bluewave

18 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

October has started with a 500 mb pattern that features a ridge in the east and trough in the west in a fashion that is not dissimilar to October 2002. By the third week of October, a trough developed in the East.

However, the current emerging El Niño event is weaker than the 2002-03 ENSO event was at this stage. It wouldn't surprise me if attempts by thr trough to shift into the East meet resistance from the seemingly ever-present western Atlantic ridge. If so, troughs in the East could prove to be transient through the remainder of the month.

Overall, October still remains well on course to be warmer than normal in the East, especially over the Middle Atlantic and Southeastern regions.

It's interesting how the week 2 guidance continues to underestimate the staying power of the WAR pattern. The week 2 range EPS for the current period  was pretty bad. The magnitude of the error was probably compounded by the active MJO 8-1.

EPS forecast

Verification

On September 30, 2018 at 10:55 AM, csnavywx said:

Records are going to get steamrolled for the next week or so.

The continuing record warmth is allowing the 2018 extent to edge closer to October 2007 and 2012.

9 minutes ago, dmillz25 said:

What’s making this happen? Is it the mjo? Or multiple tcs amplifying the pattern?

It's multiple factors. The record WAR since the February 80 degree day was only interrupted briefly by the strat warming in March and April. Since then, it has been there most of the time. Right now, the MJO going through phase 8-1 is enhancing the pattern. Those are some of the warmest phases for October.

Endless summer pattern continues with 80 degree potential well into the 2nd week of October.

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/10/arctic-ice-cap-destabilizes-unprecedented-speed

Satellite images revealing an Arctic ice cap destabilizing at “unexpected and unprecedented” speed have scientists questioning the long-term stability of some of the Earth’s polar ice caps.

A time lapse video using the images shows a portion of the Vavilov Ice Cap in northern Russia thinning and slowly spreading into the Kara Sea from 1985 until 2010, when the process began to accelerate. Between 2015 and 2016, deterioration had dramatically surged and the ice front had spilled more than 5 kilometers into the sea.

The images and data appear in the multi-institutional and multinational study “Massive Destabilization of an Arctic Ice Cap,” published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

“The glacier increased its speed by 300 times to more than 80 feet per day in 2016. While we sometimes see certain glaciers around the world periodically surge with similar increases, there is no record of such surges at Vavilov,” said Matthew Pritchard, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, who co-authored the study with his doctoral students Whyjay Zheng and William Durkin.

The study was led by Michael Willis, assistant professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado, a former research associate at Cornell.

Unlike fast-moving glaciers, ice caps that are mostly frozen to bedrock are thought to be stable and respond slowly to climate change. The Vavilov Ice Cap’s rapid deterioration has scientists questioning whether it’s simply an anomaly, or if other polar ice caps might also be susceptible to accelerated change.

“In all of the glaciers that we’ve looked at in Russia, Vavilov really stands out as anomalous. Given the Vavilov Ice Cap’s geometry, small annual mass losses and no previous record of surging, this is a glacier that we had expected to be stable,” said Durkin.

The research team pieced together the ice cap’s deterioration using remote sensing technology from a constellation of satellites and high-resolution topographic maps of the Arctic region.

The study’s authors believe the accelerated change observed in the ice cap in 2010 started as a slow process as the glacier advanced for decades from the land into the ocean. The bed beneath the offshore portion of the glacier is likely low-friction, saturated marine sediments, according to the research team, which accelerated the movement and led to the glacier rapidly spilling into the sea starting in April 2015.

“Since 2016, the glacier has slowed down, but is still moving faster than its long-term average. We are continuing to monitor the glacier and are developing models of what happened and what the future of the ice cap could be,” said Pritchard, who added that the Vavilov may not recover to its previous state given the warming climate of the Earth.

High-latitude glaciers and ice caps cover about 450,000 square kilometers of the planet and hold back a potential 30 centimeters of additional sea-level rise, according to the study. The Vavilov Ice Cap has lost about 4.5 cubic kilometers of equivalent water between 2015 and 2016. That’s about half the volume of Cayuga Lake, or enough water to provide about 370 years of domestic water use for the Ithaca metropolitan area, according to the research team.

https://phys.org/news/2018-09-unprecedented-ice-loss-russian-cap.html

Many scientists have assumed that polar ice caps that sit above sea level will only respond slowly to a warming climate—but the authors of this study urge that this assumption be questioned. The rapid collapse of the Vavilov Ice Cap has significant ramifications for glaciers in other polar regions, especially those fringing Antarctica and Greenland.

"We've never seen anything like this before, this study has raised as many questions as it has answered." said Willis. "And we're now working on modeling the whole situation to get a better handle of the physics involved."

1 hour ago, donsutherland1 said:

Not necessarily. Indeed, with a weak El Niño, the odds may be somewhat tilted toward a snowy winter.

It's amazing how well we have done with snowfall under El Nino, La Nina, neutral, and record winter warmth. Only 2 below normal snowfall seasons in the new reduced sea ice era which began in summer and fall 2007. 

36 minutes ago, psv88 said:

Doubt it. Winters have not really been cold. Last winter was about average or slightly above, with above average snowfall. 

I see no reason why snowy winters wont continue, especially east of the city. Warm SST are causing these snowstorms to just dump snow on the island. 

Yeah, the last 3 winters featured record warmth and snowstorms. I will take the snowstorm quality of the last 3 seasons over the colder 13-14 and 14-15 winters. The only cold winter during the 2010's that had top caliber snowstorms for me was 10-11.

1 hour ago, Cfa said:

70 degree dew points have returned (again). Currently 70 with a temp of 75 and sunshine.

72 degree dew point now at JFK and 70 up in Orange County.

Kennedy Intl   PTSUNNY   77  72 

Warwick          N/A     77  70 

Warm start to October with our local stations in the +7 to +9 range. You know  it's an unusually warm pattern in October when the temperature approaches 80 with so many clouds like yesterday.

Updated for September 2018.

2 hours ago, gravitylover said:

End of January through February was crazy warm and we lost all snow cover.

All the record warmth over the last 3 winters resulted in quick melt after most of our snowstorms. ISP set the record lowest number of days with 1" or more on the ground for a 60"+ season. So much snow coming later in the season enhanced this 3 year pattern for 17-18. 

Snowiest seasons at ISP and the number of days with at least 1" on the ground:

Year....seasonal snowfall total.....days with 1" or more of snow cover

1996....73.5....58 days

1978....68.0....53 days

2018....65.9....30 days

2015....63.7....48 days

2014....63.7....39 days

Very close to record warm temperatures around the North Pole for the end of September.

http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/

11 hours ago, qg_omega said:

What happened to all the calls of mean trough in East, remember the eps was "locked" in two weeks ago and every met was talking about it.

This has been the model error for months. The ensembles have been too weak with the WAR/SE Ridge during their week 2 forecasts. The closer in time we get, the stronger the models correct with the WAR. To compound error in this case, the MJO is increasing in amplitude now.

0z 9-23 EPS run for 0z 10-3

0z 9-30 run for 0z 10-3

Top 5 warmth for most of our stations in September through the 29th. Another year when September became the 4th month of summer. Most stations were warmer than June.

LGA...Sep...73.1....+3.8.....5th....Jun....72.9

JFK...Sep...71.2......+2.9....5th....Jun....69.5

ISP...Sep...70.1......+4.3....3rd....Jun....68.3

BDR..Sep...69.8......+3.4....4th....Jun....68.8

EWR..Sep...71.7.....+3.3....5th....Jun....72.1

HPN...Sep...69.8.....+4.3....5th.....Jun....68.1

Today is an example of normal is the new cool. It was one of the few days this month with near normal low temperatures for the date. So it actually felt cool compared to the recent record warm minimum pattern.

NYC.....low of 58....normal...56

ISP......low of 51....normal...52

Looks like a continuation of the well above normal temperatures into October. Notice how the continuing record WAR pattern is pretty much the opposite of what you would expect to see during an El Nino October. It appears that the atmosphere is still stuck in more of a warmer La Nina October 500 mb pattern like the last few years. Maybe the El Nino is still to weak to impact the pattern.

EPS forecast

 2 recent La Nina Octobers

Last 6 El Nino Octobers

36 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

It sure doesn't seem like it has been warm. The lack of sun for 3 weeks straight will do that though... These warm minimums are killing me because they don't really tell the whole story, stats are what you make of them I guess.

The warm minimums are the big temperature story this month. Several stations across the wider region  are in the +8 to +12 range so far. I can't remember another month that the minimum departure was so much higher than the maximum. But anything is possible in this new 2010's climate regime.

16 minutes ago, psv88 said:

1.6” here, brings me to 9” for September...

This is turning out to be the warmest September that was so wet for our area. Usually, a wet September is much cooler than we experienced this month. So a continuation of the summer pattern into the early fall. This record WAR pattern raised the bar on what is possible around here. Islip is currently the 2nd warmest September on record through the 27th.

14 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

According to that the sea ice extent has been increasingly slightly in the last few days- so the minimum likely wont be in early October?  Is this still the latest we've ever seen the minimum, Chris?

This was the latest minimum so far on record tied with 1997. But the extent was much higher that year. The CPC issued an historic forecast for the the NW Alaska region due to the record warmth there. 

https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/arctic-sea-ice-2018-minimum-extent

Arctic sea ice has likely reached its minimum extent for the year, at 4.59 million square kilometers (1.77 million square miles) on September 19 and 23, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The 2018 minimum ties with 2008 and 2010 as the sixth lowest in the nearly 40-year satellite record. September 23 is the latest day in the year the Arctic sea minimum has occurred in the satellite record—observed this year and in 1997.

https://www.arctictoday.com/open-warm-waters-off-arctic-alaska-spark-bold-forecast-warm-october/

The lack of sea ice off Alaska and the persistence of warm temperatures in the open waters there have set up an unusual weather situation — a near-certain forecast of significantly higher-than-normal temperatures for northwestern Alaska.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts and 85 percent chance that northwestern Alaska will have temperatures significantly warmer than normal in October.

That is the “first time in recorded history” that the Climate Prediction Center has issued a probability above 80 percent, said Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the National Weather Service in Alaska.

“That is a really bold forecast, but all the pieces are in place,” he said at his monthly Alaska climate outlook briefing, held on Friday.

Sea-surface temperatures “are about as warm as they’ve ever been” in that region, hitting levels up to 4 degrees Celsius above normal in the northern Bering Sea and southern Chukchi Sea.

For fall and early winter, all of Alaska is expected to have weather that is both significantly warmer and significantly wetter than normal, according to the Climate Prediction Center forecast.

The wetter-than-normal conditions are part of a clear pattern in place since at least 2003 that is linked to sea-ice retreat, Thoman said.

The Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for a wetter-than normal early winter is influenced by an expected El Nino weather pattern in the North Pacific Ocean.

Thoman, a climate-science fixture in Alaska, is retiring from the National Weather Service this month and moving to the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, a NOAA-funded program headquartered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

10 minutes ago, Rjay said:

The flash flood warning for SI, BK, Queens and Nassau expires in a few minutes.  Terrible commute here.  

1.47" so far at Wantagh. 

33rd anniversary of Hurricane Gloria. We really got lucky that one struck so close to low tide.

ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/noaa_documents.lib/NWS/NWS_ER/TM_NWS_ER_70.pdf

Another tropical 2.00"+ PWAT surge with the heavy rains for Friday morning. 

On September 25, 2018 at 9:14 PM, liwxfan said:

Port Jefferson is under water! Multiple road closures...I past about 10 cars stuck in a

good 3 to 4 feet of water on my way home.

This looks like you worst flash flood in years.

29 minutes ago, LurkerBoy said:

These seem to be en vogue this year. Besides residue from AGW, what is the actual cause of this? 

This short video helps to explain all the record ridges like the WAR getting stuck in place for extended periods of time.

7 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Chris, we've been setting records like this in different parts of the world's oceans for a few years now.  What year had our latest sea ice minimum and does it look like we could break that record this year (with a sea ice minimum as late as October for the first time ever?)

This delayed freeze-up continues to be very impressive. The record ridging and warmth dropped the extent to the 3rd lowest on record behind 2012 and 2007 for 9-26.