating (still no stj) but not awful. And places east of 95 can even get above climo from costal scrapers. Definitely root for the more poleward ridge as you’ve identified. As for the Nino comment, I agree it cannot work in the current pacific base state. I’m stubborn and not ready to throw in the towel yet on whether it could work if we timed up a Nino with a favorable pdo. I guess the question is do we think the current pacific issues are permanent. There are legit arguments on both sides of that debate. My guess is some of the pacific issues are symbiotic with cc and so we are going to spend more time than “normal” in a hostile regime going forward. How much more is debatable and I don’t know. I’d like to think the good old fashioned Nino “warm” qpf bomb snowstorms aren’t a thing of the past. But how reduced in frequency are they? But until this current pdo cycle flips I think we’ve seen its hand wrt variance and our goalposts in this regime are between completely snowless torch winters and near normal snow with a lot of luck.

I agree 100% but isn’t it troubling that lately it seems almost impossible to get much snow in a -pdo. Think about the long term implications on our climo.

I don’t find that overly interesting. Many of our snowiest winters were “warm” in Canada. And there have been plenty of cold Canada winters with little snow here. It’s rare that you get a winter where there is a large expansive cold dome that spreads out from Canada into the eastern US. 2014 and 2015 aren’t the most common ways we get snowy winters here. The problem lately has been when it’s warm in Canada it’s so warm we can’t win even when there is a good mid latitude long wave pattern under it. That’s a serious problem since that’s the most common path to big snow here historically and lately it’s just been too warm on a hemispheric scale for that setup to work. If we’re going to have a Nina yes a cold Canada is much better than warm. It leaves the door open to avoiding a total snowless dud. But I don’t think it’s indicative of a snowy winter. I think the goal posts here are between total snowless dreg and eeking and lucking our way to just a more typical lately meh result.

If we get another close to totally snowless winter (and I agree we could) that would be troubling since that’s supposed to be a once in 20 years type thing but this would be several in a short period.

I also totally admit I’m way less enthused because up here it’s pretty impossible to get close to climo trying to luck into a couple progressive waves, and that’s a pretty much the only path to snow in that look. If I was just looking for a 15-20” winter I’d be more optimistic from that look. If im being honest, I’ve been up here 19 years now, and for the first 11 it was worth the long commute snow wise. The last 8 years it’s most definitely not been!

We could luck into a 2018/2022 type Nina with that look. But that’s kinda the high bar until the larger scale pac pattern completely flips imo, and I don’t mean enso. Even when we’ve had a decent period of forcing and a good upstream long wave pattern there has been a tendency for the overall warmth to just overwhelm the pattern in the east more often than not. Yea that long wave pattern isn’t bad in terms of the configuration, but again look at the overall heights all over, looks like it’s advertising more of what we’ve had for 8 years. Warm dominating 75% with small pockets of colder and mostly not at our latitude and elevation.

I know. But there are really only 3 weeks in the year I can take the kids because of my work schedule. Xmas, Easter, or the 3rd week of Aug. I’ve been all 3. Yea it’s hot but I’d prefer Aug. Way way way way way less crowded. Disney is good about having numerous inside attractions and places to cool off. Dress light. Being a water bottle. It’s not too bad. Bests 3 hour lines for everything the other two weeks.

If you had a non refundable Disney trip from Aug 17-22 how nervous would you be?

Yes we can and I will be rooting for that kind of fluke, but it’s fighting uphill. Ultimately we need the global pattern to shift (are we still assuming it will?). If we want any sustained run of success to break out of this funk.

I heard something disturbing today. Someone called lgbt rights “political” Bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, nationalism and persecution in general isn’t political. Some things are still just right and wrong no matter how many people are wrong nor how loudly the wrong people try to scream in order to normalize their wrong behavior.

The 1930s were hot but I think that graph misrepresents the degree. It’s continues to warm since so many of those records set in the 30s have since been surpassed. But the warning since was more spread out not the extreme jump the 30s were compared to prior decades.

Why do MLB players tolerate the way the umps behave? The players have all the power. The fans pay to see players. But when they continue to play a game after the umps do something inexcusable it allows it to continue. Instead they should walk off. Anytime an ump acts like a child or does something wrong they should end the game. Make the fans who paid really mad at the league to force them to fix it. The players should take back control.

I'm probably late to the party on this one but my god is twitter a mess now. It was always a god awful place to get any political news from, but used to be if I was careful about who I followed my feed was 90% weather, soccer, and philly sports. 1 in 10 posts would be some BS nonsense. But now...its the reverse. No matter how many crazies I block my feed is 90% batshit crazy conspiracy nonsense, blatant racist garbage, or BS political takes. I have to scroll through piles of BS to find anything I am interested in. WTF

I liked DT, but I guess he went too far

Yea mashed potatoes are the worst but once it’s had a freeze thaw cycle its good.

Stowe was in great shape yesterday BTW, softened up real nice pretty early. Goat was great once it softened up a little.

I am aware of the issues. I know they didn't just close it for no reason. But waiting until 2 days before to announce this was inexcusable and frankly I find it odd some are defending them at all. How do you defend not telling people so they can make plans. Selling spring tickets without telling people. They also originally were doing absolutely NOTHING to compensate for the loss of HG. They have since relented and announced they will keep the gate house side open as long as possible. This is "something" at least. It does not excuse them for keeping this a secret all winter though when people could have made plans or informed decisions. Also, some of their excuses are weak imo because they are based on decisions they made earlier in the winter. Yea now its too late for them to do anything about the staffing issue but that was a decision they made months ago. I am slightly less upset now that they at least are leaving gate house open. That is something...but it's not supposed to be my job as the customer to understand the problems. It's supposed to be their responsibility to not let their problems affect me negatively. In my opinion they did not try hard enough to do that in this case. Actually originally their plan was to do absolutely NOTHING, just close HG and offer absolutely nothing and hope I understand. That is not acceptable. And even now, we shouldn't have had to force them to open gate house by complaining, and their lack of communication... sorry nothing anyone says makes me ok with what they did. They are taking us for granted and I don't let people treat me that way! I can give my money to other places they don't take my patronage for granted.

I found it odd, not sure why they did that the week I was there. I know in the past they had great terrain variety when I visited in April. They did have a freeze before I arrived, perhaps they thought it was necessary for safety reasons. Glad others have confirmed that is not the normal.