bluewave

The record warmth is allowing the LLJ to mix down in NJ.

It was a bit of an unusual twist that our snowiest season in 95-96 occurred during the longest period with no SSWs.

Already at the record of 75° at Newark. Newark Liberty CLOUDY 75 54 47 SW25G36 29.70F

This one?

These big AO and NAO swings from year to year and sometimes month to month have become the new normal. This year the progressive +AO +NAO favored eastern sections for the heaviest snows. Last winter the heaviest snows were further to the west with the near record -AO and tucked in storm track.

The warm spots across the region could make a run on 75° today before the strong to potentially severe squall line later today.

Looks like a tie so far in NYC and EWR.

Starting to get some record highs with the breaks of sun.

We’ll have to see if we can get another El Niño going by the fall. Very difficult to forecast the ENSO during the current spring forecast barrier. But it looks like the current more La Niña-like pattern will continue a while longer. The last 5 years have been unprecedented for the strength of the SE Ridge. Notice how much it has increased in the means over 5 year increments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/02/21/this-weird-february-heat-dome-on-the-east-coast-could-be-unprecedented/

The Western Pacific has warmed faster than the Eastern Pacific. So this increases the trade winds which keep the La Niña background state going. Remember how the developing El Niño suddenly reversed around Labor Day in 2012? Then the next El Niño in 14-15 came in weaker than forecast before rebounding to super El Niño in 15-16. The 18-19 El Niño never fully coupled with the atmosphere due to the record SSTs in the WPAC. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/06/24/pacific-ocean-cold-tongue/ Thus the real-world cold tongue warms less than the waters over the tropical west Pacific or off the equator to the north and south. This pattern of sea-surface temperature change then causes the trade winds to strengthen, which lifts the cold subsurface water upward, further cooling the cold tongue.

The La Niña background state and that record warm pool keep the persistent SE Ridge pattern going this month.

The weakening MJO may have reduced the chances of transitioning to an El Niño. So looks like another active hurricane season coming up.The La Niña background state has been very persistent since 16-17.

Sunday into Monday looks like a classic early spring warm up that favors areas away from the shore. 65-70 for the warm spots on Sunday. Then 70-75 away from the shore on Monday. Very strong onshore flow Monday with 40-50 mph gusts ahead of the cold front for Long Island. We’ll see if we can get a decent low topped squall line for later on Monday.

They have designed this one to be safer than the current battery technology used in EVs. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/apple-veteran-mujeeb-ijaz-wins-bill-gatess-backing-for-michigan-battery-startup/ Amid a boom in electric-vehicle production and a race for innovations that improve these new cars’ range and cost, battery startup Our Next Energy said Monday it has raised $25 million in a fresh fundraising round. The investment in ONE, as the company is known, was led by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The year-old startup, based in Novi, Michigan, says it has engineered a way to eke out higher ranges from lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, a more stable but less powerful chemistry than the nickel-based batteries used by most automakers today. “The whole foundation of the industry right now is being built on nickel-cobalt,” said Mujeeb Ijaz, ONE’s founder and CEO. “Because range was so important to the end customer, that was seen as the only way to get there. We’re offering an alternative.” ONE’s innovation lies in the way it designs battery packs, which it plans to build a factory in Michigan to assemble. Ijaz, a veteran of Apple’s secretive car project, said he’s landed his first customer, an EV startup that makes medium-duty delivery trucks. He declined to name the customer but said production will start in November 2022. The growth of the electric-vehicle market has brought challenges for the industry, including a shortage of batteries and soaring prices for raw materials such as nickel and cobalt, the latter of which is fraught with ethical issues. Nickel, the metal the auto industry largely relies on today to provide power and range, is prone to fire, a risk the industry is spending billions to control. That’s driving automakers, battery manufacturers and startups — including ONE — to seek less costly alternatives. ONE uses lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP batteries, which are cheaper and less fire-prone than nickel-based chemistries. Typically, that approach would mean sacrificing power and range for stability, but the startup claims it’s solved that problem. “We think he’s ahead of the curve,” said Libby Wayman, who leads the transportation team at Breakthrough Energy Ventures and sits on the board of ONE. “This is the beginning of a trend where people will look to alternative chemistries to achieve energy density, safety, supply-chain optionality, and supply-chain redundancy.” Also investing in the latest round were Assembly Ventures, BMW iVentures, electronics-manufacturing company Flex, and Volta Energy Technologies. Gates is Breakthrough’s chairman and investors include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP. A typical battery in an electric vehicle stores a lot of energy — enough to power the average U.S. home for about 2.5 days. So it’s a formidable engineering feat to ensure these cars are safe, even as large amounts of electricity are used to charge them or propel them around town. To mitigate fire risk, manufacturers use filler material that helps ensure the battery doesn’t heat up too much, along with electronics to ensure all the cells charge equally. ONE’s innovation has been to find ways to cut down on the filler material, which enables them to add more cells, and thus store more energy, without increasing the size and cost of the battery pack. Ijaz has spent three decades focusing on powering EVs. He conducted battery research at Ford and was chief technology officer at battery manufacturer A123 Systems until he was poached by Apple in 2014. He returned to Michigan last year to launch his startup and hired former colleagues from A123, saying he felt the auto industry had reached an inflection point with electrification. EV batteries are made of cells, which are bundled into modules, and then arranged in a pack to optimize power while mitigating fire risk. ONE is using a simpler and cheaper engineering approach called “cell-to-pack,” which skips the need for modules. ONE isn’t the first or the only company to take this approach. It was pioneered in China by players like SVOLT Energy Technology. The world’s largest battery supplier, China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology, or CATL, sells it to customers today, including Tesla. Ijaz says ONE’s technology outperforms what other makers have been able to accomplish so far. He pointed to an internal analysis of how much energy is stored in the battery pack per unit of volume — a crucial consideration because EVs have limited space for batteries. Higher energy density for the pack means an EV can theoretically have long driving range. ONE’s analysis showed its packs are made up of 76% cells and yield 287 watt-hours per liter (Wh/L) of energy density. By comparison, the analysis showed the pack from a Tesla Model 3 using LFP chemistry was made of 49% cells and yielded 173 Wh/L. As nickel prices climb, other automakers are looking at using the cell-to-pack approach to get more power out of LFP batteries, said Jim Greenberger, executive director of NAATBatt, a non-profit trade association for advanced battery technology in North America. “If the nickel crisis never comes, I’m not sure much will come of LFP chemistry, because it’s not as powerful,” Greenberger said in an interview. “But if nickel prices do prove volatile, or automakers don’t want to take the risk of nickel proving volatile, you may see more people using LFP technologies.”

This new battery technology may be a game changer.

The SE Ridge or WAR has been the dominant player since the record breaking event in December 2015. So we have seen both record warmth and record snowstorms over this period. But no sustained cold with the last 7 winters coming in with above normal temperatures. The record warm pool was found to really enhance the snowfall and storm intensity in events like the January 2016 blizzard and December 2020 interior jackpot snowstorm. We just needed blocking to force the storm track to our SE for a cold enough for snow solution.

Sunday looks like 65-70° for the warm spots. Monday corrected even warmer to 70°+away from the shore. So these warm up days continue to be more impressive than the few cool days like today.

Tough to bet against the SE Ridge with the record SSTs off the East Coast.

It’s always challenging to restart a snowy pattern once it shuts off. This winter was a one month wonder for snowfall in January. The SE Ridge became too dominant in February. Last year had the great February snowfall pattern that quickly reversed for March. 19-20 didn’t have any snowy intervals. 18-19 had the snowy November and the snowfall didn’t restart until March. 17-18 needed a major SSW to restart the snowy pattern in March following the snowy late December to early January. Snowfall in 16-17 was pretty evenly distributed despite the record 40° winter average temperature. 15-16 had the record snows from late January into early February before the snowy pattern reversed.

Par for the course when banding is involved. There are always winners and losers in the same county or borough. Very sharp cutoff this year to the west with the progressive +AO. Last winter areas further west did better with the south based -AO tucked in storm track near SNJ.

The areas from JFK to LGA and east have reached 20”+. But areas near and west of NYC are all under 20”. Very progresssive +AO pattern favored eastern sections this year. NY NY CITY CENTRAL PARK WBAN 17.5 NJ HARRISON COOP 17.4 CT DARIEN 2.4 NW CoCoRaHS 17.4 CT DARIEN 1.8 ENE CoCoRaHS 17.3 NJ NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP WBAN 17.1 NY GREENWOOD LAKE 3.0 SW CoCoRaHS 17.1 NY SHELTER ISLAND HEIGHTS 2.1 SSW CoCoRaHS 17.0 NY STATEN ISLAND 1.4 SE CoCoRaHS 16.3 NY BROOKLYN 3.1 NW CoCoRaHS 16.3 CT EAST HAVEN 3.5 SSW CoCoRaHS 16.2 NJ FAIR LAWN 1.2 SE CoCoRaHS 16.1 NJ NEW PROVIDENCE 0.8 ESE CoCoRaHS 16.0 NJ OAKLAND 0.9 SSE CoCoRaHS 15.8 NJ MONTCLAIR 0.7 N CoCoRaHS 15.5 NJ CLARK TWP 1.3 ENE CoCoRaHS 15.5 NJ NORTH ARLINGTON 0.7 WNW CoCoRaHS 15.3

Record highs possible on Sunday. Newark 3/6 69 in 1935 64 in 2004 62 in 1976+

3-15-99 was one of my favorite snowstorms of the 96-97 to 99-00 snow drought era. Very heavy wet snow resulted in numerous broken branches. Some parts of the region had power outages. Most of Long Island finished in 6-10” range. Great west based -AO block and evaporational cooling did the job. PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...FINAL SNOWFALL TOTALS NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY 1050 PM EST MON MAR 15 1999 LOCATION COUNTY SNOWFALL AMOUNT (IN) NEW YORK... CENTRAL PARK NEW YORK 4.0 JFK AIRPORT QUEENS 4.0 LAGUARDIA AIRPORT QUEENS 4.0 SOUTH NYACK ROCKLAND 9.0 OCEANSIDE NASSAU 5.8 DEER PARK SUFFOLK 8.0 HUNTINGTON STATION SUFFOLK 7.5 RIDGE SUFFOLK 7.0 COPIAGUE SUFFOLK 5.5 SOUTHHAMPTON SUFFOLK 9.0 STATEN ISLAND RICHMOND 4.5 WEST BABYLON SUFFOLK 6.5 LAKE RONKONKOMA SUFFOLK 9.5 CENTERPORT SUFFOLK 9.2 FARMINGVILLE SUFFOLK 7.0 MASSAPEQUA NASSAU 6.5 HICKSVILLE NASSAU 6.1 ALBERTSON NASSAU 6.4 BRIDGEHAMPTON SUFFOLK 9.0 NORWICH NASSAU 7.0 MINEOLA NASSAU 6.0 WHITE PLAINS WESTCHESTER 5.6 YORKTOWN HEIGHTS WESTCHESTER 10.0 ROCKY POINT SUFFOLK 6.5 LYNBROOK NASSAU 6.0 WADING RIVER SUFFOLK 7.0 ISLIP AIRPORT SUFFOLK 7.5 KINGS PARK SUFFOLK 11.0 SOUTH SETAUKET SUFFOLK 9.2 MT SINAI SUFFOLK 9.0 PORT JEFFERSON SUFFOLK 10.0 MEDFORD SUFFOLK 8.0 GRAVESEND KINGS 5.3 PATCHOGUE SUFFOLK 7.6 RONKONKOMA SUFFOLK 7.5 HOLBROOK SUFFOLK 8.0 NWS BROOKHAVEN SUFFOLK 8.0 CHESTER ORANGE 9.0 WARWICK ORANGE 9.0 PLUM ISLAND WE HAVE HAD REPORTS OF EXTENSIVE TREE DAMAGE ACROSS THE AREA AND SOME POWER OUTAGES.

Similar theme as recent days on the 12z EPS. Warmer than average pattern for early March with a dominant SE Ridge. Maybe the first run on 70° this spring for the warm spots on Sunday. The EPS gradually weakens the SE Ridge in mid-March with colder temperatures filtering in from the west. The monthly departure will probably be decided by the late month pattern which is still outside the best model range. We’ll probably get some clues from the March 5 Euro monthly update.