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February 2019 General Discussion and Observation Thread


Stormlover74
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3 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

Just the ultimate FU, Boston gets its snow tonight, and then confluence kills the Wed event and DC gets slammed again. Not saying that happens, but it would be the cherry on top of this disaster of a "winter". 

I spoke to a woman yesterday from NC who had a ten inch snow this winter. This has truly been a snow hole this year. 

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1 minute ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Actually have a few flakes mixed in now uws 

I’m finding many ways to bust this winter.  That just rubs in my idea that had the precip shield been as expansive from the developing coastal as I expected back into NW NJ that NYC would have done okay here and maybe seen 2 inches of snow/sleet

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3 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

I’m finding many ways to bust this winter.  That just rubs in my idea that had the precip shield been as expansive from the developing coastal as I expected back into NW NJ that NYC would have done okay here and maybe seen 2 inches of snow/sleet

As this comes north, will we see a transition to snow in the Bronx/Westchester?

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9 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

I spoke to a woman yesterday from NC who had a ten inch snow this winter. This has truly been a snow hole this year. 

Yeah maybe, but Boston has had 4.8 inches of snow this whole season vs. 8.7 in Central Park so best case scenario for them they pull even with NYC by the end of tomorrow.

The I95 stretch from Phil to Boston has been the big snow hole this year.

 

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7 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

At this point I don’t know how much will make it up there.  The precip shield is pretty putrid.  Cranky is debating throwing in the towel on Twitter lol 

Yep this storm is depressing as they all have been except for November and the last one was decent. November had precip come in like an absolute wall and the last storm NYC was well below freezing at the start of the storm, seem  to need one of those things to happen for the city, boundary layer 33-35 with light precip never cuts it for the city   

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7 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Our climate is changing. We will see more blockbuster seasons for the next few decades before we eventually reach a critical mass and temps are too warm for snow

and I totally blew this one, I’ll admit it. Iight rain uws

A lot of people N S and W of us are having a decent season.

Cant win them all...

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7 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Our climate is changing. We will see more blockbuster seasons for the next few decades before we eventually reach a critical mass and temps are too warm for snow

and I totally blew this one, I’ll admit it. Iight rain uws

during the late cretaceous when dinosaurs roamed the earth...and the temps were far warmer then they are today... during the winter time it snowed in alaska....

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27 minutes ago, nycwinter said:

during the late cretaceous when dinosaurs roamed the earth...and the temps were far warmer then they are today... during the winter time it snowed in alaska....

Maybe we should all move there, except that it has been unseasonably warm there too this year. Though still pretty cold by our generally tame winter standards ( yes, even our snowiest winters are tame compared to others, just ask my BIL in ME who is tearing his hair out with the snow ).

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24 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The lack of snow this winter is par for the course for such a strong ridge north of Hawaii. That allows the SE Ridge to flex every time a low moves east.

C7A55073-E67C-4569-BC00-B199DD1DC270.gif.e6d8ef8db3f38abc8b34b6416da273cc.gif

 

@bluewave that is very interesting. In the Mid Atlantic forum we are trying to figure out the cause for the resilient WAR . Even when we seem to have Atlantic or pac blocking modeled or even in real time that feature does not break down or shift that much to the East or Southeast. 

bluewave to clarify you are saying the reason for this is the association with strong ridge north of Hawaii ?

And,  if that is correct what is the driver for that feature North of Hawaii?

I myself was wondering about the SSt East of Aussie and the OLR that forms waves, peaks and eddies that go from the SW Pacific to the SW Atlantic , is that the cause ?

Someone else thought is was the warm SSTs in the Atlantic but that goes against what you are saying , because the strong ridge north of Hawaii has nothing to do with Atlantic SSTs.  

Thanks 

 

    

 

 

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15 minutes ago, frd said:

 

@bluewave that is very interesting. In the Mid Atlantic forum we are trying to figure out the cause for the resilient WAR . Even when we seem to have Atlantic or pac blocking modeled or even in real time that feature does not break down or shift that much to the East or Southeast. 

bluewave to clarify you are saying the reason for this is the association with strong ridge north of Hawaii ?

And,  if that is correct what is the driver for that feature North of Hawaii?

I myself was wondering about the SSt East of Aussie and the OLR that forms waves, peaks and eddies that go from the SW Pacific to the SW Atlantic , is that the cause ?

Someone else thought is was the warm SSTs in the Atlantic but that goes against what you are saying , because the strong ridge north of Hawaii has nothing to do with Atlantic SSTs.  

Thanks 

 

    

 

 

My guess is that the ridge north of Hawaii is part fo the pressure pattern we normally see with a +SOI and La Niña. During the fall into winter there were unusually warm SST’s east of Australia and cooler west. That is what we normally see with La Niña/+SOI. So the record +SOI December for an El Niño fit the expected pattern from that SST configuration. The warmer waters west of the Date Line is also associated with stronger MJO activity. The active and strong MJO seemed to enhance the overall Niña look to the pattern.

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11 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The warmer waters west of the Date Line is also associated with stronger MJO activity which seemed to enhance the ovwrall Niña look to the pattern.

Thats great insights , thank you. 

One more question, maybe I am mistaken,  but I thought stronger MJO activity was a good thing?

I thought we had central Pac forcing which should have resulted in a Nino look for us here in the East. ( I guess maybe the lack of coupling may prolong the bad issues in the pattern, such as the High pressure the North of Hawiaii. - is that valid speculation ? ) 

And, are you saying because of the December + SOI values  contributed to a lack of of Ocean and atmospheric coupling and that effected the MJO to be in the more typical warmer phases , more so a Nina versus a Nino. 

Lastly,  wonder had the Nino been stronger would that have overwhelmed the SSTs around Aussie ?  and given a more typical Nino look as well. 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, frd said:

Thats great insights , thank you. 

One more question, maybe I am mistaken,  but I thought stronger MJO activity was a good thing?

I thought we had central Pac forcing which should have resulted in a Nino look for us here in the East. ( I guess maybe the lack of coupling may prolong the bad issues in the pattern, such as the High pressure the North of Hawiaii. - is that valid speculation ? ) 

And, are you saying because of the December + SOI values  contributed to a lack of of Ocean and atmospheric coupling and that effected the MJO to be in the more typical warmer phases , more so a Nina versus a Nino. 

Lastly,  wonder had the Nino been stronger would that have overwhelmed the SSTs around Aussie ?  and given a more typical Nino look as well. 

 

 

The MJO spending so much time in 4-6 was a big part of the problem. That combined with the other factors created an unfavorable pattern for snow.

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On 2/13/2019 at 11:23 AM, purduewx80 said:

The transition worked in from SW to NE, plain and simple. Take a look at the 00Z CHH sounding, for example. The warm layer from 700-800mb rushing in on 50-70KT SW winds caused the changeover - there is certainly not an ocean SW of here. BOS was switching over from SN to a mix of SN, FZRA and PL at the time.

868849696_ScreenShot2019-02-13at11_13_07AM.png.e5c58ca60d525a2a26835d428dc55d5e.png

The switch to RA or RAPL was caused by those stiff SE winds down low off the Atlantic, however. 

Be careful of judging precip types by any radar product you find online. They are often determining precip types based off a combo of model initialization and observations, many of which (automated stations especially) aren't able to differentiate between snow and pellets or fzra, etc. 

Yes, I was confused because the radar showed sleet and freezing rain creeping up the Jersey Coast while it was still snowing elsewhere and it actually changed over while this area was still supposedly "snowing" according to the radar.

It's interesting how in previous seasons this kind of storm would have hung on to being snow longer but in this season the changeovers have been happening much more quickly.  Related to the very warm air that's been in the South this month and the strong SE Ridge?

 

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30 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The MJO spending so much time in 4-6 was a big part of the problem. That combined with the other factors created an unfavorable pattern for snow.

He's also making the same point I was thinking about- if we had a strong el nino we would have had a much more favorable pattern, since that would have taken control of the Pacific.

I am yearning for a 2015-16 el nino - warm December and all lol.

 

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1 hour ago, bluewave said:

My guess is that the ridge north of Hawaii is part fo the pressure pattern we normally see with a +SOI and La Niña. During the fall into winter there were unusually warm SST’s east of Australia and cooler west. That is what we normally see with La Niña/+SOI. So the record +SOI December for an El Niño fit the expected pattern from that SST configuration. The warmer waters west of the Date Line is also associated with stronger MJO activity. The active and strong MJO seemed to enhance the overall Niña look to the pattern.

We had a combo of the worst part of an el nino (mild December plus suppression) plus the worst part of a la nina (mild back end of winter).  If we had an ACTUAL la nina the winter would have been a lot better than this.

 

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2 hours ago, weatherpruf said:

Maybe we should all move there, except that it has been unseasonably warm there too this year. Though still pretty cold by our generally tame winter standards ( yes, even our snowiest winters are tame compared to others, just ask my BIL in ME who is tearing his hair out with the snow ).

Best place to live if you want snow is lake effect regions, where you'll get snow no matter what the pattern is, because sooner or later you'll get a north to northwest wind as a front passes through.

The other region are the mountains in the west, Lake Tahoe up to Mt Rainier.  I dont think that region ever gets less than 100 inches of snow.

 

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10 hours ago, jm1220 said:

Just the ultimate FU, Boston gets its snow tonight, and then confluence kills the Wed event and DC gets slammed again. Not saying that happens, but it would be the cherry on top of this disaster of a "winter". 

This wasn't much of a snow for Boston either, they didn't even get the kind of storm we got on November 15, and even that one changed to rain lol.

I wonder what the biggest storm is that we have gotten that didn't change to rain this season- 1 inch?

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11 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

He's also making the same point I was thinking about- if we had a strong el nino we would have had a much more favorable pattern, since that would have taken control of the Pacific.

I am yearning for a 2015-16 el nino - warm December and all lol.

 

The SOI finally got the memo that this is supposed to be an El Niño year. This strong drop so late in the season is probably another first after being so positive early on.

https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/

18 Feb 2019 1006.97 1009.70 -35.88 -6.21 0.65
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Just now, bluewave said:

The SOI finally got the memo that this is supposed to be an El Niño year. This strong drop so late in the season is probably another first.

https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/

I never thought I'd see a winter more boring than 2011-12 this decade, well this winter definitely is.

Think we might see a bit of a March comeback like we've seen in other poor seasons like 1997-98 and 2011-12?

 

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3 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The SOI finally got the memo that this is supposed to be an El Niño year. This strong drop so late in the season is probably another first after being so positive early on.

https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/

18 Feb 2019 1006.97 1009.70 -35.88 -6.21 0.65

And it won't make any difference. Too little, too late.

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