December 2023

[donsutherland1]

8 minutes ago, WX-PA said:

Great research Don..we are doomed lol

Not necessarily. If we can more or less keep the blocking, there will be some opportunities (mostly January and perhaps February). Also, those are exceptional cases. They aren't the norm.

[brooklynwx99]

1 minute ago, donsutherland1 said:

Not necessarily. If we can more or less keep the blocking, there will be some opportunities (mostly January and perhaps February).

given that we have already see significant -NAO blocking and should have a -NAO December in the mean, we should see more blocking spells. this is especially true when you factor in the weak SPV (and potentially even a SSW, but remains to be seen)

[donsutherland1]

1 minute ago, brooklynwx99 said:

given that we have already see significant -NAO blocking and should have a -NAO December in the mean, we should see more blocking spells. this is especially true when you factor in the weak SPV (and potentially even a SSW, but remains to be seen)

I agree. Most December and January cases following the kind of deep blocking that developed in the last week of November have seen frequent blocking. Many February cases have, too.

[vegan_edible]

18z GFS shows some more near normal temps mid month up until 240 hrs. we may not be totally screwed 

[WX-PA]

5 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Not necessarily. If we can more or less keep the blocking, there will be some opportunities (mostly January and perhaps February). Also, those are exceptional cases. They aren't the norm.

I always believed this. if you like winter weather in the east stay away from storng nino's..Everyone is pissy warm. Yes you do get your shot at a big snowstorm but if you miss that chance iyou could get shutout. Just too much pacific air..maybe this one will be different.

[Brian5671]

7 minutes ago, WX-PA said:

I always believed this. if you like winter weather in the east stay away from storng nino's..Everyone is pissy warm. Yes you do get your shot at a big snowstorm but if you miss that chance iyou could get shutout. Just too much pacific air..maybe this one will be different.

PAC air in January can be just cold enough but agree in Dec or late Feb/March it's garbage time.

[brooklynwx99]

there will always be Pacific air in Ninos. they aren't super cold or anything, just stormy

[donsutherland1]

7 minutes ago, WX-PA said:

I always believed this. if you like winter weather in the east stay away from storng nino's..Everyone is pissy warm. Yes you do get your shot at a big snowstorm but if you miss that chance iyou could get shutout. Just too much pacific air..maybe this one will be different.

Although winter 2022-2023 very likely won't resemble something like 2009-10, it could feature a few shots at snowfall. If everything goes well, we might see an El Niño winter that has one really big storm as happened during the strong ENSO events during 1982-83 and 2015-16.

[qg_omega]

Winter severe season looks to get going this weekend

[qg_omega]

9 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

there will always be Pacific air in Ninos. they aren't super cold or anything, just stormy

Agreed, but cold and stormy hype pays the bills

https://x.com/bigjoebastardi/status/1730904418617352518?s=46&t=m4Eqkekadb-JCXTm7k-Txg

[NittanyWx]

54 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The MJO has successfully been used as a forecast tool for a while now. But the rapid expansion of the WPAC pool has slowed and amplified it in the warmer phases in recent times. Numerous papers were published in the last 5 years on this topic. So you are hearing about it now more because of the warming influence for us plus more understanding how it’s altering our local climate. Everything from mountain torques to sudden stratospheric warming have there roots in the MJO dynamics. So it’s right up there in importance with El Niño and La Niña. The key is figuring out how the ENSO and MJO will interact and drive the Rossby wave pattern. 

 

I'll go one further.  Models have gotten a lot better at forecasting the MJO and subsequent RWT over the past 15 years.  Part of the challenge is figuring out 'are you better than the model at forecasting the MJO?'  And more importantly, are you better at diagnosing the downstream pattern than the model.

 

I think a lot of folks treat the MJO like it's still 2009 and you had clear skill advantages and especially so in certain patterns.   Not sure that's the case as much anymore given the improvements in the NWP space.

 

It's a tricky game of when you're actually adding skill vs when you're actually taking decent modeling and making it worse with your own tinkering.

[Allsnow]

3 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

Agreed, but cold and stormy hype pays the bills

https://x.com/bigjoebastardi/status/1730904418617352518?s=46&t=m4Eqkekadb-JCXTm7k-Txg

Jersey tornado season 

[bluewave]

44 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The MJO has a meaningful influence on patterns, but its impact can be muted or overwhelmed by other variables. Two examples include January 1993 and January 1998. Both months wound up much warmer than normal, despite the MJO's passing through Phases 8-1-2 for 13 days in 1993 and 10 days in 1998. Here's how those two cases fared when the MJO was in Phase 8 at a high amplitude in January.

I think January 1998 was a case of the super El Niño combined with MJO 8 which is a warm pattern for us. That’s why all the talk of the MJO getting to phase 8 and cooling things off isn’t what we would expect during an El Niño.

Pretty good match MJO 8 and El Nino

[NittanyWx]

31 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Not necessarily. If we can more or less keep the blocking, there will be some opportunities (mostly January and perhaps February). Also, those are exceptional cases. They aren't the norm.

This is a good way to think about it.  There's plenty of blocking right now over the pole and NAO regions, but the Pacific is very much non-cooperative.  The net result is this pattern that isn't a prolonged torch, but any cold spell is pretty short lived and doesn't pack much of a punch here in early Dec.  Week 2 trends look quite mild.

 

Now if you have a cooperative Pac, you're aided by this blocking.  So I'm not by any means throwing in the towel on winter.  But 10 year normal temps in Dec aren't doing much snow wise right now.  The playbook is Pac improvement, whether that be through the RWT, wave breaking,  some strato influence, the MJO assisting with these things or some combo of all of them.  Then the blocking can really help.

 

And that's not to say Dec is a shutout, but I think the focus should be 90% Pacific right now

 

[WX-PA]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I think January 1998 was a case of the super El Niño combined with MJO 8 which is a warm pattern for us. That’s why all the talk of the MJO getting to phase 8 and cooling things off isn’t what we would expect during an El Niño.

Pretty good match MJO 8 and El Nino

7 and 8 are warm in +enso..Any cold phases?

[snowman19]

I think January 1998 was a case of the super El Niño combined with MJO 8 which is a warm pattern for us. That’s why all the talk of the MJO getting to phase 8 and cooling things off isn’t what we would expect during an El Niño.
Pretty good match MJO 8 and El Nino

[North and West]

Winter severe season looks to get going this weekend

What’s the timing on this? I’m flying into EWR Sunday. TIA.


.

[brooklynwx99]

pretty favorable trend in the Pacific mid-month... PNA looks much better. might be able to pull off a light event given this pattern

[snowman19]

31 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

This is a good way to think about it.  There's plenty of blocking right now over the pole and NAO regions, but the Pacific is very much non-cooperative.  The net result is this pattern that isn't a prolonged torch, but any cold spell is pretty short lived and doesn't pack much of a punch here in early Dec.  Week 2 trends look quite mild.

 

Now if you have a cooperative Pac, you're aided by this blocking.  So I'm not by any means throwing in the towel on winter.  But 10 year normal temps in Dec aren't doing much snow wise right now.  The playbook is Pac improvement, whether that be through the RWT, wave breaking,  some strato influence, the MJO assisting with these things or some combo of all of them.  Then the blocking can really help.

 

And that's not to say Dec is a shutout, but I think the focus should be 90% Pacific right now

 

If the Pacific jet doesn’t slow down big time nothing is going to change. An extended Pacific firehose aimed at western North America definitely doesn't = cold and and snow in the east. I’m also not understanding some of the hype on twitter right now calling for an arctic cold late December. That’s going to be a really good trick considering all of the arctic air is locked on the other side of the pole in Eurasia 

[brooklynwx99]

4 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

If the Pacific jet doesn’t slow down big time nothing is going to change. An extended Pacific firehose aimed at western North America definitely doesn't = cold and and snow in the east. I’m also not understanding some of the hype on twitter right now calling for an arctic cold late December. That’s going to be a really good trick considering all of the arctic air is locked on the other side of the pole in Eurasia 

who is calling for Arctic cold? nobody worth taking seriously, really. the pattern does become more favorable late in the month as the AK trough retrogrades into more of a traditional Aleutian LP and the PNA increases. there is good agreement on that

[Brian5671]

42 minutes ago, North and West said:

What’s the timing on this? I’m flying into EWR Sunday. TIA.


.

Verbatim it's late Sunday pm into Monday AM.   Winds look to be strong out of the SE

[Brian5671]

39 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

pretty favorable trend in the Pacific mid-month... PNA looks much better. might be able to pull off a light event given this pattern

Looks like the start of a -EPO which would be good

[MJO812]

52 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I think January 1998 was a case of the super El Niño combined with MJO 8 which is a warm pattern for us. That’s why all the talk of the MJO getting to phase 8 and cooling things off isn’t what we would expect during an El Niño.

Pretty good match MJO 8 and El Nino

Mjo 8 is cold in December 

[MJO812]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

given that we have already see significant -NAO blocking and should have a -NAO December in the mean, we should see more blocking spells. this is especially true when you factor in the weak SPV (and potentially even a SSW, but remains to be seen)

Why are people giving up late December?

[Brian5671]

59 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

Agreed, but cold and stormy hype pays the bills

https://x.com/bigjoebastardi/status/1730904418617352518?s=46&t=m4Eqkekadb-JCXTm7k-Txg

I would hope most see that JB sells hype.   He is a often a good read but you have to take into account his hype and cold bias....

[EastonSN+]

1 hour ago, NittanyWx said:

This is a good way to think about it.  There's plenty of blocking right now over the pole and NAO regions, but the Pacific is very much non-cooperative.  The net result is this pattern that isn't a prolonged torch, but any cold spell is pretty short lived and doesn't pack much of a punch here in early Dec.  Week 2 trends look quite mild.

 

Now if you have a cooperative Pac, you're aided by this blocking.  So I'm not by any means throwing in the towel on winter.  But 10 year normal temps in Dec aren't doing much snow wise right now.  The playbook is Pac improvement, whether that be through the RWT, wave breaking,  some strato influence, the MJO assisting with these things or some combo of all of them.  Then the blocking can really help.

 

And that's not to say Dec is a shutout, but I think the focus should be 90% Pacific right now

 

It's amazing how much it takes for a good wall to wall winter, or a solidly above average snowfall winter. Shows how much of an anomaly 2000 through 2018 really was (or 55 through 69 for that matter). 

[MJO812]

I can't wait to see all the weenies I have received once we turn cold and snow near the holidays .

[Tatamy]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Although winter 2022-2023 very likely won't resemble something like 2009-10, it could feature a few shots at snowfall. If everything goes well, we might see an El Niño winter that has one really big storm as happened during the strong ENSO events during 1982-83 and 2015-16.

77-78, which was also an El Niño winter featured a December that was mostly a torch here.  It was the type of pattern that would have brought tears to our warm weather fans.  There was one storm that brought snow and ice to central and northern NE and rain here on Christmas.  The pattern did not flip until the first week of January.  That is a prototypical El Niño for you.  
 

Regarding charts being shown for the projected pattern later in the month, a lot of them are showing a flow from off of the Pacific.  You can trace the height lines from here back to that source region on these charts.  That unfortunately is not going to get the cold air here that we are looking for.  The height lines leading to this region have to be traced back to NE Alaska or the Yukon.  I will provide a hint - look for forecasts of much above normal temperatures in Alaska.  Without this I wouldn’t get too excited about cold weather here.

[Tatamy]

45 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

It's amazing how much it takes for a good wall to wall winter, or a solidly above average snowfall winter. Shows how much of an anomaly 2000 through 2018 really was (or 55 through 69 for that matter). 

It was a nice pattern while it lasted.

[donsutherland1]

Cooler air will continue to overspread the region overnight. Most of the remainder of the week should be cooler than normal, but not very cold.

Temperatures will likely rebound during the weekend. Overall, the first 10 days of December remain on track to finish with a solidly warmer than normal anomaly.

A moderate to significant rainstorm is also possible during the weekend, possibly Sunday.

The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +2.1°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +2.0°C for the week centered around November 29. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.18°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.87°C. A basinwide El Niño event is ongoing. El Niño conditions will likely continue to strengthen somewhat further this month.  

The SOI was not available today.

The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -3.032 today. Strong blocking in the final week of November, as occurred this year, has often been followed by frequent blocking in December and January.

On December 2 the MJO was in Phase 4 at an amplitude of 1.402 (RMM). The December 1-adjusted amplitude was 1.269 (RMM).