bluewave

Several factors lining up for a potentially very active Atlantic hurricane season.

Unfortunately, the Pacific was too overpowering in those examples you cited for a big snow event. January had too much of a trough out West so we only got a few small events which was probably the best we could have hoped for. Last March the interior wound up with the big 40” special. December 2022 featured one the most negative -AO patterns we have seen during a La Niña. But the previous ones in 1995,2000, 2005, and 2010 did much better. Plus we had the block become more south based around storm time later in December 2022 linking up with the Southeast ridge .So I disagree that luck had much to do with this. It was a product of the type of patterns we have been getting in recent years which have been very hostile to snowfall. I still believe late February into early March will at least provide a window when NYC can get its first 4”+ or even 6”+ event or multiple events in years. But it’s not a guarantee. This is the first time we have a forecast for a solid STJ and blocking to combine in a while. We’ll just need the Pacific to back off for a long enough interval while the blocking pattern is still in effect. I think its doable.

Enjoying the drier pattern here this week for as long as we can get it. It was the first time I walked on the grass and I didn’t start sinking into the mushy ground below in a while.

Really impressive STJ event for SOCAL.

It will be interesting to see if we can link this coming SSW with the very amplified MJO 6 like we did back at this time in 2018. https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/1/657/2020/#:~:text=In the beginning of February,stratospheric warming (SSW) event. Mechanisms and predictability of sudden stratospheric warming in winter 2018 In the beginning of February 2018 a rapid deceleration of the westerly circulation in the polar Northern Hemisphere stratosphere took place, and on 12 February the zonal-mean zonal wind at 60∘ N and 10 hPa reversed to easterly in a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event. We investigate the role of the tropospheric forcing in the occurrence of the SSW, its predictability and teleconnection with the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) by analysing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ensemble forecast. The SSW was preceded by significant synoptic wave activity over the Pacific and Atlantic basins, which led to the upward propagation of wave packets and resulted in the amplification of a stratospheric wavenumber 2 planetary wave. The dynamical and statistical analyses indicate that the main tropospheric forcing resulted from an anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking, subsequent blocking and upward wave propagation in the Ural Mountains region, in agreement with some previous studies. The ensemble members which predicted the wind reversal also reasonably reproduced this chain of events, from the horizontal propagation of individual wave packets to upward wave-activity fluxes and the amplification of wavenumber 2. On the other hand, the ensemble members which failed to predict the wind reversal also failed to properly capture the blocking event in the key region of the Urals and the associated intensification of upward-propagating wave activity. Finally, a composite analysis suggests that teleconnections associated with the record-breaking MJO phase 6 observed in late January 2018 likely played a role in triggering this SSW event. How to cite. Statnaia, I. A., Karpechko, A. Y., and Järvinen, H. J.: Mechanisms and predictability of sudden stratospheric warming in winter 2018, Weather Clim. Dynam., 1, 657–674, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-657-2020, 2020.

I realize that. I was just talking about the timeline. We usually get our snowstorms after the -AO begins rising after hitting a low for the period.

I guess the only thing I would add beyond 5 days out is that we usually get our snowstorms after the -AO has peaked rather than at the very beginning.

It’s definitely a move for a younger person that is in a more adventurous phase of their life. I can remember how difficult it was for the elderly back in my Long Beach days. Especially during winters like 93-94, 95-96, and 10-11. Many people couldn’t get out for days and had to have neighbors or friends bring food in or shovel their walkways. Most of the older people couldn’t wait to get to a warmer climate for the winter which was very understandable. There were few very hearty souls into their 70s that would be out in all the most extreme winter weather. I would see them down on the boardwalk or on the beach.

If you want the heaviest possible snowfall with the chance to see 200”+pick the Tug Hill or Marquette areas.

Plenty of people on this forum would probably move up to Nova Scotia if they were able to for much snowier winters and more comfortable summers.

It definitely helps living in a place that gets around 110” of snow a year.

The main thing I have been seeing from the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest is a shorter ice fishing season as places like International Falls have warmed about 6° during the winter since around 1950. The warmer winters have resulted in increasing lake effect snows in spots with the warmer lakes and less ice. But even the warmest winters by International Falls standards like this year would be much colder than any winter around NYC.

My guess is that the seasonal snowfall peaked in NYC during 2018 with the 10 year moving average getting close to 40”. We had a short term rise against a long term decline since around the 02-03 season. So the 2031 update of the climate normals will probably feature a decline in average snowfall vs the current 91-20 normals. But we can still sneak in good seasons like 20-21. Just that as time goes on they will probably become more the exception rather than the rule. And below normal snowfall seasons will eventually outpace above normal ones vs the decreasing 30 year means.

90° days have more than doubled at stations like ISP but the rate of increase at places like EWR is a little slower.

I think it’s only more evident during the summer since people have their windows open. But the rate of minimum temperature increase since 1981 is nearly double during the winters in the Northeast than the summers.

The climate models indicate that the minimums rise faster than the maximums as the climate warms. This is evident across the region with the winter departures so far. The higher moisture is probably an important piece of the puzzle since the greatest increase in minimums is up near the Great Lakes. More clouds and warmer lake temperatures keep the minimums up more relative to the maximums.

Intensification of the hydrological cycle continues in California with rapid shifts from record rainfall to record droughts. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0140-y Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California Mediterranean climate regimes are particularly susceptible to rapid shifts between drought and flood—of which, California’s rapid transition from record multi-year dryness between 2012 and 2016 to extreme wetness during the 2016–2017 winter provides a dramatic example. Projected future changes in such dry-to-wet events, however, remain inadequately quantified, which we investigate here using the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble of climate model simulations. Anthropogenic forcing is found to yield large twenty-first-century increases in the frequency of wet extremes, including a more than threefold increase in sub-seasonal events comparable to California’s ‘Great Flood of 1862’. Smaller but statistically robust increases in dry extremes are also apparent. As a consequence, a 25% to 100% increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events is projected, despite only modest changes in mean precipitation. Such hydrological cycle intensification would seriously challenge California’s existing water storage, conveyance and flood control infrastructure.

The overpowering Pacific Jet continues with a new all-time 2 day rainfall total at UCLA.

It was both. The south based block was too warm for the immediate coast to have a repeat of 09-10 or 10-11.

Making that jump from a 40” season to a 50” is a pretty big since it’s statistically easier in our climate to reach 40” than 50”. I think if the 20-21 season had occurred before the record winter warm pattern emerged in 15-16, it would have been an easy 50”+ season for NYC and the coast. Notice that it was still cold enough that winter just inland from the coast at Danbury. They got 53.7” and had an average temperature of 31.5°. The 20-21 winter was the lowest -AO since 09-10 and 10-11. But since it was so much warmer, the coast couldn’t cash in on the 50”+and 60”+ totals like they did in 09-10 and 10-11. The real jackpot got pushed further inland with the historic 40” December snowstorm at BGM. But even the warming winter influence was felt there since the whole 40” snow pack rapidly melted on Christmas with the warmth and heavy rains leading to the record flooding.

There is a difference between a snow drought and a snow decline.

The older more primitive climate models incorrectly forecasted the EPAC to warm faster than the WPAC. But the WPAC has been warming faster with stronger and more frequent La Ninas and MJO 4-7 as the WPAC warm pool rapidly expands. So we get these occasional very strong El Niño’s which release record amounts of stored up heat into the atmosphere from the oceans. As the oceans continue to stratify, less heat will be able to get taken up buy the oceans and El Niños will cause greater global temperature jumps. This is one reason the global temperature spike from this El Niño was greater than 97-98 and 15-16 even though it was a weaker event. Understanding the recent increase in multiyear La Niñas https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01801-6#:~:text=The results from large ensemble,relative to the central Pacific. Twofold expansion of the Indo-Pacific warm pool warps the MJO life cycle https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1764-4

More La Ninas and MJO 4-7s is how a warming climate has manifested as the WPAC continues to warm faster than the EPAC.

A winter average temperature of 34.1° has been the warmest that NYC was ever able to record 50” of snow. But there have been many more years of that average temperature or colder that didn’t produce a 50” total. So getting to 34.1° or colder is necessary but not sufficient to hit 50” of snow on the season. Even though NYC has averaged 38.5° over the past 9 winters which is a first, I think getting a winter of 34.1° or colder is still possible. But the odds of an outlier year or two this cold in NYC coinciding with a 50” snowfall season is small as winters continue to warm. Notice I didn’t say it was impossible. I just offered the idea that the odds would probably increase if there was enough of a volcanic eruption to temporarily shave a few degrees off our winter average temperatures. 50” snowfall seasons in NYC and average DJF temperatures Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY - Oct through Sep Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Season Total Snowfall Average Temperature DJF 1 1995-1996 75.6 32.2° 2 1947-1948 63.9 30.0° 3 2010-2011 61.9 32.8° 4 1922-1923 60.4 29.9° 5 1872-1873 60.2 27.7° 6 2013-2014 57.4 32.9° 7 1874-1875 56.4 27.7° 8 1898-1899 55.9 31.5° 9 1960-1961 54.7 31.7° 10 1993-1994 53.4 31.1° 11 1906-1907 53.2 31.6° 12 1933-1934 52.0 29.1° 13 1966-1967 51.5 34.1° 14 2009-2010 51.4 33.8° 15 1977-1978 50.7 30.3° - 1916-1917 50.7 31.7° - 1915-1916 50.7 32.4° 16 2014-2015 50.3 31.4° Record warm 9 year winter average temperatures in NYC Monthly Mean Avg Temperature for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Year Dec Jan Feb Season Mean 41.0 35.7 38.9 38.5 2023-2024 44.6 37.0 40.8 2022-2023 38.5 43.5 41.1 41.0 2021-2022 43.8 30.3 37.3 37.1 2020-2021 39.2 34.8 34.2 36.1 2019-2020 38.3 39.1 40.1 39.2 2018-2019 40.1 32.5 36.2 36.3 2017-2018 35.0 31.7 42.0 36.1 2016-2017 38.3 38.0 41.6 39.3 2015-2016 50.8 34.5 37.7 41.0

So you disagree that it’s harder to get very high snowfall totals over 50” in NYC as winters continue to warm?