February 2023

[SnoSki14]

12 minutes ago, Winter Wizard said:

March 2010 is a great example of how a -NAO block in March far from guarantees a cold pattern developing. If you look at the other cold/snowy March cases recently that had NAO/AO blocking, it was because there was help in the Pacific domain. Currently I'm hard pressed to see the Pacific working in the East Coast's favor for the foreseeable future. 

We're definitely not seeing that type of blocking. At best it'll be an east based -NAO.

Heights look very low over and around Hudson bay & southern Canada because that's where a portion of the TPV will hang. 

[Volcanic Winter]

10 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Oh, the crappy PAC isn’t quitting anytime soon. It’s still total garbage going into early March and I’m sure beyond that point

Snowman (or anyone), regarding the persistence of the Southeast ridge, what do you see as needing to occur to finally see its winter influence reduced? Is an ENSO shakeup enough or is it more deeply tied to SST forcings in other areas? This is something I don’t know much about but am curious to learn. 

[winterwx21]

68 degrees here! What a day. Spectacular. 

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

This is definitely a HUGE example of read more

post less. This December’s pattern was similar to the years you mentioned…

No it was not, 2010 was a historic pattern, this one wasn't.  The temperatures don't even come close to matching.

This was way more like the 80s pattern which was way before your time dude.  Plenty of cold snowless Decembers then.

 

[LibertyBell]

58 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Winters with less than 1" snowfall in December and < 3" total in January-February:

1918-1919, 1931-1932, 1972-1973, 1991-1992, 1997-1998

2001-02 had a trace of snow in December and 3.5" in January-February (nothing afterward).

Have there been any with more than 6" in December and less than 3 inches January-February Don?

 

[Allsnow]

22 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

68 degrees here! What a day. Spectacular. 

Beautiful. Let’s keep this please 

[donsutherland1]

20 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Have there been any with more than 6" in December and less than 3 inches January-February Don?

 

Yes. 1912-13: 11.4” December; 2.9” January-February.

[SnoSki14]

8 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Beautiful. Let’s keep this please 

Ecological disaster.

[Winter Wizard]

37 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

We're definitely not seeing that type of blocking. At best it'll be an east based -NAO.

Heights look very low over and around Hudson bay & southern Canada because that's where a portion of the TPV will hang. 

Agreed, this does not look close to December in terms of magnitude of the blocking. NAO is much more meaningful for Europe than the US anyway. Certainly strong agreement that Canada will be chillier than normal but not sure how much of that will seep into the US besides the Upper Midwest and the Rockies. 

[Allsnow]

1 minute ago, Winter Wizard said:

Agreed, this does not look close to December in terms of magnitude of the blocking. NAO is much more meaningful for Europe than the US anyway. Certainly strong agreement that Canada will be chillier than normal but not sure how much of that will seep into the US besides the Upper Midwest and the Rockies. 

Yeah, this is going to turn out to be more of the same. Ridge of The Atlantic is way too strong and the pna won’t change 

[lee59]

57 degrees and windy here.

[GaWx]

58 minutes ago, Volcanic Winter said:

Snowman (or anyone), regarding the persistence of the Southeast ridge, what do you see as needing to occur to finally see its winter influence reduced? Is an ENSO shakeup enough or is it more deeply tied to SST forcings in other areas? This is something I don’t know much about but am curious to learn. 

 Based on what I've read by pro mets, near record warm SST anomalies in the Maritime Continent for the last few years have been favoring a SE ridge more by increasing the % of winter days in the MC of the MJO, increasing the magnitude of the MJO when in the MC, and causing tropical forcing patterns to sometimes be MC-like even when the official MJO wasn't in the MC. Therefore, the MC waters would need to cool relative to surrounding waters to reduce the domination of the SE ridge.

[snowman19]

 Based on what I've read by pro mets, near record warm SST anomalies in the Maritime Continent for the last few years have been favoring a SE ridge more by increasing the % of winter days in the MC of the MJO, increasing the magnitude of the MJO when in the MC, and causing tropical forcing patterns to sometimes be MC-like even when the official MJO wasn't in the MC. Therefore, the MC waters would need to cool relative to surrounding waters to reduce the domination of the SE ridge.

I also think the unbelievably warm SSTs along and off the coast are causing a positive feedback loop, magnifying it even more

[winterwx21]

44 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Beautiful. Let’s keep this please 

If we're gonna have a warm pattern with no hope of snow, we might as well have some blowtorch days like today. Absolutely beautiful. I love that I can go running outside this afternoon with just a t-shirt on. 

GFS and Euro have rain for next week. Anytime the models show a little hope for the medium range, it quickly falls apart. Just the same thing over and over again this winter. We might go the whole winter without 1 snow event. 

But having said that, it obviously is extremely difficult to go the whole winter without 1 snow event. Even in the warmest winters we usually get something. You'd think we'd pull off something just on freak luck at some point, so it wouldn't be surprising if we see an event at the end of the month or in March. I hope we can at least pull off 1 decent snow event. As much as I love this warm weather, I still want to see some snow. 

[GaWx]

16 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I also think the unbelievably warm SSTs along and off the coast are causing a positive feedback loop, magnifying it even more

 
 That makes sense.

 Well, at least for a change the MJO just rocketed through the MC as it took only six days! Looking back at old charts during winter, five days is the fastest to fully traverse both phases 5 and 6 near this amplitude. It more often than not takes longer than six days.

[CIK62]

Here is who we are sharing 60+ with during the next week or for us the next two days.     I just jumped from 50 to 56 in the last 30mins.{2:30pm}      South wind was ruining my day here.

[MJO812]

Meh too warm

Too early for this 

[HeadInTheClouds]

64 here in HV. 

[vegan_edible]

CMC still shows event next week but I'm skeptical with this winter, but still think we'll get freak event. Honestly just hope we get buried next year

[Stormlover74]

 

 

[GaWx]

- The GEFS based NAO forecast has slowly been trending toward the negative direction. Yesterday's 0Z GEFS had 8 members (25%) of 31 with a sub -0.25 NAO by Feb 27th. Today's has ~10 of the 31 with sub -0.25 by 2/27. Also, the mean line already gets down to 0 on Feb 26th, which is two days earlier than yesterday's showed. 

 - The end of Feb is still out 13 days, which is still far enough out to make the model skill in the troposphere low and much lower than that for the stratosphere at day 13 (as I showed recently). Thus, confidence in even ensemble means is still low, especially considering that a major SSW is now occurring.

- The major SSW is underway with the latest GFS based forecast for a dip of 60N 10 mb winds to an impressive -16 m/s on 2/18 vs -15 on yesterday's forecast. So, the GFS is staying the course.

- If there is going to be significant cooling in the E US as a direct result of this SSW, it would likely not get going until at least 10-14 days after it. That would mean starting near the end of Feb at the earliest.

- This idea on the timing hasn't changed at all since I started talking about this newest SSW. The warmth during it and following it has been expected.

[TWCCraig]

HRRR has 70's tomorrow before some late afternoon rain moves in

[Stormlover74]

Ewr up to 70

[FPizz]

67 here.  

[North and West]

HRRR has 70's tomorrow before some late afternoon rain moves in

.

[SnoSki14]

Leaf out approaching a full month ahead of schedule. First signs of spring now in NJ & near the city.

[EastonSN+]

1 hour ago, North Balti Zen said:

I mean…add Tucson to the list

 

We get the good weather during our usual nasty weather month, while the usually warm SW gets our snow!

[Rtd208]

High for the day was 69 here.

Current temp 68

[Volcanic Winter]

67 here currently. 

I could appreciate this if we at least had a quasi normal winter, but given this is occurring during one of the warmest winters ever with almost zero snowfall, I’m actually fairly disgusted by it. 

By all means, enjoy it guys. Someone should, right? I mean other than all the bugs I see just having a grand old time. 

[donsutherland1]

Under sparkling sunshine, the temperature soared to springlike levels. Newark saw the mercury reached 70°. Tomorrow will be another unseasonably warm day. However, a shower or thundershower is possible.

Temperatures will run generally above to much above normal through the third week of February. Afterward, temperatures could cool during the closing 7 days of the month. That could afford an opportunity for a snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic region during the February 22-24 timeframe. More than likely, any snowfall would be modest. At this timeframe, a snowfall is not a guaranteed outcome. No severe shots of cold appear likely through February.

Among the extended range scenarios on the table is a late February-early March 2002-type outcome. Under such a scenario, cold air would flood into the Plains States, but persistent southeast ridging would keep most of the cold away from the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States.

During February 28-March 5, 2002 high temperatures in the New York City area generally reached the lower to middle 40s with low temperatures in the 20s at night. At the height of the cold, one night saw the temperature fall into the upper teens. By March 7, the cold was gone and readings return to much above normal levels.

The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +0.7°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was -0.5°C for the week centered around February 8. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged -0.12°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged -0.62°C. La Niña conditions fading and they should evolve to neutral conditions during late winter or early spring.

The SOI was +19.93 today.

The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.841 today.

On February 13 the MJO was in Phase 6 at an amplitude of 2.519 (RMM). The February 12-adjusted amplitude was 2.346 (RMM).

Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied 96% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal February (1991-2020 normal). February will likely finish with a mean temperature near 40.4° (4.5° above normal).