Eduardo

5 hours ago, wishcast_hater said:

This place has gotten pretty toxic, I only stick around because I don’t know where else to go. Bring back the channel 7 forum.


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Hahaha I don’t know if I’d go that far.  That place wasn’t exactly devoid of bickering.  There was someone named something like “hani345” who would occasionally (and I think inadvertently) ignite flame wars by saying things like “Bill I’m scared the wind is going to blow my house down.”

But I do miss that board as well.  I prob wouldn’t have been on TriState, Eastern, or here were it not for that community.

3 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Actually I'm not but keep bashing me when I'm actually posting the truth.  This sub forum is ridiculous at times. 

I guess Bluewave and Allsnow are always right.

 

 

Nobody is saying that they “are always right” my man.  They’ve contributed some quality, objective analysis over the years, and we’re onboard the snow train during the excellent stretch we saw from 2000-2018 or so.  And, objectively-speaking, things just don’t look that great this month if, like me, you love cold and snow in NYC.

Mean regression stanks.  Sooner or later, we will break this terrible multi-year, Niña-esque state, but I’m afraid we’ve got a bit to go, unless as @brooklynwx99 thinks, the Niño gives us some room to run during the back half.

1 minute ago, Rjay said:

Bc metsfan is a mega weenie, does the same thing every year and then will say all the models sucks while he continues to chase fantasy snowstorms.  

I mean, at least he’s out front about it.  Place wouldn’t be as fun without him TBH.

34 minutes ago, binbisso said:

I wonder if we can sneak and event here in the 8 to 12 day period. There's a big PNA spike on the GE FS And the pretty significant change from the ensemble from several days prior.

New run

 

Old run

 

Good post!  Would love to luck our way into something.  Worth keeping an eye on.

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

I know people hear terms like MJO, PDO, El Niño, La Niña, etc and it can get lost in the translation. So a simplified version is using the term marine heatwaves. These are just blobs of much normal than normal ocean temperatures. Unfortunately as the planet warms, most of the heat actually goes into the oceans. So we have many warm blobs in the tropical and subtropical oceans.

Since the Pacific is the largest body of water on the planet and lies just west of North America, it exerts a super sized influence on our weather. Thunderstorms gravitate to the areas of warmer waters. These create giant atmospheric waves which influence where the ridges and troughs will set up. Sometimes, we get standing waves that get stuck and drive more extreme patterns here of mostly warmth but on rare occasions cold.

Unfortunately, when the Central to Western Pacific basin is much warmer than other regions, the thunderstorms line up there. And thunderstorms in those regions drive warmer patterns for us. It also also been one of the fastest warming regions of the planet. So this is why people have been referring to La Niña background state. 

When the MJO is active like it is now in the warmer phases, it can take a longer time getting to cooler phases since the Western Pacific is so warm. The MJO numbers are just regions on a map where the thunderstorms are concentrating. Plus when you have convection firing in multi warm regions like we have now, it can come out more as a chord than an individual note. 

So all these factors in recent years have been conspiring to making the Pacific Jet stronger than average which in term floods North America with mild Pacific air like we are seeing this month and many other recent ones.
 

 

This is exactly the kind of stuff I come here for.  Thanks Chris!  Bolded sentences a perfectly-put and cut through a lot of the semantic noise that’s emerged lately.

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Those RMMs are chasing convection to the east. The actual VP anomaly charts from Euro and GEFS never get the actual forcing past 4-7 for the next few weeks.  But this is to be expected with the record +30C SSTs from near the Dateline to the Maritime Continent. 
 

Is this why they’ve been so unreliable over the past few years?  I’ve just been reflexively disregarding them, but until today never really thought about the reason(s) why they weren’t worth trusting.

1 hour ago, Eduardo said:

This is how I remember it too.  Actually, I remember logging onto this forum on Xmas 2014 and it was total, absolute dejection, hopelessness, and self-pity.  Fastest and best turnaround of my life! But one I’m unlikely to see ever again, I think.

1 hour ago, Layman said:

To be fair, it seems like you could log on any 5 of 7 days during any given week and find something similar.  

Tis the true stuff of this hobby we’ve all chosen.

32 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

The last couple days of January actually.  There was a ton of Rat talk that year…then it went Bazurk.  

This is how I remember it too.  Actually, I remember logging onto this forum on Xmas 2014 and it was total, absolute dejection, hopelessness, and self-pity.  Fastest and best turnaround of my life! But one I’m unlikely to see ever again, I think.

5 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

there is no reason why a borderline super Nino event wouldn’t lead to Nino conditions. perhaps you can look back and see that, but to forecast a lack of change is silly in my opinion

Yeah I mean, who could disagree with the proposition that Niños are different than Niñas? And, to be clear, in terms of sensible weather, I am not expecting a carbon copy of last year—if for no other reason than that wall-to-wall shutouts like that are unusual.  I am just expecting the MJO and Pacific to be the same flies in the ointment that they’ve been for the last few years now.

But I do understand your point that the shift to a Niño this year could sufficiently reshuffle things enough in our favor (at least I think that’s your point—correct me if I have it wrong). I don’t see it playing out the same way, though I definitely hope to be proven wrong. 

1 hour ago, WX-PA said:

Yea for the next week or so sure. I think the second half of the month will produce snow here as the Pacific improves with cold MJO phases. Listen you may be right, strong Nino in December usually means warm and snowless..However very rare to have a negative NAO with enso +2 in December.

I think the debate (that’s been hashed and rehashed several times these past few days) is whether and how quickly the MJO rotates through our beloved 8-1-2. Though as a winter-weather lover, I wish I wasn’t, I’m in @bluewave’s camp that the LR models these past two or so years have tended to depict a favorable MJO only to break it down in the short term.

@brooklynwx99has offered some good reasons why this year might be different than last (mostly ENSO-based, unless I’m misunderstanding), but so far I’m neither convinced nor excited. Continuity is weighty for me in this age of “stuck patterns.” Unless and until we see some sort of global shift in this Niña-esque setup, I have to assume that things are gonna remain pretty boring.

6 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Canceling already in November ? What's up with some people on here ?

Be lucky we are in an El Nino and a better winter will most likely be upon us with chances as we go into late Decemver and forward.

I think this is true, but only inspires minimal excitement, given how horrendous last winter was.  For me, the hope is that the different ENSO state this year makes enough of a difference that blocky periods can deliver us something (unlike last year when all they did was trap the PAC puke over us).

I really have low expectations on the whole here though.  Until we break this multi-year humdrum pattern, I’ll log anything we get as a bonus.

1 hour ago, Allsnow said:

If we don’t have a good pacific it’s worthless 

Yes this!  I’ll take a -NAO, esp in December (@bluewave would know better than me, but I think that bodes well for the ensuing months), but like we saw last Dec, it won’t mean much unless we get at least a little bit of PAC love.

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

The 17-18 winter was +1.1 warmer than average due to the record 80° warmth in February. So the cold departures from December into January got erased by the big +6.1 departure in February. 

NYC

Feb 23…+5.2

Jan 23…+9.8

Dec 22…-0.6

…………..+4.8

 

Feb 22….+1.4

Jan 22….-3.2

Dec 21….+4.7

……………..+1.0

 

Feb 21….-1.7

Jan 21….+1.1

Dec 20…+1.7

…………..+0.4

 

Feb 20…+4.8

Jan 20….+6.5

Dec 19….+0.8

…………….+4.0

 

Feb 19….+0.9

Jan 19….-0.1

Dec 18…+2.6

…………….+1.1

 

Feb 18…+6.7

Jan 18….-0.9

Dec 17…..-2.5

…………….+1.1

 

Feb 17…..+6.3

Jan 17….+5.4

Dec 16….+0.8

…………….+4.2

 

Feb 16….+2.4

Jan 16….+1.9

Dec 15….+13.3

…………….+5.9

Lol yes I completely forgot about the Feb torch that year.  Early Jan 2018 storm remains near my all-time top storm list for the snow and wind!

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

We have had snow droughts before, but never an 8 winter cold drought before. 

This is true, Chris. 2017-2018 was a cold one, so I dunno if it’d be 8 straight years of cold drought, but your point still stands. I wasn’t around for the 80s, but I remember the late 90s winters being mild and boring as well.

2 hours ago, EastonSN+ said:

For the younger folks, 1980s weather. I remember TWC used to use the phrase "just a cold snap in the northeast followed by warmer temps". Definitely would never want to relive the 80s winters again.

 

 

I think that we may be in the middle of such a period again right now.  I don’t know what it’s going to take to end it though.  Seeing the models already moving the center of next week’s cold to our west is just a continuation of what we have seen the past few years and, unfortunately, doesn’t bode well for us winter weather lovers.  Might be another year of “take what we can get.”

20 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

there have been some posts on next week's potentially exciting pattern, so I thought I'd share some more coherent thoughts... the main driver for this change in the pattern from -PNA/+EPO to +PNA/-EPO will be an anomalously strong +EAMT (east Asian mountain torque) that will develop over the next couple of days. HP is around 3-4 sigma above normal here

the way EAMT works is that since the pressure gradient force is pointed to the west (wind blows from HP to LP), the Pacific jet must extend in order to conserve the total momentum. we see this Pacific jet extension here:

the Pacific jet extension then forces a strong Aleutian / GoA LP (yay El Nino) that leads to an anomalous -EPO that is also timed up with a +PNA! no more -EPO/-PNA crap from last year, it seems. these patterns are very efficient at driving Arctic air into the CONUS, especially the Plains eastward. given split flow and the displacement of the TPV into SE Canada, there is certainly an increased risk at seeing wintry weather, even south of the M-D line. either way, there is a reason for this pattern to develop... I don't think it's model fantasy BS

Excellent post!!  I love it!  Maybe I’m just a battered weenie, but I have a hard time believing after these last few winters that the models aren’t just playing tricks on us.  They’ve not done too well in that they’ve consistently forecasted cold in the medium and long range that didn’t pan out.  Here is to hoping this year is different!  

4 hours ago, the_other_guy said:

don’t write off this December. This is not a typical Nino yet. Adjusted for climate change over the last 30 years, This fall has been pretty cool. No typical nino warmth. None in sight…yet.

 

Sept AN by a decimal. Oct AN by 2 and change. Nov so far Normal. I wouldnt bet on a +5 for Dec. Lets see

 

I wouldn’t either.  Probably closer to +1 to +3 tops.  Not impossible to snow, but a steeper uphill battle for the City and coast.

3 hours ago, JustinRP37 said:

Oh I 100% agree with the UHI, but what I am pushing back on are the number of people saying it is going to be a carbon copy of last year. That type of year is just as hard to have as a winter with 50+ inches in Manhattan. They will, sadly, become more common, but I still think this one will wind up much closer to average for snowfall. Still thinking it will be just below average with more marginal events, but I do think Vermont, the Catskills, Adirondacks, etc do well this year. 

I think so too, although that won’t take much, given how the City came in with record low snowfall last year.  In terms of snowfall, I don’t think it’ll be a “carbon copy.”  But I have a hard time believing that we break the humdrum hemispheric pattern we’ve seen these past two years.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough how thrilled I’d be to be dead wrong on all of this.  Been aching for some real wintertime fun for too long now (esp a good ol fashioned holiday season snowstorm). 

50 minutes ago, WX-PA said:

who's punting December?..It's November 13th lol

Just a few examples, I suppose, but it appears this guy:

39 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

I’m fully in that camp, let the cold air build over the pole and send it down (hopefully on our side of the world after the new year) pretty typical nino forecast. I don’t think this winter will full on rat, but I do believe there will be lots of talk of it ratting after December. 

And maybe this guy:

34 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Agreed. I think we get a storm probably around end of January/February following Nino climo. I don’t think it will be a blockbuster but will feel that way compared to nothing last winter 

But never this guy (and we love him for it) 

10 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

That long ? Hopefully not.

 

In fairness, typical Niño climo would mean that we’d have to wait for the second half to get anything meaningful anyway.  So, whether you think it’s due to continuity from the past few craptastic winters or that we’ve broken that logjam with the current ENSO state, a boring, mild December is the more likely outcome here.

2 hours ago, Brian5671 said:

Probably somewhat of a hang over of the 3 yr Nina...hopefully we see a change as we head deeper into winter...even a 15-16 type winter (3 weeks of winter) would work after last year's ratter.

I almost wonder if we need a basin-wide super Niño to meaningfully reshuffle things (December 2017 was great!).  So tired of these boring winters.  

And yes I agree that maybe there is some potential for some fun later on in the winter.  But the fact that so many seem willing—with good reason—to punt December kinda tells us where we are (and it’s not a happy place unless you dig seeing all the cold out west).

15 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Based off something in November? Good luck

Lol no. As my post said, based on the multi-year garbage Niña pattern we seem unable to escape.

Full disclaimer: I’d be thrilled if I were wrong.  But if I were a betting man, I’d be betting on continuity which, right now, doesn’t paint a pretty picture for us cold and snow lovers.

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, looks like the familiar pattern of cold in the West and warm in the East.

 

 

I really hate to say it, but I can totally see this being the theme of the winter again.  We seem to be unable to break this pattern these past few winters.

19 hours ago, qg_omega said:

Brutal December look, full stop 

I mean, that looks like a textbook Niño look, where Decembers are usually soupy anyway.  Am I missing something?

18 hours ago, Allsnow said:

 

Yeah but then is it right to PAC puke?  Or does is remain sustained?

Would pay for another November 2014 at this point 

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Big temperature swings coming up. Near record 80° heat by the weekend. Then colder weather to start November with the first mid 30s of season in NYC. But the average lows are in the low 40s by that time so not too cold by historical standards. It will feel colder though compared to 80°. 
 

 

I can’t help but feel a bit dejected at how difficult is has become to sustain below-normal temperatures during our cold season.  
 

I’d be thrilled to be wrong, but I have a hunch that, even if it won’t be quite as bad this upcoming winter as it was last winter (how could it be?), we winter weather lovers are gonna be fighting an uphill battle once again.

@LibertyBell I love your contributions here, but the multi-quote feature is a beautiful thing.