Countdown to Winter 2017-2018 Thread

[ORH_wxman]

8 minutes ago, LoveSN+ said:

It's amazing that as soon as fall rolls around the pattern we've been in all summer, i.e. trough in the east and ridge in the west, decides to flip. Don't see much sign of that changing in the 8-14 day either, after looking at the EPS and GEFS. I'm not really worried about winter under performing, but it makes you wonder if the seasons are developing some sort of time lag compared to the past few decades. 

It's really nothing to worry about. You'll actually see some people panic on here if you get cold and snow in October. They will become nervous the pattern will flip to garbage in December. I personally don't get worried.

The correlation is pretty low for how the sensible wx here is in October versus the rest of the winter's snowfall. 

22 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I grew up around Albany and you'll often see the Hudson Valley convergence set up on departing nor'easters when the winds go northerly with residual moisture present.  The best is if you can get it associated with a deformation band as it'll just keep snowing longer than other areas.  

I've also seen it enhance snow squalls coming down the Mohawk Valley.

Really the only time orographics screw Albany, is with a long duration easterly flow event.  Like a cut-off low that just keeps a due easterly fetch.  You'll see like dim sun through the clouds while the east slopes of the Catskills get 12"+.  As soon as it goes NEly though the precip will ramp back up.

Although the Catskills are SW of ALB, I never really saw any negative downsloping experiences from that direction.  It's almost all easterly flow where you see it.  I think I'm SW flow events, the lift is usually WAA aloft and orographics don't have as much of an impact in those overrunning situations.  They are pretty evenly distributed regardless of terrain.  It's the same up here in Northern VT where everything is orographically influenced it seems.  SWFE from mid-level WAA is very evenly distributed and doesn't usually feature any pronounced orographic max/mins in precip totals.

Yeah SWFEs usually have light N or NE drain in the boundary layer so orographics are very limited during those types of events. 

[ORH_wxman]

Scooter will be pumped...Eurasian snow cover with huge positive anomalies early on. 

 

[LoveSN+]

Hopefully we'll get some blocking this year. Seems like a bit better chance than previous years. Enhanced chance for an SSW as well, given the easterly QBO.

[weathafella]

11 minutes ago, LoveSN+ said:

Hopefully we'll get some blocking this year. Seems like a bit better chance than previous years. Enhanced chance for an SSW as well, given the easterly QBO.

The nice thing is we can get by with normal snow without blocking.  You've gained enough latitude to often do the trick when NYC southward is suffering.

[LoveSN+]

Indeed. Certainly looking forward to winter as it comes closer. I'll likely be chiming in here with you guys, as I'm not super busy now and shouldn't be until next summer.

[mitchnick]

5 hours ago, weathafella said:

The nice thing is we can get by with normal snow without blocking.  You've gained enough latitude to often do the trick when NYC southward is suffering.

Speak for yourself Jerry. We love our 35 and rain. Heck, I've even heard sleet pellets with those conditions too. :-)

[weatherwiz]

If the 30mb and 50mb QBO is looking at the wind anomalies at that height above the equator how does that influence the pattern above the Arctic?  For example, like enhancing the likelihood of blocking or no blocking? 

[LoveSN+]

12 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

If the 30mb and 50mb QBO is looking at the wind anomalies at that height above the equator how does that influence the pattern above the Arctic?  For example, like enhancing the likelihood of blocking or no blocking? 

The specific phase of the QBO itself says nothing about blocking. However, the easterly phase of the QBO, which we are in currently, causes the stratosphere and consequently polar vortex to be more susceptible to planetary scale rossby wave propagation. Due to these waves, heat flux anomalies can occur which disrupt the vortex. Given enough wave breaking, this can induce a sudden stratospheric warming, and thus give a much higher potential for high latitude blocking. In the westerly phase, these waves have a much harder time propagating into the stratosphere and thus SSW's are uncommon during the westerly phase.

[LoveSN+]

Dr. Amy Butler is a stratosphere dynamicist who works for ESRL and she posted this interesting tidbit about mod la ninas and the easterly phase of the QBO. I realize we haven't reached mod status and might not, but something to keep in mind.

 

[weatherwiz]

That’s for that explanation!!!  That makes a tremendous amount of success.  I confused myself b/c I was using the ESRL monthly composite page and looking at 30mb zonal wind anomalies and I was looking at 2014-2015 which was an easterly phase winter and was confused b/c the zonal wind anomalies were positive around the Arctic.  Then I think it cane to me that I need to look at the tropics and that’s where the strongly negative anomalies were

[LoveSN+]

New Euro monthlies have been posted on twitter. Looks especially good for the Ohio valley, Great Lakes, and interior Northeast. The whole of the northeast would probably do quite well on snowfall though per these solutions.

 

 

[ORH_wxman]

Yeah those look pretty decent for New England over to GL. Looks like plenty of overrunning events and prob some clipper/redeveloper tracks.

[weathafella]

18 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah those look pretty decent for New England over to GL. Looks like plenty of overrunning events and prob some clipper/redeveloper tracks.

That's pretty classic 2007-08.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, LoveSN+ said:

New Euro monthlies have been posted on twitter. Looks especially good for the Ohio valley, Great Lakes, and interior Northeast. The whole of the northeast would probably do quite well on snowfall though per these solutions.

 

 

That's a wet winter right there as signaled.  

I'll always take my chances with AN precip.  

Has that classic over-running look with precip coming up the Ohio Valley into the northeast.

[weathafella]

Definitely a dumbfounding look.

[Damage In Tolland]

We dumbfound

[J Paul Gordon]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

That's pretty classic 2007-08.

I've been thinking that's a good analogy for awhile. Hardly a catastrophe. A good start in November and especially December. Novie can sometimes pull off a good snowstorm if the conditions are right.

[Ginx snewx]

On 9/27/2017 at 10:02 AM, Ginx snewx said:

my official winter forecast, lol official, short and sweet 07/08 la la la lock it up

no changes

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, weathafella said:

Definitely a dumbfounding look.

Slightly warmer and much wetter than normal, that works very well in winter here.

[LoveSN+]

Of course it's only one model, and one run of that model. Does anyone know how well the Euro seasonal model does? Obviously the deterministic Euro and ensemble are the best available, but I've never heard/seen much about the seasonal one. Nonetheless, if that solution is in the ballpark, new englanders will rejoice.

[dryslot]

I see no negatives for this area with that Euro depiction, That has the 2007-2008 gradient look.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Why cant I remember 07/08....gradient must of been north of my yard?

[dryslot]

15 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Why cant I remember 07/08....gradient must of been north of my yard?

I know if it was me and i couldn't remember it, It would not have been very good winter, Don't think it was very good south of the pike but someone else would have to confirm that.

[Damage In Tolland]

16 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Why cant I remember 07/08....gradient must of been north of my yard?

It wasn’t good in SNE. It was congrats Pike north and really NH border north 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Figures, dont recall anything decent that winter besides a Dec event iirc. 

[ORH_wxman]

42 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It wasn’t good in SNE. It was congrats Pike north and really NH border north 

Southern half of SNE it wasn't good...northern half was.

[TheCloser24]

The winter of 2007-2008 featured a lot of mixed precipitation events in SNE and was basically over after a late February snow event.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

I do remember spring of 08 sucking with a persistant -NAO. I think it was in the midst of several years where winter feautured a +NAO and spring/summer went negative, until the cycle broke in 09/10. 

[ma blizzard]

can we get a good november or early dec ice / mixed precip event? not asking for like a dec 08 or nov 1921 but like a nov 2002 or something like that would be cool.

for quite some time I've been hoping for a big qpf mixed precip event

 

[ORH_wxman]

11 minutes ago, ma blizzard said:

can we get a good november or early dec ice / mixed precip event? not asking for like a dec 08 or nov 1921 but like a nov 2002 or something like that would be cool.

for quite some time I've been hoping for a big qpf mixed precip event

 

We kind of had one in 2014...day before Thanksgiving. A lot of sleet in that one in our area.