2025-2026 ENSO

[snowman19]

31 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This data set illustrates my point about how crucial the WPO will be. All of these seasons except for 1998, which sucked, had a -WPO. Having a favorable WPO leaves much more margin for error, so hopefully the western warm pool is offset enough by the NE PAC warming so that it isn't so extreme this season. A strongly positive WPO leaves virtually no margin for error around the rest of the hemisphere, so if anything else is significantly unfavorable, then most of us are cooked and upside is near normal.

Offsetting the WPAC warm pool may be a very tall task. The above normal anomalies out that way are still off the charts 

[anthonymm]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I always advise taking this guy with a grain of salt, but this is an interesting piece....I consider him like snowman, only on the opposite end of the spectrum. He clearly knows enough to be dangerous, but his data always seems to point in the same direction.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-range-2/will-north-pacific-ocean-anomaly-bring-cold-winter-2025-2026-united-states-canada-fa/

When was the last time snowmass was wrong and predicted a below normal winter for the tri-state which ended up busting? If your bias is in this direction than nowadays you're hardly ever wrong.

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Offsetting the WPAC warm pool may be a very tall task. The above normal anomalies out that way are still off the charts 

They have been for the past several years, and the WPO averaged negative without a NE warm pool to offset in 2021-2022. Anyway, I'm not arguing it's going to make it negative...just prevent it from being extremely positive.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

When was the last time snowmass was wrong and predicted a below normal winter for the tri-state which ended up busting? If your bias is in this direction than nowadays you're hardly ever wrong.

I don't think 2020-2021 was below normal there. 2021-2022 may not have been, either.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Also, remember...SSTs are part of a feedback, which is the reason for the correlation, but they don't run the show....if the atmosphere begins changing, the sea will not lead the way.

[bluewave]

41 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

Offsetting the WPAC warm pool may be a very tall task. The above normal anomalies out that way are still off the charts 

Yeah, those surface SSTs are very impressive. They recently helped to drive the 4 sigma jet streak near the Aleutians when combined with the record cold in Siberia. Just a tremendous thermal gradient.

So we are currently getting the big EPO and PNA volatile swings as the shortwaves are racing through the very fast Pacific flow. But they are only the tip of the iceberg since there is so much stored heat below the surface.

This deep reservoir of warmth contributed to the record Pacific Jet last winter even though there was the deepest trough in 25 years east of Japan. Past instances of strong troughs east of Japan had much colder SSTs and a much weaker Pacific Jet.

But the surface SSTs hardly cooled which maintained the strong SST gradient and faster Pacific flow with the record cold in Siberia. So it gave us the warm storm track through the Great Lakes. 

Going forward I am trying to find other areas which can offset this dominant climate feature since 2018-2019. But it’s still a work in progress. The last time we were able to push back against this feature was in January 2022. It took the MJO 8 tropical forcing to disrupt the pattern for a month. 

I will be happy if we can find another competing source of forcing in the coming years to help the snowfall bounce even a little above the 2019 to 2025 record seven year lows. But it may be a challenging task with that massive WPAC heat engine.

This cutter, hugger, and suppressed Southern Stream storm track has become very persistent since the 2018-2019 winter when the rapid SST warming took of in the WPAC.

 
 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

11 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, those surface SSTs are very impressive. They recently helped to drive the 4 sigma jet streak near the Aleutians when combined with the record cold in Siberia. Just a tremendous thermal gradient.

So we are currently getting the big EPO and PNA volatile swings as the shortwaves are racing through the very fast Pacific flow. But they are only the tip of the iceberg since there is so much stored heat below the surface.

This deep reservoir of warmth contributed to the record Pacific Jet last winter even though there was the deepest trough in 25 years east of Japan. Past instances of strong troughs east of Japan had much colder SSTs and a much weaker Pacific Jet.

But the surface SSTs hardly cooled which maintained the strong SST gradient and faster Pacific flow with the record cold in Siberia. So it gave us the warm storm track through the Great Lakes. 

Going forward I am trying to find other areas which can offset this dominant climate feature since 2018-2019. But it’s still a work in progress. The last time we were able to push back against this feature was in January 2022. It took the MJO 8 tropical forcing to disrupt the pattern for a month. 

I will be happy if we can find another competing source of forcing in the coming years to help the snowfall bounce even a little above the 2019 to 2025 record seven year lows. But it may be a challenging task with that massive WPAC heat engine.

This cutter, hugger, and suppressed Southern Stream storm track has become very persistent since the 2018-2019 winter when the rapid SST warming took of in the WPAC.

 
 

 

We probably won't indentify it until we see the whites of the snow.

[jm1220]

46 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I don't think 2020-2021 was below normal there. 2021-2022 may not have been, either.

20-21 I’d rate as good to very good here, 21-22 as generally average but good for the eastern 2/3 of LI that was slammed by the Jan blizzard. Islip I think had close to BOS’s snow for the season and 24” in the blizzard. The best of 2020-21 was NYC and west. 

[jm1220]

29 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, those surface SSTs are very impressive. They recently helped to drive the 4 sigma jet streak near the Aleutians when combined with the record cold in Siberia. Just a tremendous thermal gradient.

So we are currently getting the big EPO and PNA volatile swings as the shortwaves are racing through the very fast Pacific flow. But they are only the tip of the iceberg since there is so much stored heat below the surface.

This deep reservoir of warmth contributed to the record Pacific Jet last winter even though there was the deepest trough in 25 years east of Japan. Past instances of strong troughs east of Japan had much colder SSTs and a much weaker Pacific Jet.

But the surface SSTs hardly cooled which maintained the strong SST gradient and faster Pacific flow with the record cold in Siberia. So it gave us the warm storm track through the Great Lakes. 

Going forward I am trying to find other areas which can offset this dominant climate feature since 2018-2019. But it’s still a work in progress. The last time we were able to push back against this feature was in January 2022. It took the MJO 8 tropical forcing to disrupt the pattern for a month. 

I will be happy if we can find another competing source of forcing in the coming years to help the snowfall bounce even a little above the 2019 to 2025 record seven year lows. But it may be a challenging task with that massive WPAC heat engine.

This cutter, hugger, and suppressed Southern Stream storm track has become very persistent since the 2018-2019 winter when the rapid SST warming took of in the WPAC.

 
 

 

It’s just in the worst possible place and orientation for our sensible weather here. The warmth is quite strong, reinforcing and our latitude in the largest ocean and weather flowing toward us directly from that place. And we saw that even a strong El Niño couldn’t really nullify it. Really hoping it’s temporary and goes away. If Pensacola FL can still get major snow events so can NYC.