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December/January Medium/Long Range Discussion


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5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It's the mjo. Not only is it in nearly unprecedented territory for a nino but it's taking forever to cycle through the warm phases. I'll admit I didn't foresee that. Until that weakens or gets out of 5/6 we are not going to be able to sustain an eastern trough. 

You really did it now. Impending mass exodus to the Panic Room lol.

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Just now, Bob Chill said:

nah, crystal clear on this panel. We're good, bad, and everything else. 

BOMM_phase_33m_full.gif

Bob, could you educate me a bit on this chart?  I understand the octants, but what are the x and y axes RMM1/RMM2?  What is the green line "BOMM"?  And what are all the yellow lines?

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Just now, cbmclean said:

Bob, could you educate me a bit on this chart?  I understand the octants, but what are the x and y axes RMM1/RMM2?  What is the green line "BOMM"?  And what are all the yellow lines?

lol. It was a joke post. BOMM is the australian model. The green line is the mean and the yellow lines are all the ensemble members. The #s are a numerical measurement of the strength of the wave. Anything over 2 is a pretty strong wave. 

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19 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It's the mjo. Not only is it in nearly unprecedented territory for a nino but it's taking forever to cycle through the warm phases. I'll admit I didn't foresee that. Until that weakens or gets out of 5/6 we are not going to be able to sustain an eastern trough. 

Unprecedented? So there are no other nino years where the mjo did this? (what happened in the failed years of 94-95, 79-80, 68-69? Or was it just a different impediment for each one? Just wondering if there's a common thread here...because it seems like other factors can make weak ninos fail sometimes)

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17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It's the mjo. Not only is it in nearly unprecedented territory for a nino but it's taking forever to cycle through the warm phases. I'll admit I didn't foresee that. Until that weakens or gets out of 5/6 we are not going to be able to sustain an eastern trough. 

How could you foresee it

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3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

lol. It was a joke post. BOMM is the australian model. The green line is the mean and the yellow lines are all the ensemble members. The #s are a numerical measurement of the strength of the wave. Anything over 2 is a pretty strong wave. 

Yeah I realized you were being sarcastic (about the clarity), but it seems there is very little easily available info on how to read that octant chart so I appreciate the info.

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16 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

It's not like we havent been down this road and studied the mythical day 10+ super spectacular pattern to end all patterns before yet we vow that we've learned and wont let the same mistakes cloud our vision ever again. Well, here we are again. As much as the eternal optimists wont admit, things are slowly unraveling. I will be content honestly if we can salvage a 10-day window of winter weather this year. That seems reasonable enough doesnt it? :wacko::blink:

In fairness I never bought into the early January potential. The system on the 3/4 has some potential as an island in a sea of crap type of way but overall I thought it was too soon and the mjo progression argued against a real flip to favorable until later. 

The changes towards the end of the gefs and EPS have me slightly concerned. I know analogs aren't perfect. 1995 happened and we don't really know why when all the other best analogs were so different. Maybe this is another anomaly.  I'm aware of that potential. But if I expected it to be warm now the fact it is doesn't bother me. I won't panic until I see tangible evidence the expected pattern flip mid month is in trouble. 

As for the "optimism" and "why do we fall for projected pattern flip lessons" I could flip that.  Why don't the pessimists ever learn from years like 1987, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2015, 2016?  

Flips do happen. I remember all those years. How bad they were until mid January. They all flipped cold and at least somewhat snowy after. Some epically so. And several of them were ninos. And analogs I'm too young to remember like 66, 69, and 78 argue in favor of it also. I remember those examples because I'm an optimist. Others latch onto the fail years and ignore those because they are pessimists. 

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Just now, leesburg 04 said:

How could you foresee it

Exactly. We're experiencing weather being weather. Plain and simple. There's a reason that the most advanced computer models in the world (far better than any person) struggle with accuracy at just 2 week leads. 2 months? heh. They can do "ok" but trying to accurately predict anything months in advance comes with significant challenges. 

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14 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Exactly. We're experiencing weather being weather. Plain and simple. There's a reason that the most advanced computer models in the world (far better than any person) struggle with accuracy at just 2 week leads. 2 months? heh. They can do "ok" but trying to accurately predict anything months in advance comes with significant challenges. 

Honestly that's why looking out the window will always be the best forecast. I think the advancement in long range forecasting is incredible but in the end you are still relying on predictions to happen to help predict your prediction 

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1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

In fairness I never bought into the early January potential. The system on the 3/4 has some potential as an island in a sea of crap type of way but overall I thought it was too soon and the mjo progression argued against a real flip to favorable until later. 

The changes towards the end of the gefs and EPS have me slightly concerned. I know analogs aren't perfect. 1995 happened and we don't really know why when all the other best analogs were so different. Maybe this is another anomaly.  I'm aware of that potential. But if I expected it to be warm now the fact it is doesn't bother me. I won't panic until I see tangible evidence the expected pattern flip mid month is in trouble. 

As for the "optimism" and "why do we fall for projected pattern flip lessons" I could flip that.  Why don't the pessimists ever learn from years like 1987, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2015, 2016?  

Flips do happen. I remember all those years. How bad they were until mid January. They all flipped cold and at least somewhat snowy after. Some epically so. And several of them were ninos. And analogs I'm too young to remember like 66, 69, and 78 argue in favor of it also. I remember those examples because I'm an optimist. Others latch onto the fail years and ignore those because they are pessimists. 

I am not part of the mass rush to the cliff yet.  But just in the spirit of general discussion I will say that I am generally pessimistic by nature.  That being said I actually believe that my snow pessimism is generally justified.  I am a person who loves snow and cold, who lives in a region where the climate does not favor snow and cold (SE is even worse than MA!), living in a time where the global climate is become less and less conducive to winter cold.  I live with the honest fear that every snow storm will be my last. 

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1 minute ago, WxUSAF said:

That progression makes much more sense vs the euro or gfs, although it may be too fast going around the horn.

Much of my optimism is based on 2 things.

1.  I think we saw the base state before this mjo wave and it was good. 

2.  I don't expect the mjo to spend the whole winter in phases 3-6. 

If I fail because of an unprecedented mjo that cycles around in warm phases all winter so be it. I still doubt that. 

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Just now, cbmclean said:

I am not part of the mass rush to the cliff yet.  But just in the spirit of general discussion I will say that I am generally pessimistic by nature.  That being said I actually believe that my snow pessimism is generally justified.  I am a person who loves snow and cold, who lives in a region where the climate does not favor snow and cold (SE is even worse than MA!), living in a time where the global climate is become less and less conducive to winter cold.  I live with the honest fear that every snow storm will be my last. 

We discuss all the different indexes and patterns and models and so on on this forum. Weather is complex and snow in the MA is complex (never easy) And you make the blanket statement that “the global climate is becoming less and less conducive to winter cold”. Curious if you have any evidence of that or if it’s just an opinion

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I am a bit more at peace with failing this year (what helps is that...most likely...if we suffer, everybody to the north suffers too! So at least it's not a snowhole like the last two year!) I'm a bit of a believer in "we're due"...and based on our history, and the fact that, near a solar minimum, either the winter just before it, or the winter just after it tends to be snowy (like 95-96 was after that awful 94-95 winter was!) That, and...only twice in since the 1883/84 winter have we gone more than three consecutive winters of below average snow. So next year...perhaps we'll be due!

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Just now, psuhoffman said:

Much of my optimism is based on 2 things.

1.  I think we saw the base state before this mjo wave and it was good. 

2.  I don't expect the mjo to spend the whole winter in phases 3-6. 

If I fail because of an unprecedented mjo that cycles around in warm phases all winter so be it. I still doubt that. 

I still doubt it too, just too much working against it. But I liked seeing us step down into a good pattern over a couple weeks rather than now hoping for an epic switch flip that’s still like 3 weeks away. With a step down, we probably go into our hopefully epic pattern with 15-25% of climo snowfall and look forward to some good events to get us above climo on the season. Now we’re potentially going into a great pattern (that hopefully arrives) with almost zero on the board. Sure we could still be above climo in the year. Only takes 1-2 big storms for us to do that. But the risk of a fail is higher the longer we go with zero snowflakes. No other way to slice it.

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And @psuhoffman I agree that this MJO wave from hell wasnt forseeable. Subseasonal forecating is still really bad globally. It’s a major weakness amongst all major world met organizations.  And it’s pretty unlikely we stay stuck in phases 4-6 forever or much longer.  But this wave will sink a solid 4-5 weeks of winter, even if it’s not prime climo, it’s when we usually get something...

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I usually come here for the good analysis by psu, bob, and others.  This board has become a haven for crying and whining lately.  The weeklies show the pattern change is coming as well as Isotherm's updated analysis.   Some of you need a new hobby other than just living on the changes of each model run.  I want it to snow as much as the next person, but I'm also trying to learn more about the weather as well and the crying and complaining constantly isn't allowing anyone to do that.

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20 minutes ago, SnowGolfBro said:

We discuss all the different indexes and patterns and models and so on on this forum. Weather is complex and snow in the MA is complex (never easy) And you make the blanket statement that “the global climate is becoming less and less conducive to winter cold”. Curious if you have any evidence of that or if it’s just an opinion

Well, I did not mean to to start an AGW debate in this forum, I was just discussing my personal pessimism.  I probably shouldn't have mentioned it at all.

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Just have to be patient. If we get to January 15 and things still look bleak, then it becomes time to be concerned. Had we hit on that storm in December, we would be talking about a 2009-2010 redux. 

Might be time for some to either step away for a couple of weeks or stop investing so much in each run. Unless it's a real fluke, nothing of significance is happening for a few weeks. Is what it is. Let's just hope we make up for it and January 20-March 10 is rocking.

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