brooklynwx99

10 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

QBO is not unfavorable this year and La Niña is still going to be weak. This seems like splitting hairs to me...and believe me, I want a repeat of last winter like a hole in the head.

although I didn't like the results, I would run the 500mb pattern back in a heartbeat. that winter was a clinic on how to get the least amount of snow with favorable 500mb patterns

45 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I’m not disagreeing with the 500mb +AO/+NAO, however, there are many big differences I see, namely last year’s Nina didn’t get going this early, it was a late-bloomer event, we didn’t have a strong -IOD and the AAM was the complete opposite. We had the very strong Nino like +AAM right into November, this year, deep -AAM. The PMM is and has been very negative this year, was not negative at this time last year. The North Atlantic didn’t have the south of Greenland to Davis Straight cold pool last year. Also, the marine heatwave around Japan in the NW PAC was getting bombarded with recurving tropical cyclones and extratropical storms coming off the coast, which was upwelling and cooling the SSTS in that area, not the case this year, in fact SSTS are 11 degrees F above normal in that area currently. Further, the QBO has flipped 

looking at RONI, the MJJ this year is -0.4 and last year it was -0.45. i also don't take the N ATL SSTs into account all that much, I find correlations with our weather pretty weak. even though the heatwave near Japan is stronger, the SSTs off the WC are also higher, so the PDO is about the same. if anything, it was more consistently under -3 last year

overall, I think there are a lot of big picture similarities. I don't like to get too granular with LR forecasting

10 hours ago, BlizzardWx said:

I know several consider last winter to be a top analog, but there really has been a lot of change in the SSTA pattern in just about every basin. The observed pattern also feels very different. We had a high of just 70 F today in Tulsa for the 5th coldest on record, which is on top of a cool and extremely wet summer...very different from last year at least at this juncture. 

looking at the 500mb patterns over the last two summers, last year is a good match... had the same +NAO/+AO as well as the dual ridges over the western and eastern US. last year is also a good PDO, solar, and overall ENSO match as well. I think it holds a good bit of weight

I'm a fan of the EP Nina look showing up. most seasonals keep the EP Nina into the winter, which would bode well for EC cold/snow prospects overall

2 hours ago, anthonymm said:

So 25-26 is dead in the water. Nice. Crazy the snow dropoff that has occured since 19-20. Really only one good winter since then, or really only one good month (Feb 2021).

i wouldn't say that considering that -EPO and some +PNA is favored. definitely doesn't look like a disaster

this is what i'm thinking for the winter pattern this year when looking at preliminary analogs. overall, I think we'll be looking at a winter with lots of ridging over the WC (or least nearby), likely pushing poleward into AK and north of Siberia, promoting -EPO and +PNA. this will displace the TPV SE at times, and although a SE ridge likely shows in the mean, it's likely suppressed for a decent portion of the winter

Dec can feature some blocking, aided by the -QBO. I think the blocking certainly eases by Feb, but even then, the propensity for +PNA/-EPO should prevent a full on torch in the East. Jan is likely more +PNA driven, becoming warmer late in the month

my main reasoning is that we're going to enter into a cool neutral ENSO state (weak Nina per RONI), and it's increasingly likely that the Nina influence will be more east-based, allowing for more ridging into the WC and AK rather than a flat ridge over the NPAC. we're also looking at high solar, a -QBO, and a -PDO

overall, my top analogs are 2024-25, 2021-22, 2001-02, and 1989-90 (I don't think we'll see an AK vortex like 2001-02, but it scored well with ENSO, PDO, and solar). I think the best analog for this winter is last winter, as the ENSO, PDO, solar, and similarities to last summer's pattern are hard to ignore

temps are slightly AN in the east with solidly BN precip (though it shouldn't be quite as dry as last winter)

19 hours ago, hosj III said:

the coastal plain is never "due" for a blizzard. especially under the new climate paradigm

 

with variance due to climate change, I would argue that the large storms that do occur, even with lower frequency, would be bigger than the ones that we've classically seen. 2016 wouldn't have been quite as impactful 30 years ago

5 hours ago, jm1220 said:

It’s not rotten luck. The Pacific Jet oriented in a way and strength that systematically destroyed our chances especially south of I-90 to PHL. Historically when it’s been cold enough in NYC it’s found a way to snow because there would be a PNA ridge that would stick around long enough or NAO blocking to slow the pattern down. Now the Pacific Jet knocks it all down like bowling pins and storms either can’t amplify in time or amplify too much. 

I suppose you can say that the Pacific jet helped the for parts of the MA and South then, which saw snowfall far above normal last winter

4 hours ago, anthonymm said:

So is 22-23 a good analog year? If so coastal mid atl-sne is screwed.

it isn't. last year is actually the best analog that i've found

although the PDO is exceedingly negative right now and must be accounted for in winter forecasts, I wouldn't lose tooooo much sleep over it given the anticipated -EPO pattern, especially in Dec/Jan. we could very easily see behavior similar to last year where it ended up closer to neutral as the winter went on... we're likely going to see a bounce upwards with the way SSTs are behaving right now

ECMWF seasonal is pretty close to what myself and some others are thinking... pretty solid tendency for -EPO early on with the TPV likely displaced into SE Canada at times. also a bit of a signal for blocking early on, too? wouldn't be shocking with the -QBO

sure, it likely ends up 1-2F AN, but nothing prohibitive, and there will be spells where the pattern is actually conducive for snowfall. i'll take it

from what i've seen, last winter looks like a really good analog for this one. when taking all relevant years into account, there should be a decent amount of poleward AK ridging with some blocking potential early on. however, Feb looks warm and should push the winter's temps AN

from what I noticed while forecasting last winter, it was pretty damn windy with all of the NW flow days... I'd imagine the reason why it felt much colder was because daytime highs were typically cold for those troughy patterns and you got much less of those radiational cooling nights that really tank temps, keeping minimums up

wouldn't be surprising if we had another -EPO dominant winter with intervals of blocking. still some -PNA, obviously. likely AN temps in the mean, but we'll probably have some colder intervals with blocking... overall, doesn't seem like too much of a deviation from last winter's vibe, which I would run back and see if the dice can roll a bit better

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

CC probably did play a role in that, too....I am in agreement with the idea that it fosters greaters variability with the overall trend line pointed downward, but that doesn't mean that you have to go robocop on people to tie it to every missed opportunity for a snowstorm. There have always been misses and rough stretches during which the misses far outnumbered the hits.

there was a span of time where pretty much every KU pattern hit from like 2016 through 2021, and people got spoiled and thought that would continue... I am one of those people and have tried to remove that bias. it just happened so often that it was easy to assume that kind of loaded WB -NAO pattern would give a 75-90% hit rate - in reality it's much lower

17 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's been time for about 7 years   ... just imho -

CC is absolutely a factor, that is not a debate. snowfall is just so prone to variance and we came off of such a torrid stretch that I want to give it another 10 year span to make sure that this isn't just regression to the mean. it'll probably be 75% bust, 25% boom seasons from here on out with very little in the way of true average

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Maybe it edged a bit east, but it never looked great.

agreed, that was always the main issue with that setup and made it a lot more precarious. if it had a true +PNA, easy KU. one could attribute that to CC, but we were never going to see perfect +PNAs with every setup. I think a lot of it is regression to the mean

i agree with you that if this is still happening in a decade, it's time to have a serious convo

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think the system lacking cohesiveness was do at least in part of the crap PNA ridge. I agree with you, though....CC definitely isn't making it any easier, but its not the only reason.

yeah, that did not help. what was interesting was I remember the PNA ridge trending "better" as the event moved up, but the ULL deteriorated to the point that it didn't matter. just kinda became messy because of weird ULL stuff. they're finicky, always have been

I think part of it is that back in the 2000s and 2010s, most KU setups delivered (March 2018 is a great example), and now we're seeing some flies in the ointment. sure, some of those failure modes are popping up more and more because of CC, but I think we got a bit spoiled, so now a block pops up and everyone expects a KU (I am personally guilty of this and am trying to remove this bias)

mid-Feb easily could have occurred, the ULL just became a bit sloppy and the system became more disorganized... it still delivered historic snow to VA beach, and there was also a once in a lifetime Gulf Coast storm

I don't think there's any legitimate way that the 2013-15 +PDO could be viewed as a "three year cycle" or whatever. there have been numerous instances of +PDO in -PDO cycles and vice versa since the 40s. it's nothing new. you can see the same thing in the late 50s, late 80s, and the mid-2000s. IMO it's just authors trying to rationalize typical variance as a broader consequence of climate change

35 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

It wasn't the same pattern as the last few Winters because the Southeast got several snowstorms. They were shut out the last few years. You act like because New York City had the same amount of snowfall as the last few Winter's that the pattern wasn't different, but it wasn't the same, at least through December and January. It was just drier. That drier pattern started last Summer when the cap wasn't breaking for anything, despite hot temperatures and high humidity in the Northeast. This "drought" pattern really only started in 2024. 

the Southeast and southern MA is loving climate change right now

Just now, Heisy said:

But the ridge, N/S and confluence out ahead isn’t changing so it’s still a no go


.

the heights over British Columbia are higher again

simple, the GFS is tallest with the ridge out west and allows the NS to have better momentum