Winter 2025-26

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

The way that plot is made, doesn’t Dec-Jan 2001 mean Dec 2001-Jan 2002??

They use the last month as the year. So Dec-Jan 2001 would be 00-01.  US Climate division data uses the year for the first month, and those monthly climate maps use the last month. 

[WxUSAF]

8 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

They use the last month as the year. So Dec-Jan 2001 would be 00-01.  US Climate division data uses the year for the first month, and those monthly climate maps use the last month. 

Oh my mistake. That definitely changes the sensible outcomes.

[Weather Will]

Good BAM video.  Looks like we need November and December to rock...what could possibly go wrong?!

 

 

[Bob Chill]

Marked improvement in the PDO region over the last 30 days. Only around halfway to neutral though lol but you gotta start somewhere 

[Terpeast]

58 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Marked improvement in the PDO region over the last 30 days. Only around halfway to neutral though lol but you gotta start somewhere 

Yeah lets move that warm blob underneath the aleutians further east into GOA in the next couple of months, and we’re in business. 

[bncho]

 

12 INCH SNOWSTORMS IN DC SINCE 1930

Year	Event	DCA or IAD ≥12”?
1942	Late March 1942 storm	✅ DCA ~14"
1958	Feb 15–16, 1958	✅ DCA 14.4"
1966	Jan 29, 1966	✅ DCA ~12"
1971	Dec 30, 1970 – Jan 1, 1971	✅ DCA ~15"
1979	Feb 18–19, 1979 (Presidents’ Day)	✅ DCA 18.7"
1996	Jan 6–8, 1996	✅ DCA 17" / IAD 24"
2003	Feb 16–18, 2003	✅ DCA 16.4" / IAD 22"
2009	Dec 18–19, 2009	✅ DCA 16.4"
2010	Feb 5–6, 2010 (“Snowmageddon”)	✅ DCA 17.8" / IAD 32"
2016	Jan 22–24, 2016 (“Jonas”)	✅ DCA 17.8" / IAD 29"
2026 (?)	Jan 14–16, 2026 (?)	✅ DCA 22" / IAD 34" (?)

[Bob Chill]

50 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah lets move that warm blob underneath the aleutians further east into GOA in the next couple of months, and we’re in business. 

I was kinda surprised looking at the plot. I made a mental note several weeks back that ensembles showed persistent troughing in the Wpac but never remembered to track progress. We'll see how it looks in another month when it really starts to count. At least it looks good enough to hallucinate a path to victory now. Weak nina with a -epo and some -ao/Nao thrown into the mix and we can start throwing around the 13-14 and 14-15 analogs hahahah

[JenkinsJinkies]

A good chunk of the enso forum thinks 22-23 is on the table.

[psuhoffman]

On 10/13/2025 at 5:22 PM, Bob Chill said:

Marked improvement in the PDO region over the last 30 days. Only around halfway to neutral though lol but you gotta start somewhere 

This shit has to end eventually. But it feels like we’ve been saying that for a long time now. 

[osfan24]

Saw a DT post hyping up this winter a bit lol.

[bncho]

32 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

This shit has to end eventually. But it feels like we’ve been saying that for a long time now. 

just to clarify, when you refer to "this shit" (lol), are you referring to the PDO always rising in the fall/winter and falling back down in the spring/summer, or are you referring to the pdo rise right now, and you're saying that the rise can't last forever?

[Terpeast]

6 minutes ago, bncho said:

just to clarify, when you refer to "this shit" (lol), are you referring to the PDO always rising in the fall/winter and falling back down in the spring/summer, or are you referring to the pdo rise right now, and you're saying that the rise can't last forever?

The former. PDO rising in the fall, then falling back into the abyss during spring and summer has become something like a broken record the past few years. I don’t think we will know when it ends until the PDO stays well into positive territory for at least several months. 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

The former. PDO rising in the fall, then falling back into the abyss during spring and summer has become something like a broken record the past few years. I don’t think we will know when it ends until the PDO stays well into positive territory for at least several months. 

Was that a normal part of previous -PDO cycles we've had?

[JenkinsJinkies]

From the ENSO thread

[jayyy]

Tony Pann posted something… interesting

“No Hurricanes have made landfall in the US so far this season. And only one Tropical Storm (Chantal). Over the last 20 years, there have been 5 years with no Hurricanes making landfall: 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015. The average winter snowfall for Baltimore in the following winter: 35"

Obviously this could be correlation and not causation but it’s an interesting factoid.

[mitchnick]

8 hours ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

From the ENSO thread

Chuck's research shows a bias toward a +NAO during winter when October is negative. I'd like to know where DT gets his idea of the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I'm pulling for DT's opinion to be right. Just wondering the basis of his opinion. 

[psuhoffman]

16 hours ago, bncho said:

just to clarify, when you refer to "this shit" (lol), are you referring to the PDO always rising in the fall/winter and falling back down in the spring/summer, or are you referring to the pdo rise right now, and you're saying that the rise can't last forever?

The PDO. We’ve been stuck in the most hostile PDO regime ever for like 6 years. We’ve set record low monthly values numerous times. Overall it’s been oscillating between moderately low and record low for the whole time. Until that changes and we break out of this current PDO cycle our snowfall luck won’t change much. We will continue to have god awful years with some meh kinda ok when we get lucky years but our baseline bar is going to be very low with this kind of PDO base state. 

14 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Was that a normal part of previous -PDO cycles we've had?

We aren’t just in a -PDO. The longer term PDO cycles can last 15-30 years but within that are shorter term mini cycles and we are in an extreme -PDO cycle within the longer PDO. These are particularly hostile to snow. Yea we’ve had some previous similar cycles and those were also bad for snow. This cycle is similar WRT snowfall and what we would expect if you adjust snowfall downward for the 15-20% of snow climo we’ve lost. So this period is similar to say the extreme -pdo of the 70s and 50s but the snowfall results are about 20% worse because the whole snow climo has deteriorated about 20% regardless of the pdo. 
 

What’s troubling is this current extreme PDO is now extending past what is typical. These super negative periods don’t usually last beyond 5 or 6 years. So the were due index is through the roof. But I’ve also seen some speculation that the -PDO is being or at least enhanced by factors linked to longer term climate changes. 
 

So I guess the big question…is there another cyclical thing being added on top of the cycle we’re talking about. We should see snowfall improve once the PDO improves. But is the PDO taking on more of a negative base state in general?  

[IronTy]

What's going on with western pac water temps?   They've fallen off a cliff in the past week or so.  Was there a storm out there that churned the waters up or did some glacier just fall into the ocean?  Warm blob is migrating east toward AK too.  

[psuhoffman]

5 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Chuck's research shows a bias toward a +NAO during winter when October is negative. I'd like to know where DT gets his idea of the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I'm pulling for DT's opinion to be right. Just wondering the basis of his opinion. 

I’ve pointed out another flaw in his opinion above in the past. DT has previously stated a Nina shifting towards neutral during the winter as a good thing and used it to justify a forecast for a snowier winter. But when I ran the numbers there is absolutely no evidence to support this. Actually, a week Nina transitioning to enso neutral produces our absolute worst snowfall results of every enso grouping. 
 

That said, the logic he has provided behind why the enso becoming more neutral SHOULD be good is sound. The problem is it hasn’t happened. There must be some lag effect. I’ve theorized that it’s bad because you tend to still get a lack of STJ following a Nina into neutral, but Nina’s can actually be colder and if you lose that you end up with a still dry but warmer pattern. We need an actual Nino with the associated amplified STJ for it to help us. 
 

 

[psuhoffman]

I had a few minutes so I found my data regarding a cold enso fading to neutral during the winter...and it's FUGLY, as I thought I remembered.  Now, this is an extremely small sample size so it's always possible this is a fluke, but there is no actual results based data to support the idea a fading nina is a good thing.  

All the years where we had a weak cold enso heading into the fall that faded to neutral by the JFM period and BWI snowfall that winter. 

2022-23: 0.2"

2016-17: 3"

2001-02: 0.3"

1983-84: 14.5"

1971-72: 13"

1964-65: 18.6"

1956-57: 19.1"

The last 3 examples of this were some of our worst snowfall winters ever!  Additionally, while snowfall was somewhat better with the older analogs, snow climo was significantly better then also so make sure to consider that.  For example, that 18.6" total in 1965 might seem nice, except that was the least snowy winter of the entire 1960s for Baltimore!  You have to apply context.  A year with 14 or 18" of snow might seem ok now, but in a time period when BWI averaged close to 25" it would have been the equivalent of a single digit snowfall season now.  

[psuhoffman]

A warmer enso actually correlates slightly warmer for us, but what makes a warm enso "snowier" is that it gives us multiple ways to "win".  We can still get a colder pattern sometimes in warm enso...and then it's a possible 2003, 2010 type thing.  Those are the once in a blue moon blockbuster winters.  But even in a warmer year we can still "win" if we just time up one of those STJ storms with a rare colder period.  1983 and 2016 for example.  And of course we get lots of years somewhere in between...but with an active STJ we just have more chances to get snow, even if overall the winter isn't cold...we just have to time up a couple of the storms.  

The problem with a fading nina is that we don't get the advantage that actually makes warmer enso better...the stronger STJ, which typically doesn't take effect until we get an actual warm enso.  So I dont think there is really an advantage to a fading cold enso for our snowfall.  

That said, I do think a fluke can always happen.  Something like 2014 for example, which was a wall to wall enso neutral year, could happen but it's just so rare it likely wouldn't show up in such a small sample just by random probabilities.  If we had records that went back longer we probably would eventually see a snowy winter in a cold enso fading to neutral, IMO.  But I think we can say it's not MORE likely that if the enso simply stays cold since we do have some examples of a snowy winter in a wall to wall cold enso winter...and absolutely NONE in a cold enso fading to neutral.  Again, due to small sample I think that is somewhat a fluke, so saying it is WORSE is a step to far imo, but saying it is better also has no support.  

[Jersey Andrew]

42 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

A warmer enso actually correlates slightly warmer for us, but what makes a warm enso "snowier" is that it gives us multiple ways to "win".  We can still get a colder pattern sometimes in warm enso...and then it's a possible 2003, 2010 type thing.  Those are the once in a blue moon blockbuster winters.  But even in a warmer year we can still "win" if we just time up one of those STJ storms with a rare colder period.  1983 and 2016 for example.  And of course we get lots of years somewhere in between...but with an active STJ we just have more chances to get snow, even if overall the winter isn't cold...we just have to time up a couple of the storms.  

The problem with a fading nina is that we don't get the advantage that actually makes warmer enso better...the stronger STJ, which typically doesn't take effect until we get an actual warm enso.  So I dont think there is really an advantage to a fading cold enso for our snowfall.  

That said, I do think a fluke can always happen.  Something like 2014 for example, which was a wall to wall enso neutral year, could happen but it's just so rare it likely wouldn't show up in such a small sample just by random probabilities.  If we had records that went back longer we probably would eventually see a snowy winter in a cold enso fading to neutral, IMO.  But I think we can say it's not MORE likely that if the enso simply stays cold since we do have some examples of a snowy winter in a wall to wall cold enso winter...and absolutely NONE in a cold enso fading to neutral.  Again, due to small sample I think that is somewhat a fluke, so saying it is WORSE is a step to far imo, but saying it is better also has no support.  

Why was ‘95-96 such a historic year? I believe it was also a weak Nina and things really got jumping early January.

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, Jersey Andrew said:

Why was ‘95-96 such a historic year? I believe it was also a weak Nina and things really got jumping early January.

The key feature for the early Jan blizzard was a strong NA block, along with an uncharacteristically strong low(for a Nina) that developed in the GoM.  It was actually a moderate Nina. Common misconception that it was weak Nina, and I posted about this last winter. Weak Ninas usually suck bigtime for the greater DC area- last winter was a rare exception, but hopefully its a new norm.