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February Medium/Long Range Discussion


WinterWxLuvr
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1 hour ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Not at all. All guidance has been heading this way for days now. I don't think anyone here is surprised. I just think its fitting if it ends this way. There was really never any tangible reason to believe the pattern would be notably different going forward, outside of shorter wavelengths.

I’ve suspected the unfavorable forcing this year is too hostile for the chaos of shorter wavelengths alone to overcome.

It works sometimes. But it’s not like this pattern often morphs into a suddenly long term great pattern in March.  This isn’t like some years 2017/2018 come to mind) where I had hope for a more meaningful late season pattern change. Those years while hostile featured a much colder overall profile and weaker hostile forcing. Years like that do often flip late. Years like this usually don’t. 

What did happen in some similar years was the chaos of shorter wavelengths created an opening and we got lucky with one fluke. But the forcing this year has been so strong and consistent (as evidenced by the measurable effects of the pac ridge and AO) that I’ve been skeptical even March will offer much. Not too late to be wrong on that but hope is fading fast. 

 

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@C.A.P.E. I might actually check out the JB video today just to laugh at whatever ridiculous tact he tries to spin guidance to support the cold/snowy March forecast he has been humping hard the last week. I mean after he completely bombed on Dec/Jan/Feb I would think he will be full tilt trying to save whatever cred he has left with his latest ridiculous forecast in the face of absolutely no guidance support. Might be entertaining... 

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40 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@C.A.P.E. I might actually check out the JB video today just to laugh at whatever ridiculous tact he tries to spin guidance to support the cold/snowy March forecast he has been humping hard the last week. I mean after he completely bombed on Dec/Jan/Feb I would think he will be full tilt trying to save whatever cred he has left with his latest ridiculous forecast in the face of absolutely no guidance support. Might be entertaining... 

A couple days ago it was April 1982.

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2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

I’ve suspected the unfavorable forcing this year is too hostile for the chaos of shorter wavelengths alone to overcome.

It works sometimes. But it’s not like this pattern often morphs into a suddenly long term great pattern in March.  This isn’t like some years 2017/2018 come to mind) where I had hope for a more meaningful late season pattern change. Those years while hostile featured a much colder overall profile and weaker hostile forcing. Years like that do often flip late. Years like this usually don’t. 

What did happen in some similar years was the chaos of shorter wavelengths created an opening and we got lucky with one fluke. But the forcing this year has been so strong and consistent (as evidenced by the measurable effects of the pac ridge and AO) that I’ve been skeptical even March will offer much. Not too late to be wrong on that but hope is fading fast. 

 

When you look at the pool of really bad years do you note any pattern for the next year.  I remember us discussing a few multi-year stretches.  Given the relative rarity of years this bad, I was wondering if there wasn't an elevated chance of another really bad year following.

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13 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

When you look at the pool of really bad years do you note any pattern for the next year.  I remember us discussing a few multi-year stretches.  Given the relative rarity of years this bad, I was wondering if there wasn't an elevated chance of another really bad year following.

Not sure it can be much worse without a solid repeat of this winter.  

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35 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

When you look at the pool of really bad years do you note any pattern for the next year.  I remember us discussing a few multi-year stretches.  Given the relative rarity of years this bad, I was wondering if there wasn't an elevated chance of another really bad year following.

Don't ask questions you don't want the answer too

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58 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

When you look at the pool of really bad years do you note any pattern for the next year.  I remember us discussing a few multi-year stretches.  Given the relative rarity of years this bad, I was wondering if there wasn't an elevated chance of another really bad year following.

 

22 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Don't ask questions you don't want the answer too

I actually do wanna know...so we know whether we may need to cancel next winter already, lol (off the top of my head...at BWI, I know 1998-99 wasn't much...2012-13 kinda sucked, and 1973-74 was actually halfway decent total-wise)

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Just now, Maestrobjwa said:

 

I actually do wanna know...so we know whether we may need to cancel next winter already, lol (off the top of my head...at BWI, I know 1998-99 wasn't much...2012-13 kinda sucked, and 1973-74 was actually halfway decent total-wise)

I don’t really see any correlation.  

https://www.weather.gov/media/lwx/climate/dcasnow.pdf

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Just now, Maestrobjwa said:

 

I actually do wanna know...so we know whether we may need to cancel next winter already, lol (off the top of my head...at BWI, I know 1998-99 wasn't much...2012-13 kinda sucked, and 1973-74 was actually halfway decent total-wise)

I am not going to run the numbers right now...I am busy at work, but don't tell Mersky.  However...I know off the top of my head that most of the really god awful years that I found in that analog set to this years pattern I put together back around New Years were followed by not so great years the following year.  One that sticks out that was followed by a great year was 2002 but we had a perfect enso the following year...so I guess if we get a moderate central/west based nino then yea we could have a great year next year...but other then that most of the rest were followed by some variation of crap to mediocre at best.  However...most of our winters are crap to mediocre so that isn't really indicative of predictability other than normal odds.  But most were at least somewhat better, but again that isn't saying much since its really hard to get years with this little snow so even a repeat of a similar crap pattern is likely to produce at least a little better results.  

In summary...off the top of my head from the numbers I remember from my analogs that turned out to be correct for this year.... odds favor another pretty crappy year next year purely from a "what happened after similar years in the past".  

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Honestly I don't think there is any predictability here... but simply odds favor crap because odds favor a crap winter 70% of the time ANY year.  Only 30% of our winters are avg to above avg snowfall...  

Also there are lots of moving parts to these analogs.  For instance...2009 isn't a great analog with the AO but it was a perfect match in the pacific. 

2009.png.96b9b055bf95d2a288c35ac81165bfeb.png

Possibly the low solar prevented what should have been a raging positive AO with that pac pattern...or maybe it was something else...who knows... either way 2009 wasnt really good (except compared to this year) but it was followed by 2010.  If we add that as an analog then suddenly we have 2 recent examples of a crap pacific like this leading to a historic snowfall winter next year.  But then we are manipulating the data a little to include 2009...or are we?  What is more important the high latitude pattern or the pacific?  I dont know.  But you can probably splice this up however you want to show whatever you want.  In the end I don't think one year can predict the next.  

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Just now, jaydreb said:

Since 1960, for DC, the winters after our pathetic snowfall winters (arbitrarily defined as less than 4”):

16.7”

11.1”

11.6”

40.4”

3.1”

32.0”

7.8” 

Pretty average overall IMO.   

 

Some of those were not good analogs to this year though... they were crap but for different reasons.  I agree that there is not predictability but if we are looking at what happened in the past when "THIS" happened before, looking at radically different winters that just happened to produce no snow but for very different reasons isn't really useful imo.  

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32 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Some of those were not good analogs to this year though... they were crap but for different reasons.  I agree that there is not predictability but if we are looking at what happened in the past when "THIS" happened before, looking at radically different winters that just happened to produce no snow but for very different reasons isn't really useful imo.  

Fair enough.  I guess my general point is that crap one year does not necessarily lead to crap the next year, but you’re right that a better way to view it would be to break down the crap years a little more specifically into categories and see where we stand. 

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44 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Some of those were not good analogs to this year though... they were crap but for different reasons.  I agree that there is not predictability but if we are looking at what happened in the past when "THIS" happened before, looking at radically different winters that just happened to produce no snow but for very different reasons isn't really useful imo.  

So would it be better to look at the raging +++++AO winters and the winters that followed?...

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2 hours ago, cbmclean said:

When you look at the pool of really bad years do you note any pattern for the next year.  I remember us discussing a few multi-year stretches.  Given the relative rarity of years this bad, I was wondering if there wasn't an elevated chance of another really bad year following.

I wouldnt be the least bit surprised if next year was a complete shutout tbh. 

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