GaWx

Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please? The results are in and we did it. The MJO went back into phase 8 on Dec 15th, the coldest day of the season to date! Let the celebrations begin! The weenies are gonna party like it’s Feb 1899!

Natural gas closed up nearly 4%, easily its best day since Dec 5th. This is largely based on today’s forecast speculation that the forecasted dominant warmth may not be as widespread, intense, and/or long lasting in the E US as thought yesterday thanks largely to the newly forecasted strong -NAO.

The model consensus is currently forecasting the strongest -NAO on Christmas as well as surrounding days since way back in 2010! In stark contrast, these 6 had a strong +NAO: 2011, 13, 15, 16, 23, and 24.

12Z GEFS strong -NAO that starts in just 5 days (12/22) and is the strongest -NAO for days 5-16 averaged out on any GEFS run back to at least Oct 31st: Compare this to the 0Z 12/12/25 run: 12/22-28 were 0 to +0.5 instead of -1 to -2

Check out the widespread much lower H5 for nearly the entire E US on the 12Z GEFS vs the 6Z GEFS as of 0Z 12/30 helped mainly by the apparently even stronger -NAO:

These images show that the GEFS was too slow in showing the transition from the very strong -PNA of Dec 2021 to the strong +PNA of Jan of 2022: 12/15/21 GEFS PNA forecast was ok But the 12/26/21 GEFS PNA forecast, which goes through 1/9/22, had all members 0 to -2 for then. The actual 1/9/22 ended up being +0.2. So, it was too slow in predicting the turn to a +PNA: 12/31/21 GEFS PNA forecast out to 1/14/22: finally turned to +PNA but not positive enough as 1/14 was actually +0.7 vs this forecast for ~+0.4: 1/5/22 GEFS PNA forecast out to 1/19/22: not positive enough as 1/19 was actually +1.0 vs this forecast for only ~+0.1: This shows the actuals for the entire Dec-Jan 2021-2:

Is NG finally bottoming? It’s currently up over 3%. If this were to hold, this would be the best day since Dec 5th, the day it peaked. There’s been only one other up day since then, Dec 9th, when it closed up 1/2% and then was followed by more big down days as the maps kept insisting on warmth dominating the US. Why do I think it’s up today? The AO and especially the NAO forecasts have gotten significantly more negative than yesterday’s more neutral forecasts as per my post three above this. A strong -NAO lead to much colder 0Z and 6Z GFS after Christmas fwiw. This kind of thing with the -NAO/-AO happened early this month.

From NOAA, one can see how much the NAO has dropped since just yesterday on the GEFS: Yesterday’s GEFS NAO (12/16); Today’s GEFS NAO (12/17): note the biggest changes are for 12/22-26, only 5-9 days out. Yesterday they were ~0 while today they’re -0.7 to -1.0:

Here’s the 0Z GEFS NAO: week 2 of this and the EPS for the mean (green line) have gotten much more negative just since 24 hours earlier and are now close to the strongest -NAOs of all runs at least since Oct 31st per WxBell’s history that goes back that far: look at green line

Chuck, The strongest Jan +PNAs for +ENSO were these: 1977: +1.8 from +0.5 in Dec 1983: +1.2 from +0.8 in Dec 1987: +1.0 from +1.4 in Dec 1992: +1.3 from +0.5 in Dec 2003: +1.3 from +1.6 in Dec 2010: +1.3 from +0.3 in Dec 2016: +2.0 from +0.8 in Dec So, avg Dec preceding +1+ +ENSO Jan PNA was +0.8. But avg Jan following +1+ +ENSO Dec PNA was only +0.5 though it was skewed by 1954.

Chuck, Let’s see. I’m looking now at +ENSO 1+ PNA Decembers to Januaries: there were 8 cases: - 1953-4 +1.3 to -1.1: drop of 2.4 - 1963-4 +1.8 to +0.2: drop of 1.6 - 1969-70 +1.8 to +0.6: drop of 1.2 - 1986-7 +1.4 to +1.0: drop of 0.4 - 1997-8 +1.2 to +0.7: drop of 0.5 - 2002-3 +1.6 to +1.3: drop of 0.3 - 2006-7 +1.9 to +0.7: drop of 1.2 - 2023-4 +1.2 to +0.5: drop of 0.7 - avg drop 1.0 - avg drop much higher for 1st 3 cases (1.7) vs last 5 (0.6) ———— Your thoughts?

Hey Chuck, Here’s a post I made on Friday going all of the way back to 1950 that shows that for some reason (possibly randomness) the sharpest rises from a sub -1 PNA Dec to Jan have occurred since 1984-5 (CC related?): “This implies the realistic chance for a sub -1 Dec PNA. Whereas that’s bad news for those wanting E US cold in the 2nd half of Dec in the MidAtlantic/OH Valley south, it isn’t necessarily bad news for January prospects. That’s because in the vast majority of cases for -ENSO, the PNA in January rose sharply from Dec: PNA Dec/Jan for -ENSO for strongly -PNA in Dec - 1955-6: -2.1/-1.3 (rose 0.8) - 1961-2: -1.2/-0.1 (rose 1.1) - 1964-5: -1.7/-0.2 (rose 1.5) - 1971-2: -1.5/-1.4 (rose 0.1) - 1984-5: -1.6/+1.6 (rose 3.2) - 1996-7: -1.2/+0.6 (rose 1.8) - 2008-9: -1.4/+0.6 (rose 2.0) - 2010-1: -1.8/+1.3 (rose 3.1) - 2012-3: -1.0/+0.6 (rose 1.6) - 2013-4: -0.9/+1.0 (rose 1.9) - 2021-2: -2.6/+1.0 (rose 3.6) So, average PNA rise Dec to Jan for these was a whopping 1.9!

Today’s GEFS is progging ~-1.7 PNA for Dec as a whole. That would be ~5th strongest -PNA since 1950. But what were similarly strong -PNA Dec followed by in Jan since 1984-5 during -ENSO? 1984-5: from -1.6 to +1.6 2008-9: from -1.4 to +0.6 2010-1: from -1.8 to +1.3 2021-2: from -2.6 to +1.0 All 4 of these Januaries were cold in the E US.

The radiational cooling in much of the SE has been quite impressive the last 4 hours!

This afternoon’s walk was another pleasant one due to still pretty dry air (dewpoints mid 30s), blue skies, and light winds though it was ~20 warmer (60 vs 40). So, though it was pleasant, it felt better and more invigorating yesterday.

Natural gas is down still another 3% today making it a total of a whopping 29% just since the high of Dec 4th!

The two forums are very intertwined between many (probably a majority) of its members also being members and former posters here as well as some currently posting at both (in some cases with different names). I’m sure many read both boards daily.

For me it wouldn’t be “suffering”. It isn’t anything like, say, bad health/getting sick. “Suffering” is too harsh a word from my standpoint even though it’s not at all what I prefer as I want it colder than normal at any point in the year. The good thing is that it’s my favorite season of the year and warmer than normal in winter is still much colder than, say, below normal in summer. In addition, this warmer period will be following one of the coldest 3 week periods from Thanksgiving through the first 17 or so days of December I’ve ever experienced and easily the coldest since 2010. Even if it’s going to be mild for awhile, forecast discussions would still be interesting in the most volatile season of all, winter.

Ray, If you mean the link to the site that produces the graphs of 10 hPa/60N mean zonal wind back to 1978-9, those could be produced by going in here: https://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/ann_data.html#ncep_clim_stats_nh

Also, Dec of 2016 had a +WPO and Dec of 2022 had a neutral WPO unlike the -WPO of Dec of 2025 fwiw.

Our airport had a low of 25 for the 2nd morning in a row. My lowest was likely ~30 vs 26.6 yesterday. But the freeze last night was radiational rather than advective/windy with a much longer duration of ~9 hours.

Thanks. That’s based on my 1st list, which is of those Decembers that had 1+ days dipping lower than -3.48. But those Decembers didn’t necessarily have a solid -WPO dominating through the entire month. One of those Decembers, 1996, actually averaged a +WPO overall. Also, 1983 and 1977 didn’t average a negative enough WPO. And there were a bunch of Decs left out of that 1st list that had a very -WPO with it dominating throughout but that didn’t have at least one day dip below -3.48 like 2013, 2010, 2009, 1995, 1980, 1961, and 1956 that make them good -WPO Dec analogs. OTOH, the 2nd list included some that weren’t -ENSO through the winter or at all like 2009, 1989, 1980, and 1956. In addition, 2005 and 1995 had a moderate or strong +PNA in Dec. So, what are we left with for the best analogs based on solid -WPO throughout Dec, -ENSO through the winter, and a moderate to strong -PNA in Dec? 2013, 2010, and 1961. Of these three, the PNA flipped to positive in Jan in 2014 and 2011 and to neutral in Jan of 1962. So, the closest -ENSO/Dec -WPO/Dec -PNA analogs are 2013, 2010, and 1961.

I’ll check now for December. These 9 were solidly -WPO Decembers dominating throughout the entire month: 2013, 2010, 2009, 2005, 1995, 1989, 1980, 1961, and 1956. Of these: 1) Cold in the S Plains? 2013, 2009, 2005, 1989, 1961 2) Near normal S Plains? 2010, 1995 3) Mild S Plains? 1980, 1956 So, strong -WPO Decembers leaned somewhat to the cold side in the S Plains, but only 5 of 9 averaged cold. It looks like this year may end up averaging near normal based on a cold 1st half and mild 2nd half. But we’ll see. PNA for these 9 Decembers: 2013: moderate -PNA 2010: strong -PNA 2009: weak +PNA 2005: strong +PNA 1995: moderate +PNA 1989: moderate +PNA 1980: weak -PNA 1961: strong -PNA 1956: weak -PNA So, PNA for these solidly -WPO Decembers is very mixed.

Well, as of Dec 13th, the MJO still hasn’t returned to phase 8! It was in 8 only Dec 3rd-7th. Dec 8th-13th have all been in very weak (essentially neutral) phases 5-7. I still think it has a good chance to get back into 8 very soon, but we’ll see:

The 12/13/25 WPO of -3.48 is the most negative WPO on any day in December since 12/25/1996! The only Decembers since 1948 with at least one day lower than -3.48 are: 1996, 1989, 1983, 1977, 1966, 1955