Post Turkey Day Storm Threat

[DomNH]

Wow, rough night.... had my head outside a window in the 93 tunnel puking was we drove. Basically a disaster of a night. Woke up and didn't even know how I got home. Don't drink on an extremely empty stomach.

One of those days now, heavy heavy naps and recovery.

It's rough trying to catch up on the storms when I'm mobile, Kevin says its a snow or mix for the interior no matter what the solution is. Sort of ruins things and makes me clueless to what actually shows what.

Hope no one was tailgating you...heavy heavy vomit.

[weathafella]

I remember one lowly December of 1993, sitting there at Christmas kind of bemused for having purchased a nice sled for a nephew's present, while brown painted the landscape over bear frozen ground as cruelly as the mind's eye could see or deny. The apple-cheeked little guy woke up for 4 days and counting post the Holiday to peer out the window upon unanswered prayers - just one among many means by which circumstance teaches us as young children that there really is a demon guiding all.

We are all walking, breathing incarnations of the Stockholm Syndrome; only in this paradigm, we peer back upon our lives while rocking gently away in our elderly decrepitude as though the travails of the journey were actually substantively enduring, and not really moments when the demon stole mirth for its own hideous amusement. It is probably a Human condition, a kind of defense mechanism to enter the grave in a state of having subconsciously accepted rationalized delusion lest one's final act is paralysis in realization of despair. And, to a small child that could not care, it was not so funny.

They left to go on back home some 2 days before New Year's, and as though some great mocking winter god - in cahoots no doubt - was in silent wait the moment their flight left the New England gates the snow came, and came on relentlessly. What had been an O-in-how-many-attempts-start went on to finished that year with a spectacular 80+" snow total for the season in Acton Massachusetts, and most in New England - particularly eastern areas closer to the ocean rather ironically, were over that total. It was the epitome of the counter-intuitive winter, with (for those that understand what teleconnectors are and how to use them the modulating one's forecast philosophy at any given time) our nearest endearing North Atlantic Oscillation index influential maintained a positive standard deviation for almost the entire duration - sometimes exceeding +4 ....while Worcester was in S+ with occasional pingers.

Less dark humor and more thinking: I believe that winter really drove home a point that we cannot wholly depend on the assumption of cool versus warm departures based on the NAO. Factually, I do not know what the EPO was doing that year, but I will say that my own experience and verification combined prove that near neutral PNA that occasionally spikes to as little as +1SD while a the EPO block is trans-Siberializing the utter cryospheric crap out of Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada is actually more correlated to inducing Great Lake ice locking, car won't start traffic halting, idiot tongue sticking to flag pole cold as any NAO. In fact, I am willing to extend that the NAO is even over-considered for storm production in general. There is a lot of misconception about the role of the NAO mass field state, and seeing as it is nearing Thanks Giggedy - er, I wish - perhaps we should spend a moment to remind.

If you are a person that foundations your sense of happiness, or derives your ...well, let's call it 'positive attitude and energy', over whether the models crank out a stem winder low replete with snow measure in feet, and live on in your own private tortured frustrated anguish because weeks have gone by since the last over-advertised failure rocked your word and pissed you off, eh hmm ... if you listen closely to the following and try to incorporate these concepts into your expectations, you will have erected a pretty good wall of defense against the tyranny of a bad AFD and/or model con job.

1) Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow! Repeat after me class: 'Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow'; 'Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow'. I have cringed in the passed when I have read ...even from the great NCEP middle range debaters down in Washington (and they are great - that is no dig!) words to the affect of: "SNOW STORM CONSISTENT WITH THE NEGATIVE PHASE OF THE NAO". The primary reason for my cringing is not just for the fact that is not right, but because I instantly sense the suffering of millions of weather enthusiast like a seen where Obe Won wigs out when Dantooine was obliterated by that Death Star thingy.

2) Here's the basics: A west based negative NAO means that you have a cold mass-compensating lowered heights pinned into the regions over southeast Canada and the lower Maritimes. This region balances out (think conservation of mass) the fact that there are positive anomalies at mid and upper levels over the Davis Straight and/or Greenland areas -eyes of the choir beginning to roll. But wait! Therein is the deeper problem (and the source of the confusion), 'what does that mean about the heights over East Coast'?

To really answer that question correctly one has to consider not the snap shot of the heights, but what are all the fundamental characterizations of the field. Those consist of gradient, and the actually upward or downward displacement from the norm. People consistently ignore the gradient and that is the seed of the growing madness, the fruit of which is beautiful but just as toxic as the forbidden apple. Why? Because, in order for any storm to develop you have to have the initiation of restoring forces. Example, when a jet streak associated with a short wave encroaches over an area there is a counter-force (conservation of mass as derived in fluid mechanics) that causes air to beginning moving toward the jet streak at right angles. Because air is intrinsically warmer on the equatorial side of the jet streak, that counter-force motion of air is Warm Air Advection - without which no storm will evolve. The reason for that is advanced and requires understanding the processes of thermodynamics, ...too involved to get into here (we'll keep this conceptual). If you are an astute reader, you may begin to see why gradient is all important.

At first guess one may leap and think, 'great! lots of gradient means higher winds - more jet streak!' But that is wrong wrong wrong. There is a difference between balanced geostrophic wind, and differentiating wind. Quick primer: Geostrophic balance happens when the pressure gradient force is equal to the Coriolis force above the planetary boundary layer. Immediately, incorporating that idea into the greater topic of discussion, a lot of gradient means a lot of balanced wind forces, and naturally, the wind velocities are positively anomalous during times of increased gradient. So, if you have a strongly negative NAO, you have a lot of gradient between say Miami Florida and Boston Massachusetts, so the balanced wind field aloft is going to be moving along like a bat outta hell - 100kts or more in some cases.

Now we have to consider the differentiating wind associated with the jet streak. What does that mean? Well, in simplest terms, if a S/W (jet streak) is injected into the flow from ...circa out west, said jet streak may have an in situ wind max of ...oh, say 100kts at the 500mb level (keeping it basic). It is moving along in a balanced field that is on the order of 50 kts. Now, that 100kt jet streak wind max is about to move into 'bat outta hell' region. Ask the question: What is the result of differentiating a 100kt wind max against a 100kt balance wind regime associated with the crushing suppression of an -NAO west based block? Answer: 0 ! 0, in this case, means 0 restoring force, 0 Warm Air Advection, and ultimately 0 storm genesis.

This is all just in the absolute sense - obviously this is just to illustrate the point. The next time we see the Euro camp and GFS clusters flagging a -3SD NAO, I'd be a little more worried than hopeful at first. At a later time, I will post why it is the entry into and exit out of the NAO periods (both negative and positive) that are the intervals higher correlated to inducing that mirth and sense of well being of the storm zealot.

Oh how we have missed you John!

[TalcottWx]

Hope no one was tailgating you...heavy heavy vomit.

[weathafella]

Mark the calendar. How old is your daughter?

Edit: Tip's been replying for 15 minutes.......piqued my intererest.

She is 11. Born months before my 53rd bday. Ahh for the salad days of youth...

[cpickett79]

ummm

so since we have already entered the progged -nao pattern en route to -3SD + period we should be more worried than excited about the future pattern

edit ......dont me

the WPO is now 9.5 scott.

[CoastalWx]

John, good points and understand fully what you're saying. We also saw how ugly an extreme west based -nao can do on temps in the northeast.

However, I think cyclogenesis is still favored as s/w's have a tendency to amplify under the block, especially with the tendency of a se ridge to help out with warm air advection. Certainly, the folks in the MId Atlantic know all about that. I think it also boils down to how the west is. S/W's amplifying in the flow are even more common if we have some sort of a tendency for split flow out west. Like anything, we can have too much of a good thing.

[scoob40]

It's going to be a great winter.

That's what MRG tells me.

[Organizing Low]

wow Tip great post

thanks

[cpickett79]

granted it's day 6 reverand but the 12z gfs ensembles nearly unamimously have higher heights for friday's event. then the 0z ens's.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Gawd how I missed Tip's posts! Very well put, John

'Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow'

[CoastalWx]

granted it's day 6 reverand but the 12z gfs ensembles nearly unamimously have higher heights for friday's event. then the 0z ens's.

[Ginx snewx]

Why do you think we're getting these 5SD blocks in a strong Niña? Do you think the solar stuff is having an effect and will keep the AO/NAO negative this winter?

It seems like we've had near constant blocking since Summer 2008....

Hi

[dryslot]

I see the ropes and chairs have been dusted off again..........

[MaineJayhawk]

[Ginx snewx]

Tips discourse is interesting but fraught with holes. Certainly higher precip events as Heathers research points out occur in winter at the trransition points, however more snow events and longer snow cover exist in Neg Nao winters. The research is indisputable that NE. Winters which feature a predominate neg NAO are colder and snowier than nomad. I might have missed something in his War and Peace post but I can post links to research.

[CoastalWx]

Hi

What caused it to stay negative in the 50-70's during stronger ENSO events? Was it solar? AMO? Does the -PDO play a role, because I could see that as well. Whatever it is, you can't ignore the tendency for it want to stay negative over the last few years. We'll see if it goes away, but this whole regime has been very impressive to say the least. We've done everything we could to disturb it, except throwing a strong nina at it, we're doing that now. Is this oscillation more independent of ENSO than we think??

The other question, is what about the MJO behavior during this time? We only have MJO data back to 1974 or so. What would the MJO composites look like during the 50's and 60's??? I think the current composites make sense given where the forcing resides for each phase, but it makes me wonder if the temp composites that we know now, would look different if we incorporated data from the 50's and 60's.

[free_man]

Turn out the lights...

[OKpowdah]

John, always a pleasure reading your posts. I remember you frequently referenced over at Eastern the use of antecedent winds and heights over the southeast as a prerequisite for wave amplification.

I mentioned last night that some of the past GFS runs have been advertising some pretty compressible flow across the northern tier into the first week of December, along with the -NAO suggests some pretty good potential for intensifying waves progressing into the northeastern US during this period.

[cpickett79]

lol

those of little faith

as MRG says must repent heavy heavy repenting for many

[Ginx snewx]

What caused it to stay negative in the 50-70's during stronger ENSO events? Was it solar? AMO? Does the -PDO play a role, because I could see that as well. Whatever it is, you can't ignore the tendency for it want to stay negative over the last few years. We'll see if it goes away, but this whole regime has been very impressive to say the least. We've done everything we could to disturb it, except throwing a strong nina at it, we're doing that now. Is this oscillation more independent of ENSO than we think??

The other question, is what about the MJO behavior during this time? We only have MJO data back to 1974 or so. What would the MJO composites look like during the 50's and 60's??? I think the current composites make sense given where the forcing resides for each phase, but it makes me wonder if the temp composites that we know now, would look different if we incorporated data from the 50's and 60's.

All extremely important questions which are not fully understood. I have stated here my opinion many times that ENSO and AO NAO are independent of each. Solar influences are IMHO very important . It is entirely possible that AO NAO is a separate bus driven by an unknown driver.

[MaineJayhawk]

The Rev Kev is my shepherd; I shall not torch.

He maketh me to lie down in snowy pastures.

He leadeth me beside the icy waters.

He restoreth my soul.

He leadeth me in the path of heavy heavy snow for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the snow shadow

I will fear no torch, for snow art with me.

Thy Euro and thy GFS, they blast me with a KU

Thou preparest a blizzard before me in the presence of mine enemies in Dobbs Ferry.

Thou annointest my head with snow, my cup freezeth over.

Surely ice and snow shall follow me all the days of my life

And I will dwell in the house of Kocin and Uccellini forever.

[Ginx snewx]

John, always a pleasure reading your posts. I remember you frequently referenced over at Eastern the use of antecedent winds and heights over the southeast as a prerequisite for wave amplification.

I mentioned last night that some of the past GFS runs have been advertising some pretty compressible flow across the northern tier into the first week of December, along with the -NAO suggests some pretty good potential for intensifying waves progressing into the northeastern US during this period.

His theory of winds over Florida has an interesting result and the out of the box thinking which I love.

[ORH_wxman]

Wow, Euro came in a lot colder for the Friday after T-day event....definitely some frozen to start but the interiro never gets out of the 30s with some secondary redevelopment. That should get Kevin going, lol

Still not a big deal either way, but definitely a bit of a colder look than previously.

[CoastalWx]

Looks like some frozen stuff to start off with the storm for Friday, on the euro. It seems like it could be a more prolonged period of ip/zr for the typical spots of sw nh.

[cpickett79]

Amen

my gf keeps saying wtf are you laughing at......what's on that screen?

[CoastalWx]

The Rev Kev is my shepherd; I shall not torch.

He maketh me to lie down in snowy pastures.

He leadeth me beside the icy waters.

He restoreth my soul.

He leadeth me in the path of heavy heavy snow for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the snow shadow

I will fear no torch, for snow art with me.

Thy Euro and thy GFS, they blast me with a KU

Thou preparest a blizzard before me in the presence of mine enemies in Dobbs Ferry.

Thou annointest my head with snow, my cup freezeth over.

Surely ice and snow shall follow me all the days of my life

And I will dwell in the house of Kocin and Uccellini forever.

Yessah.

[dryslot]

I like it.......

[cpickett79]

Looks like some frozen stuff to start off with the storm for Friday, on the euro. It seems like it could be a more prolonged period of ip/zr for the typical spots of sw nh.

thoust repent for thy it is never 2 late - rev kev

[CoastalWx]

Wow, Euro came in a lot colder for the Friday after T-day event....definitely some frozen to start but the interiro never gets out of the 30s with some secondary redevelopment. That should get Kevin going, lol

Still not a big deal either way, but definitely a bit of a colder look than previously.

Look at that bowling ball come flying east near the Canadian border after hr 90. Kind of weird to see that. Too bad it doesn't dig southeast.

[Ginx snewx]

Wow, Euro came in a lot colder for the Friday after T-day event....definitely some frozen to start but the interiro never gets out of the 30s with some secondary redevelopment. That should get Kevin going, lol

Still not a big deal either way, but definitely a bit of a colder look than previously.

Guys it is pretty obvious now with the tanking of the AO that colder solutions will continue to evolve, might not mean snow but as the week passes any warm look should be looked at with tainted eyes.