Winter 2025-26

[CAPE]

Latest edition of the Euro Weeklies continues to advertise a favorable h5 look for early Dec( and beyond fwiw).

[Bob Chill]

8 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

The stratosphere is much more predictable than the troposphere, so the long range ensembles do have “skill” beyond the typical 8-10 day sensible weather prediction limit. I want to say there is skill to 30-40 days?? It seems guidance often tries to predict these strat warming events a little too quickly and there are can kicks, but that’s my anecdotal observation.

We need to stop the strat talk STAT! If there's any winter weenie index over the last 10+ years that basically ensures a nasty struggle then epic fail... its the Amwx SSW index. The more posts about it the less chance of anything good happening. There's literally 100s if not 1000s worth of post data backing this up. 

I mean sure, scientifically a SSW can be a precursor to blocking and cold/snow in the east but the more it gets hyped here, the less chance of it working out. This is a fact. But weenies gotta ween and my yards gotta fail. Thanks man

[Maestrobjwa]

13 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

We need to stop the strat talk STAT! If there's any winter weenie index over the last 10+ years that basically ensures a nasty struggle then epic fail... its the Amwx SSW index. The more posts about it the less chance of anything good happening. There's literally 100s if not 1000s worth of post data backing this up. 

I mean sure, scientifically a SSW can be a precursor to blocking and cold/snow in the east but the more it gets hyped here, the less chance of it working out. This is a fact. But weenies gotta ween and my yards gotta fail. Thanks man

This is exactly why my question was covered in skepticism. These days I mostly ignore strat talk because it's failed so often over the last decade...and the one time it really worked the effects of it were too late for us down herea (February 2018 with effects in March 2018). We did get some first day of Spring snow though so that was kinda funny!

[WVclimo]

2 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

This is exactly why my question was covered in skepticism. These days I mostly ignore strat talk because it's failed so often over the last decade...and the one time it really worked the effects of it were too late for us down herea (February 2018 with effects in March 2018). We did get some first day of Spring snow though so that was kinda funny!

I got 15” from that 3/21 storm. Haven’t had a double-digit snowfall since then.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

The problem with Stratosphere warming is that they are common. The whole Stratosphere moves in one direction: stronger or weaker. 1/2 of the time it's warmer. 1/2 the time it's colder. Because of fluctuations, there are on average 1-2 top 30 percentile Stratosphere warmings per Winter. 

This one coming up doesn't look record breaking strong, it's looks pretty average as a SSW, actually. It would be weird to go to March without seeing one. Still, there is a lagged -NAO correlation that has a pretty high correlation coefficient. But at the current strength that is being modeled it's not a "change the whole Winter scenario". 

[mitchnick]

8 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

We need to stop the strat talk STAT! If there's any winter weenie index over the last 10+ years that basically ensures a nasty struggle then epic fail... its the Amwx SSW index. The more posts about it the less chance of anything good happening. There's literally 100s if not 1000s worth of post data backing this up. 

I mean sure, scientifically a SSW can be a precursor to blocking and cold/snow in the east but the more it gets hyped here, the less chance of it working out. This is a fact. But weenies gotta ween and my yards gotta fail. Thanks man

Sounds like you woke up on the wrong side of the cave. 

[Bob Chill]

4 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Sounds like you woke up on the wrong side of the cave. 

Ha! It was a poor attempt at humor. When we're in the middle of a 55-60 degree stretch in Jan with hopeless D10+ progs, SSW talk enters the chat like clockwork. And it never amounts to much lolol. Imho, some winters just want to work and others don't no matter what. Wasted blocking and random storms in the middle of futile indices are as common as typical/predictable stuff that produces. 

The early signs of the upcoming winter are promising. I think we can all agree on that. I've suspected we're on the front side of a longer duration blocking cycle for a couple of years now. Get things right in the AO/NAO region for the balance of winter and a ratter is prob off the table. Big winters outside of mod ninos are notoriously hard to predict. 13-14 was pessimistic leading in and we all fondly remember that one. I certainly didn't see it coming in Nov. The early Dec storm was a signal but then it got crazy warm before legit winter set in for 3 straight months.

Any event during the first half of Dec is usually a reliable sign of an "acceptable" winter. So far it looks pretty good in general for that this year. Time will tell as always 

 

[Eskimo Joe]

 

[Eskimo Joe]

Not sure if this was already posted, but just an amazing thread from @griteater. This post is my key takeaway:

 

 

[Bob Chill]

Fun NAO stat. The last 2 Ninas that had a monthly Nov NAO reading below -1.0 were 95 and 2010. Hard to say if we notch a -1.0 reading this year but off to a good start anyways. Also, the speed and magnitude of the current AO and NAO drops were missed by the gefs D7 progs and they missed by quite a bit. That's unusual as the 7 day forecasts are usually pretty close. We'll see how it goes but early signs continue to point towards the potential for the front side of winter to be pretty blocky 

[Eskimo Joe]

Latest Euro weeklies appear to have us below normal temps for the vast majority of December, with no Christmas torch! //fingers crossed// 

[LongRanger]

Eric Wilhelm's focus is on Ohio, but he does a nice job explaining the reasoning behind his winter forecast for the larger region. He explains the acronym sea of QBO, IOD, ENSO, etc. He posted the full winter forecast version on youtube today.

https://www.wfmj.com/clip/15520187/erics-annual-winter-forecast

[WEATHER53]

7 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Fun NAO stat. The last 2 Ninas that had a monthly Nov NAO reading below -1.0 were 95 and 2010. Hard to say if we notch a -1.0 reading this year but off to a good start anyways. Also, the speed and magnitude of the current AO and NAO drops were missed by the gefs D7 progs and they missed by quite a bit. That's unusual as the 7 day forecasts are usually pretty close. We'll see how it goes but early signs continue to point towards the potential for the front side of winter to be pretty blocky 

95 and 2010 have shown up in analogs . One blockbuster and one not so much.  The cold looks pretty consistent but the snows are either huge or not  so much with other comparison years 

[brooklynwx99]

the Pacific jet is going to retract and shift equatorward after its poleward extension next week, which should lead to the -EPO that we're waiting for. I have pretty high confidence in this -EPO developing; the progression makes sense. BN to much BN temps in the East would follow into early Dec

trough near Japan/HI are also old-school signs of a favorable Pacific pattern

[psuhoffman]

Some stuff we might find useful as we head into winter

While February remains our snowiest month by the means (due in large part to 2010) January is the Winter month with the best odds of being above normal snowfall since 2000. 

Odds of an above avg snowfall month since 2000 at BWI 

Dec: 28%    Jan: 40%    Feb: 28%     Mar: 20%

 

 

[psuhoffman]

Below are the mean h5 anomalies for all the above normal snowfall months at BWI since 2000.  What our ideal "snowy" pattern looks like changes a bit through the season.  In December the pacific is much more important, with the most important anomalies being the EPO and AO regions.  Later in winter the NAO anomalies are more strongly correlated with snowfall.  

Across the board the AO remains the most consistent predictor of snowfall probabilities.  

December

January

February 

[frd]

Lastest updated snowfall probs for December from the ECMWF. This is the fourth month in a row with sub normal December snowfall.  I would think with all the changes taking place over the HL during the next weeks a lot can change in regards to December snowfall in the East. .   

[Eskimo Joe]

Looks like a complete 180 on the overnight CFS with a hammer drop all winter //fingers crossed//

 

 

[frd]

Focus on Jan 2026 from 

 

 

Allan Huffman  @RaleighWx

 

 

I posted my winter forecast on my patreon page with reasoning last week. But I will post my maps here just for reference/accountability. Last year my winter forecast stunk  so take it for what it is worth.

 

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, frd said:

Lastest updated snowfall probs for December from the ECMWF. This is the fourth month in a row with sub normal December snowfall.  I would think with all the changes taking place over the HL during the next weeks a lot can change in regards to December snowfall in the East. .   

I've seen that long range snowfall monthly/seasonal anomaly map look like that a lot.  And in reality over the last 20 years it has looked like that...look at some of the snowfall anomaly plots for this century.  I think some of that is probably just the model reflecting the changes due to warming, and the fact that the "averages" it's using to calculate what is "normal" snowfall are lagging due to the warming.  Look where the low and high anomalies are around the entire hemisphere.  Higher anomalies to the north, lower along the south...what you would expect if climate zones were shifting north (which they are) in the means.  

[frd]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I've seen that long range snowfall monthly/seasonal anomaly map look like that a lot.  And in reality over the last 20 years it has looked like that...look at some of the snowfall anomaly plots for this century.  I think some of that is probably just the model reflecting the changes due to warming, and the fact that the "averages" it's using to calculate what is "normal" snowfall are lagging due to the warming.  Look where the low and high anomalies are around the entire hemisphere.  Higher anomalies to the north, lower along the south...what you would expect if climate zones were shifting north (which they are) in the means.  

 

Certainly seems that way. Little skill outlook, more so just climo, Nina and warming. 

[bncho]

59 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Looks like a complete 180 on the overnight CFS with a hammer drop all winter //fingers crossed//

 

 

WeatherBell CFS... 

[Maestrobjwa]

58 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Higher anomalies to the north, lower along the south...what you would expect if climate zones were shifting north (which they are) in the

And here's the part that defies common sense. So if this is the climate, you would think you WOULDN'T see snow and cold south of here as much...and yet over the last 7-8 years places south of Baltimore, and then places WAY south...have seen more snow. Like you would think that boundary shifting north=warmer and less snow south. You'd think you wouldn't see Texas freezing in 2021, onorthern. AL snowing last year, or again, Southern part of the forum having more snow than the northern. The whole thing is counterintuitive.

[psuhoffman]

36 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

And here's the part that defies common sense. So if this is the climate, you would think you WOULDN'T see snow and cold south of here as much...and yet over the last 7-8 years places south of Baltimore, and then places WAY south...have seen more snow. Like you would think that boundary shifting north=warmer and less snow south. You'd think you wouldn't see Texas freezing in 2021, onorthern. AL snowing last year, or again, Southern part of the forum having more snow than the northern. The whole thing is counterintuitive.

Are places south of us getting more snow, or did some location south of us simply get one snowstorm at some point that we missed and you got frustrated?  Because I am not finding these places south of us getting more snow.  

Average snowfall the last 10 years

BWI: 12.31"

DCA: 9.28"

Salisbury MD: 9.49"

Richmond VA: 6.66"

Raleigh NC: 3.16"

Charlotte NC: 1.88" 

[Daniel Boone]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Are places south of us getting more snow, or did some location south of us simply get one snowstorm at some point that we missed and you got frustrated?  Because I am not finding these places south of us getting more snow.  

Average snowfall the last 10 years

BWI: 12.31"

DCA: 9.28"

Salisbury MD: 9.49"

Richmond VA: 6.66"

Raleigh NC: 3.16"

Charlotte NC: 1.88" 

How many of these years had sustained legit Blocking ?

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

How many of these years had sustained legit Blocking ?

The only "sustained" blocking over the last 10 years (sustained being more than a one week transient episode) were January into early Feb 2016, March 2018 and mid Dec to mid Feb 2021.  

ETA: During the Dec-Mar period 

[Maestrobjwa]

34 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Are places south of us getting more snow, or did some location south of us simply get one snowstorm at some point that we missed and you got frustrated?  Because I am not finding these places south of us getting more snow.  

Average snowfall the last 10 years

BWI: 12.31"

DCA: 9.28"

Salisbury MD: 9.49"

Richmond VA: 6.66"

Raleigh NC: 3.16"

Charlotte NC: 1.88" 

Oh no it wasn't just one. I'd love to look at the year by year for that. Wouldn't those averages be skewed by the mediocre years? And It's been several times in different areas. I can think of at least 6 years of the last 10 where places south got more. NC in Dec 2018, TX in February 2021, Snow in NO last year. 2019 southern MD getting more from that storm, and again last year--snow events in Alabama! Beach blizzard in...2018 I THINK.

What I'm saying is the years that haven't been complete ratters, the south seems to be getting more. And you'd think it would happen less but the amounts have been consistently higher south of Baltimore since 2018 aside from years everybody failed.

[Maestrobjwa]

22 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The only "sustained" blocking over the last 10 years (sustained being more than a one week transient episode) were January into early Feb 2016, March 2018 and mid Dec to mid Feb 2021.  

ETA: During the Dec-Mar period 

South definitely got more that year. Remember the TX freeze and the snow that came with it?

[IronTy]

7 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

South definitely got more that year. Remember the TX freeze and the snow that came with it?

Baltimore got almost 3ft of snow from the 2016 blizzard where SoMD got just over a foot.  You had to know there'd be payback for that.  

[WinstonSalemArlington]

Maybe, Doug Kammerer is right