December 2023 Mid/Long Term Pattern Discussion: Let it Snow!

[Matthew70]

26 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

If the MJO was driving the bus, this should park a trough out West.....that is a really cold pattern right there.  Hints of an EPO ridge, NAO(slightly displaced), and a confluence over our latitude.   Normally, I wouldn't show a 360 hour ensemble thumbnail, but go take a look at its past few runs.......this is a big change, and that started overnight.

 

Is this after the warmup thaw mid month? Or is the warmup being muted?

[Daniel Boone]

14 minutes ago, Matthew70 said:

Is this after the warmup thaw mid month? Or is the warmup being muted?

Should be mitigated and muted due to blocking if MJO is in warm phases at a decent Amp.. If goes circle of death aft ph 3 may not be much of a warmup at all. 

[Carvers Gap]

52 minutes ago, Matthew70 said:

Is this after the warmup thaw mid month? Or is the warmup being muted?

I suspect modeling is waaaay under doing the warm-up.  Ensembles are starting to see the MJO rotation now, but no slam dunk that it is warm.  Where I would have said there is about a 90% chance of significant warm wx after the 10th, now I would say 70%. Then cold looms again after that - maybe 4 weeks of seasonal/BN and we make a break for spring. The NAO could completely erase the warm sig on modeling...but I just think the MJO wins.

[PowellVolz]

I suspect modeling is waaaay under doing the warm-up.  Ensembles are starting to see the MJO rotation now, but no slam dunk that it is warm.  Where I would have said there is about a 90% chance of significant warm wx after the 10th, now I would say 70%. Then cold looms again after that - maybe 4 weeks of seasonal/BN and we make a break for spring. The NAO could completely erase the warm sig on modeling...but I just think the MJO wins.

Don’t want to get off topic or too far ahead and don’t spend much time on this but does spring look like a late arrival or about on time? I’ve got to transplant some shrubs and need to do it while they are dormant.


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[Daniel Boone]

45 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

I suspect modeling is waaaay under doing the warm-up.  Ensembles are starting to see the MJO rotation now, but no slam dunk that it is warm.  Where I would have said there is about a 90% chance of significant warm wx after the 10th, now I would say 70%. Then cold looms again after that - maybe 4 weeks of seasonal/BN and we make a break for spring. The NAO could completely erase the warm sig on modeling...but I just think the MJO wins.

The way things have gone for several years now, the MJO has tended to win. So, yeah it has the hot hand. 

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, PowellVolz said:

Don’t want to get off topic or too far ahead and don’t spend much time on this but does spring look like a late arrival or about on time? I’ve got to transplant some shrubs and need to do it while they are dormant.


.

Cosgrove thinks springs shows up during March (above normal?) mainly because the Nino collapses during the next 8 weeks.  If the Nino holds on, that would mean a cooler spring.  If Nina shows up, warm.... @jaxjagman, do you have the ENSO graph for the next few months?  But to answer your question, I am not sure.  I could see March being cold to start and end warm.  That is just an educated guess.  If winter goes severe during February, it would make sense for it to snap back to a warm pattern once the cold is spent.

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, Daniel Boone said:

The way things have gone for several years now, the MJO has tended to win. So, yeah it has the hot hand. 

Until it proves me wrong, the MJO is the Draw Four card in this UNO game....

[PowellVolz]

Been a fire hose up the valley the last 3 hours.




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[PowellVolz]

MRX with an interesting tweet. Interesting that they are talking about this several days early.




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[Daniel Boone]

2 hours ago, PowellVolz said:

Been a fire hose up the valley the last 3 hours.




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Really shafted here. Drought back to life. Just 0.30" System Total as of now. 

[Jed33]

I feel your pain! It’s really been the same here I also have only had .30 total precip the last 2 days and most of that was this morning. Just can’t seem to get precip to make inroads into NE TN and SW VA with this system, and the last one was a total bust here. I’ve only had about 2.5in of precip for the month so far and that’s not enough to make a significant difference in the drought that we have had.

[Daniel Boone]

8 minutes ago, Jed33 said:

I feel your pain! It’s really been the same here I also have only had .30 total precip the last 2 days and most of that was this morning. Just can’t seem to get precip to make inroads into NE TN and SW VA with this system, and the last one was a total bust here. I’ve only had about 2.5in of precip for the month so far and that’s not enough to make a significant difference in the drought that we have had.

Exactly. Same deal with last System. This is 3 Months in a row of well below average Rainfall. 

[Carvers Gap]

We are AN for rainfall for December at TRI.  This month has been super beneficial.  We still have a ways to go in order to get things replenished, but that was a good start.  Hope everyone else is able to cash-in on some precip.  Rain shadows up here are no joke.  With a Nina summer on deck, we need to get decent rainfall this winter.  I think east of the TN river drainage in E TN is the best bet for normal rainfall.

[dwagner88]

Jeez. We cleared over 2" with this system. It rained HARD yesterday. Sorry NE guys missed out.

[jaxjagman]

3 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

Cosgrove thinks springs shows up during March (above normal?) mainly because the Nino collapses during the next 8 weeks.  If the Nino holds on, that would mean a cooler spring.  If Nina shows up, warm.... @jaxjagman, do you have the ENSO graph for the next few months?  But to answer your question, I am not sure.  I could see March being cold to start and end warm.  That is just an educated guess.  If winter goes severe during February, it would make sense for it to snap back to a warm pattern once the cold is spent.

I dont think Nino is going to matter to much going forward,its still fairly strong right now

[ShawnEastTN]

Jeez. We cleared over 2" with this system. It rained HARD yesterday. Sorry NE guys missed out.

Same here 2.12".

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[jaxjagman]

13 minutes ago, ShawnEastTN said:

Same here 2.12".

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk
 

lol..yall hit the gold mine

[John1122]

1 hour ago, Daniel Boone said:

Really shafted here. Drought back to life. Just 0.30" System Total as of now. 

Super soaker here two days in a row. Had ponds in the yard yesterday and it poured down again this evening. I just noticed how dry it was in SW Va and a spot right over Jed near Morristown. I figured everyone was getting dumped on from this one. 

[Carvers Gap]

The 0z GEPS and 6z GEFS are mercifully developing textbook -NAO signatures around mid-Jan.  That could fight an upcoming potential bout of a VERY hostile Pacific.  The MJO crawling through warm phases looks more and more likely.  There is still an outside chance we could get a low amplitude pass through warm phases or a COD.   Back to the NAO....during Nina winters that NAO has hooked into the SER every, single Nina winter(of the past three winters) I "think" at one point.  With the SER missing right now, the NAO is less likely to make that connection....but make no mistake, if the SER is there, the likelihood of the SER connecting with the NAO goes way, way, up due to the MJO phase.  

If the NAO block does not take hold, a return to a more favorable pattern after the 10th could be anywhere between Jan 25th or even as late as the second week of Feb.  The MJO is very close to a "winter ender" if there is no Atlantic help.  If the MJO rotates (as slowly as prognosticated....it is a little faster today), it would leave maybe 2-3 weeks of winter on the table - maybe.  

So, we need what hasn't happened during the past three winters, we need the MJO to rotate through warm phases...and still stay cold in eastern NA... the mid-court bank shot so to speak.   The great thing?  Modeling has it.  Fingers crossed.

[Silas Lang]

11 hours ago, John1122 said:

Super soaker here two days in a row. Had ponds in the yard yesterday and it poured down again this evening. I just noticed how dry it was in SW Va and a spot right over Jed near Morristown. I figured everyone was getting dumped on from this one. 

Yeah, it is still raining here in Knox. Not even on the radar. Just a fine steady mist/light rain. If only we could ever get this to happen with snow! 

[Carvers Gap]

I am going to place a series of posts (more for discussion as there are DEFINITELY two sides to this coin).  Take a look at the NAO/AO couplet.  Notice anything?  When they were positive this month, it got really warm.  When they were briefly negative to start the month, there was brief cold to follow.  Now, there is a little bit of a lag, but in general....surface temps IMBY correlate to the NAO/AO phase.  We have been a whopping +13.83 degrees above normal at TRI for Christmas for the time frame of Dec 24-26th.  Ext LR modeling very accurately portrayed the warm-up, and its demise.  From about 4-5 weeks out, they nailed the turn to seasonal/colder to within about 48 hours.  They had Christmas week as the transition week w/ the exception of a 2-3 day hiccup where they lost continuity.  That is impressive.  But Merry Torchmas!  

Folks, these two graphs were about all that I used when I first started following wx modeling.  Well, I followed those and the NOGAPS.  Both were surprisingly accurate, and I am not sure that I am getting a much better today.  The graphics are certainly better, but those graphs in tandem with the NOGAPS were decent.  So, here is what I know when I see that couplet turn negative in tandem.  It is about to get cold.  It is about to get stormy.  There is more potential for snow.  That December peak in the positive domain would have meant near record warm temps.  

[Carvers Gap]

Here is the Dec 27 6x GEFS NAO plot.  The AO looks almost identical.  It just tanks.  That is the counterbalance to a bad MJO.

 

The Euro Weeklies turned out to be accurate after the aforementioned hiccup.  Here are there Dec 26 0z AO, NAO, and EPO teleconnection plots.  

The green line is the mean, and blue is the control for those new to these.  Unlike the GEFS run above which is 16 days, the Weeklies run to the second week of February.  They are modeling an extended bout of -AO, -NAO, and then a -EPO(Jan 19th).  I just realized that I cut the dates off...so use the EPO turning negative as a benchmark(Jan 19th).   Now, what is striking(maybe disturbing) is the control is NOT in sync with the ensemble.  Now, that isn't totally unexpected, but that does signal some conflict within the model itself.  

 

[Carvers Gap]

This is Part 3, and the final of my series of posts this morning.  These posts focus on the medium and long range(those are my interests).  ALL of this will likely change to some degree, but let's hope we keep the basis.  (There is certainly PLENTY to talk about prior to the 11th, and I have not discussed it with these posts).  Anyway, here are comparable hours of the three major ensembles.  I have no idea if these verify.  BUT, this is an example (not to be taken as gosple) of how a favorable Atlantic(Boone has discussed this) can save a crappy Pacific.  The 6z GEFS has a perfectly placed NAO right over the Davis Straits.  The 0z EPS is less optimal as it has a block, but it is debatable if that is a true NAO or displaced WAR (western Atlantic ridge).  The 0z GEPS is pretty much what you want to see if you want lots of snow in the East.  The conveyor belt from Alaska to the SE is on tap.  Now, all of this gets kind of wild.  Why?  Well, there is an attempt at a zonal Pacific air mass.  However, with the block, some cold should surge southward.  So, we get this mix of zonal and polar/Arctice air which should equate to storminess.  Two of those maps are essentially turning a Pacific firehose loose on a cold air mass centered over the Lower 48.  Blend those three maps together, and you get a pretty good pattern.  

And this is what it looks like at the surface(I might be off 6-12 hours per map due to not paying attention to toggling and being too lazy to go back and fix it!)

I have mentioned the MJO is driving the bus.  But when I started digging this morning...maybe it is not???  And that is open for much debate.  We may be seeing a winter where the Atlantic is driving the bus.  That can happen.  We certainly want the Pacific if we can get it, but blocking over Greenland provides confluence over our area(where we want phasing to occur).  Right now, phasing is east of us.  Let's see what happens if we see HL blocking develop over the Atlantic.  Temps may be marginal, but January is our one month where temps don't have to be below normal for snow.  We can actually get snow with normal temps to slightly above normal.    Now, if these maps flip warmer, we know modeling is probably focusing on the IO/Indonesia area where warm MJO phases originate... For now, we had better hope the AO/NAO take hold.  

Of particular caution, the SSW has been occurring for some time.  Credit goes to the sometimes maligned JB.  He has been writing about this since mid December and predicted it months ago.  I noticed that Amy Butler(nobody better at strat warm stuff) is now mentioning a true SSW might be at hand.  Think about this....we are probably in the middle of an extended warming.  That means that the actual tropospheric results might be impacting current wx and not just 2-3 weeks out.  The caution I mention is this...we often see models erroneously send cold eastward w/ SSWs, and then trend West w/ the cold.  That said, that was during the past three consecutive La Nina winters.....the trough wanted to go into the West anyway, especially w the past PDO signal.  This winter is more of a signal for cold dropping into the West and sliding eastward quickly with less SER(no SER?) to stop it.  Remember when the cold hit the Plateau and wouldn't come a mile further?  All of us east of that do, and it was properly discussed yesterday.  

With the setup above, the cold would charge down the Plains and crash maybe all of the way to Florida.  One might be concerned with a suppressed pattern, and that may well occur.  But w/ the PNA being negative to neutral, we may well see a broader trough(mentioned in the MA forum) which allows systems to slide across instead of head to Cuba.

 

[Carvers Gap]

Other than that, feel free to debate, discuss, and dissect the above.  Those are just ideas and some brainstorming from this morning.  Have at it!  

[Daniel Boone]

5 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

This is Part 3, and the final of my series of posts this morning.  These posts focus on the medium and long range(those are my interests).  ALL of this will likely change to some degree, but let's hope we keep the basis.  (There is certainly PLENTY to talk about prior to the 11th, and I have not discussed it with these posts).  Anyway, here are comparable hours of the three major ensembles.  I have no idea if these verify.  BUT, this is an example (not to be taken as gosple) of how a favorable Atlantic(Boone has discussed this) can save a crappy Pacific.  The 6z GEFS has a perfectly placed NAO right over the Davis Straits.  The 0z EPS is less optimal as it has a block, but it is debatable if that is a true NAO or displaced WAR (western Atlantic ridge).  The 0z GEPS is pretty much what you want to see if you want lots of snow in the East.  The conveyor belt from Alaska to the SE is on tap.  Now, all of this gets kind of wild.  Why?  Well, there is an attempt at a zonal Pacific air mass.  However, with the block, some cold should surge southward.  So, we get this mix of zonal and polar/Arctice air which should equate to storminess.  Two of those maps are essentially turning a Pacific firehose loose on a cold air mass centered over the Lower 48.  Blend those three maps together, and you get a pretty good pattern.  

And this is what it looks like at the surface(I might be off 6-12 hours per map due to not paying attention to toggling and being too lazy to go back and fix it!)

I have mentioned the MJO is driving the bus.  But when I started digging this morning...maybe it is not???  And that is open for much debate.  We may be seeing a winter where the Atlantic is driving the bus.  That can happen.  We certainly want the Pacific if we can get it, but blocking over Greenland provides confluence over our area(where we want phasing to occur).  Right now, phasing is east of us.  Let's see what happens if we see HL blocking develop over the Atlantic.  Temps may be marginal, but January is our one month where temps don't have to be below normal for snow.  We can actually get snow with normal temps to slightly above normal.    Now, if these maps flip warmer, we know modeling is probably focusing on the IO/Indonesia area where warm MJO phases originate... For now, we had better hope the AO/NAO take hold.  

Of particular caution, the SSW has been occurring for some time.  Credit goes to the sometimes maligned JB.  He has been writing about this since mid December.  I noticed that Amy Butler(nobody better at strat warm stuff) is now mentioning a true SSW might be at hand.  Think about this....we are probably in the middle of an extended warming.  That means that the actual tropospheric results might be impacting current wx and not just 2-3 weeks out.  The caution I mention is this...we often see models erroneously send cold eastward w/ SSWs, and then trend West w/ the cold.  That said, that was during the past three consecutive La Nina winters.....the trough wants to go into the West anyway, especially w the past PDO signal.  This is more of a signal for cold dropping into the West and sliding eastward with less SER to stop it.  Remember when the cold hit the Plateau and wouldn't come a mile further?  All of us east of that do, and it was properly discussed yesterday.  

With the setup above, the cold would charge down the Plains and crash maybe all of the way to Florida.  

 

Great work and analysis as usual Man!

Some great Winter's featured that Pattern. Jan-Mar 1979 comes to mind. Even the great cold snowy Winter of 77-78 to some extent. Hints of 95-96 in there too. Hopefully that comes to fruition. If so, fun and games. 

[Carvers Gap]

Just now, Daniel Boone said:

Great work and analysis as usual Man!

Some great Winter's featured that Pattern. Jan-Mar 1979 comes to mind. Even the great cold snowy Winter of 77-78 to some extent. Hints of 95-96 in there too. Hopefully that comes to fruition. If so, fun and games. 

Great points.   After reading your post, I pulled yesterday's 6-10 day analogs from CPC and the day 8-14. The first set are d6-10 and second set are d8-14.  Interesting to see January of 85 in there.  I don't think we see that type of extreme, but interesting to see it in the analog package for d6-10.  I didn't expect that.

19881217
19570101
19661228
19810106
19770102
19550112
19640113
19850106
19870114
19550120

 

19670102
19640113
19890105
19881228
19790116
19550115
19570105
19760103
19701224
19600108

[Daniel Boone]

9 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Great points.   After reading your post, I pulled yesterday's 6-10 day analogs from CPC and the day 8-14. The first set are d6-10 and second set are d8-14.  Interesting to see January of 85 in there.  I don't think we see that type of extreme, but interesting to see it in the analog package for d6-10.  I didn't expect that.

19881217
19570101
19661228
19810106
19770102
19550112
19640113
19850106
19870114
19550120

 

19670102
19640113
19890105
19881228
19790116
19550115
19570105
19760103
19701224
19600108

Alot of winner's there. Surprised to not see '78 . The MJO phases were similar is what was intriguing with Jan. that year. Cold/snowy through those. I don't know if MJO is used in those packages.?. I see quite a few Nina and Neutral Enso in there as well. Those '60's one's were great as was '71. 

     I'm with you on the extreme like '85 . Even if that pattern were carbon copied it wouldn't be as extreme as the Climate is a bit warmer now. That 77 wouldn't be as extreme either, obviously. Of course, would still be some cold stuff. 

    Some other's in there that featured a turn to colder but, didn't yield much Snow. '88-'89 looks to be too with that. It was rather lackluster sadly. Only real decent snowfall was late February. 25th I think. 5-7" from a storm that started as sleet(ice pellets).

    Most of those on the list featured were good Snowfall wise. 

[PowellVolz]

Really shafted here. Drought back to life. Just 0.30" System Total as of now. 

We did very well the last 48 hours. Well over an inch around Knoxville.


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[Daniel Boone]

1 minute ago, PowellVolz said:

We did very well the last 48 hours. Well over an inch around Knoxville.


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Wound up with just over a half inch Total here. Totally short changed. Those bands continued training S to N over same areas yesterday. When that one that soaked the plateau finally slowly made it over our area there wasn't much left of it. 

[tnweathernut]

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

Other than that, feel free to debate, discuss, and dissect the above.  Those are just ideas and some brainstorming from this morning.  Have at it!  

Just looking at your ensemble maps at a glance.  The euro and the canadian ensembles look like a recipe for overrunning somewhere down the road.........   Appreciate all the work you put into your thoughts.  I enjoy reading them.  Wish I had more time to dig into things and contribute, but with work I seem to always be pulled in a thousand different directions!