GaWx

What Ray said/implied about the tendency for a lack of dominant polar blocking in winter when SSN is high (especially -NAO blocking since the 1980s per my research).

Fair enough. Thanks, Ray. But I’ll ask you and the readers in general: Can anyone point to a general E US winter discussion thread that as of late Oct was heavily dominated by pessimism for most of the E US? I’m sincerely wondering about this. I feel that some level of optimism or at least lack of pessimism is very normal at wx enthusiast BBs this far ahead of the start of winter even when models don’t look good. Maybe there is an exception or two. Please point them out if anyone knows.

Looking ahead of course. I challenge anyone with the time to go back to similar forecasting threads as of mid to late October and see. If anyone were to find something to the contrary, I’ll be happy to note that year as an exception. Maybe they’ll be found. But until that is done, I’m going to remain skeptical. Again, I’m not talking about a particular person but rather the general discussion/consensus. No point in going through 2023-4 as that clearly had tons of optimism to not at all be a lost cause for the bulk of the E US mild/low in wintry including by me. Even super-strong El Niño winters are usually assumed to have good potential for at least normal temps in the SE as well as a shot at a big winter storm. When I say “lost cause”, I mean both well above normal temps and well BN wintry precip in most of the E US including SE US/E Midwest. I think that will be hard to find as of this early. How can it ever already be a lost cause with the uncertainties that pretty much always exist?

Is it ever clearly a lost cause as of late Oct? I can’t remember a single late Oct when the winter was already determined to be a lost cause at this BB and any others. I don’t mean by any particular individual but rather based on the general consensus/discussion.

We will see about whether 300 is reached in the coming days as that is pretty rarely reached. If it were to exceed 290 on any day, it would be the highest in >20 years (not the hardest thing to do considering the prior weak cycle). We could easily top out today as nobody knows. It is high enough as it is! *Edited due to poor wording.

That was referring to yesterday’s SSN, which turned out to be the highest for any day since August 12th! So far today, it is even a good bit higher than that!

7 of 30 (23%) of the 18Z GEFS members landfall in the CONUS within Nov 6-10 from something forming in 5-7 days, either the lemon mentioned above (5) or something near PR (2). *Edit: The 0Z had 5 while the 6Z ended up with 7, with most of these from the current lemon.

Tropical Weather OutlookNWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL800 PM EDT Sat Oct 26 2024For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico:Southwestern Caribbean Sea:A broad area of low pressure is likely to develop over the southwestern Caribbean Sea around the middle of next week. Some gradual development of this system will be possible through the end of next week while it meanders or drifts northeastward over the southwestern Caribbean Sea.* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...near 0 percent.* Formation chance through 7 days...low...20 percent.$$Forecaster Berg

2019-20 # of days: 58 +EPO, 25 neutral EPO, 8 -EPO; avg daily EPO +80 2020-1: 47 +EPO, 32 neutral, 11 -EPO; avg daily EPO +60 So concurs with stronger +EPO in 2019-20 vs 2020-1 although 2020-1 still pretty +EPO dominant

KATL record high of 87! SAV tied record of 87. But these 87s feel great compared to typical 87 in summer with RH only low 30s thanks to dryness. So go out and enjoy.

That’s the hour 6 map of the “12Z run”. So, that’s why it says 18Z. The “18Z run” doesn’t start coming out til 5:30PM EDT.

Euro Weeklies back to very active for Nov 4-10 with activity quite possible subsequent week as well. Nov 4-10 has jumped back up to 3.8 x climo (8-8.5 ACE) vs yesterday’s 2.1 (4-4.5 ACE): It not only is back to very active but also the shaded areas are back to including S FL and now even C FL. This is the highest risk shown for that week by any Weeklies run for FL, Bahamas, and W 1/2 of Cuba:

I just figured out that the 2nd one in S FL on Nov 5th is TS Mitch in 1998. However, Election Day that year was Nov 3rd, when Mitch was in the Bay of Capeche:

Today as expected was the 2nd day in a row setting a new record high Oct. AO. It was 4.873. The old Oct record high was set yesterday at 4.578. Before 2024, the Oct. record was only 3.754. The 4.873 also sets a new record high for met. autumn. The old record was 4.578 set yesterday.

Thanks for posting this. I need to clarify my earlier post about the lack of a TS+ hitting or near the lower 48 on Election Day. I meant to say during Presidential election years as I was only checking those. My bad for leaving that off. Weather Tiger is showing the Yankee H hitting S FL overnight 11/4-5 and then just offshore in the Gulf at 7AM on Election Day in 1935. I didn’t include that because it wasn’t a Pres election year. But it definitely counts for Election Day in general. I see they have a 2nd one (a TS) in S FL on Nov 5th, but I’ve yet to figure out the year. So, I don’t know when Election Day was that year. **Edit on 10/24: I just figured out that the 2nd one in S FL on Nov 5th is TS Mitch in 1998. However, Election Day that year was Nov 3rd, when Mitch was in the Bay of Capeche:

All four seasonal models: Euro, CFS, CANSIPS, and NMME (which overlaps since includes CFS and CDN model(s)) are drier than normal for Nov-Dec. For Jan-Mar, CANSIPS and NMME continue dry but it’s overall more of a mixed bag on Euro/CFS. Dry during La Niña Nov-Mar is common, especially SE half of SE. I’m loving the dry for outdoor activities, especially after the very wet mid to late summer, which included for me garage flooding 11” from Debbie.

Maybe but fwiw good news is that new Euro Weeklies is much less active, especially in vicinity of W Cuba/S FL/Bahamas/Bermuda, than prior runs for 11/4-10: New run: 2 x climo (ACE of ~4.5)(Peak run was 5 days ago’s 4 x climo (ACE of ~9) Prior run: 2.9 x climo (ACE of ~6.5) it

Per records, there hasn’t been a TS+ anywhere near the lower 48 on or even near Election Day. Hopefully that won’t change in 2024. Ensembles are actually suggesting a slight chance for that to occur. Can you imagine the media coverage that day for the two things converging should this occur? Also, the conspiracy theorists would probably be going crazy.

Followup: Today’s AO is as has been well forecasted by GEFS easily a new record high for Oct back to 1950 at +4.578. The old record was 3.754 set 10/24/2008. The GEFS is still suggesting it could peak a little higher tomorrow before starting a plunge. There’s little correlation to the subsequent mean DJF AO. Winters following Octobers with very high AO spikes have varied from strong + to neutral to solid - with avg AO of only +0.1 for all of the subsequent winters combined. https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.ao.gefs.z1000.120days.csv

What about 2020-1? It was an +EPO dominant La Niña: it had 47 +EPO, 32 neutral EPO, and only 11 -EPO days. DJF had an avg daily EPO way up at +60, a solid +EPO avg for a 90 day period: https://downloads.psl.noaa.gov/Public/map/teleconnections/epo.reanalysis.t10trunc.1948-present.txt Edit: Also, what about 2007-8? It was also +EPO dominant. It had this breakdown for # of days: 50 +EPO, 21 neutral, and 20 -EPO. It also averaged ~+60 over the 91 days. Edit: I consider a -50 to +50 individual day to be neutral EPO.

However, Sep-Nov of 2021 had a solid +EPO similar to Sep-Oct of 2024 and the winter of 21-2 ended up with a neutral EPO fwiw.

Unfortunately for S FL, the latest Euro Weeklies has shading over it, which is a change from prior runs. Also, the Bahamas and Bermuda are shaded. This doesn’t mean likely for all of these areas but it does mean whatever forms in the W Car might bear watching for them as the mean ensemble track has shifted NW:

1. Brooklyn was also warning me and others about comparing single runs vs multi runs. The only WB CFS maps that go out through Feb (all of DJF) are control runs. Also, when JB shows winter CFS, they are always control runs. 2. The only multi run CFS maps WB has are control runs. 3. The WB CFS mean of 10 days of runs I showed earlier was a mean of control runs. That’s all they have for DJF. 4. Check this out: mean of 30 days of control runs for DJF: look how cold it is! 30 days! This is absurd! Their CFS mean is about always too cold in the E US along with having the Lake Michigan nonsense.

I’m currently leaning against it being intentional as my nature is to give the benefit of the doubt initially. It is hard for me to believe they’d do this on purpose when it is so easy for anyone to compare to other sources of CFS output. So, I’m still thinking unintentionally badly flawed company algorithms. But the longer this goes on without fixing it, the more I start to wonder somewhat since colder E US sells in winter. And shouldn’t they have at least noticed that cold spot in S Lake Michigan and warm spot in N Lake Michigan that almost always show up by now? Is it possible they (including JB) still have no idea that their CFS maps differ so much? I say it’s possible because they may never look at other CFS output. But what about those everpresent cold/warm spots? If they really still don’t know now and they later figure it out, would they then be honest and fix the algos or ditch their versions?