2014-15 winter outlook

[Cold Rain]

I'm very impressed. Did you write that ? If so you should be a poet.

Thanks! Yep, it's an original work for my friends in the SE forum.

[TeleConnectSnow]

Anyone on WeatherBell, the CFSv2 with the 12z run..check out the temperatures, it looks great in the long range. Big change from previous runs. 

[Kory]

Anyone on WeatherBell, the CFSv2 with the 12z run..check out the temperatures, it looks great in the long range. Big change from previous runs.

That's the problem...it'll show a different solution every run.  

[Cold Rain]

What time frame is being referenced? DJF? November? The next two weeks?

[packbacker]

What time frame is being referenced? DJF? November? The next two weeks?

November.... I looked briefly at it, looks to flip mid-Nov. would want the Euro weeklies to show it before believing.

[broken024]

So... it may or may not snow. Got it.

[Cold Rain]

November.... I looked briefly at it, looks to flip mid-Nov. would want the Euro weeklies to show it before believing.

Thanks. I was hoping since this is the winter thread that it was now showing cold for the winter. But alas. I don't know when it updates for that time frame again anyway.

[Cold Rain]

So... it may or may not snow. Got it.

And?

[Hvward]

So... it may or may not snow. Got it.

Thanks for adding to the discussion.. What is your forecast?

[CAD_Wedge_NC]

So... it may or may not snow. Got it.

 

I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I will say that if you live any where north of a line from Birmingham through Atlanta to Columbia up to Wilmington you will see accumulating snow before the winter is over. That is not too much of a gamble with the pattern we have setting up right now.

[Kory]

I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I will say that if you live any where north of a line from Birmingham through Atlanta to Columbia up to Wilmington you will see accumulating snow before the winter is over. That is not too much of a gamble with the pattern we have setting up right now.

One or two snowfalls is the yearly climatological average for Birmingham and cities in the North and Central Alabama area. I'm not sure about other areas in the south, but you can never go wrong with climatology.

[LithiaWx]

I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I will say that if you live any where north of a line from Birmingham through Atlanta to Columbia up to Wilmington you will see accumulating snow before the winter is over. That is not too much of a gamble with the pattern we have setting up right now.

I take issue with your last sentence. What pattern setting up? There is a whole bunch of assuming going on in this thread. I've said it before and will say it one more time. Meteorology isn't to the point where we can predict an entire winter season in October or November or even in December. We have a hard time figuring out the pattern two weeks ahead of time let alone 2-4 months from now.

[franklin NCwx]

I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I will say that if you live any where north of a line from Birmingham through Atlanta to Columbia up to Wilmington you will see accumulating snow before the winter is over. That is not too much of a gamble with the pattern we have setting up right now.

43" for pgv? How much for for franklin?

[Snowless in Carrollton]

I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I will say that if you live any where north of a line from Birmingham through Atlanta to Columbia up to Wilmington you will see accumulating snow before the winter is over. That is not too much of a gamble with the pattern we have setting up right now.

well dang, I live right on the line from Birmingham to Atlanta but not north of that line. No snow for me

I swear, if this is another one of those winters where I-20 is the dividing line between snow and no snow I'm going to scream.

[Cold Rain]

well dang, I live right on the line from Birmingham to Atlanta but not north of that line. No snow for me

I swear, if this is another one of those winters where I-20 is the dividing line between snow and no snow I'm going to scream.

Try living east of Hwy 1. That's the dividing line for everything around here.

[Cold Rain]

43" for pgv? How much for for franklin?

€£¥• approximately.

[LithiaWx]

well dang, I live right on the line from Birmingham to Atlanta but not north of that line. No snow for me

I swear, if this is another one of those winters where I-20 is the dividing line between snow and no snow I'm going to scream.

The NWS should consider issuing a bitchfest warning for your area. There was a report of someone with 1,583 posts in your area and not a single one that wasn't some sort of b**ch.

[jburns]

Ahem.

[griteater]

I pointed out 2) earlier (several pages ago) and got buried.

 

It would make no sense to take an average NO or OI or whatever signal you want over a whole season as an analog because that changes, and often an average can be slightly warmer than usual for most of the winter with a few cold snaps, or a winter could be below average with few deep freezes like we saw last winter.

 

In short, the averages tell us nothing about a particular outlier or storm that may or may not happen. The biggies in the SE that buck the trends (and what everyone is looking for) usually are outliers anyway and happened not because the entire season was favorable but because a few days out of 3 months was favorable.

 

Plus you can't just take raw averages of whatever index you want and average them together so that each year has equal weight, or take averages from N cities for comparison because they are not equidistant from each other. To get a true analog for each year you need more than raw averages. You have to weight them according to signal strength, and sometimes adjust for distribution. Sometimes outliers have to be removed or ignored since they can be considered noise.

 

This sort of number calculus was somewhat perfected by Nate Silver in the 2008 and 2012 elections, and he was the only person to nail each election because he understood statistics and how to use them to make an accurate prediction.

 

That's the only way I can see to remove the rampant cold bias that always happens every time we have these threads predicting the winter. But, the math is hard, and the calculus is tough and not a whole lot of people will want to go the extra mile for accuracy.

 

valkhorn - a few thoughts on this.  I think with the winter outlooks, you're trying to predict whether the winter pattern will be favorable for cold, for warm, for snow, etc...then you have to just let the chips fall where they may.  Example - the 2009-2010 winter was IMO the best pattern we've ever seen in this area (using modern day reanalysis back to 1948).  Charlotte and Raleigh had good winters that year, but not great ones....while other areas like Asheville and Columbia had huge winters (3rd highest snow totals for Asheville in history).  So, the important part about a winter outlook prior to that winter would be expressing that the pattern was going to be favorable for cold and snow....not necessarily getting the specifics right about exact snowfall or exact temperature departures...those are always going to be super difficult to accurately predict...just my opinions.

[RONALD B]

I take issue with your last sentence. What pattern setting up? There is a whole bunch of assuming going on in this thread. I've said it before and will say it one more time. Meteorology isn't to the point where we can predict an entire winter season in October or November or even in December. We have a hard time figuring out the pattern two weeks ahead of time let alone 2-4 months from now.

there are facts that prove repeat patterns does happen it's one big puzzle and there are many that know's history in past weather event's some call them analogs! .this puzzle can be figured out !While no winter is exact A+B=C !

[Cold Rain]

valkhorn - a few thoughts on this.  I think with the winter outlooks, you're trying to predict whether the winter pattern will be favorable for cold, for warm, for snow, etc...then you have to just let the chips fall where they may.  Example - the 2009-2010 winter was IMO the best pattern we've ever seen in this area (using modern day reanalysis back to 1948).  Charlotte and Raleigh had good winters that year, but not great ones....while other areas like Asheville and Columbia had huge winters (3rd highest snow totals for Asheville in history).  So, the important part about a winter outlook prior to that winter would be expressing that the pattern was going to be favorable for cold and snow....not necessarily getting the specifics right about exact snowfall or exact temperature departures...those are always going to be super difficult to accurately predict...just my opinions.

Bob made a few good posts about this in the MA thread. There is some degree of skill to seasonal forecasting. It is not always a coin flip. Sure, there are things we don't know -- a lot of things -- but there is still some skill in making a seasonal forecast. Assuming you get the general pattern correct, you can then make a reasonable guess about general chances for winter weather. Still, snowfall and winter storms are so highly dependent upon timing that even in a favorable pattern, you still may underperform, and vice versa. Snowfall forecasts are fun to look at but I would agree have much less skill than a general seasonal pattern forecast.

[packbacker]

Bob made a few good posts about this in the MA thread. There is some degree of skill to seasonal forecasting. It is not always a coin flip. Sure, there are things we don't know -- a lot of things -- but there is still some skill in making a seasonal forecast. Assuming you get the general pattern correct, you can then make a reasonable guess about general chances for winter weather. Still, snowfall and winter storms are so highly dependent upon timing that even in a favorable pattern, you still may underperform, and vice versa. Snowfall forecasts are fun to look at but I would agree have much less skill than a general seasonal pattern forecast.

 

It seemed like 09/10 was called by a lot of people, a lot of hype (like my new avatar?)

 

A red tagger in the NE or NYC forum, can't remember, listed there top 4 or 5 analogs earlier today and all those winters were close to 200% of climo for RDU.  

[Cold Rain]

It seemed like 09/10 was called by a lot of people, a lot of hype (like my new avatar?)

 

A red tagger in the NE or NYC forum, can't remember, listed there top 4 or 5 analogs earlier today and all those winters were close to 200% of climo for RDU.  

09/10 was a good pattern, but I don't remember it being huge for snow around here.

Your new avatar is good. I like the old one better though. You change them too much!

[BIG FROSTY]

Big Frosty, says get the thick coats and shovels ready. Just in case most of the forecasts I've seen pans out (and I've seen several)!

[packbacker]

09/10 was a good pattern, but I don't remember it being huge for snow around here.

Your new avatar is good. I like the old one better though. You change them too much!

 

09/10 was a great pattern, it was bad luck it wasn't better for us, it was one in a billion luck what happened to the MA crew.

[Hvward]

It seemed like 09/10 was called by a lot of people, a lot of hype (like my new avatar?)

 

A red tagger in the NE or NYC forum, can't remember, listed there top 4 or 5 analogs earlier today and all those winters were close to 200% of climo for RDU.  

 

Lol was posting about 09'/10' at the same time in the mountain thread.  That and 77'-78' both look similar to this years setup and were both well above climo for KAVL (21.8" & 39.2" respectively).  09'-10' was a mod El Nino though but matches up pretty well other than that.  I would love it if we could all get a nice 6"+ event this year and if you go by comparison it looks very possible.

[mackerel_sky]

Try living east of Hwy 1. That's the dividing line for everything around here.

Try living S and E of I 85!

[Snowless in Carrollton]

Lol was posting about 09'/10' at the same time in the mountain thread. That and 77'-78' both look similar to this years setup and were both well above climo for KAVL (21.8" & 39.2" respectively). 09'-10' was a mod El Nino though but matches up pretty well other than that. I would love it if we could all get a nice 6"+ event this year and if you go by comparison it looks very possible.

a nice 6"+ event hasn't happened at the atl airport in nearly 32 years. Maybe this is finally the year.

[mackerel_sky]

Even with last years "decent" / " good" winter, I had only 3 wintry events and still "only" had maybe 6-8 inches total for the winter. That's barely 100% of normal or a little shy. I know there have been worse/ snowless winters , but I have high hopes for this winter!

[Bob Chill]

09/10 was a great pattern, it was bad luck it wasn't better for us, it was one in a billion luck what happened to the MA crew.

Can't agree more. Record breaking but centered around 3 individual events that were unusually localized considering the impact. I take heat in my sub about appreciating last winter more because it was so damn interesting. I'm a tracker and not a gold digger so I guess I view things differently.

Our winter windows are short. 12 weeks for the most part. Chasing flukes sux. Having patterns that at the very least present opportunity for half of our window is fine in my book. That seems to be favored right now. Capitalizing really can't be analyzed much until inside of 7 days for any individual threat.