bluewave

Yeah, the WAR is verifying stronger than earlier forecasts. New run Old run

Newark currently in 2nd place for the most 85° days by May 2nd at 3 days so far. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2002-05-02 4 0 - 2001-05-02 4 0 - 1962-05-02 4 0 - 1941-05-02 4 0 2 2025-05-02 3 0 - 2023-05-02 3 0 - 2017-05-02 3 0 - 2010-05-02 3 0 - 2009-05-02 3 0 - 1990-05-02 3 0 - 1985-05-02 3 0 - 1977-05-02 3 0 - 1976-05-02 3 0 - 1960-05-02 3 0 - 1945-05-02 3 0 3 2024-05-02 2 0 - 2021-05-02 2 0 - 2011-05-02 2 0 - 1998-05-02 2 0 - 1994-05-02 2 0 - 1991-05-02 2 0 - 1969-05-02 2 0 - 1957-05-02 2 0 - 1938-05-02 2

My call that the snowfall peaked in 17-18 from Philly to Boston and we were at the beginning of a snowfall decline is based on 60 years of snowfall data. I first raised this possibility back around the 2020 winter after only 2 years. I can remember getting plenty of pushback when I raised this possibility just after 2 seasons. But it’s a bit like that old game show Name That Tune. I only needed a few notes to recognize the pattern. In the following years we got more data to confirm my idea. When there was a much colder climate from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, there wasn’t an all or nothing snowfall pattern. Most of the seasons were in a narrow range focused near the long term average mid-range. There were few seasons with very high or very low snowfall. This all began to change in 93-94 as nearly all our snowfall seasons were well below or well below with almost none in the mid range which was a staple of our colder climate. We were cold enough back then to have a bunch of small to moderate events in a season without a KU NESIS storm to reach average. In contrast, none of the seasons since 93-94 reached average or above without some NESIS event contributing to a the seasonal snowfall total. So as we warmed our snowfall became all or nothing. The record 2010s featured mostly all or well above normal seasons. This period indeed was warming while the heavy snowfall was occurring. But even in the warmer winters the snowstorm tracks were still cold. As the Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet was weaker and didn’t disrupt benchmark storm track formations. These days the winter storm tracks have significantly warmed with the storm tracks shifting through the Great Lakes. This lead to an average temperature of 41° degrees this past winter in the I-95 corridor in the days the precipitation over .25 fell. so it negated the overall 34.8° colder average. The dominant storm tracks since the increase of the Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet speeds in 18-19 have been Great Lakes cutter, I-95 , I-78, I-80, and I-84 huggers, and suppressed Southern Stream storms. This makes it very difficult to get to average to above average snowfall. This is why the last 7 years have seen snowfal amounts near all-time lows for a 7 year interval. So we had to rely completely on one type of storm track to reach average to above average snowfall over the past 30 years. But having to rely exclusively on the benchmark storm track in a warming climate has pitfalls. Before 93-94 we would regularly have snowy seasons with hugger and weaker coastal storm tracks since it was still cold enough with those tracks to reach average. These days this type of storm tracks has become much warmer with mostly rain. There was a wider number of ways to get to average when it was colder. The 2010s featured a record number of benchmark storm tracks. This level of benchmark snowstorms was somewhere in the range of a 50 to perhaps 100 year event. So it’s unlikely that amount of benchmark tracks will repeat anytime soon. So we are left with a few scenarios going forward over the next 7 seasons and beyond. One is just a continuation of the last 7 years with well below average snowfall continuing. Another possibility is that we could see a bit of an uptick in benchmark tracks and some improvement over the past 7 seasons. Though any increase would probably come in well below the 2010s levels. My guess is that this would be transient before a lower snowfall regime returns in the 2030s and beyond. The obvious caveat would be some time of super volcanic or cosmic event which would completely shift the climate in a sudden and dramatic way. Absent something like this, increasing emissions will continue to reduce our snowfall over time.

This doesn’t have anything to do with whether you are taking the measurements in a big city of the surrounding areas. It’s is a region-wide phenomenon including all the locations within the general I-95 corridor. First, we don’t have a continuous snowfall record for your individual location spanning more than 60 years. So you are just guessing when it comes to how your recent snowfall compares against historical averages. Second, the stations around your region are in a similar boat as the other bigger city stations that have a longer period of record. So this snow drought is very extensive and isn’t just located in the big cities. Since you can see how close Philly to Trenton and New Brunswick have been. Everyone is near the record 7 season snowfall lows. But we have warmed so much, that a big rebound in the coming years like which followed past snow droughts isn’t as likely. So we are seeing what a decline in snowfall looks like in real time as a warmer climate and storm track will result in less snow. So while it’s within the range of possibilities that we could see a bit of a bounce off these lows in coming seasons, my guess is that 18-19 will mark the shift to a longer term decline which will become obvious when we look back in time 10 to 20 years into the future. Recent 7 year snowfall through 2025 compared to past lowest 7 year stretches. Past snow droughts were the result of too dry and not too warm. This is an important distinction to now as we are experiencing too much warmth for snow. Since in the old days there was always enough cold once the snow droughts ended due to dry conditions ended. Like we saw in the earky 1930s with record cold and snow in 33-34. Also from the late 1950s into early 1960s with the very snowy and cold conditions following those 7 year snowfall through droughts. New Brunswick……2025…..15.9”…….1956……13.8”………1932…..13.8” Trenton…..2025…..14.1”…….1933…..14.2” Philly………2025…..10.5”……1932…..12.3”

More early season mid 80s heat for the warm spots today as we are off to the 3rd and 4th warmest spring on record from Newark out to Islip. Hopefully, we can actually verify some heavy rains out of the cutoff low forecast. This has some potential to reduce the drought a bit. But it’s going to be a challenge to completely make up the 10 inch deficit since last summer over NJ and Eastern PA. But a 25% to 50% reduction would be good news. Since drought feedback going into the summer would result in a very hot summer especially in areas away from the sea breeze. So we will need another 2 or 3 potential big event like this to push back in the heat potential this summer. Since the only way we have seen summer heat in recent years get reduced some has been through very heavy rains like in 2023. But that was a developing El Niño. La Ninas often have cutoffs in May but transition to drier conditions over the summer. I would be nice to see a wetter pattern hold into the summer. Maybe the Euro seasonal release on the 5th will have some clues. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2012-05-01 53.4 0 2 2010-05-01 53.3 0 3 1945-05-01 52.8 0 4 2025-05-01 52.2 0 5 2024-05-01 52.0 0 6 2023-05-01 51.4 0 - 1973-05-01 51.4 0 7 2016-05-01 51.0 0 - 1985-05-01 51.0 0 8 1977-05-01 50.3 0 9 2021-05-01 50.1 0 Time Series Summary for ISLIP-LI MACARTHUR AP, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2012-05-01 49.8 0 2 2010-05-01 49.5 0 3 2025-05-01 49.0 0 4 2024-05-01 48.2 0 5 2023-05-01 47.6 0 - 1973-05-01 47.6 0 6 2016-05-01 47.4 0 7 1991-05-01 47.3 0 8 2002-05-01 47.0 0 9 2021-05-01 46.7 0 10 1985-05-01 46.6 0 - 1977-05-01 46.6 0

While shorter PDO cycles in a warming climate may be a new concept to some on this forum, this has been a topic of interest in the climate community for a while now. It’s acknowledged that the decadal cycle broke down in 1998. This is why the PDO has been seeing such quick shifts from one phase to another since then. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/29/16/jcli-d-15-0690.1.xml#:~:text=Abstract The impact of climate change on,in response to global warming or cooling. In the control simulations the model PDO has an approximately bidecadal peak. In a warmer climate the PDO time scale becomes shorter, changing from ~20 to ~12 yr. In a colder climate the time scale of the PDO increases to ~34 yr. Physically, global warming (cooling) enhances (weakens) ocean stratification. The increased (decreased) ocean stratification acts to increase (reduce) the phase speed of internal Rossby waves, thereby altering the time scale of the simulated PDO. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/climate-and-atmospheric-indicators These decadal cycles broke down in late 1998 when the PDO entered a cold phase that lasted only five years. This cold phase was followed by a warm phase from 2003 to 2007 and an abrupt change to a cold phase from 2008 to 2013 (with a short interruption during the moderate El Niño in fall/winter 2009-2010). The PDO then switched phases again in 2014 and remained positive until 2018. This period coincided with a large marine heatwave and El Niño that negatively impacted the marine ecosystem in the NE Pacific during that time. Since 2020, the PDO has been consistently negative, reaching the most negative values since 1955 in both 2022 and 2023.

This was the 3rd warmest April on record for Long Island. Time Series Summary for ISLIP-LI MACARTHUR AP, NY - Month of Apr Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 2017 53.4 0 - 2010 53.4 0 2 2023 53.3 0 3 2025 52.8 0 4 2002 52.3 0 5 2012 52.2 0 6 1991 52.0 0 7 2019 51.9 0 8 1976 51.5 0 9 1974 51.4 0 10 2008 51.3 0

The GFS has really been struggling in recent months. So my guess is that it will eventually move toward the less progressive Euro and CMC. But not sure if it will actually be quite as wet as those 3-5” forecasts since models struggle with cutoff low locations. Will be important to watch since a wetter pattern heading into the summer could tamp down any 100° heat potential for NJ and push back against a 2022 repeat.

The graph you posted doesn’t take into account the SST changes I mentioned in my earlier posts which affect the calculations. Plus the study I posted about the recent shift. Model forecasts show the duration of the PDO phases becoming more erratic as the climate continues to warm.

The PDO actually shifted during those years which is an undeniable fact. So there hasn’t been a continuous -PDO from 1998 to 2025 like we had from the 1950s to 1970s. So the character and duration of the PDO intervals is different from the mid to late 1900s.

It’s not a leap of faith on my part since there were studies published about the +PDO shift around 2013 to 2015 and the jump in global temperatures. Initialized decadal prediction for transition to positive phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11718 The negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), a dominant mode of multi-decadal variability of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Pacific, contributed to the reduced rate of global surface temperature warming in the early 2000s. A proposed mechanism for IPO multidecadal variability indicates that the presence of decadal timescale upper ocean heat content in the off-equatorial western tropical Pacific can provide conditions for an interannual El Niño/Southern Oscillation event to trigger a transition of tropical Pacific SSTs to the opposite IPO phase. Here we show that a decadal prediction initialized in 2013 simulates predicted Niño3.4 SSTs that have qualitatively tracked the observations through 2015. The year three to seven average prediction (2015–2019) from the 2013 initial state shows a transition to the positive phase of the IPO from the previous negative phase and a resumption of larger rates of global warming over the 2013–2022 period consistent with a positive IPO phase.

The big difference was that we didn’t have any effective +PDO and super El Niño anywhere near the magnitude of 2015-2016 from the late 1940s into 1970s. So while we may be seeing some weak echoes or reflections of the way the last cycles played out, I stand by my observation that the 2015-2016 event was a full blown +PDO cycle even though is was greatly reduced in duration. But the effective magnitude was stronger when we combine total EPAC warmth along the West Coast and the ENSO SSTs than 82-83 and 97-98 which were in the same defined common +PDO era.

While it has been windier in recent years, this year is the new high average wind gust leader from January through April at nearly 35mph for the first time. https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto/?_wait=no&q=140&network=NJ_ASOS&station=EWR&syear=1900&sday=0101&eday=0429&varname=avg_wind_gust&w=none&thres=1&year=2025&_r=t&dpi=100&_fmt=png

Yeah, in a warmer world the troughs are becoming weaker. So the SSTs below haven’t been cooling as much. The cold pool couplet of the +PDO back in 2015 over the Central Pacific was much weaker than we saw back in 1997 due to the much weaker Aleutian Low. But the warm pool and 500 mb ridge near the West Coast was much stronger. So using the older calculation method doesn’t yield as strong of a +PDO. This raises the interesting question about future +PDOs in a warming world. Will there ever be an extended +PDO like we saw from the 1970s to 1990s again if we continue to see so much SST warmth from the CP back to the WP? Maybe this is why the +PDO cycle back in 2010s was so short. The other observation is that this recent -PDO has been more defined by the warm pool over the Western to Central Pacific than the cold pool near the West Coast. This is due to the much stronger Aleutian Ridge and weaker -PNA 500 mb trough than we saw from the 1950s to 1970s during that -PDO era. So the calculation method actually helped the -PDO values in recent years rival or match the older values from the 1950s to 1970s. Even though the trough near the West Coast was weaker than past -PDOs and SSTs warmer. I think we are just going to have to take a wait and see approach to the lengths of these PDO phases going forward. As a much warmer Western Pacific from the Maritime Continent to the south of the Aleutians loads the dice for more -PDOs than +PDOs. We will have to see if there is some possibility of the Eastern Pacific seeing an accelerated warming while the Western Pacific cools in the coming years. But if the Western Pacific continues to stay warm and increase the warmth, then +PDOs may be harder to come by. A clue as to if this can happen could be the unusual warming last few years in the Nino 1+2 region and rapid rise in global temperatures. But we recently saw how that shallow warm pool could connect to the warm pool over the WP. So the stronger trades cooled it off and slowed a return to El Niño. But historically as least since 1950, we haven’t seen such a fast return to El Niño following such a strong El Niño like we had in 23-24.

I remember days like this living back in Long Beach. Would be hearing about 80s to the west. But wind gusts over 30 and blowing sand at the beach with 50s. I always had to hose down my bike after getting sandblasted riding the Long Beach board walk.

Notice how wide the band of +PDO SST warming was from Mexico all the way to Alaska with the +PDO super El Niño event in 15-16. It far surpassed anything we have ever seen from a +PDO and El Niño combo before. The reason the raw index you posted was underdone was due to the much smaller cold pool to the west of the +PDO horseshoe. So the footprint of the historic +PDO was larger leading to the normally cold regions to the west being smaller. This why the SST charts below are a better indicator of the strength of the event. As the raw index was too narrowly defined to capture the sheer volume of historic SST warmth near the coast. So we need to update the way we calculate these indices in a rapidly warming world with more extreme marine heatwaves. We have seen this same process at work with the raw telconnections struggling to capture the totality of events which have more often been defined by the record 500mb heights.

The SSTs along the West Coast were the warmest on record during the 2014-2015 +PDO event. Those raw indices values you posted were only a small piece of the total event. As those raw indices can often miss the totality of events. Like we often see between the 500mb versions of the teleconnections and the surface pressure versions. My analysis involves a bigger picture view rather than the more narrowly defined approach that you are taking. Notice how much wider the band of record SST along the West Coast warmth was in the 15-16 event than 97-98 and 82-83.

Big Ambrose Jet day coming up. 80s west of the sea breeze to 50s along the South Shore. Then SSW gusts later over 30 mph again. So our strong winds pattern continues.

My point was about the duration of the PDO cycling. I have posted numerous papers further back on how the length of the phases was different during different climate epochs. The period around 2015 was one off the most extreme +PDO and super El Niño couplets that we have ever experienced. I posted papers on this further back on how there was a model used which forecasted this shift. But the amplitude of the shift in the model was much weaker than what verified. So the period from around 2015 to the late 2010s was indeed a +PDO phase. But we cycled back to more -PDO into the 2020s. There was more research that the ENSO cycle has become more extreme using corals going back hundreds of years as the climate has warmed. This has been confirmed by how extreme the swing was between the super El Niño and +PDO was in 2015 and the -PDO and multiyear La Niña -PDO in the early

If you didn’t continually misstate my conclusions based on your incorrect perceptions of them, then we wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth and diverging from the main discussion. Maybe this format just is too incomplete to enable you to get the full gist or meaning of the ideas that I am trying to convey. We could probably come to a much better understanding if we ever had a meeting in public like at a conference if something. If you ever met me in person, then you would probably come away from the meeting with a completely different view as my in person persona can often be more stand up comedian like. As these forums can come off as overly dry. I get that you have a pretty good sense of humor and so do I. But it’s not always easy to convey that in these posts. These back and forth interactions I take in stride. Almost like when players are off the field the relationship is less intense what is seen on the field. But unfortunately, these forums miss the the off field antics.

Something human I see about your posts is that they involve a large degree of projection. I can tell you are bothered about the lack of cold and snowy winters and it’s leading to you being very critical of anyone that is pointing out the obvious. Viewing scientific principles through political filter usually doesn’t lead to success. But sometimes people are willing to sacrifice forecast accuracy in service to holding onto outdated beliefs which provide emotional comfort. What you classify as superiority is actually maintaining focus on the big picture. I have worked very hard to eliminate biases over the years. It’s actually been easier to do with weather statistics and patterns which hold no emotion for me. Maybe this is what you are perceiving as superiority. I try not to get emotional about the weather and climate.

The Euro updated seasonal forecast for the summer will be out on May 5th. It actually has been one of the better periods for seasonal forecast skill of summer temperatures and 500 mb patterns. My guess is that this dry pattern will generally continue into the summer as it has been very persistent especially in Eastern PA into NJ. The last time we had a dry pattern heading into the summer was 2022. This is when NJ reached 100° over 5 times but the areas further east had more onshore flow and less 100° heat than NJ. So our first hints on summer wind direction will probably come with the Euro update on May 5th.

My only agenda has been getting the pattern correct. I have to chuckle when I see posts such as yours which often use the term agenda. Since agenda is generally a political term that has nothing to do with weather and climate forecasting.

I disagree with your assessment about a cold phase since 1998. The PDO has been shorter cycling than it was prior to the 1990s. So we have been getting alternating +PDO and -PDO cycles since then. This is why the 2010s into the 2020s have experienced such a rapid shift between the record +PDO in 2015 to record -PDO in the early 2020s. Those long 30 year cycles have become a thing of the past. Plus the rapid warming of the Western Pacific has altered the way the PDOs have been relating to our sensible weather. So canonical expectations based solely on PDO phase have not been working out. -PDOs of recent years have been much different from earlier -PDOs due to the 2nd EOF running so warm. So this has lead to much warmer and less snowy -PDOs then were experienced in the past. We also experienced record warmth with the +PDO in December 2015. So not seeing how another +PDO in coming years if it were to evolve would necessarily be any cooler than the recent -PDOs. The colder 13-14 into 14-15 period was more a result of the +TNH and +NPM pattern. But as we saw last winter, the stronger Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet muted that influence. So no cold trough was able to develop in Canada like we saw in 13-14. This is why when I saw the Pacific Jet and storm tracks last December I said early on that we weren’t going to see another 13-14 repeat like some on twitter were calling for.

The very low soil moisture has been pretty persistent as the strong winds quickly dry things out behind the parade of storms through the Great Lakes that have been generally underperforming on moisture.