Winter 2019-2020 Discussion

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, forkyfork said:

if i remember correctly they showed the pac ridging in 14/15 but badly missed the downstream cold

Yes, the Euro seasonal actually did quite well with the PAC pattern....it had the +PNA connecting into the -EPO which is a very bullish cold signal, but for some reason it had temps mostly above normal with maybe an area of near normal in the upper plains/lakes.

[Torch Tiger]

22 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Just based off of what you provided for here anyways as far as snowfall goes, Two of those seasons were sub par but the rest were above or well above normal, No problem rolling the dice for here this winter with that look.

Some ratters there for SNE

[Typhoon Tip]

You know...I don't even know - are the seasonal forecast models  set up with a comprehensive footing that includes the broader spectrum of environmental parameters ?

In other words, it starts with chemistry and constituency of the fluid medium - one would think ... - and from there, apply thermodynamics, ...hit frappe on the blender (which is time).  

It just seems to me if that is true - and intuitively ...it really should be - than yeah... GW would probably be endemic in those physics, but not so much as result - but is piggy backed automatically.  And what I mean by the latter is that models would/should sort of 'end up' with a look that may carry some characters warmer, having arrived at that distinction 'organically'

- which as a separate matter, sometimes I muse ( humor ) at times if the Euro's top secret thing is really all correction factors that are hard statistical regresion techniques and the model really isn't that organic - it just achieves simulacrum.

 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

I do like a -pna slightly -nao pattern for us folks away from the eastern waters.

[raindancewx]

For reference - not quite as warm as last year, but it's amazing how much the warmth has caught up to last year. The analog map on the previous page is pretty close to what I had when I expected a Neutral winter up until I gave up on it around 9/25 and went El Nino. With a low-solar Neutral I think I had Boston around 60 inches of snow. With an El Nino, you run the risk the tropical forcing changes rapidly at some point and I think we lose the extended -NAO regime we've been in predominantly since mid-April. El Nino is El Nino because the warmest waters come up by Peru around Christmas - that little blotch of blue should get destroyed right around mid-December, so the fishermen should beat CPC again this year.

[pasnownut]

22 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm not trying to drive hype...not forecasting 100"+ in Boston..main take away from that is that odds of a ratter are relatively low.

Best quote of the day so far.....

Also said it the other week, that with no overwhelming forcing that we could swing back and forth with some favorable periods.  Thats from a rather simplistic view mind you, but at this lead, i think its hard to get to deep into the weeds to figure out how this winter evolves.  

[40/70 Benchmark]

13 hours ago, raindancewx said:

For reference - not quite as warm as last year, but it's amazing how much the warmth has caught up to last year. The analog map on the previous page is pretty close to what I had when I expected a Neutral winter up until I gave up on it around 9/25 and went El Nino. With a low-solar Neutral I think I had Boston around 60 inches of snow. With an El Nino, you run the risk the tropical forcing changes rapidly at some point and I think we lose the extended -NAO regime we've been in predominantly since mid-April. El Nino is El Nino because the warmest waters come up by Peru around Christmas - that little blotch of blue should get destroyed right around mid-December, so the fishermen should beat CPC again this year.

I agree regarding CPC potentially missing the boat on the late nino, but it will be close. Not sure I agree that a weak el nino will be worse for Boston, but it should be marginal and relatively late, so probably won't make a huge difference either way. I don't understand the logic behind the idea of low solar being bad for snow around here....doesn't mean its definitely wrong, but until I wrap my mind around causation, any statistical evidence is chaos due to sample size imo. I know some of the seasons in your data set, like 2010, could have easily played out much better snowfallwise. Even 2007 had a pretty big ending not too far north.

[Damage In Tolland]

Odds of a ratter seem 50/50. Lots of good mets are nervous about it 

[FXWX]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Odds of a ratter seem 50/50. Lots of good mets are nervous about it 

Can you name a few of the "lots" of good mets that are worried about a ratter?

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Odds of a ratter seem 50/50. Lots of good mets are nervous about it 

I disagree. 

1) Things do not look bad.

2) "Ratter" implies a pretty anomalously bad outcome, which is never "50/50..its like declaring a 50/50 shot that Boston sees 100".

Always silly.

[powderfreak]

52 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I disagree. 

1) Things do not look bad.

2) "Ratter" implies a pretty anomalously bad outcome, which is never "50/50..its like declaring a 50/50 shot that Boston sees 100".

Always silly.

Yeah it feels like “ratter” these days gets thrown around at times for any winter that isn’t above normal snow.

There’s also the usual pre-season nervousness that comes out time to time.

Hard to forecast a ratter in a climate where two good snowstorms can get BOS well on it’s way to average regardless of the rest of the winter.

[J.Spin]

15 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah it feels like “ratter” these days gets thrown around at times for any winter that isn’t above normal snow.

Was last season a… “ratter” in SNE?

[Torch Tiger]

The best snow event was in November. Not much else to say. We're due for a series of ratters and the threat is there 

[dryslot]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Dews said:

The best snow event was in November. Not much else to say. We're due for a series of ratters and the threat is there 

Looks like it could be gradient, Hope you end up on the right side of it............

[powderfreak]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Dews said:

The best snow event was in November. Not much else to say. We're due for a series of ratters and the threat is there 

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

[Torch Tiger]

5 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

96-97 was a ratter too...yet only people remember the non-winter storm rather the ongoing painful ratter. Best snow I saw was pre X-mas in NNE 

[ORH_wxman]

9 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

Yeah. Wasn't a great storm though for CNE...down to about N MA where it was decent but just a run of the mill 7 to 9 incher. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

9 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

Early March, yea. Great storm. Unfortunately, it was just two...Mid Nov and Early Mar...with mostly rainers in DJF. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Winters like last suck. I’d rather bang out a great month or two instead. 

[J Paul Gordon]

Ratters and torches already. At least things are consistent. It like Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox, if we keep talking up a big ratter with hysteric torches, then maybe the weather god (Br'er Fox) will throw us into the brier patch of hysterical cold and snow up to the eves.

[Torch Tiger]

4 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Odds of a ratter seem 50/50. Lots of good mets are nervous about it 

 DT JB wxbell all on-board with a real savage winter, cold and snow..it's a lock

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, J Paul Gordon said:

Ratters and torches already. At least things are consistent. It like Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox, if we keep talking up a big ratter with hysteric torches, then maybe the weather god (Br'er Fox) will throw us into the brier patch of hysterical cold and snow up to the eves.

Same thing every autumn...some are optimistic and others are pessimistic. 

Pretty soon we'll have a couple meltdowns over missing a 10 day threat on November 20th by those who pretend climo on 11/20 is equal to 1/20.

Or if we get a good snow event in November, the pessimists will claim we "wasted" the pattern and will have a ratter when it counts...ignoring 2014-2015, 2012-2013, 2004-2005, etc, etc.

The optimists will point out any analog that remotely matches this year and produced a ton of snow. 

Round and round and round we go. Lol. 

[CoastalWx]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

That looked like a classic congrats PF a few days earlier. I admit, I was annoyed a bit at last winter, but that storm was one of the most intense 3 hr blitz of snow I can recall. 
 But, here’s another funny twist. The storms we did get sort of overachieved just a tad. There are about 3-4 in addition to the March 4th storm that I thought 2-3” and got 4-5”. Obviously nothing to write home about, but you get it. 

[CoastalWx]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

Was last season a… “ratter” in SNE?

For Boston area, not at all. 

[raindancewx]

7 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I agree regarding CPC potentially missing the boat on the late nino, but it will be close. Not sure I agree that a weak el nino will be worse for Boston, but it should be marginal and relatively late, so probably won't make a huge difference either way. I don't understand the logic behind the idea of low solar being bad for snow around here....doesn't mean its definitely wrong, but until I wrap my mind around causation, any statistical evidence is chaos due to sample size imo. I know some of the seasons in your data set, like 2010, could have easily played out much better snowfallwise. Even 2007 had a pretty big ending not too far north.

I'm pretty happy with what I have for the Northeast for snow. One of the loose guidelines in El Ninos that I can do for Boston is to look at October rainfall in Albuquerque v. Boston snowfall. For El Ninos since 1931, this formula is about 90% likely to be within 26 inches of the observed total for Boston:

Boston July-June snowfall in inches = 51.416*(2.718^-0.2692x), where x is total precipitation in Albuquerque in October.

If you go back to the 1800s, with 15/17 low-solar El Nino years seeing less than 45 inches of snow in Boston, it seems like its fairly safe to eliminate most of the right side of the 90% confidence interval for this year, which would be 44", +/-26". I don't think Albuquerque rainfall is completely independent from solar activity...but it's pretty independent? In El Ninos, you definitely have real statistical relationships between the SW and NE for precipitation patterns. Total rainfall here so far is about 0.58" for October. We might get some snow by the end of the month or a bit more rain. 2014 is similar for rain here...but much higher solar activity, and completely different in October nationally. In 2018, we had 1.99" in October - that wasn't apparent when I did my Oct 10 forecast last year, but when it happened it was consistent with the idea of Boston being below average as you can see.

El Nino	Sun Jul-J	Bos Snow
1899	18.2	25.0
1900	8.6	17.5
1902	18.7	42.0
1911	5.4	31.6
1913	7.4	39.0
1914	44.5	22.3
1923	14.6	29.8
1930	46.3	40.8
1953	9.5	23.6
1963	29.1	63.0
1965	37.1	44.1
1976	23.2	58.5
1986	19.1	42.5
1994	36.9	14.9
2006	20.1	17.1
2009	13.2	35.7
2018	5.5	27.4
Mean	21.0	33.8

 

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Wasn’t there a storm that dropped a swath of 12-20” through the heart of SNE...like N.CT to just south of Boston in either February or March?  

I just remember Coastalwx telling me congrats a few days before he got 17-18” or something like that .

Yeah... he mehed his way to a jackpot. 
 

I don’t hate the tactic... just be fair about it. People rag on me for being a Debbie and then they do it themselves. 
 

Don’t hate the player, hate the game 

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

For Boston area, not at all. 

It’s a subjective thing as far as I can tell, so I really don’t have any idea.  I didn’t see anyone immediately jumping in with confirmation though, so presumably it wasn’t.

[Hoth]

4 hours ago, J.Spin said:

Was last season a… “ratter” in SNE?

F yes. Felt like three months of rain with a single decent event in March. Made worse by the heightened expectations going into the season and all the Modoki malarky. 

[SnoSki14]

4 hours ago, Dr. Dews said:

 DT JB wxbell all on-board with a real savage winter, cold and snow..it's a lock

JB also thinks the Earth has been in a global cooling phase for the past decade.

And though I like DT he can quickly get ahead of himself. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, SnoSki14 said:

JB also thinks the Earth has been in a global cooling phase for the past decade.

And though I like DT he can quickly get ahead of himself. 

Bottom line is none of us have a great grasp on the ling range.