2025-2026 Winter Speculation Thread

[Carvers Gap]

The Euro weeklies are crazy cold on the control run and very cold on the mean run.  The Euro control drops a large amount of snow over the Tenn Valley for December.  Now....we have seen the Euro be too cold for December.  It is still shoulder season, but we take today's run and run with it.

[John1122]

1962-63 is one of the legendary winters ever here and many other places. It featured a QBO falling deeply negative from fall into winter. Was a weakish La Nina. It had an SSW event. The PDO was negative. The PDO is currently negative. October 1962 was warm, but finally got cold around October 19th. This year was warm, and it finally got cold here and frosted on October 20th. A strong cold front passed in early November and brought light snow to the region, there was even a dusting in lower elevations. After that cold front and snow event, the temp warmed and the warmest temperatures of the month were mid month and late month, as temperatures yo-yo'd a bit. The first few days of December were very warm, then the bottom fell out and December ended -7.

 

The 60s were extreme, but since 2013/14 we've gotten closer to it's weather patterns. Just in a somewhat warmer world. We went years without extreme cold after 1996 and into the early 2010s (nothing sub zero). Since then we've seen sub zero cold invade multiple times and it's back to happening at least 2 to 3 of every 5 or so years. 

Weather is never exactly the same but large scale patterns will always come back. Like we will eventually get another blizzard or very anomalous snowfall event. A widespread 14-20+ inch type event. The gulf, Texas and deep south have had such events in this enhanced winter pattern we've been in since 2013/14 brought back the subzero weather that had disappeared. 

[Carvers Gap]

8 hours ago, John1122 said:

1962-63 is one of the legendary winters ever here and many other places. It featured a QBO falling deeply negative from fall into winter. Was a weakish La Nina. It had an SSW event. The PDO was negative. The PDO is currently negative. October 1962 was warm, but finally got cold around October 19th. This year was warm, and it finally got cold here and frosted on October 20th. A strong cold front passed in early November and brought light snow to the region, there was even a dusting in lower elevations. After that cold front and snow event, the temp warmed and the warmest temperatures of the month were mid month and late month, as temperatures yo-yo'd a bit. The first few days of December were very warm, then the bottom fell out and December ended -7.

 

The 60s were extreme, but since 2013/14 we've gotten closer to it's weather patterns. Just in a somewhat warmer world. We went years without extreme cold after 1996 and into the early 2010s (nothing sub zero). Since then we've seen sub zero cold invade multiple times and it's back to happening at least 2 to 3 of every 5 or so years. 

Weather is never exactly the same but large scale patterns will always come back. Like we will eventually get another blizzard or very anomalous snowfall event. A widespread 14-20+ inch type event. The gulf, Texas and deep south have had such events in this enhanced winter pattern we've been in since 2013/14 brought back the subzero weather that had disappeared. 

Great post, and a great analog.  Pretty amazing to see that type of correlation.  

[Carvers Gap]

Haha.  The CFSv2 is straight up frigid w/ its seasonal run today - bone chilling.  February was just ridiculous.

[nrgjeff]

Strato is active but might struggle to reflect to the 500 mb for a bit longer. For now we can enjoy the cold snap early next week. Even if it does get mild again, my gut says more cold beginning of Dec.

Snow cover is increasing again on the Rutgers chart after a pause. Physical Sciences Lab checks out for Siberia, China, Alaska pressure and temps. Nothing screams like what I shared a couple weeks ago, but it's leaning the right (cool / cold) direction. At least I don't discern warm torchy signals there. 

PSL Map Room: Global Circulation (Quick Menu): NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory charts update despite the red banner top. Prolly automated. 

[Carvers Gap]

I like watching the daily run of the CFSv2 seasonal.  I generally watch trends.  It does bounce a round quite a bit, so be forewarned.  Today's run was an extreme run.  Cold December, followed by a colder January, followed by a colder February.  This is about the time of year that we can peek into early winter and see if our thoughts over the summer were correct.  We can also begin to sort through analogs.  I think Cosgrove's ideas have some merit in that winter will have a cold finish.  He is just one of these guys who has seen a lot of weather, and has experience of decades of forecasting.  But what if he is right, AND those of us(who are calling for a cold start to winter) are both correct?  It has been a while since we have had a wall-to-wall winter.  While I think wall-to-wall is unlikely, I do think a cold 2-3 weeks to start December, followed by 3-4 weeks of meh, followed by mid-late Jan into Feb cold...is on the table.  But here is the extreme.

And that might not look overly extreme, but given the configuration of the surface pressure maps below...there is an increasingly strong possibility of very cold temps being released into the lower 48.  During a La Nina, the SE extent of the cold will often be more blunted than below.  However, during weak La Nina winters...we can see that SE extent do exactly as modeled below.  Not always, but there are precedents for that look. 

 

Over time, I have learned to look at surface pressure maps.  I do this in order to see where the coldest air is.  They are counter intuitive in that we look for BN heights at 500mb for but we look for AN heights at the surface.  During winter, that can be a strong signal for cold air.  Cold air anchors itself into the Canadian Prairies, and builds.  As the season modeled progresses(below), the cold pushes.  This is an "old school" winter setup where winter just kept coming.  FTR, I am not saying this will happen, but it does catch my attention when modeling shows it - even LR ext modeling during shoulder season. 

 

[Daniel Boone]

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

I like watching the daily run of the CFSv2 seasonal.  I generally watch trends.  It does bounce a round quite a bit, so be forewarned.  Today's run was an extreme run.  Cold December, followed by a colder January, followed by a colder February.  This is about the time of year that we can peek into early winter and see if our thoughts over the summer were correct.  We can also begin to sort through analogs.  I think Cosgrove's ideas have some merit in that winter will have a cold finish.  He is just one of these guys who has seen a lot of weather, and has experience of decades of forecasting.  But what if he is right, AND those of us(who are calling for a cold start to winter) are both correct?  It has been a while since we have had a wall-to-wall winter.  While I think wall-to-wall is unlikely, I do think a cold 2-3 weeks to start December, followed by 3-4 weeks of meh, followed by mid-late Jan into Feb cold...is on the table.  But here is the extreme.

And that might not look overly extreme, but given the configuration of the surface pressure maps below...there is an increasingly strong possibility of very cold temps being released into the lower 48.  During a La Nina, the SE extent of the cold will often be more blunted than below.  However, during weak La Nina winters...we can see that SE extent do exactly as modeled below.  Not always, but there are precedents for that look. 

 

Over time, I have learned to look at surface pressure maps.  I do this in order to see where the coldest air is.  They are counter intuitive in that we look for BN heights at 500mb for but we look for AN heights at the surface.  During winter, that can be a strong signal for cold air.  Cold air anchors itself into the Canadian Prairies, and builds.  As the season modeled progresses(below), the cold pushes.  This is an "old school" winter setup where winter just kept coming.  FTR, I am not saying this will happen, but it does catch my attention when modeling shows it - even LR ext modeling during shoulder season. 

 

 Great Post man !

I made mention of the possibility Cozgrove could be right about the back being cold but wrong about the front and the possibility exists of a solid cold Winter after you posted what his thoughts were recently. He and I and his Buddy Dave Dierks used chat quite a bit and he is without a doubt an expert in Lr Forecasting Dave's more medium range.

   Imo,  this one has the Chance of being a 95-96 type weak Nina or even a 10-11 . The latter was strong moderate but had strong Blocking. Blocking was the big deal for both. '95-96 was cold all three Months but did have short lived mild periods. '10-11 Cold Dec and January, mild February. 

[Carvers Gap]

We are starting to sporadically see deterministic modeling (at very long range) spotting the potential for a massive EPO/PNA ridge.  The 12z Euro is just the latest iteration.  That ridge connects to a ridge over into eastern Asia.  Europe goes into the ice box which teleconnects well to a cold eastern half of NA.  That is the type of nechanism which can send bitterly cold air into North America, particularly the East Coast.  Way out there and huge grains of salt.

[John1122]

4 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

We are starting to sporadically see deterministic modeling (at very long range) spotting the potential for a massive EPO/PNA ridge.  The 12z Euro is just the latest iteration.  That ridge connects to a ridge over into eastern Asia.  Europe goes into the ice box which teleconnects well to a cold eastern half of NA.  That is the type of nechanism which can send bitterly cold air into North America, particularly the East Coast.  Way out there and huge grains of salt.

That happened in the 1962-63 winter. It's England's coldest winter since the little Ice Age. Major +PNA/-EPO combo in December and January.  -10 to -20 temps in mid December here and nearly half a foot of snow on Christmas eve.

[midwoodian]

95-96 was second best snow winter for ETn in my lifetime behind 93


.

[Carvers Gap]

Today's 8-14 analog package from CPC...

19611207
20001106
20001111
19521122
19831124
19671210
20041119
19981106
19711115
19691110

The one that really stands out is the 83-84 winter due to the cold which came early during that winter.  It was just brutal.  I remember riding to town in our Toyota, and the windows froze up on the inside!  @John1122will have to fill in the blanks for the 1960s.  Generally, if I see winters from the 1960s showing up...those are gonna have some decent analogs(not all).  We may have some others with knowledge of those winters as well. 

Keep in mind, these analogs are centered-on a warm time frame.  So, let's see where these go as we get deeper into winter, and see if we see a particular analog which survives from week to week. 

I like to look at analogs during forecasted warm-ups.  If they turn cold later on, that may tell us something.

[John1122]

12-7-1961 was two days after we hit 65 degrees, the warmest temperature of the month. 

It bounced around a little for the next few weeks. It was 38/13 on the 9th. It was 59/46 on the 12th as a cold front approached. It was 60 on the 13th but the low was 19 just before midnight. It was in the 30s for the high on the 14th. It warmed through the 20th. Christmas was cold, with an unofficial White Christmas, since it was 3/4ths inch of snow and not one inch. A major cold front passed on the 27th, which briefly saw warming ahead of the front. From 33 for the high on the 26th, up to 52 on the 27th. An Arctic front passed and squeezed out 1.5 inches of snow with a high of 27 on the 28th. It was below 0 the next two mornings. It warmed to 34 on New Years eve and snowed 4 inches. 

1967 it was the start of almost two weeks of well AN temps. It flipped two days before Christmas,  with a high of 39 on the 23rd. (It was 69 on the 20th). 

Christmas was 40s/20s. 

Big cold arrived just after Christmas. 30s and 10s. 8 inches of snow on December 28th. 30s and single digit lows to close the year. 

November 1969 it was basically normal temps for the period with a quick cold/snow system on the 14th. It snowed 3 inches. The low was 9 on the 15th. We rode the roller coaster between normal and below normal temps the rest of the month. A big rain system ended as snow on the 19th/20th and it covered the ground. November ended cold, around 10 degrees below normal the last couple of days. 

[John1122]

I'll look more at the remainder of those winters later tonight. I'm about to go to the Tennessee game. I will say that January of 1970 was extremely cold and snowy. We were below zero 7 times, and in the single digits 5 more times for lows. Not just -1 either. -10s at times. We had 3 days below -10 and 20 days of snow on the ground.