bluewave

Yeah, Euro forecasting a new record also.

The new baseline may not be that much warmer than 81-10 since the equatorial East Pacific has been one of the slowest warming parts of the Pacific. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/06/24/pacific-ocean-cold-tongue/

Just enough sun to make it to 60°. Newark Liberty PTSUNNY 60 46 59 VRB6

The OHC is also being limited by the WPAC warm pool still hanging on. We never got the WPAC cold pool needed to really boost the OHC east of the Dateline. We were consistently in the 1.7 to 2 range back at this time in 2015. The most recent upper ocean heat anomaly from the CPC is only around +1.15.

Plus these WWBs haven’t been that strong compared to past El Niño events. While they looked impressive on the hovmoller charts, they were much weaker than past WWBs this time of year. So the OKWs and upper ocean heat haven’t been very impressive. This prevents the Nino 3.4 SSTs from sustaining a strong enough rise to push past the +2.0 barrier for at least 4 consecutive weeks.

It’s nice if you like the natural beauty of flowering plants like mums which are very hearty. All the outdoor landscaping with mums and ornamental cabbages looked great back on Long Island this weened. Even the landscaping around the ferry terminal in Bridgeport looked great.

It’s good if you want to extend the growing season around NYC. Drove down to Long Island over the weekend and the mums are still going strong. Even saw some tomato plants which didn’t look damaged by the recent freeze in spots. So that suburban freeze last week was probably of too short a duration to have much effect with how warm the fall has been to date. Even saw garden centers still selling mums last weekend. Not sure who will buy them this late but it was interesting to see.

Some of the strongest ocean heat uptake around the planet near Japan and the Northeast US in the last decade. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42468-z

The ICON looks like a compromise solution. Colder in the suburbs than the GFS. But a more defined UHI effect in NYC than the Euro. So NYC lows around 34° With the first freeze having to wait a while longer.

Yeah, the record -PDO warm pool near Japan continues to make headlines there.

A warmer day coming up today with highs getting back into the low 60s as the warm front moves through this afternoon.

Yeah, The -PDO ridge NW of Hawaii has been a dominant feature since 16-17. This tends to place a trough in the Western US and a ridge near the East. Last January even had the SW trough with a +PNA over the top. So I am hoping that we get a lucky uncoupled month or two like we got it 20-21 and January 22. I would gladly take my chances with a well coupled strong to even super El Niño without La Niña background interference. Just give me a clean STJ with no overpowering northern stream and some blocking. Don’t mind warmth as long as we get some good snowstorms.

The -PDO is the main issue right now. Nearly every winter since 1950 following a -PDO October lower than -1 has gone on to average negative during the winter also. So there is a strong fall to winter PDO correlation. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

We could finish November warmer than average if the advertised mid to late November warmth verifies.

While this has been a decent WWB west of the Dateline, the lower upper ocean heat has really limited the surface warming potential.

NW NJ actually came closest around the region to reaching 70° yesterday. Walpack NJ 2023-11-07 SafetyNet 69 46

Hopefully we can get enough of an El Niño atmospheric response this winter for a decent STJ. Right now we are seeing a very La Niña-like flash drought over portions of the Southeast. Record driest fall so far in locations that usually see this during years heading into La Niña winters. Time Series Summary for Chattanooga Area, TN (ThreadEx) Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Total Precipitation Sep 1 to Nov 7 Missing Count 1 2023-11-07 0.42 0 2 1938-11-07 1.68 0 3 2016-11-07 1.71 0 4 1939-11-07 2.10 0 5 1931-11-07 2.24 0 6 1998-11-07 2.32 0 7 1978-11-07 2.39 0 - 1891-11-07 2.39 0 8 1886-11-07 2.53 0 9 1904-11-07 2.64 0 10 2005-11-07 2.68 0 - 1922-11-07 2.68 0

It makes sense that the MEI is so low when the -PDO was the lowest on record in October for a developing El Niño at -2.36. The increasing La Niña background state has been acting as a brake on El Niño development since Labor Day 2012. So the historic expansion of the WPAC pool even extending northward to Japan has proven to be a game changer for the global climate system. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

The latest MEI actually dropped to +0.3 with the unusually strong La Niña background state for Nino 3.4 SSTs in the strong range. https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/ 7 November 2023 Current Value: 0.3

Urban and coastal stations still haven’t had their first freeze. NY LAGUARDIA AIRPORT WBAN 38 NY PORT AUTH DOWNTN MANHATTAN WALL ST HEL ICAO 38 NY MONTAUK AIRPORT WBAN 37 NY ORIENT POINT STATE PARK COOP 36 NY NY CITY CENTRAL PARK WBAN 35 NJ TETERBORO AIRPORT WBAN 35 NJ NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP WBAN 34 NY JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WBAN 34 NJ HARRISON COOP 33 NY WESTHAMPTON GABRESKI AP WBAN 33 NY RIVERHEAD RESEARCH FARM COOP 33 NY MOUNT SINAI COOP 33

But notice the main trough axis still hangs back near the SW.

14-15 was the only really cold winter out of that bunch for the Northeast. It was the 20th coldest average winter temperature at 20.8°. 13-14 was -2.8 at 22.1 and 10-11 was -1.8 along with 23.6 and -0.5 for 08-09. But my guess is that with the warming since the super El Niño, it’s going to be difficult to rival the 14-15 cold in the warmer climate. Just as 14-15 couldn’t match the cold of 93-94 a few decades earlier at 19.7 and 10th coldest. Plus 93-94 could not rival the cold in the late 70s. 77-78 finished at 19.5 and 9th coldest while 76-77 was 18.4 and 5th coldest. So each cold pattern as the climate warms can’t match the ones from previous decades.

I am more focused on the Northeast since this is where I live. So we have a decadal pattern of anomalous warmth. Plus Nino influences combined a La Niña background favors warmer than average Northeast winter temperatures. Then we have this ridiculous global temperature spike over 5 months which has never happened before leading up to an El Niño winter. Past occasions of monthly temperature spikes occurred later in the winter like in 2016. This is something new and I am sure many papers are going to be written about it. Based on these factors alone, I think a record 9th warmer than average winter in a row for the Northeast has a good chance of playing out. But since I also have a ton of respect for variability, can’t say yet exactly how much above.

We will need some help from the much warmer 91-20 means to eventually get a colder winter season in the Northeast again. So a winter that was borderline warm before 20-21 will be borderline cold now. At least we have that. Last winter was as warm as 15-16 but the departure shrank from +5.8 to +4.9 due to the much warmer 91-20 averages. Northeast DJF average temperatures since 15-16 22-23….30.7…..+4.9….2nd warmest 21-22…..26.1…..+0.3 20-21…..27.1…..+2.2….16th warmest 19-20…..28.9…..+4.0…6th warmest 18-19…..25.6……+0.7 17-18…..25.3……+0.4 16-17…..29.5……+4.6….5th warmest 15-16…..30.7…..+5.8……2nd warmest

Multi-year winter patterns are important. We have had 8 warmer than average winters in a row. So just hoping that we can do better in the snowfall department than last year. Even if it we make it 9 warmer than average winters in a row. Regardless of El Niño or La Niña, the warm anomalies end up in the East and the cold departures somewhere out West. This has been the winning winter temperature forecast since the super El Niño.