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Winter 2020-21 Discussion


CAPE
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32 minutes ago, nj2va said:

Tracking winter used to be way more fun before these long range seasonal models came around.  

They generally are all depicting a 'typical Nina' look, and we are clearly in a Nina. People get too locked into these monthly means though, as if the h5 pattern will always look like a LR smoothed mean in real time lol. Ultimately, we just cant know, and there will be some chances even if the winter does overall end up a dumpster fire. 

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40 minutes ago, CAPE said:

They generally are all depicting a 'typical Nina' look, and we are clearly in a Nina. People get too locked into these monthly means though, as if the h5 pattern will always look like a LR smoothed mean in real time lol. Ultimately, we just cant know, and there will be some chances even if the winter does overall end up a dumpster fire. 

Probably. But there is a chance this is an epic fail if the result of an actual Nina during a period when we were already experiencing a Nina type pattern due to other factors leads to an Uber ultra Nina pattern. We could get a stable +3-5 std dv pac ridge that floods the conus with Pac puke all winter. It’s not necessarily the most likely outcome but it wouldn’t shock me.  On a personal note (and yes I realize this makes me an ass) if we have the choice between some pathetic 6” from several slop storms winter or a complete blank were its 55-65 all winter and we don’t even get a flake I would take the latter just to be able to chuckle at all the “it can’t be worse than last year” posts. Those people obviously aren’t paying attention. It can always be worse. Always.  

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1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Probably. But there is a chance this is an epic fail if the result of an actual Nina during a period when we were already experiencing a Nina type pattern due to other factors leads to an Uber ultra Nina pattern. We could get a stable +3-5 std dv pac ridge that floods the conus with Pac puke all winter. It’s not necessarily the most likely outcome but it wouldn’t shock me.  On a personal note (and yes I realize this makes me an ass) if we have the choice between some pathetic 6” from several slop storms winter or a complete blank were its 55-65 all winter and we don’t even get a flake I would take the latter just to be able to chuckle at all the “it can’t be worse than last year” posts. Those people obviously aren’t paying attention. It can always be worse. Always.  

I love having you around but look at my last post above. You did it on first down LOL.

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2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Probably. But there is a chance this is an epic fail if the result of an actual Nina during a period when we were already experiencing a Nina type pattern due to other factors leads to an Uber ultra Nina pattern. We could get a stable +3-5 std dv pac ridge that floods the conus with Pac puke all winter. It’s not necessarily the most likely outcome but it wouldn’t shock me.  On a personal note (and yes I realize this makes me an ass) if we have the choice between some pathetic 6” from several slop storms winter or a complete blank were its 55-65 all winter and we don’t even get a flake I would take the latter just to be able to chuckle at all the “it can’t be worse than last year” posts. Those people obviously aren’t paying attention. It can always be worse. Always.  

In a way, I agree with you here (no, not the part where you say that this makes you an ass...well, maybe sorta!).  I personally see little difference between 6" slop spread over several events, that disappear before you sneeze...and dealing with 55-60 degrees most of the winter.  Honestly (and this is simply conjecture on my part), I don't see us having quite so consistent a level of warmth as we did last year, and our single best event being...all of 1.5" total.  Whether that means anything, who knows.  But yeah, if we're going to have a couple of slop storms, who cares, might as well have it be "late fall" most of the time instead!  I just hope we don't have mosquitos still hanging around in January, please!

Interestingly, I looked up DJF last year (2019-20) and DJF from 2015-16 (year we got the blizzard).  At least for DCA, last year was warmer over those 3 winter months compared to '15-16, and more consistently so.  And that is after a +11.5 departure in Dec. 2015!!  Take out Dec. 2015 and you see a different picture that year.  I know people like to "dis" that winter as a one-and-done luck out with the blizzard that sucked otherwise, but fact is...we DID luck out.  And it wasn't all luck.  We were graced with a favorable pattern and a STJ on 'roids through the middle-end part of January.  And in fact, besides the awful warmth in December, Jan-Feb were kinda at or slightly below normal overall (2nd half of Feb did get warmer, to be sure, as I recall).  Last year didn't even give us any chance for a luck event, really.  Oh, and last year, DCA did not record a single max temperature of 32 or below at all.

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1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I love having you around but look at my last post above. You did it on first down LOL.

See bold part. 

3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Probably. But there is a chance this is an epic fail if the result of an actual Nina during a period when we were already experiencing a Nina type pattern due to other factors leads to an Uber ultra Nina pattern. We could get a stable +3-5 std dv pac ridge that floods the conus with Pac puke all winter. It’s not necessarily the most likely outcome but it wouldn’t shock me.  On a personal note (and yes I realize this makes me an ass) if we have the choice between some pathetic 6” from several slop storms winter or a complete blank were its 55-65 all winter and we don’t even get a flake I would take the latter just to be able to chuckle at all the “it can’t be worse than last year” posts. Those people obviously aren’t paying attention. It can always be worse. Always.  

I’ve been very clear I think this year will very likely be below avg.  But how much below I have no gut feeling on.  And all it ever takes is for us to get lucky a couple times and suddenly we have a decent snow season even in a crap pattern year. But the chances we get a really awful year similar to last is not 0.  And if we get a really strong flat central pac ridge +NAO pattern like all guidance suggests that’s a big problem.  Everything in that post I made last December (that Mersky picked a fight over) basically saying we were in big trouble, would apply again. Just because we suffered last year won’t make that pattern any less hostile for snow. I guess my main point is the odds we get an equally awful season to last are a lot higher than some wave to admit. I don’t think that’s Likely how this plays out. But I’m wary that it could. 

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35 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

See bold part. 

I’ve been very clear I think this year will very likely be below avg.  But how much below I have no gut feeling on.  And all it ever takes is for us to get lucky a couple times and suddenly we have a decent snow season even in a crap pattern year. But the chances we get a really awful year similar to last is not 0.  And if we get a really strong flat central pac ridge +NAO pattern like all guidance suggests that’s a big problem.  Everything in that post I made last December (that Mersky picked a fight over) basically saying we were in big trouble, would apply again. Just because we suffered last year won’t make that pattern any less hostile for snow. I guess my main point is the odds we get an equally awful season to last are a lot higher than some wave to admit. I don’t think that’s Likely how this plays out. But I’m wary that it could. 

I hear ya and I’m old enough to remember the winter of 90-91 too. That winter down in my neck of the woods made last year look good. So god awful winters are always on the table. However, since it’s all about perspective, just a handful of events can certainly change the feeling. If we could get a few periods with decent cold and then get lucky with a little snow I think we’d all rank that above last year.

Truthfully though I don’t really give it much thought. Whatever it is, I have no control over it.

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1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

See bold part. 

I’ve been very clear I think this year will very likely be below avg.  But how much below I have no gut feeling on.  And all it ever takes is for us to get lucky a couple times and suddenly we have a decent snow season even in a crap pattern year. But the chances we get a really awful year similar to last is not 0.  And if we get a really strong flat central pac ridge +NAO pattern like all guidance suggests that’s a big problem.  Everything in that post I made last December (that Mersky picked a fight over) basically saying we were in big trouble, would apply again. Just because we suffered last year won’t make that pattern any less hostile for snow. I guess my main point is the odds we get an equally awful season to last are a lot higher than some wave to admit. I don’t think that’s Likely how this plays out. But I’m wary that it could. 

I'm wondering if we are ridiculously (and somewhat jokingly) splitting hairs over what's defined as "equally awful" here...Like the whole 6" of slop vs 1.8" of slop. I approach the argument in the most literal sense: that if we get 6 inches instead of 1 it's still better. Even 4 inches instead of one would mathematically classify as "not as bad". However in the less literal, more subjective sense? Probably not, lol But mathematically, seeing as it won't take much to beat 1.8"...I'd like to believe there's enough "chaos" in the equation to beat that (or else it would be a historic occurrence that hasn't happened in our 140 years of records...Even stretches of bad years you'd get a 6-8 incher in there, lol)

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16 hours ago, nj2va said:

Tracking winter used to be way more fun before these long range seasonal models came around.  

Then ignore them and look at typical tellies,incidies,base state, catapillars, squirrels, nuts and all of the stuff we used to and go from there.  

Thats not a dig, thats just trying to keep it fun.  

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16 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

See bold part. 

I’ve been very clear I think this year will very likely be below avg.  But how much below I have no gut feeling on.  And all it ever takes is for us to get lucky a couple times and suddenly we have a decent snow season even in a crap pattern year. But the chances we get a really awful year similar to last is not 0.  And if we get a really strong flat central pac ridge +NAO pattern like all guidance suggests that’s a big problem.  Everything in that post I made last December (that Mersky picked a fight over) basically saying we were in big trouble, would apply again. Just because we suffered last year won’t make that pattern any less hostile for snow. I guess my main point is the odds we get an equally awful season to last are a lot higher than some wave to admit. I don’t think that’s Likely how this plays out. But I’m wary that it could. 

Are you buying the models showing a strong/very strong La Niña peak? 

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2 hours ago, frd said:

Weaker vortex early on might would support this outcome. 

The funny thing is, and they mentioned this in the New England forum, the models showing the -NAO December, also have a +AO....I would think it would be pretty rare to have a +AO/-NAO combo...usually they go + or - together, they usually aren’t out of phase with each other. I guess we’ll see

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3 hours ago, snowman19 said:

The funny thing is, and they mentioned this in the New England forum, the models showing the -NAO December, also have a +AO....I would think it would be pretty rare to have a +AO/-NAO combo...usually they go + or - together, they usually aren’t out of phase with each other. I guess we’ll see

This is true but one thing to consider here is the official method for measuring the AO and NAO phases(surface based), vs the sensible weather impacts we associate with the h5 heights in those domains. They mostly should be aligned, but not always.

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On 10/12/2020 at 8:04 PM, Always in Zugzwang said:

In a way, I agree with you here (no, not the part where you say that this makes you an ass...well, maybe sorta!).  I personally see little difference between 6" slop spread over several events, that disappear before you sneeze...and dealing with 55-60 degrees most of the winter.  Honestly (and this is simply conjecture on my part), I don't see us having quite so consistent a level of warmth as we did last year, and our single best event being...all of 1.5" total.  Whether that means anything, who knows.  But yeah, if we're going to have a couple of slop storms, who cares, might as well have it be "late fall" most of the time instead!  I just hope we don't have mosquitos still hanging around in January, please!

Interestingly, I looked up DJF last year (2019-20) and DJF from 2015-16 (year we got the blizzard).  At least for DCA, last year was warmer over those 3 winter months compared to '15-16, and more consistently so.  And that is after a +11.5 departure in Dec. 2015!!  Take out Dec. 2015 and you see a different picture that year.  I know people like to "dis" that winter as a one-and-done luck out with the blizzard that sucked otherwise, but fact is...we DID luck out.  And it wasn't all luck.  We were graced with a favorable pattern and a STJ on 'roids through the middle-end part of January.  And in fact, besides the awful warmth in December, Jan-Feb were kinda at or slightly below normal overall (2nd half of Feb did get warmer, to be sure, as I recall).  Last year didn't even give us any chance for a luck event, really.  Oh, and last year, DCA did not record a single max temperature of 32 or below at all.

I agree about 2016. Given the pattern from early January to mid February and then another decent pattern period in March I think it was more bad luck we didn’t get more hits than it was good luck we got one. 

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4 hours ago, CAPE said:

This is true but one thing to consider here is the official method for measuring the AO and NAO phases(surface based), vs the sensible weather impacts we associate with the h5 heights in those domains. They mostly should be aligned, but not always.

Unfortunately a -NAO in December without PNA or AO help is unlikely to save us. We typically need multiple things to line up to get much snow before Xmas. 

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8 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Unfortunately a -NAO in December without PNA or AO help is unlikely to save us. We typically need multiple things to line up to get much snow before Xmas. 

Unless it is a legit, sustained west-based block- but that is unlikely to occur unless the AO is also negative. I guess there is some possibility the mean Pac ridge is close enough to the west coast in early winter to pop a +PNA  for a time. Some of the climate models have suggested this before the Pac goes to total crap by mid winter. Latest CFS runs have backed off on that idea, and also any semblance of HL help. It is starting to get a clue.

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