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Winter 2014-2015 Pattern Discussion Thread III


BIG FROSTY

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Some people take them verbatim and that's fine I guess but people forget what the weeklies are, extended ensemble runs...I feel like people think it literally tells the future for the month, like it's some crystal ball. It's far from that, especially when they Euro ensembles are struggling like they are.

Exactly.  When I look at them, I see quite a bit of improvement over previous versions, though quite a bit of progressiveness as well.  To me, you can see a lot of potential in them at 500.

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I would settle for a 7-10 day period of -AO/-NAO, hard to imagine a good pattern locking in. The weeklies look like more of the same, -EPO, cold dumps in west and tries to move east. Still have remanant of the PV over Greenland so +NAO. Hard to imagine any blocking this winter, we havent had it, the models are skyrocketing the AO in the near, medium and long term. MJO has been persistently stuck in 4-5, EPS sends it to COD then back to 4-5 again.

yeah I would love some blocking over Canada instead of low heights. I also thought we would have to wait until mid January for the nao. Hopefully I'm right and we don't have to wait longer.
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Some people take them verbatim and that's fine I guess but people forget what the weeklies are, extended ensemble runs...I feel like people think it literally tells the future for the month, like it's some crystal ball. It's far from that, especially when they Euro ensembles are struggling like they are.

You have a point, the EPS hasnt been as consistent as the GEFS in the 11-15 day range, IMO. So all we know at this point is the entire east is much below avg for snow and that doesn't look to change in the next couple of weeks. The AO has been predominantly positive and looks to remain that way the next couple weeks.

Webber has posted about how Feb's are better for weak Nino's so our patience will be tested for a few more weeks.

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You have a point, the EPS hasnt been as consistent as the GEFS in the 11-15 day range, IMO. So all we know at this point is the entire east is much below avg for snow and that doesn't look to change in the next couple of weeks. The AO has been predominantly positive and looks to remain that way the next couple weeks.

Webber has posted about how Feb's are better for weak Nino's so our patience will be tested for a few more weeks.

we can get snow in non favorable patterns, just like we can get skunked in great patterns. Sometimes it's just getting lucky.
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yeah I would love some blocking over Canada instead of low heights. I also thought we would have to wait until mid January for the nao. Hopefully I'm right and we don't have to wait longer.

Yep, that's been my biggest concern is we have had no blocking since Nov. The first 6 weeks of met winter will avg solidly +AO/NAO. Lots of bad signs right now, not a lot of good ones. I don't consider models that struggle a good sign.

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Yep, that's been my biggest concern is we have had no blocking since Nov. The first 6 weeks of met winter will avg solidly +AO/NAO. Lots of bad signs right now, not a lot of good ones. I don't consider models that struggle a good sign.

usually when the models struggle it's a sign of a pattern that is in constant change.
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My take on the weeklies is a simple continuation of where we are now with some relaxation and flexing of the epo and pna mixed in for weeks 3-4. NAO stays + and maybe the +ao breaks down late.

I personally doubt the extent of the high heights in the east on the euro ens d11-15 verifies. If it doesn't then week 3 on the weeklies is suspect at best.

The euro ens completely missed the extent of what looks like a heck of a cold shot next week. Is it going to be the end of the colder pattern? I could easily see a relax/reload in the d10-15 range. Hard to say this far out.

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Yep, that's been my biggest concern is we have had no blocking since Nov. The first 6 weeks of met winter will avg solidly +AO/NAO. Lots of bad signs right now, not a lot of good ones. I don't consider models that struggle a good sign.

Basically, everybody and their brother predicted a cold and snowy DJF -- not a warm DJ and an uber-cold Feb with enough cold, blocking and snow to offset the + departures that will be I the bank. Every indicator suggested we'd see blocking this winter.

Right now, every model is snowing no blocking for the foreseeable future. And aside from the lousy GFS, the MJO looks to want to set up camp in the worst possible phases for us.

We can still get a good pattern to lock in for a short period of time, at some point this winter. We probably will. But a long lasting, good old fashioned cold and wintry pattern does not look like it's in the cards for as far as the eye can realistically see.

But like Franklin said, we can still get plenty of snow in a non-perfect pattern. But all things considered, this winter is NOT turning out the way most of us expected. And that doesn't look to change anytime soon.

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Basically, everybody and their brother predicted a cold and snowy DJF -- not a warm DJ and an uber-cold Feb with enough cold, blocking and snow to offset the + departures that will be I the bank. Every indicator suggested we'd see blocking this winter.

Right now, every model is snowing no blocking for the foreseeable future. And aside from the lousy GFS, the MJO looks to want to set up camp in the worst possible phases for us.

We can still get a good pattern to lock in for a short period of time, at some point this winter. We probably will. But a long lasting, good old fashioned cold and wintry pattern does not look like it's in the cards for as far as the eye can realistically see.

But like Franklin said, we can still get plenty of snow in a non-perfect pattern. But all things considered, this winter is NOT turning out the way most of us expected. And that doesn't look to change anytime soon.

if we get a warm and snowless January then many winter forecasts will go down in flames.
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My take on the weeklies is a simple continuation of where we are now with some relaxation and flexing of the epo and pna mixed in for weeks 3-4. NAO stays + and maybe the +ao breaks down late.

I personally doubt the extent of the high heights in the east on the euro ens d11-15 verifies. If it doesn't then week 3 on the weeklies is suspect at best.

The euro ens completely missed the extent of what looks like a heck of a cold shot next week. Is it going to be the end of the colder pattern? I could easily see a relax/reload in the d10-15 range. Hard to say this far out.

The GEFS does keep the -EPO going, I wouldn't be surprised if it only relaxes a few days. The PNA has to go positive eventually, doesn't it. When that does I think we sneak in a minor event or two.

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Folks,

 The 12Z Euro has very cold coming to the SE US centered on 1/8. The MJO progs mostly have it in phase 5 on that day. IF that verifies along with the strong cold, it would be only a little warmer than Atlanta's (as well as that of some other areas) coldest phase 5 Jan day on record (1974-present). The current coldest phase 5 day is 1/2/2008, when the mean was only 25 (High 30 and low 20). The Euro has ATL only a little warmer than 25. By the way, the coldest low for phase 5 in JAN at ATL is the 15 of 1/3/2008. The Euro has low 20's for the low though it tends to be warm biased in some situations.

 

 Keep in mind that phase 5 has been the warmest phase on average in ATL in JAN since 1975 by a wide margin and the % of much below normal days (8 or more below normal) has been the lowest for phase 5 (12% or only 9 days). Of those 9 MB days, 6 of them were during the weak Nino of 1978 and they were consecutive days (1/26-31). The 25 being the coldest is the warmest coldest day of the 8 phases and COD, which is intuitive. Let's see if 1/8 really ends up in phase 5 and, if so, if the coldest phase 5 day at ATL ends up getting challenged.

 

 

Wow, that's very impressive indeed, especially given the coldest day in phase 5 occurred during a La Nina. It's usually quite difficult to override a set-up like that w/ an intraseasonal MJO signal amplifying the pre-existing ENSO base state...

MJO-Phase-5-La-Nina-1024x602.png

 

One obvious caveat that was a likely reason why this pattern wasn't a blowtorch was the presence of a massive ridge over Scandinavia and the Barents Sea, (which unlike what we've observed this year w/ an persistent trough in this region cutting down on the amount of meridional heat & wave activity flux on the polar vortex), helped to lower the heights over the far North Pacific allowing the pattern to suppress the usual -PDO/La Nina Aleutian Ridge (forcing the entire anomalous downstream flow to shift about 15-20 degrees west or so of the canonical phase 5 MJO z500, thus a trough collapsed into the SE US... This gave rise to the classic Garfunkel precursor to a sudden stratospheric warming, and 2007-08 would deliver the warming event in late January & February...

 

Jan-1-5-2008.gif

 

Geopotential-Height-500mb-N-hem-SSWE1-10

January-Feb-2008-SSWE-10mb-Temps.gif

10mb9065_2008.gif

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 If it happens to go the EPS way, I hope it goes into the COD instead of hanging out in phase 5. That could be a good thing MJOwise.

 

 

I think the minor SSWE ongoing may help give this MJO pulse enough juice to drive through the anomalous upper level convergence barrier near the International Dateline that denied it from making it past the central Pacific in the previous cycle, but I do not like how the CCKW out ahead of the MJO pulse, reacted as it was going through that area... 

 

This anomalous upper level convergence has shown little-no sign of letting up, if anything it is actually being shoved even further to the east over the Equatorial Pacific. The Indian Ocean is doing everything it can to choke off this El Nino & it has thus far been quite successful, but it's likely too late to substantially negate the pattern we're currently in, especially w/ the extra tropical Pacific (very strong +PDO) behaving similarly to what would expect in a +ENSO event...

u.200.anom.90.5S-5N.gif

if we get a warm and snowless January then many winter forecasts will go down in flames.

 

You have a point, the EPS hasnt been as consistent as the GEFS in the 11-15 day range, IMO. So all we know at this point is the entire east is much below avg for snow and that doesn't look to change in the next couple of weeks. The AO has been predominantly positive and looks to remain that way the next couple weeks.

Webber has posted about how Feb's are better for weak Nino's so our patience will be tested for a few more weeks.

 

Not really franklin, February as pack mentioned are the most favorable for snow in the southeastern US during a +ENSO event (Warm Neutral &/or an El Nino)... According to the data I analyzed w/ Wilmington's daily snowfall record going back to 1870, & w/ the induction of 57 +ENSO events since 1870 (very robust correlations can be assessed w/ the sheer length of this dataset alone) we still won't reach the halfway mark for snowfall until we're well into the first week of February (a little after Groundhog Day). At the end of January, the majority of winter left will still be in front of us, but the drop off on the backside of the winter is a lot sharper than the uptick leading up to it...

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I think the minor SSWE ongoing may help give this MJO pulse enough juice to drive through the anomalous upper level convergence barrier near the International Dateline that denied it from making it past the central Pacific in the previous cycle, but I do not like how the CCKW out ahead of the MJO pulse, reacted as it was going through that area... 

 

This anomalous upper level convergence has shown little-no sign of letting up, if anything it is actually being shoved even further to the east over the Equatorial Pacific. The Indian Ocean is doing everything it can to choke off this El Nino & it has thus far been quite successful, but it's likely too late to substantially negate the pattern we're currently in, especially w/ the extra tropical Pacific (very strong +PDO) behaving similarly to what would expect in a +ENSO event...

 

 

 

Not really franklin, February as pack mentioned are the most favorable for snow in the southeastern US during a +ENSO event (Warm Neutral &/or an El Nino)... According to the data I analyzed w/ Wilmington's daily snowfall record going back to 1870, & w/ the induction of 57 +ENSO events since 1870 (very robust correlations can be assessed w/ the sheer length of this dataset) we still won't reach the halfway mark for snowfall until we're well into the first week of February (a little after Groundhog Day). At the end of January, the majority of winter left will still be in front of us, but the drop off on the backside of the winter is a lot sharper than the uptick leading up to it...

 

 

I edited in the placement of the upper level convergence zone below in black (as I mentioned, it's pushing deeper into the Pacific & is slowly starting to look more characteristic of a La Nina, but we're still a long ways from reaching that threshold) & there's no denying that the eastern Hemisphere & Indian Ocean has the upper hand on this El Nino. Will be very interesting to see along w/ our record easterly QBO for December (this is somewhat of a misnomer though because there's no well-defined seasonal cycle to the QBO & thus many QBO regimes peak at different times in the year, and combined w/ the short length of the reliable record (only going back to 1979), direct comparison is difficult) how the ENSO responds to this in the spring...

 

u-200-Jan-1-2015-edited.png

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usually when the models struggle it's a sign of a pattern that is in constant change.

People say this, but I don't know that it has any scientific basis. I'd imagine that there are a variety of things that could cause models to rapidly switch solutions or to disagree with each other.
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That's why I said, maybe.   :)  In fact I currently take the models with such a a huge grain of salt, and salt is being generous, that I feel it is pretty much a waste of time to even look at them, much less write posts about what they show, more than 5 days out.  

Same here. I don't know if it's just a misperception on my part or what  but it just seems that there has been a lot more variability/flip flopping from one run to the next with little to no agreement between any of the models beyond day 4 or 5 this year...much more so than usual. It's been so bad that I just shake my head every time I look at them. Other than very general trends, i just can't bring myself to waste much time worrying about them because it seems to me that once you have wasted your time describing it or figuring it out, then next run looks completely different.

 

It's depressing really because what makes winter fun is tracking storms or potential storms over long periods.

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Hot off the presses everyone!  LOL  Ok, that was shi**y  hahaha  New video is up.  I actually think this pattern has potential.  **ICE** Potential.  More on the video.  We shall see, but I have a real hard time thinking we don't see some kinds of CAD Icing event before it breaks down.  

 

https://www.facebook.com/ChriswxmanSimmons

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CFS weekly snow accumulation has some kind of *major* snow period for much of the Eastern half of the country for Week 5, and a huge temperature drop as well... Has like 7 inches for ATL, then 12+ for much of the Appalachians. However, you can't trust a model 5 weeks out at all really, so we probably shouldn't hype about it just yet. Just thought it was a bit interesting :)

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Same here. I don't know if it's just a misperception on my part or what  but it just seems that there has been a lot more variability/flip flopping from one run to the next with little to no agreement between any of the models beyond day 4 or 5 this year...much more so than usual. It's been so bad that I just shake my head every time I look at them. Other than very general trends, i just can't bring myself to waste much time worrying about them because it seems to me that once you have wasted your time describing it or figuring it out, then next run looks completely different.

 

It's depressing really because what makes winter fun is tracking storms or potential storms over long periods.

Yep. I totally agree. The fun factor is definitely missing so far this year.

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All that's fixing to change in a few minutes. Here's to the 0z bringing the fun factor back.

 

 Stronger high coming down on the 0Z GFS. 1056 mb high day 5!

 This runs has the makings of a very cold run for the SE in the 6-10.

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