2025-2026 ENSO

[snowman19]

@Bluewave

[donsutherland1]

7 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Hey Don,

 I’m still confused about 1951-2 and 1952-3.

1. 1951-2 had cooling rather than warming from Nov through Feb (coming out of El Niño) with none of the monthlies near that -0.5 threshold:

Nov 1951: +1.19

Dec 1951: +0.74

Jan 1952: +0.49

Feb 1952: +0.37

 

2. 1952-3 had sharp warming in Jan but these were nowhere near the -0.5 threshold that you were going by:

Nov 1952: -0.14

Dec 1952: +0.03

Jan 1953: +0.56

Feb 1953: +0.61

 

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt

GaWx,

Thanks. It looks like I messed up my pre-1980 values on the spreadsheet. By any chance, do you have a link to the monthly Region 1+2 anomalies. I can't find it on the moved ENSO page.

[GaWx]

1 minute ago, donsutherland1 said:

GaWx,

Thanks. It looks like I messed up my pre-1980 values on the spreadsheet. By any chance, do you have a link to the monthly Region 1+2 anomalies. I can't find it on the moved ENSO page.

Hey Don,

 Thanks for clarifying.
 The 1+2 anomalies are found at this ERSST monthlies link that has the four Nino anomalies (warning: these are all based on 1991-2020 anomalies rather than being based on moving base periods):

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ersst5.nino.mth.91-20.ascii

 

[GaWx]

Here’s my current NWS forecast low for Nov 11th:

MONDAY NIGHT  
CLEAR. LOWS AROUND 30.

- If this verifies, it would be the earliest freeze at KSAV since the 11/7 32 low of 2010
-If it gets down to the predicted 30, that would be the coldest so early in the season since way back in 1976!

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=chs

 

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, EastonSN+ said:

I don't remember it linking up to the SE ridge last year like it did the previous 2 winters. I do remember the board commenting that we were happy to see it disconnected.

The fact that it did not link up helped the Middle Atlantic score a good snowfall winter. Storm track was too far south for us. 

The Greenland block linked up with the Southeast ridge at storm time last winter when it counted. This chart below shows the 11 days last winter when the heaviest precipitation of .20  or more fell from Philly to Boston. While last winter was colder than recent winters, the cold only arrived behind the major Great Lakes cutters which produced most of the precipitation. 

The 11 day winter 2024-2025 composite when most of the precipitation fell

 

[anthonymm]

2 hours ago, jm1220 said:

The problem was that as soon as a ridge would try to get established in the West, the Pacific jet would just knock it down or shove it east which meant storms couldn’t turn the corner in a good place for us and they’d be forced out to sea. We also couldn’t get a well timed phase with so much chaos and shortwaves everywhere. That’s why I’m so pessimistic about our chances especially north of DC to south of Boston with this pattern continuing. I-90 to maybe I-84 can still get good events from SWFE, very rarely down here when everything aligns. The suppressed patterns can help the DC/Baltimore area and south. East of I-81 and north of the M/D line to around the I-84 corridor, we need those benchmark tracks to have a shot at normal snow. We’re in a unique shaft zone here with this new regime. 

I've said this a few times. The northern mid atlantic from philly to the nyc metro is the screw zone now. Too north for the suppressed tracks, too south for the swfe. We have only one way of getting snow basically (KU nor'easters), and that's the reason we've been consistently getting the lowest percent of our snow normals the last few years compared to the other I95 cities. 

[mitchnick]

2 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I was going to say it’s been a long time since we’ve seen this much cooling in the NE PAC and it’s still ongoing

 

Cooling around Japan continuing a slow and steady rising of the PDO too.

[jm1220]

16 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

I've said this a few times. The northern mid atlantic from philly to the nyc metro is the screw zone now. Too north for the suppressed tracks, too south for the swfe. We have only one way of getting snow basically (KU nor'easters), and that's the reason we've been consistently getting the lowest percent of our snow normals the last few years compared to the other I95 cities. 

We used to get clippers once in a while but they have largely gone extinct, and 20-30 years ago we used to get hugger tracks that would at least produce on the front end, like the Feb 1995 and March 1993 storms. We really need the offshore benchmark tracks here to have good snow winters now unless these come back. 

[anthonymm]

2 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

We used to get clippers once in a while but they have largely gone extinct, and 20-30 years ago we used to get hugger tracks that would at least produce on the front end, like the Feb 1995 and March 1993 storms. We really need the offshore benchmark tracks here to have good snow winters now unless these come back. 

Yup I really dont see how the math works out to getting even close to our normals (25-30" give or take from philly to nyc) unless we get several big coastal lows tracking along the benchmark. Seems really hard to pull off. Who knows maybe bluewave is right and our new normals are around 15" per season.

[MJO812]

3 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

Yup I really dont see how the math works out to getting even close to our normals (25-30" give or take from philly to nyc) unless we get several big coastal lows tracking along the benchmark. Seems really hard to pull off. Who knows maybe bluewave is right and our new normals are around 15" per season.

No one can predict the winter right now in November. December looks good  right now.  We can easily get above normal snowfall with 1 big coastal or 2.

[snowman19]

19 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Cooling around Japan continuing a slow and steady rising of the PDO too.

Not earth shattering. I don’t think anyone here expected a severely negative PDO going into winter. Everyone I’ve seen has been expecting a rise from the severely negative levels. The only unrealistic expectations I’ve seen have been on Twitter….we had some twitterologists back in the spring expecting that we would be in an El Niño/+PDO with a “grand solar minimum” right now….

[bluewave]

16 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

Yup I really dont see how the math works out to getting even close to our normals (25-30" give or take from philly to nyc) unless we get several big coastal lows tracking along the benchmark. Seems really hard to pull off. Who knows maybe bluewave is right and our new normals are around 15" per season.

What I said is that our new normals since 2018-2019 have been in that lower range around 15”. We are going to need a shift back to benchmark storm tracks at least occasionally for totals getting back above 20” some winters.

If we don’t see significant shifts to this pattern over the next 5-10 years, then it will signal that the new average will settle under 20” instead of the mid 20s which has been the very long term average.  

I came out with 3 potential scenarios a while back. 

1) Snowfall continues at these lower levels and only during an occasional season like we had back in 2021 does it get back above average. 

2) Snowfall experiences a temporary bounce in the remainder off the 2020s with more benchmark storm tracks than we have had in the last 7 winters. But it could only be a temporary bounce as warming continues. Steeper declines resume during the 2030s.

3) Largest volcanic eruption in hundreds of years cools the planet for 3-7 years with the potential for well above average snowfall. Very low skill forecast since volcanism on this scale is very challenging to forecast ahead of time.

[anthonymm]

11 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

No one can predict the winter right now in November. December looks good  right now.  We can easily get above normal snowfall with 1 big coastal or 2.

We cant really get above normal with one. That would take a january 2016 type event which happens like once every 20 years.

[snowman19]

3 minutes ago, anthonymm said:

We cant really get above normal with one. That would take a january 2016 type event which happens like once every 20 years.

I would agree. @40/70 Benchmark has mentioned a few times that the indicators are not screaming KU’s barreling up the coast and dumping on the I-95 corridor. Especially with a very muted STJ (Niña/-PMM)

[MJO812]

1 minute ago, snowman19 said:

I would agree. @40/70 Benchmark has mentioned a few times that the indicators are not screaming KU’s barreling up the coast and dumping on the I-95 corridor. Especially with a very muted STJ (Niña/-PMM)

But not impossible