Typhoon Tip

On this date, 31 years ago ... I witnessed an usual occurrence from my dormitory attending college at UML. It was during the 1992 Nor'easter, a top 3 all time personal storm experience favorite. Ironically .. while skulking around Youtube over lunch today, I happened across this random video from (apparently) State College, PA. At first I thought how much that reminds me of ...'wait!' That was today! - felt as though I was meant to remember. It's just a snow squall ...but the speed in which the heavy snow column took over the scenery is remarkably similar to what I observed that faithful night of the 11th. Only, the interface I witnessed was not a transition from clear air to snow... it was wind driven heavy sheets of cold rain, demarcated by a single massive flash of lightning and the report, just prior to the flash over from silvery night right to dimly orbed street lamps through whirling snow. I watched as the sky transformed, transfixed, as I wasn't entirely certain what it was in fact I was seeing. I'd seen squalls do this... not during Nor'easters. The next dawn we awoke to 17"

From my years of experience this appears to be the best/first evidence of a SSW burst and probably down-welling event for this 2023/late December: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/

Really ... I was under the impression that some metrics just traded places more so. I think plateaued is fair enough - it may have giga moved above(below) but hasn't significantly enough to matter. Particularly not with RONI being real whether people want to admit it or understand it or not

We were just model magnified ...that's what happened. 10 to as much as 60% of most systems on any given D9 plot ...if they happen at all, should be mandatory scalp off the top of whatever magnitude the system is depicted at that range. Been saying this for the last 5 years. Particularly true in the GFS family -

I little bit coarse but ...CPC's animation below appears to introduce an abrupt weakening at least in the surface temperature trends at the tale end of the animation -

The 12z GEFs came in interesting. It's hard to tell, though. It may be manifesting both the 18th/19th ... and the 21st, as the same system - in other words, below is an artifact of the mean between the two. Either way, that's a new 1028 mb polar high N of Maine with a fairly impressive signal/spread lurking S.

Another near miss epicocity on the the 23rd/24th in the GFS

Unfortunately ... it's become a mise en science in here where it is almost impossible to push an idea like that and have people even read it at this point. hahaha

Can you imagine if was 70 F every day in winter except for precisely two days. On on Jan 15 and one on Feb 15, each having 40" of snow fall. ...how do we manufacture our impressions ? lol

'Whoa is us' humor aside - I still see a narrow window where the telecon spread's in support of something. The system early next week is that period of time. It's led by a subtle depression in the EPO projection. The problem is timing ( ironically, 'Wiz was just mentioning that ). That cold plume that mooshes SE from N of the Great Lakes as the Miller A is leaving the area ( i.e., just too late) in fact has it's source-origin off the EPO load. Not sure if we can speed that up. Or, slow down the Miller A transit enough. But all that, and a PNA attempting to flip positive ( not massively so - ) do provide a setting, so at least having a system over the mid latitudes/eastern continent isn't a terrible fit. I've already discussed this - it's really more about it all still being there, but this is detailing what needs to improve for any of that to have a chance (based upon my Monday morning QBing)

Can't say I disagree with that bold sentiment/recollection ... You may not recall, but I have opined at times over the last decade (really) that it seems more and more so, we disrupt cryo chances when we do not have a direct feed of cold while it is happening. It's seems (anecdotally) we can't be as reliant on those 'rotted polar air masses' but still on the slightly cooler side of marginal characteristic. That envelope of circumstances have been fleeting and getting rarer. I noticed that in 2015, all those snowy events in that historic February where happening when it was tooth-ache cold. What your expressing there might be related to the same observation?

No argument from me re your implicit argument of "uncertainty, so it could go either way'" I think of this year as modeling curve-ball year - as in, the model's them selves offering curve balls/tickery. I don't suspect we will have very many periods when the models are exceptionally well behaved - and by that mean I mean ... sniffing out a pattern early and demonstrating at least a modicum stability, such that modeling individual events within that construct have an actual chance of occurring. - it's been abysmal so far, and has been over the last several years. Imho, it's related to fast flow saturation but that's another headache.

I'm contributing to some of the melancholy today ... but I also mean it for commiseration creativity and fun.

...or like a 'drive by snowball'

OT for general purposes: There should not be as much of an expectation for model consistency for D6-8. That really begins around D4.5. It may extend to 5.5 in well behaved very stable back ground pattern scaffolding ( to which ...this is not one of those time). It may also shrink down to 3.5 days.

Oh, I see. Mm, maybe. The 06z snuck in an intermediate stream phase attempt. It's causing the surface evolution of that system early next week to elongate. The elongation is less likely - that type of morphology just seldom occurs. What's more likely is that the leading Miller A impulse becomes less defined in future runs ...perhaps degenerating into an open WAA swath running ahead up the coast. Then said phase arrives and a more important event evolves. So... it's not implausible. But like a form of Stockholm Syndrome, it becomes increasingly more difficult to see positive outcomes as having any possibility at all.

06z GFS centered on 12z DEC 19 - any gullible takers ?

I know. ... I think I've entered a state of hopelessness, where any reason to challenge that is auto trashed no matter how valid. u-guh-ly

I wouldn't be shocked. Not at all, actually. 4 out of the last 8 years experienced unusual warm blasts in February, regardless of any longer termed planetary index modes in place at the time. Combining that with on-going state of 'you-know-what' - that's pretty damning. For those with an objective sensibility in the matters, that is. Sorry if this latter statement sounds like a poke at gas-lighting, but truth of the matter is, these events occurred, and some were striking. Two of which approached 80 fuckum F. I'm just old school enough to see that as appalling. I remember a small handful of times growing up ...where a 'Feb thaw' might have mid 50s or even 60 and Crocuses poked out along the south sides of foundations. Not bud bombing 70s. These cannot be explained merely by favorability keyed into combined index idiosyncrasies alone, when it's been occurring in a spectrum of them whether they correlated to warmth or not. It is because of this logic that I'm not really ready to rule it out - not considering the world from Orbit. We'll see. Yeah, I'm not actually contrarian to what you are saying. I mean sure, we could get 3 days in February ( yet again ...) and toss +25s in the bucket, but if there were 10 other days that were -7, you end up closer to normal, too. I'm just trying to encourage folk to add in these 'synergistic heat' events because they have been proving to be a non-avoidable circumstance, not just at home but all over the world.

I realize the nostalgia, the "Currier&Ives" affect, seems to validate Decembers for a lot of folks. I wish I had better news for you this morning - I really do. I grew up in Michigan until 14 years of age. I recall white scenery nearing Xmas as a child more frequently than my experiences since. Overall deep wintry appeal in about 1/2 of the Decembers back whence. The other half ... my impressions fade as the years go on into midlife decades ... but I want to recall them as rarely being actually warm. In the absence of white or ice they were brown barren scapes, but the air still smelled of winter. It seems ever since my family relocated to southern New England back in '83, my impression through 2002 or 2004 (say) was 1/3 of the 20 years worked out for the better. So comparing western Michigan to this region, with my anecdotal accounting they win because ... when the synoptic charts and satellites confirm, open clear skies pervade the Great Lakes, gelid NW winds may still provide LE streamers - saves their spirit. The sky may look that way, too; whenever one of those virga-shrouded nimbus, back lit by the sun, plumes over head they liken to an apparition. Since 2004 though it seems that 1/3 of the years era became a 1/5th era... Now is like a 1/6th or even 1/8th ( per 10 years). Just spit-ballin' ... Maybe this impression can be adjusted some in how we define the qualifications for a white Christmas. 'Is there snow on the grounds at all,' being the barest requirement - but that gets tinted brown in the mind if there's a 48 F rain going on with corn snow left in patches. Not sure that should be fair or not. I mean there'd be some subjectivity to the 'sentimentality rules', no doubt. If it snowed nicely 5 days prior, and it was just 40 with light rain setting the canvas behind spiked 'nog occasions, the pack may settle but still intact, that's fair enough I suppose. Anyway, the last time I remember a less molested Currier&Ives Christmas was 2017. We received 7 or so inches Xmas eve, and awoke to that blue-gray misty dawn light ... mood vestiges still fluttering passed the sills. 6 years ago.

Yeah not sure why this isn’t absorbing but the MJO doesn’t spearhead regional temperature distribution. It enhances, indirectly, through positive wave interference. When the hemisphere is in negative interference the MJO correlation empirically breaks down.

Gee might also be related to the whole earth burst warm since the NIÑA extinguished? maybe a little.

Yeah...I'd say partial. The MJO isn't causing it. I'd take a look at the ballooning +WPO if I were people, but that's just me. The western Pacific circulation modes abruptly changed signs and it's started suppressing the entire region - changing the eddy forcing in a way that interferes negatively. That's why the 7 phase is hitting the proverbial wall/stalling. Some 7 days back it wasn't doing that. Blame Asia. If the WPO goes the other way, the wave emerges out of 7 and then positive interference commences and we're in business. I'm more willing to question whether the WPO and the eventual dial forcing toward the NP/EPO region is correctable or not. It is rather new, and you're right - the general hemisphere post D9's has been unusually stochastic.

Except when it happens ... right - I think people just want the given year to be one of those times - just a guess. That's all - ...Now, if they piss in the punch because it's not happening, ignore it. They grouse, and then it's only two fold just as annoying when we grouse about the grousers. Who cares.

None of that's going to verify that way ( obviously - we're having fun commiserating in snark!) buuut, the surface resolution accompanying that is no where near as mild as the intent of that post