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The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand


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1 hour ago, StantonParkHoya said:

You’re honestly a sicko if you still want slop at this point.

 

 

People can like what the like. I’m totally fine if it’s 60 degrees and sunny. I’m also not going to complain if I get a big snowstorm the end of March again like last year. I had by far my best storm since 2016 and longest stretch of snowcover on March 20th last year. My second best storm of the last 3 years was March 14th the year before and I had about 6 days of snowcover after that.  So for me it can be more than slop. But if my choice is 60 or 1-2” of slop I’ll take 60. 

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19 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

People can like what the like. I’m totally fine if it’s 60 degrees and sunny. I’m also not going to complain if I get a big snowstorm the end of March again like last year. I had by far my best storm since 2016 and longest stretch of snowcover on March 20th last year. My second best storm of the last 3 years was March 14th the year before and I had about 6 days of snowcover after that.  So for me it can be more than slop. But if my choice is 60 or 1-2” of slop I’ll take 60. 

There's your march snow storm. Just need to will it up the coast.

fv3p_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_51.png

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58 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

People can like what the like. I’m totally fine if it’s 60 degrees and sunny. I’m also not going to complain if I get a big snowstorm the end of March again like last year. I had by far my best storm since 2016 and longest stretch of snowcover on March 20th last year. My second best storm of the last 3 years was March 14th the year before and I had about 6 days of snowcover after that.  So for me it can be more than slop. But if my choice is 60 or 1-2” of slop I’ll take 60. 

My goal is to stop spring as long as possible.  So I am rooting for the slop.  Until May then Indont care until October. 

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23 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

My goal is to stop spring as long as possible.  So I am rooting for the slop.  Until May then Indont care until October. 

Sorta there. I feel a day above 80 is a waste, so if we can hold onto the 'winter' longer and spring is late, maybe we can zoom straight to October lol.

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3 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Because of last year's first day of spring snow...and evidence of one more punch of cold in the LR, ain't nobody should be completely shutting the blinds yet, lol

Yeah I was just joking. I'll give up once that Day 10-15 period passes and nothing happens. That's my final realistic window. Obviously something really freaky could happen after that but won't be tracking until it pops up.

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5 hours ago, cbmclean said:

But were those favorable outlooks really realistic though?  From discussion I have seen on here, it seems like a lot of warning signs were missed.

No disagreement about the LR models though.  I'm not sure I will ever again be able to take them seriously.

Warning signs are always easier to see in hindsight.  There are always going to be some factors that could throw a wrench in things.  There are so many variables and they are never going to be 100 percent perfect.  There were some legit "warning signs" which I will get into below but It's hard to say how easy it would have been back in the fall to see that they would indeed interfere so heavily with the nino signal. 

4 hours ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Well, the Nino pretty much completely failed, and many of the winter outlooks were predicated on that. But to be fair, it was clearly going to be a late developer it it did occur at all, and there were some who were hyping early blocking etc, similar to 2009-10, which was clearly a "reach".

IMO the nino didn't so much as fail as it was offset and muted by other influences.  We did have a weak nino.  The ONI peaked at +.9 in OND and the DJF number was +.8.  It actually wasn't far off from the top analogs I picked out back in the fall.  2002/3 had a winter ONI of .9.  1978 was .7, 2015 was only .6 and 1964 was 1.1.   2009/10 was always low on my analog list because it was a much stronger Enso peaking around 1.6. 

And there were "hints" of a nino pattern from time to time, even when the MJO went into god awful phases again in January we still had a major arctic outbreak and some snow events.  So in the end the real pattern ended up a blend of the nino forcing and the mjo forcing. 

Regarding the MJO, it does seem there is some truth to what JB was saying about the warm pool east of Australia.  Others have also said that could be what caused the persistently +SOI and convection near the Maritime Continent.  Problem is that wasn't really easy to see from back in the fall.  That warm pool didnt ramp up until winter and wasn't on any of the guidance.  Chalk it up to sh!t happens. 

The thing I did miss that should have been a warning was that if you only look at weaker west based enso events there is an even chance of them being interfered with by other factors for enough of the winter to preclude a blockbuster year.  For every 1978, 2003, and 2015 there was a 1969 or 1980 or 1995.  1969 and 1995 both barely made it into moderate status and were slightly stronger nino's than this year but they were the only two outlier non blockbuster moderate nino's.  All of the strong modoki nino's were blockbusters except 1992 and many think the volcanic eruption that year disrupted the normal patterns.  So if we look at all the nino's that peaked between 1.2 and 2, six out of seven were blockbuster winters and the only dud was 1992 which has a possible reason it had almost none of the characteristics of the other 6.  So that seems to be the sweet spot.  That doesn't mean a weaker nino than that cannot end up very good, several of them did...but that when it is weaker than a solid moderate level, the enso signal seems to be weak enough that is can be destructively interfered with for significant periods by other more dominant factors.  This year that happened. 

Bob brought up a really good point with the PDO and in the end that didn't help but I am also not sure that was so easy to see back in the fall.  The PDO was pretty ambiguous and while it was far from ideal it wasnt the worst ever either.  There was a warm pool along the Pac NW coast and cooler waters to the west but the warm pool near Japan was a problem.  Overall it was kind of meh.  But some of the good analogs had even worse PDO's including 1964 which was a wall to wall blockbuster winter.  So I am not sure in the fall it was easy to see the PDO would be a major problem. 

I think the biggest mistake I made was not properly sorting Nino types back in the fall.  I tended to lump most of the modoki years together and that gave a higher probability of a big year than if I had filtered them better by strength.  The nino did peak a little below projections but not by much.  I think the consensus in the fall was a peak around 1 or maybe 1.1 so a peak of .9 wasnt a huge bust.  But every bit weaker probably did increase the chances that other factors could run interference.  But even if I had properly sorted the nino's by strength I am not sure I would have been able to see the factors that would pull this one into the "interfered with" category vs the typical nino pattern ones.  The Australia warm pool wasn't evident until later.  The MJO didnt start to go wrong until mid December and it wasnt apparent that was a BIG problem until mid January.  That was when I had the uh oh moment, when I saw the mjo wave falling apart as soon as it got into cold phases and a new one reorganizing back near the maritime continent.  That was when I realized things weren't going to plan.  I had said in December "we will be ok so long as the MJO doesn't die in 8 and then go right back into warm phases" so when I saw that exact thing happening it was impossible for me to ignore.   I guess the thing I could beat myself up over the most is that my confidence was way too high and if I had properly sorted the nino's I would have seen there was a significant chance that this one would NOT go according to a typical modoki nino pattern.  Oh well live and learn. 

ETA:  forgot to mention two other things being kicked around.  The TNH, but that is mostly an effect not a cause.  The MJO spending long periods in warm phases is more likely linked to the cause of that since the MJO was in nina phases and a nina is more associated with the TNH pattern we had so again we had conflicting signals between the Nino and other factors.  One last thing was the warm water surrounding the southeast.  There is some correlation between that and the SE ridge and so that could have been one more nail in our coffin offsetting attempts at a nino pattern. 

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7 hours ago, cbmclean said:

But were those favorable outlooks really realistic though?  From discussion I have seen on here, it seems like a lot of warning signs were missed.

No disagreement about the LR models though.  I'm not sure I will ever again be able to take them seriously.

And see, this here...is kinda where I'm at too. I get that LR cannot be perfect, but...this year, it seemed like they were useless for even getting a HINT of the direction things were going! (maybe I'm wrong about that--but it certainly felt like we were flying blind most of the season. Felt like everybody was confused about everything, lol)

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Slightly stronger signal and closer tucked into the coast low on mslp for a coastal around the 20th (day 10-11) on the overnight EPS but little response on the snowfall means. Thought the 500s might have degraded a touch with more of a positive tilted mean trough through that period. Generally speaking the temps look to be the issue for the members that do have the storm, though more so on the ground then at 850s. 10/11 days so plenty of time to see improvements. Or go into the tank. Take your pick.

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2 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Slightly stronger signal and closer tucked into the coast low on mslp for a coastal around the 20th (day 10-11) on the overnight EPS but little response on the snowfall means. Thought the 500s might have degraded a touch with more of a positive tilted mean trough through that period. Generally speaking the temps look to be the issue for the members that do have the storm, though more so on the ground then at 850s. 10/11 days so plenty of time to see improvements. Or go into the tank. Take your pick.

I'm sure we can still manage chilly rain on March 20th. I noticed much of last night's rain fell with temps in the upper 30s. Headed in the right direction!

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8 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

Definitely a signal for a coastal around the 20th - 22nd time frame on the GEFS.

I think we're still in for one more chance or heartbreak depending on your view point lol.

gfs-ememb_lowlocs_us_45.png

gfs-ens_T850a_us_45.png

One more round.  I didn’t hear no bell. 

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15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Piss in a can 

My first beer ever! I had 6 of them in my backyard before walking to school in the 7th grade. Wasn't bad. They were warm and I polished them off in a out 15 minutes.

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4 hours ago, jewell2188 said:

Use to be a light beer type but last few years the darker beers and craft beers have grown on me. Except IPA’s.....they are just gross lol

Time for some palate training here I think. IPAs are defo not gross. Well, I am sure there are some poorly executed ones, but there are plenty of superb ones to choose from.

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