bluewave

Historic event for that part of Canada. https://weather.gc.ca/warnings/weathersummaries_e.html#NL Weather summary for Newfoundland issued by Environment Canada at 3:00 p.m. NST Sunday 19 January 2020. Discussion. A powerful January storm brought intense winds and record-breaking snowfall to parts of Newfoundland on Friday into Friday night. A new all-time daily snowfall record was established at St. John's International Airport. New record: 76.2 cm (January 17, 2020). Previous daily record: 68.4 cm (April 5, 1999). Records began in 1942. The above total is applicable for the January 17 climatological day, which is a 24 hour period ending at 2:30 A.M. NST on January 18. An additional 2.0 cm was recorded after 2:30 A.M. The area of low pressure responsible for the snow and wind emerged from the northeastern United States early Thursday and began to rapidly intensify as it moved over the Gulf of Maine. The system deepened into a powerful storm as it tracked southeast of the Avalon Peninsula on Friday, before departing into the North Atlantic early Saturday. The storm battered the eastern half of the island with heavy snowfall, extremely high winds and damaging coastal storm surge. The following is a summary of information received by Environment and Climate Change Canada as of 2:30 P.M. NST Sunday. Total snowfall (in centimetres): Mount Pearl: 93 Paradise: 91 St. John's East: 82 St. John's International Airport: 78 Mount Carmel: 61 Lethbridge: 48 Gander International Airport: 35 Gander West: 35 St. Lawrence: 31 Grand Falls-Windsor: 10 Maximum wind gusts (in kilometres per hour): Green Island, Fortune Bay: 171 Bonavista: 164 Grates Cove: 156 Heart's Delight-Islington: 156 Cape Pine: 146 Green Island, Trinity Bay: 145 Twillingate: 140 St. John's - Doheney Place: 134 St. John's - East White Hills: 132 St-Pierre: 130 St. John's - Dockyard: 129 Pass Island: 126 Allan's Island: 116 Holyrood: 114 Bishop's Cove: 113 Ramea: 109 St. Lawrence: 106 Burgeo: 105 St. John's West: 105 Deer Park: 101 North Harbour: 101 Gander: 97 At St. John's International Airport the official wind sensor malfunctioned during the storm. Reported winds were estimated to be between 65 and 85 knots (120 to 157 km/h). However, it will likely not be possible to provide a verified maximum gust. The wind sensor at Gander International Airport also briefly malfunctioned. The highest gust at the nearby Gander climate station was measured as reaching 97 km/h. The following area set a daily minimum temperature record on January 18, 2020: Winterland Area (Winterland Branch Hill) New record of -17.9 Old record of -17.8 set in 2001 Records in this area have been kept since 1970 Note: the temperature record reported here has been derived from a selection of historical stations in this geographic area that were active during the period of record. Please note that this summary may contain preliminary or unofficial information and does not constitute a complete or final report. End/NLWO

Yeah, we need extreme -EPO or -NAO blocking to get a colder than average winter here. Otherwise, the default pattern has been warmer than normal winters. We got the record -NAO blocking in 09-10 and 10-11. This was followed by the record -EPO blocking in 13-14 and 14-15. NYC DJF temperature departures 19-20.....+3.9....through 1-19 18-19.....+1.2 17-18....+1.1 16-17....+4.2....6th warmest 15-16....+5.9....2nd warmest 14-15....-3.7 13-14....-2.2 12-13...+1.2 11-12...+5.4....3rd warmest 10-11....-2.3 09-10....-1.3

Funny how March was the snowiest month of the season for 4 out of the 5 last years in NYC. This is more typical for the Rockies and Plains than NYC. Will February be able to score a victory over March this year? Maybe the extra day in February this year can grab some snow away from what would have normally been March 1st. Monthly Total Snowfall for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Year Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr Season 2014-2015 0.0 0.2 1.0 16.9 13.6 18.6 0.0 50.3 2015-2016 0.0 0.0 T 27.9 4.0 0.9 T 32.8 2016-2017 0.0 T 3.2 7.9 9.4 9.7 0.0 30.2 2017-2018 0.0 T 7.7 11.2 4.9 11.6 5.5 40.9 2018-2019 0.0 6.4 T 1.1 2.6 10.4 0.0 20.5 2019-2020 0.0 0.0 2.5 2.3 M M M 4.8

Thanks. The good news is we still never had a season that was a complete shoutout. Even in the seasons with the most challenging patterns, we have always found a way to get at least some snow. You wonder how bad the pattern would have to be for NYC to finish with just a T or 0. I think Philly came close in 72-73 with a T. But NYC always had at least some accumulation.

While all the models struggled with the EPO forecast, at least the Euro and EPS were closer to reality. Always be weary of long range model forecasts that go against the seasonal background state. That’s why there’s no harm in waiting for an actual pattern change to show up in the short term.

We are currently in the top 5 for warmest January monthly minimum temperatures around the area. Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY - Month of Jan Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Lowest Min Temperature Missing Count 1 1937 25 0 2 1990 24 0 - 1932 24 0 3 2002 21 0 - 1993 21 0 - 1953 21 0 4 2020 20 13 - 1949 20 0 5 2001 18 0 - 1913 18 0 - 1911 18 0 Time Series Summary for WESTCHESTER CO AP, NY - Month of Jan Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Lowest Min Temperature Missing Count 1 1990 21 1 2 1953 18 0 3 1993 17 2 4 2020 16 13 - 2002 16 0 5 1960 15 0 Time Series Summary for ISLIP-LI MACARTHUR AP, NY - Month of Jan Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Lowest Min Temperature Missing Count 1 1990 21 0 2 2020 18 13 - 1993 18 0 3 2002 15 0 - 1998 15 0 4 1995 14 0 5 2016 13 0 - 2006 13 0

Great post, Tom. Misalignment has been a common theme recently. Last winter we saw the the Niña-like warmth in the WPAC result in the uncoupled El Niño. So we had the Niña-like ridge axis stuck north of Hawaii. This year we have experienced a continuation of that persistent ridge axis north of Hawaii. Now we are getting the amplification of the ridge in SE Canada with the Niño-like +AAM spike. But a piece of that ridge north of Hawaii holds on into the 6-10 day forecast. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/csi-enso-case-missing-central-pacific-rainfall

Snowiest day on record for St. John’s.

I found the link for hourly updates. http://wxweb.meteostar.com/meteogram/link.shtml?choice=LFVP

Intense blizzard in Newfoundland today.

The other interesting thing is the really delayed responses we have seen following MJO 8 passages during our recent winters. Last February we entered phase 8 but the snowy conditions came in March. February 2018 featured the historic 80 degree warmth shortly after the MJO 8 passage. The record snows came in March 2018. The only reasonably close in time event was the 1-4-18 benchmark blizzard that bottomed out at 950 mb. That came shortly after the phase 8 in late December. The January 2016 blizzard came about 10 days after phase 8. I know that there have been studies showing a snowstorm lag following phase 8. But sometimes it seems to take longer than even the studies have indicated.

The expansion of the WP warm pool has been favoring the warmer MJO phases.

Yeah, we need to get a shift in that ridge position north of Hawaii to allow more of a -EPO to develop. We usually see the ridge position pull back toward NW Canada and Alaska during and El Niño February. Hopefully, that ridge north of Hawaii doesn’t interfere. That region experienced a historic marine heatwave in 2019. You can see how persistent that ridge has been this winter.

NYC finally dropped below 23 degrees. This was the 2nd warmest minimum temperature from 12-21 to 1-16 on record. Central Park FAIR 22 5 48 NW8 Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Lowest Min Temperature Dec 21 to Jan 16 Missing Count 1 1987-01-16 24 0 2 2020-01-16 23 0 3 2013-01-16 22 0 - 2007-01-16 22 0 - 1983-01-16 22 0 - 1967-01-16 22 0 - 1890-01-16 22 0

I think that there is also another wild card. We keep seeing that ridge build over the warm pool around Hawaii. Very tough to get the ridge into Alaska with that feature there. I mentioned the ridge pull back that we normally see in an El Niño February the other day. I just hope that this more Niña-like feature doesn’t interfere.

The ensembles were never particularly great day 11+. It may just be that they are getting posted more with the rise of social media. So they are now coming under greater scrutiny.

Impressive CONUS warmth for the 1st half of meteorological winter.

The warmth for the 1st half of February was more impressive to the north of NYC. It was the 2nd warmest on record at Albany and 6th warmest in NYC. That’s +14.6 in Albany and +10.2 in NYC. Time Series Summary for Albany Area, NY (ThreadEx) Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Mean Avg Temperature Jan 1 to Jan 15 Missing Count 1 2007-01-15 37.6 0 2 2020-01-15 37.2 0 3 1932-01-15 36.8 0 4 1937-01-15 35.1 0 5 1889-01-15 35.0 0 6 1930-01-15 34.8 0 7 1874-01-15 34.0 0 8 1907-01-15 33.6 0 9 1928-01-15 33.3 0 10 1936-01-15 33.2 0 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 Jan 1 to Jan 15 Missing Count 1 2007-01-15 46.4 0 2 1932-01-15 44.0 0 3 1950-01-15 43.6 0 4 1907-01-15 43.5 0 5 1998-01-15 43.3 0 6 2020-01-15 42.7 0 7 2005-01-15 42.2 0 8 1937-01-15 42.1 0 9 1930-01-15 41.7 0 10 1890-01-15 41.4 0

It certainly looks like we are moving into more of an El Niño pattern. The big AAM rise and strong WWB pattern are classic El Niño features. February is typically our best month of winter with an El Niño. The ridge over SE Canada that the models are indicating around the 25th is the January +AAM composite. That ridge usually pulls back in February allowing a colder pattern. But we can always use some help from the -AO and -NAO to make any El Niño February better.

You can see the models adjusting milder around the 25th now that they have such a strong AAM rise. This is occurring as the record MJO enters the Western Pacific phases. We are getting a very strong WWB with this and a more El Niño looking regime. The stronger ridge building into SE Canada around the 25th is part of this pattern.

The departures and rankings for the first 13 days of January have been even warmer to the north of the NYC area. Albany is a +14.2 with NYC +9.9. This was the 2nd warmest for Albany and 7th warmest in NYC. Time Series Summary for Albany Area, NY (ThreadEx) Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Mean Avg Temperature Jan 1 to Jan 13 Missing Count 1 2007-01-13 38.8 0 2 2020-01-13 36.8 0 3 1889-01-13 36.4 0 4 1874-01-13 35.7 0 5 1998-01-13 34.9 0 6 2000-01-13 34.7 0 7 1932-01-13 34.6 0 8 1907-01-13 34.4 0 9 1930-01-13 34.3 0 10 1936-01-13 33.6 0 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 Jan 1 to Jan 13 Missing Count 1 2007-01-13 46.4 0 2 1998-01-13 45.3 0 3 1907-01-13 44.2 0 4 2000-01-13 43.5 0 5 1950-01-13 43.2 0 6 2005-01-13 42.6 0 7 2020-01-13 42.5 0 8 1890-01-13 42.2 0 9 2006-01-13 41.8 0 10 2008-01-13 41.5 0

Perhaps this extreme MJO event can jump-start the El Niño. We are getting a decent WWB event unfolding now in the Pacific. I would like to see the northern branch stop competing with the southern stream. A strengthening El Niño could allow the STJ to take over with less interference from disturbances moving through the Great Lakes.

Hopefully, we can move past the the southern stream suppression mode of recent times. The trough axis was also too Far East on 1-13-19. That one was right after the MJO phase 7-8 passage. https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20190113.html

Let’s hope that the 21-23rd potential can make it far enough north. Eric Webb did a great job with the stats. MJO phase 7 is the best phase for winter storm potential in North Carolina during January.