GaWx

I’m still looking for strat. zonal wind data for 1983 and 1989. In the meantime, I did find the following graph, which is of 65N to 90N zonal mean temperatures at 10 mb in 1988 and 1989. Look on the far right: although there was no major SSW in any of the tables I look at (meaning no reversal of zonal winds at 10 mb), you can see there still was a bit of a stratospheric warming spike centered on ~Dec 1st of 1989 to near a record high for that date: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/archive/10mb9065_1989.gif —————— This is even more evident further up at 5 mb and at 2 mb: 5 mb: 15C spike warming centered near 12/1/1989: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/archive/05mb9065_1989.gif ————— 2 mb: 15C spike warming centered near 12/1/1989: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/archive/02mb9065_1989.gif

Ray, You have to go to the bottom of this and then choose the winter: http://arctic.som.ou.edu/tburg/products/realtime/strat/ Unfortunately, one can go back only to 1990-1 from this source for some reason even though graphs exist back at least to 1958-9.

There are no official Nov or Dec major SSWs based on reversals at 10 mb for any of 1983, 1989, and 2000. To be fair if you read this closely, BAMwx isn’t explicitly saying that there was an early major SSW in any of those 3 years (if they were they’d be wrong): A few of these years were absolutely blockbuster in December. Chances to replicate the intensity of cold in years like 2000, 1989 and 1983 are unlikely, but there is strong support notable cold the first half of December setting up. That’s not to say that the SPV wasn’t weak. Despite no reversal, 2000 was quite weak mid-Nov through Dec with a low of +4 to +5 m/s in late Nov as per the chart below: (I don’t have these charts for 1983 and 1989….does anyone else have a link to them?):

Snowman, I don’t see an SSWE at any point in Nov or Dec of 1989. Where are you seeing that? https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-SSW-and-SFW-event-onset-date-year-and-type-identified-in-the-NCEP-NCAR-dataset-The_tbl1_267063738

There are 5 major SSW events on record between Nov 24th and Dec 7th:-1958-1965-1968-1981-1987Here’s the Dec temp. anomaly map: E US mainly 1-2 F BN Here’s the Jan temp. anomaly map: E US mainly 2-4 BN, which incorporates extreme cold in places during 1966 (late), 1982 (mid) and 1988 (early): Here’s the Feb temp. anomaly map: E US NN: So, the coldest month regarding E US anomalies was Jan and the warmest was Feb. Feb. might have been even warmer (warmer than normal) had 4 of these 5 winters not been during El Niño, which tends to favor cold in the 2nd half of winter vs La Nina’s colder 1st half. All of this is telling me that should the late Nov major SSW actually occur, the coldest month could easily be Jan rather than Dec, which makes sense considering an assumed several week lag. But, of course, that would remain to be seen especially considering La Niña often favoring Dec as the coldest anomalywise. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-SSW-and-SFW-event-onset-date-year-and-type-identified-in-the-NCEP-NCAR-dataset-The_tbl1_267063738

I just saw it. Right you are and by a good margin!! Mean minimum down to ~0:

Thanks. But to his credit, he backs it up well! Some on the other side don’t back it up as well. As far as myself, I clearly prefer cold and root for it. However, I do my best to post as objectively as possible and not let my preferences affect my posts. So, whereas I enjoy posting about cold, if I see a model that looks warm I won’t be afraid to post it to protect my objectivity. I post whatever I see, cold, warm, neither, etc.

He’s just trying to be funny. It’s good to laugh at yourself. I do that all of the time! I’m my own best comedian when I laugh at myself as I have so much material! Geez, all I have to do is to look in a mirror. Come on, man, we all know that you enjoy pushing mildness in winter when you can back it up well (which to your credit you do), and that there are more that do the same on the opposite end sometimes without good evidence.

Are you thinking we have a good chance to get a strong+ El Niño per RONI? If so, are you thinking a mainly mild result in the NE US?

Great stuff, Don! Since I had seen similar results in looking at the following for RDU big snows, I figured you and others might find this interesting: 21 RDU 6”+ snowstorms since 1950 (Niña or -neutral ENSO bolded)1/19/1955 Niña neut PNA, neut AO, moderate -NAO12/11/1958 mod +PNA, neut AO and NAO3/2-3/1960 mod -PNA, neut AO and NAO3/9/1960 weak -PNA, strong -AO, neutral NAO2/26/1963 -neutral strong +PNA, mod +AO, neutral NAO1/26/1966 neut PNA, strong -AO and -NAO2/9/1967 -neutral mod +PNA, weak +AO, moderate +NAO3/1/1969 strong +PNA/-AO, moderate -NAO1/7-8/1973 weak +PNA, neut AO, strong -NAO2/18-9/1979 neut PNA/AO/NAO3/1-2/1980 neut PNA/AO, moderate +NAO3/24/1983 mod +PNA/-AO, neutral NAO2/6/1984 -neutral mod +PNA/+AO, strong +NAO1/7/1988 mod +PNA, neut AO, weak +NAO2/17-8/1989 Niña neut PNA, strong +AO/+NAO1/24-5/2000 Niña mod +PNA, neut AO, moderate -NAO1/2-3/2002 -neutral strong +PNA, neut AO, moderate -NAO2/26-7/2004 neut PNA, strong -AO, weak -NAO12/26/2010 Niña weak -PNA, strong -AO, moderate -NAO1/17/2018 Niña neut PNA, weak +AO, strong +NAO12/9-10/2018 mod +PNA, neut AO, moderate +NAO—————————For the 21 storms-11 (52%) +PNA, 7 (33%) neutral PNA, 3 (14%) -PNA-7 (33%) +NAO, 6 (29%) neutral NAO, 8 (38%) -NAOSo, whereas 52% had a +PNA vs only 14% with a -PNA, 38% had a -NAO vs 33% with a +NAOSo, whereas there were almost 4 times as many with a +PNA vs a -PNA, -NAO vs +NAO has been much more balanced.————The above is for all ENSO.What about for just -ENSO?-5 (56%) +PNA, 3 (33%) neutral PNA, 1 (5%) -PNA-4 (44%) +NAO, 1 (11%) neutral NAO, 4 (44%) -NAOSo, whereas 56% had a +PNA vs only 5% with a -PNA, 44% had a -NAO vs 44% with a +NAOSo, whereas there were 5 times as many with a +PNA vs a -PNA, -NAO vs +NAO has been totally balanced. ————— I found similar results for Greensboro and Atlanta. Bottom line: in the SE US, a +PNA is a bigger driver of big snowstorms than is a -NAO.Daily PNA link: https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.pna.index.b500101.current.ascii Daily NAO link: https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.nao.index.b500101.current.ascii ———— *Edit: Interestingly, looking back at big storms at RDU and GSO, the last 5 (2014-18) were all with a moderate to strong +NAO! So, there hasn’t been even one 6”+ snow at either RDU or GSO with a -NAO (even a weak one) since way back on 12/26/2010! This could, of course, be from randomness. But I’m not sure about that considering what @bluewavehas said about -NAO ridges tending to hook up with SE ridges more often than in the past. Hmmmm…. Edit #2: I just noticed this for the 21 RDU big snowstorms for the AO:5 +AO, 11 neutral AO, 5 -AOSo, neutral has been favored.

My best explanation is that the heart of the cold was aimed more toward your SW. Consider that GSP had 22, Macon had 25, and SAV/JAX had historic 28s! But from your area to the NE US, there was little (or no) record cold.

We do way down here, Anthony. Suppression is our winter bread and butter. Therefore, I love +PNAs! Nothing is more beautiful on a wx map than a very tall western N American ridge.

Allan Huffman going with a cold January in the E US. I wonder if this is because of a prog for a very early SSWE followed by a lagged cold effect in Jan: I’d be more than happy with this. I’d love another cold Jan! Not having a warmer than normal La Niña winter in the majority of the SE including another cold Jan would be a victory!

Thanks for posting this. I wonder if Alan’s cold Jan is largely because of a prog for a very early SSWE followed by a lagged cold effect in Jan. I’d be quite content with this. Not having a warmer than normal La Niña winter in the majority of the SE including another cold Jan would be a victory!

Indeed, there’s a much greater % of the conus with BN vs AN in weeks 1-2 of Dec.

Thanks. This is what I was looking at directly from ECMWF rather than from WxBell and also this is strictly for Dec 1-21: still no prevailing +PNA Dec 1-7: coldest MW to Rockies vs mainly NN NE/SE Dec 8-14: coldest MW to N Rockies; slightly cold NE; NN SE Dec 15-21: slightly cold NE, NN SE

Today’s Euro Weeklies for Dec 1-21 are still showing consistent strong cold largely avoiding the E and especially SE due to a neutral PNA to -PNA not driving the coldest anomalies far into the SE. The Midwest to N Rockies are where the coldest anomalies remain concentrated.

AAM is still looking to go back to a solid negative next week and last for 2 weeks. However, afterward, this is showing a move back up closer to neutral for early Dec fwiw:

Natgas is up a whopping 5% due to increased late Nov-Dec cold potential.

The Earth’s average CO2 level was 333 during the very cold winter of 1976-7. That’s pretty impressive considering that it had risen from 285 in 1850. I’m assuming that the increase in sulfates was probably a big reason. To compare, it is now all of the way up to ~431!

This map gives a good perspective that shows the record cold was widespread from the mid-south to the SE US and with a few in the lower Midwest and also in TX although, indeed, none in the NE US:

Followup to the above based on lowest hourlies through 7AM (I’ll update this if any official lows turn out to be lower):These appear to be the lows along with the model that was closest out of the 11/7 6Z GFS/ICON/Euro runs and 11/7 0Z UKMET/CMC runs:SAV: 28/ICONNE ATL: 28/EuroGSP: 23/ICONCAE: 29/ICONCLT: 29/CMCRDU: 30/ICON, Euro, GFS tied-Avg of these: 27.8, which is significantly colder than my guess of 30.5 and lead me to be dead wrong with my prediction of ICON to be the furthest away!-So, although the CMC was closest to only 1 of the 6, it’s average of 28.5 followed by ICON’s 26.3 were closest to the 27.8 actual-UKMET’s 32.6 was easily the furthest-So, ICON, alone, was closest to 3 of the 6So, ICON and CMC did the best overall due to being the coldest while UKMET was the worst due to being the warmest

@donsutherland1put together and posted this excellent table in the SE thread that says a lot about how historic this cold is in the Deep South:

Thanks, Don! To add to this, today’s 28 F at KSAV (SAV airport) was colder than 78% of the coldest official Savannah lows for the ENTIRE November (records back to 1874)! The last time it was colder during the entire November was 2014. Even Hunter AAF base, which is ~6 miles to the SE (closer to the ocean), was able to have a low of 29! So, the ability of this windy freeze (as opposed to it being a radiational freeze) getting the cold all of the way to the coast was quite evident! Also, the official Jacksonville, FL, station (more inland airport) got down to 28! Closer to town lows were 30-32. It looks like various stations in Gainesville, FL, got down to 30-34. The official Gainesville (airport) got down at least to 32. I’m guessing its official low will end up at 31.

My city’s official low (KSAV) as of 7AM EST was way down to 28 F, which beats the 31 record low for the day (records back to 1874). Not only that but also: -last time it was this cold or colder this early in season was 1976 -colder than 78% of coldest for ENTIRE November -last time it was colder in entire November was 2014