weatherwiz

At the Rangers/Panthers game in Florida…The ice crew is shoveling more snow than any of us have.

smelling a Cape or bust event

That's ridiculous. Let's look at Jan 1958, for example and compare to the 1921-1950 climatology vs. the 1991-2020 climatology. Sure there are some differences with the anomalies being tempered back a bit, but we're not looking at drastic changes which make older analogs obsolete. They absolutely are still relevant. EDIT: some differences may also exist here as I am using two different data sets but this is because NCEP/NCAR only goes back to 1948 so to make 1921-1950 climatology I had to use 20CRv3.

Don't necessarily need a +PNA. A relaxation of the PNA could be more than enough.

maybe we can at least get a low topped squall line

This deserves both a reaction and a reply. Here's the reply

They're onto 18z

What grinds me most is how much MOS (And I'll put NBM in this category too) scales back to climo, thus they're absolutely horrible in anomalous air masses. Surely there has to be a way to negate this or have climo weighed less. IDK...maybe that is something for AI (please smack me).

Hopefully it all melts before May 1

If this winter ends up as a rat I will be extremely perplexed. I figured this winter would be above-average in terms of precipitation and we're doing extremely well in that department. If you would have told me we'd get 7-10'' of precipitation this month and the result at the major climo sites for snow was a goose egg I'd have laughed. I still expect we'll be on the active side the remainder of winter, but all we need is just to shake things up slightly. An airmass slightly above-average in terms of temps in Jan/Feb is vastly different than an airmass slightly above-average temp wise in Dec. Even if we don't see significant changes...hopefully climo will at least work in our favor.

I've been thinking about this the past few days as I've made some posts about how we need something big to really shake things up. We may just have to closely monitor the stratosphere and hope the signals for a SSW can emerge (and of course hope it does so that is favorable for our side of the hemisphere). If we can get a SSW and prompt the development of blocking things are going to change quickly. Of course this scenario would be lagged but once (if) we see it occur, it's just a matter of when things pan out. I am hoping such a scenario will occur when the PAC relaxes some or enough to displace some colder air into Canada so if blocking does transpire we'll at least have a period where the source region will be better.

I agree, if we get deep into January (mid-month) and we haven't seen improvements or there is nothing on the horizon...and I mean as in days it may be time to start worrying. At that point it will probably be preparations for May.

Using an OP static hour to quantify the pattern?

This is brutal...47F at CEF and only 60F at PBI

This is why why I thought it should be looked at lol. This makes the most sense and is the more correct method.

It seemed some were hot to trot because of Region 1.2. No matter how many times you tell people that is the most volatile region in terms of SST changes they don't want to listen.

I think that is a pretty good bet. The OND value probably comes in at around +1.8C is my guess.

I have to say...I am extremely confused as to what is meant and being discussed when the term persistence is being thrown around.

Yup. Quantifying a pattern change goes way beyond the sensible weather in someone's backyard. This is assessed on the large-scale and even at the hemisphere level. We can be in a pattern which elicits above-average temps/wet weather and then see the pattern change and up with above-average temps/dry weather...just because it remained above-average temp wise does not mean there was not a pattern change.

I think we need a thread dedicated to the explanation of what a pattern change actually means and is.

My mouth waters when I hear '57-58. That was my #1 favorite analog in my winter outlook.

Persistence works if you're in San Diego, CA.

I'm not sure it really works like that in Northern Hemisphere winter though. With the jet stream tending to be more volatile you get more ridge/trough patterns. I think it's difficult to get a set pattern to persist that long.

For at least 3 weeks? That's an awful long time.

Thanks for the explanation on this! As for the bolded...ehhh just thinking of ways we can just significantly alter things and on the more quicker side of the spectrum I am just getting a little nervous that if we keep harping on and reflecting on "subtle" changes this winter is going to turn into a dud very quickly. I see no reason to deviate from my winter outlook thoughts, but at some point going to have to ask myself, "where is the line between wishing and reality"?