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OK/AR/KS/MO Winter 2014-15 Discussion


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Last bit of my 2.5 inches of snow melted Saturday afternoon.  4.5 inches give or take this winter.(2.5 just from last week!) This winter could have been so much more if a few storms could have made their way 50-100 miles north... but no..  Winter fail.

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Last bit of my 2.5 inches of snow melted Saturday afternoon.  4.5 inches give or take this winter.(2.5 just from last week!) This winter could have been so much more if a few storms could have made their way 50-100 miles north... but no..  Winter fail.

Same here, we ended up right at average or a tad over(9"). And yea man most storms were either too far north or too far south this winter for the area here. Is pretty bad when an area 30 miles south gets hit harder lol. Looking forward to next season, hopefully its way better for us all! Is it too early to say, see ya all next season lol? I'll probly still pop in off and on during severe events.

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Heck of a snowstorm this rain would be if we would have got this storm track when it was cold!

Finished out rabbit season yesterday in that weather and was thinking the exact same thing!

I finished winter with just over 9 inches of snow here. Pretty much the same as my neighbor from Fayetteville in the above post. I think mine was pretty close to a 9.4in but the storms were all pretty sketchy with the many different types of precip, compacting and marginal temps so who really knows exactly. Most years my slightly higher elevation here helps me out but I noticed that there were a few situations where cold air dammed up and slowed precip changes by up to an hour at times. That's just evidence of how shallow some of the air masses were that we were working with this year. All in all, the expectations for a wall-to-wall winter with 125-150% of climo snow were a complete and total bust. I should have read the signs better but I didnt. I should have known the east shift in the PDO was going to doom us but it's something I won't forget next time around. When the PDO shifts east while being the primary driver, all of the subsequent weather patterns follow suit. Anyway, just stuff to learn from and go on. Just an average winter overall with warmth and boring weather in the middle where it counts. Better luck next year I guess. Thanks for letting me share and post with you all. May be back on every so often to read and possibly speculate about next winter but if not, have a great spring and summer everyone. :-)

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Well, it appears that a lot has changed in the Pacific over the last 5 days since I quit paying attention. Also would seem to me that we may finally be getting the El Niño that everyone's been over hyping and wishcasting for over the last 2 years. (Record strength MJO event) I was in the "too little too late" group as far as this winter was concerned. Looks like the only part I got right. Haha.

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Tues and Wed have my eye for severe weather chances. 

 

Heh. was just coming in to say this for your region. The latest 12z GFS depiction looks to have ramped things up for Wed in particular and it also slowed the progression on Tuesday.

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Heh. was just coming in to say this for your region. The latest 12z GFS depiction looks to have ramped things up for Wed in particular and it also slowed the progression on Tuesday.

 

Tues is what I'm most worried about for the Joplin area, I was hoping development would be to the east, but it has slowed down. The 'front' still moves through quickly though and luckily the 12z Euro is more in line with the GFS when it comes to dewpoints being around 60. Also fairly fast moving system, but that stall and lift back north of the warm front on Wed bothers me. 

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Tues is what I'm most worried about for the Joplin area, I was hoping development would be to the east, but it has slowed down. The 'front' still moves through quickly though and luckily the 12z Euro is more in line with the GFS when it comes to dewpoints being around 60. Also fairly fast moving system, but that stall and lift back north of the warm front on Wed bothers me.

Yeah. Looking like a couple of eerie afternoons around here on tap for both days. Not really a fan of severe weather but may have a good bit of it to deal with in our area this spring.

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Anyone witness the crazy hail tonight from some of the storms? My neighbor said his car was bombarded on his way home from bentonville. Looks like a lot of hail pics on social media sites as well, looked like a lot of this stuff was all around me here but we didn't see anything....just some sprinkles here in fayetteville.

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So it's around mid-summer, or well what I consider mid-summer. I wish it would stop raining so much!

 

Looks like we'll see an El-Nino this winter, and many forecasts are calling for a strong one. I'm hoping for more of a moderate one, but a lot of the models seem to be indicating a strong one.

 

I looked back at the strong El-Ninos for Joplin and most of them featured a mild and moist Dec, a few had a cooler Dec with more snow. It was actually pretty snowy in Dec 1997 which was the 'super nino'. In any case, precip above normal in Dec usually happens during strong/very strong El Ninos. 

 

For January, there seems to be more variability and it's difficult to determine as precip ranges from below normal to way above normal. Temperatures vary as well, but in many years there's at least a cold snap. Many years featured snow in what is usually our driest month.

 

February, as strange as it seems, winds up being the driest month in all the strong El-Ninos and in all the years with records, precip is well below normal with temps having a wide range. 

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So we better get good snow chances early. I'm not sure there's a strong signal around these parts for varying strengths of nino. Seems to be pretty variable.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A

 

There was strong support for a wet December, temps seemed to be more on the warm/mild side though. January was highly variable in precip/temps. February was drier than normal with variable temps. This was all for the Joplin area.

 

However, the nature of El Nino conditions means areas farther south may experience more precipitation events and may end up being cooler than normal but temps overall will probably be more mild, even when/if it snows and we will probably have less sustaining cold (days with well below normal temps), which is the mild nature of El Nino.

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I'm not really going to go bonkers with my snow predictions yet this year, however I will say that it will likely be a heavily front-loaded winter with a pretty boring late January-March. I haven't really started my winter stuff in earnest yet but seems to me that we have to either hope the Niño loses steam or that the GOA and waters off California dominate it to a degree to deliver the cold. It will be a tricky forecast for sure as there are a lack of real analogs to draw from. Glad to see some of you back!

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Nothing really surprising on the CFS v2. Not a whole lot has been changing from run to run. This is the 30 day CFS  500 MB runs. These images won't change, so we can see how the model did/does or evolves as we get closer to winter.

 

 

December has the Aleutian low showing up, a rather mild look for much of the US except down around Texas and Mexico where it might have an active storm track due to the STJ.

 

cfsjunjul.png

 

 

January features more of the same, rather standard El Nino climo.... active southern storm track, cooler than normal across the south, probably wetter than normal as well.

 

cfsjunjuljan.png

 

 

Feb is more of the same, except this is a colder look across the south as it looks more active. Overall a very El-Nino looking winter.

 

cfsjunjulfeb.png

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Looks promising for chances of wintry precip through most of the winter. I don't know whether the Aleutian low helps us or hurts us this year. Should have plenty of precip to speak of. I'm just afraid of being flooded with warmer pacific air all winter. The warmth along the west coast is probably going to throw a wildcard out there for a lot of us. I think it will be a great winter to learn from. Thanks for the post!

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This may be a stupid question or statement but is there any possibility that the mean trough position ends up totally centered more over the western US this winter? Been looking at some different things and types of strong Niño events and cannot rule out the possibility. (1972-73 and 1888-89 being 2 examples.) I'm just curious really. Also tired of everyone seeming to cop out and post 'average' Niño climo every time someone says El Niño is coming. Just random thoughts but I figured I would ask.

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This may be a stupid question or statement but is there any possibility that the mean trough position ends up totally centered more over the western US this winter? Been looking at some different things and types of strong Niño events and cannot rule out the possibility. (1972-73 and 1888-89 being 2 examples.) I'm just curious really. Also tired of everyone seeming to cop out and post 'average' Niño climo every time someone says El Niño is coming. Just random thoughts but I figured I would ask.

 

There's a large amount of 'noise' from run to run of the CFSv2. I did see a farther southeast trough (over/near the west coast) on a couple of runs, but I've also seen it farther north and it torches the country.  Today's run was actually pretty good for us.

 

It's too far out to make any predictions because a lot hedges on the location of the Aleutian low because we are probably going to depend on the -EPO to supply us the cold. If El Nino region 1+2 doesn't get too out of control, and this El Nino becomes more of a basin wide event then the Aleutian low will probably end up farther west, which will allow the -EPO to unleash cold/cooler air. Add in an active subtropical jet, and that would be fun for us. But if an east based nino forms, and/or the Aleutian low sets up strongly in the Gulf of Alaska, then we will lose the -EPO and it will be a mild/warm winter. 

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Thanks man. I appreciate the input. There's a lot of noise amongst the analogs as well. It's going to take me forever to keep comparing them to see what's different and where in each. I think this winter is going to be fun simply from a learning standpoint. What's probably clouding my reasoning at this point is that the ridge over the west coast has to move at some point. I don't think it goes away entirely this winter but I may well end up entirely wrong. It has to move at some point though. I don't think you can have an El Niño and PDO in sync and not change something over there whether it is to break it down or pull it out over the Pacific in such a way it can be undercut by the assumed strong STJ. In which case I would further make the assumption that the epo would deliver. It would almost have to in that situation right? Again pure speculation on my part but just thinking about anything I can except for the fact that it's miserably hot right now and I hate summer. Could you post a link to the CFSv2? Thanks.

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Thanks man. I appreciate the input. There's a lot of noise amongst the analogs as well. It's going to take me forever to keep comparing them to see what's different and where in each. I think this winter is going to be fun simply from a learning standpoint. What's probably clouding my reasoning at this point is that the ridge over the west coast has to move at some point. I don't think it goes away entirely this winter but I may well end up entirely wrong. It has to move at some point though. I don't think you can have an El Niño and PDO in sync and not change something over there whether it is to break it down or pull it out over the Pacific in such a way it can be undercut by the assumed strong STJ. In which case I would further make the assumption that the epo would deliver. It would almost have to in that situation right? Again pure speculation on my part but just thinking about anything I can except for the fact that it's miserably hot right now and I hate summer. Could you post a link to the CFSv2? Thanks.

 

All depends on where the Aleutian low sets up shop and it's movement. I use WxBell's CFS, but here's the public one: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/

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It's really impressive to see the warm pool in the NPAC still hanging tough. It will be cool to see if it does since most models decimate the resilient ridge out there. I'm going to watch it very closely this winter to see if it's a cause or an effect of the ocean temps up there. I don't think in the couple of years it has been there that I have ever heard definitively whether it's a cause, effect or both with feedback mixed in there somewhere. Thoughts?

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