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2015-16 Winter Pattern Discussion


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Thanks those links are exactly what I was looking for. Although at the 7 day range both GFS and Euro Ensembles aren't great, the advantage goes to the Euro. It will be interesting to watch this unfold, the Euro ensembles appear to show the ridge sliding east some into central Canada while the GEFS is firm on the ridge building well into AK and western Canada. The GFS solution would certainly be preferred as it would keep the cold air coming while the euro would moderate us to more seasonal instead of below average. Analogs suggest a blend of the Euro and GFS solution may be what transpires with a weak trough from Texas to the Eastern Seaboard with ridging over western Canada primarily and sometime moving towards the central region.

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Higher resolution, yes. More accurate? Remains to be seen. It was just a resolution upgrade to my knowledge.

GEFs Higher res than they have been but resolution is still worse than EPS, initial scores have been around the same as previously...so a hair of improvement, if that as far as I know.
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Not for mby     :lol:     :(      At least I'll be able to wear something other than tank tops and flip flops   

 

 

 

yeah you warm all the way up to the mid 40's a few days......I mean you live in Columbia after all lol....seriously though highs in the low to mid 40's everyday for a week following 2 weeks of 70's is gonna be brutal....

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yeah you warm all the way up to the mid 40's a few days......I mean you live in Columbia after all lol....seriously though highs in the low to mid 40's everyday for a week following 2 weeks of 70's is gonna be brutal....

This is true  :lol:  The 06z GFS even has mby climbing closer to 60 by the end of the period  :(  

 

 

Nice below average temps January 3-8th. Great sign to see and the pattern change is on its way soon enough, just in time for the first week of January ;)

Seasonal/Average for mby as it appears the ridge keeps trying to flex its muscle, but after the approx +10 we've experienced this month, it will feel like heaven  :lol:   and that's just sad   :(  

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This is true  :lol:  The 06z GFS even has mby climbing closer to 60 by the end of the period  :(  

 

 

Seasonal/Average for mby as it appears the ridge keeps trying to flex its muscle, but after the approx +10 we've experienced this month, it will feel like heaven  :lol:   and that's just sad   :(

Considering you're at +20-25F above average the past few days and a few more days, temps 3-6F below average will be a big change! Starting January 1st your predicted high is 55 on the GEFS ensembles and you remain at or below average (55F for Columbia I believe?) through January 7th and then go +1 the 8th. Overall you go from well above average to at or below, a big and welcome change. Also signs are pointing to some Arctic intrusions during this week, GFS had 2 days where you struggled to get above freezing. The cold is well on its way and January/February should be fun with an active STJ and below normal temps!

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A warm air Miller B late next week? RAH hints at it...

LOW CONFIDENCE IN THE MID TO LATE WEEK FORECAST...ALTHOUGH MODELS DOSHOW SOME CONSENSUS IN THE EVOLUTION OF A MILLER B SCENARIO. ACOASTAL LOW LIFTS UP THE EASTERN WEDGE FRONT WEDNESDAY WITHSUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF SURFACE WAVES WHICH RIPPLE NORTH UP THEFRONT AND RETROGRADE THE IT INLAND TO MAINTAIN AT LEAST SMALL CHANCEPOPS THROUGH THURSDAY. TRUE FROPA WITH AN AIRMASS CHANGE LOOKS TOHOLD OFF AT LEAST THROUGH THURSDAY...SO HIGHS COULD REACH MOSTLY THELOW AND MID 60S BOTH DAYS AFTER MORNING LOWS MOSTLY IN THE UPPER40S AND 50S. 
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High stepping into the end zone and spiking the football...I like it! I still believe we (NC/SC) will finish slightly AN for temps in Jan.

I believe that. Would get hard to get sustained cold OR warmth in the coming pattern...hopefully Feb brings the fireworks with a block.
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The EPS has been trending towards the GEFS in the LR...the EPS keeps insisting on the heart of the ridging in Canada to slide east to Hudson Bay.  The GEFS says it doesn't and the EPS as it gets inside day 12 keeps the ridging up into AK...win for GEFS so far.

 

Top 2 pics are GEFS/EPS at 312 hours fixed on 12z 1/5 and the bottom 2 pics are todays runs at 288 hours fixed on the same date...you can see how the top right EPS was wanting to slide the ridging east and now todays runs say no.  

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My thinking for January remains unchanged. A good 3-5F below average for our area with an active STJ providing some interesting storms to track, and hopefully some snow/ice also. January 10-15th is the timeframe I'm watching for a good chance at some snow across much of the Southeast.

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My thinking for January remains unchanged. A good 3-5F below average for our area with an active STJ providing some interesting storms to track, and hopefully some snow/ice also. January 10-15th is the timeframe I'm watching for a good chance at some snow across much of the Southeast.

 

This does have a first half of Jan 58 type look...the Barent/Kara sea high is really impressive on the GEFS/EPS...more so on GEFS though.

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What's more impressive is the ridging being that strong at such an extended range, 288+ hours. I expect the ridging to continue to show up stronger as we near that timeframe, similar to how the ensembles showed the strong ridging/warmth in December and grew stronger and warmer as we neared. I expect the same going into January with stronger ridging out west and a better trough here in the east. I do think we see periods of warmth for 1-3 days as the pattern relaxes with cold resuming afterwards. As we near February I expect more intense cold shots as the PV should be breaking up and February is climatologically favored as the coldest month during El Niño.

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What's more impressive is the ridging being that strong at such an extended range, 288+ hours. I expect the ridging to continue to show up stronger as we near that timeframe, similar to how the ensembles showed the strong ridging/warmth in December and grew stronger and warmer as we neared. I expect the same going into January with stronger ridging out west and a better trough here in the east. I do think we see periods of warmth for 1-3 days as the pattern relaxes with cold resuming afterwards. As we near February I expect more intense cold shots as the PV should be breaking up and February is climatologically favored as the coldest month during El Niño.

 

It's hard to argue when the models are spitting out such an elevated PNA with great pac low...:-) 

 

These are the mod+ ninos that had strong ridging into AK for Jan with a strong Barents/Kara sea high, obviously we see a similar aleutian low as the models are spitting out now and of course when you roll it forward it's nuts.  Obviously getting waaaayyyy ahead of myself as we are not even to January yet and this the strong +PNA on the models is still day 8+ range.

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I like the late run 18z has a series of short waves carving out E trough. It may be possible we have underestimated January potential. It's easy to look at current persistent pattern and just figure it will continue forever. I think we all do that to some degree but the tide may be changing. Time will tell. And to all a good night.

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I like the late run 18z has a series of short waves carving out E trough. It may be possible we have underestimated January potential. It's easy to look at current persistent pattern and just figure it will continue forever. I think we all do that to some degree but the tide may be changing. Time will tell. And to all a good night.

Unfortunately it happens every year where you have early predictions for either a cold or warm winter. When things turn bad (predicted cold and warm November or December) people give up on winter, before it even starts. Many on here who predicted a warm December and cold January/February held to that and so far it seems like that will be a good call. What I've learned over the years is one must separate emotion (what we want) with reality and what the data says. What happens a lot on here is people let emotion control their reasoning and you see an epic meltdown in December or November followed by renewed optimism when the pattern begins to take shape.

Many forecasts calling for a cold winter had predicted a warm December followed by a cold or below average January with the worst cold in February. My forecast was similar with a warm December (not to the degree we saw, no one saw the historic torch) followed by a pattern flip the first week of January. Analogs suggest an average of 3-5F below average across the SE US which is what I think we see this January. This Nino is following analogs pretty well, specifically 57-58, 72-73 and 82-83 seem to be the closest matches. Its encouraging to see the pattern playing out according to climo and models following as well. It should be a snowy winter if it all works out and I'm encouraged by the model data we have, January and February will be fun :)

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18z GFS retrogrades the Scand. ridge that the models are in agreement with popping up after New Years and sets up a strong -NAO block.  PV is cutoff over SE Canada along with a split flow pattern over the Pacific.  Good signs.

YpBBHLi.png

 

PV split up to 30mb

 

6o0myPd.png

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18z GEFS at 240 hrs.  Strong agreement for +PNA and Eurasian ridging to hammer to the PV.

 

 

 

Then at the end of the run at 384... solid agreement for a -AO with high latitude blocking with a lobe over E Canada:

 

 

 

When was the last time we had that combo...(+PNA/-EPO/-AO/+NAO)?  You would think the NAO takes a dive at some point, if this pattern comes to fruition.  If this doesn't weaken the PV significantly then it ain't going to weaken this winter.

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A quick explanation why analogs imo analogs are useful for predicting weather patterns a few months in advance and why I didn't buy into the "winter is over" talk on here over the past few weeks.

1. Many were comparing this winter and warm December to 1997-1998. This was based solely off the intensity of that El Niño and that it was warm throughout January-February. There are a lot of differences between this El Niño and that one. To keep it quick and concise, the 500mb patterns were completely different in November of that year vs this year and December was also much different. See the 500mb setup for this year below and notice the negative 500mb anomalies from Texas to the coast of Nova Scotia. This year featured a strong HP and positive anomalies from the Mississippi River basin and east/northeast of there. A completely different setup which tells me the rest of the winter will likely have different results as well.

post-2321-0-73549600-1451010223_thumb.pn

2. What I do is try to find the years which match the Pacific pattern of La Niña or El Niño intensity and then find corresponding patterns for November-December of those years which match up with the current and extended range pattern. Usually the first week of December is a good time to do this and get a good idea of how January-March will play out. Over the past 15 years I've had good results with this method. The top analog year I came up with is 1982-1983 which produced a warm December for the Eastern half of the US. Notice the similarity in the 500mb pattern in 1982 with the current one.

post-2321-0-98614100-1451011486_thumb.pn

Current 500mb setup

post-2321-0-93954900-1451011649_thumb.pn

Also notice the final numbers for December 1982. Looks similar to the exceptional warmth we've seen, cool out west and warm/torch in the East.

post-2321-0-02574300-1451011720_thumb.pn

3. The last step I take is looking at the PV strength in corresponding years (for this year it's a strong El Niño) and seeing how that pattern unfolded in January and February. I use the intensity for December and the top analog year of strong El Ninos was 1957. Look at the strength of the PV, similar to what we've seen this December.

post-2321-0-34441000-1451011955_thumb.pn

Then if you roll the analog forward to January/February you find below average temps across the SE and a very cold February. I then combined my top 2 analogs and extrapolate that forward into what may end up happening for January and February. My result is as follows: expect a slightly below average January similar to that of 1983. Blocking however will be more west based similar to 1957-58 with more of a PNA ridge into Canada and Alaska.

post-2321-0-33820600-1451012163_thumb.pn

post-2321-0-66629400-1451012281_thumb.pn

February should be the coldest month, possibly like what we saw last February with frequent cold and several ice/snow threats. The 1958 analog captures the overall idea of what could happen as the PV weakens further and the Nino sets up a great February. Overall we should see a slightly below average January, blocking in the PNA region and a weak to moderate trough across the central and eastern US. There should be ample opportunities for snow/ice. As we head into February the blocking should further intensify and dump the coldest air of the season into the eastern US as the PV is further weakened and blocking amplifies. Hopefully this data will be helpful.

post-2321-0-03941500-1451012397_thumb.pn

post-2321-0-75689900-1451012477_thumb.pn

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