cbmclean

2019 was a moderate Nino wasn't it? I remember there being debate about whether it was a modoki or not. Either way, results were the same: SER and WAR ruled the roost.

December is the front, right? And it's the only month that was not a wall-to-wall torch. Ergo the winter was front loaded. Nobody ever said the load would be good.

When I started hanging around here years ago, I'm not sure I would have ever believed that the day would come when and Ji would be the optimist on this board. Well here we are.

Yes it did. December was slightly below normal. That is equivalent to frigid when you adjust for inflation. And it actually had a legit cold week-ish. Sure it was marred by the cutter. This winter was legitimately front loaded. Just the front load was only good in comparison to the rest of winter.

Hey, would you please stop wrecking the thermals with your pessimism? Cold air can sense negativity.

What leads you to believe this?

Looking at that CWG post I'm struck that if this year was in isolation, it would be frustrating but not overly alarming. In good company with 1932 and 1950 and 1890, and so forth. Any year can be a stinker. But the pattern is obvious. All we can do is hope that there is some natural suckage that is adding on top of the other suckage that we shall not discuss. And maybe we can have at least somewhat better times in the near future.

Man, 1932 must have been a dog. Also interesting to note that 2016 is on that list. Sometimes even in the midst of warmth...

"becoming"? You're book just hit the third edition. Stormtracker's clip just got nominated for an Oscar for best short feature

Visiting this site I've learned a good bit about teleconnections but I have almost no knowledge of storm dynamics. I gather from your posts that with the track depicted, with the high position/strength as depicted it "should" snow. It is also my understanding that the precipitation starts as snow but melts on the way down. So putting those together I conclude that somewhere in the column the snow is encountering layers where the air is warmer than it "should" be given the track and high location/strength. Where does that anomalous layer start and what is the source of the anomaly? And yeah I know what the ultimate source of the anomaly is. I'm just talking the proximate cause. An example would be something like (I'm just making this up as an example) 1. "The air at 700 mb and below is being sourced from the NNE and the water there is +2 C warmer than the mean."

Getting chippy in here.

Have we attempted to communicate with the SER? Maybe it is a sentient being liek the crystalline entity on Star Trek TNG.

Would you guys consider D7 as the border between mid and long range?

"SERs I Have Known And Loved"?

Edit: At least so far. I hope he faceplants hard in February but I still give it a better than even chance of the SSW effects going somewhere else and leaving us toast with our old friend the SER.

After getting somewhat excited in December (like many of us) he has been relentlessly negative. In his defense it's been a relentlessly negative winter. So he's been objectively correct.

Chuck already showed it above but just to emphasize, do not look at the 18Z GFS if you value your sanity. Just don't. It goes all in on the "dig a trough to Baja" idea. 540 line over the northern Sea of California. Let us never speak of it again.

Was thinking same thing. Almost like all the modeling agencies got together to figure how to best prolong the weenie torture.

First obvious thought would be the SER is on steroids due to the bath water in the gulf, and just off the east coast. Seems like you had mentioned that yourself earlier as a possibility. Is there some reason why you doubt that hypothesis?

Not making this up, I dreamed of snow last night. Even in my dreams it was marginal mess.

We gotta stop letting it get our hopes up like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra

I continue to be fascinated by the lack of a strong SE ridge in that composite. Goes to show that composites do not show the whole story. The SER has always been there when it mattered.

@psuhoffman So we here (at least most of us) know what "it" is that is the ultimate villain behind the scenes. What has worked for you guys before just isn't working now and you are heading towards my climatology (let's not talk about where mine is headed ). The only meaningful question that I think we can consider here is: to what extent, if any, is the current absolute record-setting crap stretch also due to a natural down cycle that happens to be compound the background warming? Put another way, what reasons if any, do you feel we have for optimism that we see less-bad times in the near future? I can only think of one major argument which is what appears to be the relative suddenness of the collapse into the complete fail stretch pattern. We went from "loosing around the margins" to the pit of despair in like a 5 year span, which could be interpreted to fit the pattern of natural variation instead of the gradual decline we were used to. However, the counterpoint to that that Climate Cassandras for years now have been warning about sudden non-linear tipping points. Maybe we just passed one? Maybe the 2016 mega Nino was the harbinger of the new regime? If you have any other possibilities, I'm interested to hear them. If not, then I'd like to face our future with dignity, shitting the blinds as I go.

Your weather memory is better than mine but for 2019 I have a distinct memory of the MJO going ape in the warm phases. That enhanced MC convection drives a SE ridge right? Now I'm not trying to make an "excuse" because the strengthened Pacific warm pool is one of the mechanisms that has been mentioned for how we have been losing the margins.