bluewave

We are on track for an 11th consecutive warmer than normal October. Oct.......EWR...NYC...LGA 2020..+1.0...+0.9....+1.6...through the 14th 2019..+3.8...+3.0 ...+2.8 2018...+0.8...+0.8...+1.7 2017...+7.2...+7.2...+7.4 2016...+2.3...+1.9....+3.1 2015...+0.6...+1.1....+0.3 2014...+2.7...+2.7....+2.2 2013...+3.0....+3.3...+2.8 2012...+2.2....+1.1....+1.9 2011...+1.5...+0.2.....+0.2 2010...+1.7...+1.2....+2.1

GEFS in full cold bias correction mode as its seeing the stronger WAR pattern. Tough to bet against those very warm SSTs to our east. This is how a -5 forecast for the start of the month turned into a +1 to +3.

The record SST warmth form the Siberian heatwave is slowing down the freeze- up in those regions. https://theconversation.com/arctic-sea-ice-is-being-increasingly-melted-from-below-by-warming-atlantic-water-144106 All this may be feeding into ever more extreme climate change in the Arctic. Throughout summer 2020 the Siberian heatwavecontinually shattered temperature records, including eastern Arctic sea surface temperatures. And while sea ice reflects much of the sun’s rays back into space, open water is dark and absorbs the sun’s heat. So as the sea ice retreated the surface water is warmed, which in turned further warms the atmosphere above, quite apart from the influence of increasing greenhouse gases. There is still much more to learn about the link between the eastwards spread of the influence of Atlantic heat, and the reduction in sea ice it brings, and knock on effects on severe weather at lower latitudes. But it is clear that the Arctic – already warming faster than anywhere else on Earth – could be in the process of transitioning to a “new” state.

It looks like they ran tests without the GFDL microphysics and determined that it was the cause of the cold bias. I am not sure if the new parallel GFS is running one of those suites. Maybe we will get a statement from them once the new parallel becomes operational.

They think that the cold bias is a result of the GFDL microphysics. The whole explanation starts at page #40. I guess changing the microphysics takes time. What is the Cause of This Cold Bias? KEY POINTS: - Suites 1 and 2 (GFDL MP) have a cold bias that increases with lead time - The suites without GFDL microphysics do not show a cold bias increasing w time https://www.weather.gov/media/sti/nggps/NGGPS/EMC MEG Evaluation of GFSv15_Manikin_SIP Meeting_20190514.pdf

It makes more sense to rely on ensemble means beyond day 5 than OP runs. With the rise of social media, the modeling centers need to find a way to limit what type OP data beyond 120 hrs they make freely available. Otherwise, we will just keep getting these incorrect 30 inch snowstorm rumors. https://www.nj.com/weather-guy/2014/02/the_nj_blizzard_that_wasnt_the_anatomy_of_a_social_media_misfire.html

Yeah, extremely amplified pattern coming up. Looks like temperatures rebound back into the 70s Thursday. Then a strong storm that you mentioned with wind and rain. Models have a 590 dm+ ridge around Newfoundland which is close to the record for this time of year near 5 SD. That ridge builds westward over the Northeast day 6-10 for more milder than normal temperatures. Then we’ll have to watch for potential tropical development in the SW Caribbean later in the month.

First 1.00”+ event on the South Shore since the end of September. Wantagh mesonet 1 day: 1.02″

The WAR has been regularly verifying stronger than forecast with the record SSTs since late 2015.

The coolest temperatures should remain to our west as the WAR continues to flex with the warm SSTs to our east.

Stronger Western Atlantic Ridge during the first 10 days of October than the models forecast. So the forecast for a cooler than normal start verified as +1 to +3 across the region. We have seen this model forecast bias frequently in recent years with the record SST warmth to our east. EWR...+1.1 NYC...+1.4 LGA....+2.2 JFK....+1.6 BDR...+2.9 ISP.....+2.0

Close to 80° now in areas to our north with sun. http://wxweb.meteostar.com/meteogram/link.shtml?choice=KBDL

Looks like we will continue to see the coolest temperatures relative to the averages remaining to our west. Ridging is holding in place near the West Coast and just to the east of New England. Matches the areas of the warmest SST departures. Oct 1-7 EPS forecast more of the same Current SST departures

Seems like the Western Atlantic Ridge often finds a way to beat guidance with such warm SSTs off the coast.

I wonder if a specific cause can be found for the record -NAO /-AO from June 2009 through January 2011?Somebody should do a research study on that. You know something unusual was underway when it started with such cool weather for June and July. Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Mean Avg Temperature Jun 1 to Jul 31 Missing Count 1 1881-07-31 69.4 0 2 1903-07-31 70.0 0 3 2009-07-31 70.1 0 4 1902-07-31 70.3 0 5 1914-07-31 70.5 0

2-8/9-13 came close for ISP on the LE and it got the 2 consecutive days of 10”+. 2013-02-08 36 25 30.5 -1.2 34 0 2.21 16.7 0 2013-02-09 29 20 24.5 -7.3 40 0 0.74 11.1 25

2-25/26-10 came the closest. NYC got the 2 consecutive LE days over 1.00” but missed the 10” of snow on the 1st day by .6. 2010-02-25 38 27 32.5 -4.7 32 0 2.00 9.4 0 2010-02-26 33 26 29.5 -7.9 35 0 1.17 11.5 14

11-16-89 still stands as our strongest November severe thunderstorm outbreak. https://www.nj.com/weather/2019/11/this-is-what-nj-looked-like-when-7-tornadoes-hit-in-1989-it-sounded-like-incoming-artillery.html

The four-part series was one of the best documentaries that I saw all year. It’s available on demand for anyone that missed it. The brief clip below was informative on how to motivate society to get more interested in climate change and the environment.

Updated for another unusually strong October Northeast severe thunderstorm outbreak producing the highest October wind gust on record in Albany. RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ALBANY NY 312 AM EDT THU OCT 08 2020 ...HIGHEST WIND GUST SET AT ALBANY NEW YORK YESTERDAY... A HIGHEST OR PEAK WIND GUST OF 67 MPH FROM THE WEST OCCURRED YESTERDAY...WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 7...2020...AT THE ALBANY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN THE THUNDERSTORMS. THIS BROKE THE OLD RECORD FOR THE DATE OF 54 MPH SET IN 2009. THIS IS ALSO THE HIGHEST WIND GUST FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER ON RECORD. WIND GUST RECORDS AT ALBANY GO BACK TO 1987.

It will be interesting to see if Delta slows down enough for both Monday and Tuesday to record at least an inch of rain in NYC. Most of our events in recent years had the heaviest precipitation focused into just 1 day. The last 2 consecutive NYC days with 1.00” plus of precipitation was 1-23/24-17. Getting 2 consecutive days of 2.00”+ has been even tougher. The last time for NYC was with Irene on 8-27/28-11. Number of Consecutive Days Precipitation >= 1.00 for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Run Length Ending Date Last value also occurred in one or more previous years. Period of record: 2017-01-01 to 2020-10-07 1 2 2017-01-24 2 1 2020-09-30 - 1 2020-09-10 - 1 2020-08-12 - 1 2020-07-22 - 1 2020-07-10 - 1 2020-04-13 - 1 2020-03-23 - 1 2019-12-14 - 1 2019-12-09 Number of Consecutive Days Precipitation >= 2.00 for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Run Length Ending Date Last value also occurred in one or more previous years. Period of record: 2011-01-01 to 2020-10-07 1 2 2011-08-28 2 1 2020-07-10 - 1 2018-08-11 - 1 2018-07-17 - 1 2018-04-16 - 1 2017-10-29 - 1 2017-05-05 - 1 2016-11-29 - 1 2016-01-23 - 1 2015-01-18

https://grist.org/climate/scientists-didnt-expect-wildfires-this-terrible-for-another-30-years/ Scientists didn’t predict fires of this scale until between 2040 and 2060, said Matthew Hurteau, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico who studies fire in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Climate scientists’ predictions tend to be pretty conservative, so the record-breaking fire season could force a reckoning. After all, if this is what fires look like now — thanks to the future showing up 30 years early — it’s time to rethink forecasts. The blazes are already changing some projections for California, Hurteau said. So why were the estimates so far off? One explanation is that scientists work with data that already exists, and the evidence simply didn’t support the prospect of such gigafires, until now. That’s not to say that scientists thought it was out of the question. “What comes out of the peer review process is reined in from what some of us think is going to happen,” Hurteau said. “Everybody I know who works on climate-related stuff has had conversations about how we think it’s worse than our research shows.” Contrary to claims that they are “alarmist,” scientists actually tend to underestimate the effects of the climate crisis. A 2012 paper, for instance, found that scientists’ projections downplayed the risks of the potential disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The authors suggested that this tendency to underestimate future changes comes out of pressure to appear balanced and objective. Wildfires are hard to predict, from the conditions that fan their flames to how and where they’ll ignite. Peering into the crystal ball is already hard enough without having to account for complicated factors like rainfall, wind speed, land cover, and local topography. Hurteau thinks there’s “a clear climate signal” in the destructive fires we’ve seen across the globe in recent years. When the atmosphere warms, he explained, it sucks moisture out of the land, drying out trees and shrubs and making them more flammable. Of course, forest management is also a factor. Before settlers took over the Western U.S. and started suppressing fires, indigenous peoples used small burns to prevent runaway fires. When you take that buildup of fuel and then you make it more available to burn by turning up the thermostat and drying it out more, that’s the recipe for big fires,” Hurteau said. What’s different, and what he finds especially worrying, is that some fires in California are burning through areas that just burned a couple of years ago, such as the LNU Lightning Complex, a series of fires that scorched much of Wine Country in northern California this fall. “Basically, fire having just occurred within the recent past may not be as much of an impediment to subsequent fires occurring as we thought it might,” Hurteau said. To make fires less destructive, Hurteau suggests that local governments need to change codes to make buildings less like fuel for flames. Mandating that roofs are made with flame-resistant materials can prevent homes from combusting when embers land on them. And especially in drought-ridden places like California, Hurteau said, “we’ve got to get managed fire back into these ecosystems.” Then, of course, there’s the matter of global greenhouse gas emissions. “I hope that people are starting to wake up to the fact that we’ve got a period of time when we need to act pretty quickly,” he said.