Winter 2023-2024 | Discussion and Outlooks

[MaineJay]

15 minutes ago, 1816 said:

The dirty secret people don't talk about, not even hate winter warmth. Those poor bastards over there where it's -75 don't care about winter weather.  They just wish they could move to Hawaii. 

A typical shower there.  I bet the pine boughs are great for getting to those hard to reach places.

[BuckeyeGal]

From Met Josh Ketchen (he posted this BEFORE the latest operational model runs, which are definitely now agreeing with what he said):

Quote

All we keep hearing about is how it is going to be warm through the rest of the month of December. While I believe it is mild through the middle of next week, I believe most will be shocked when Christmas Week into the beginning of 2024 is colder then what you are hearing. If I am wrong, then I will be wrong, but I feel the models are mishandling the subtropical jet stream and its influence on the pattern. The storm that comes together and strengthens in the Gulf of Mexico and trudges northward into the Dixie states will get things rolling. We will see.

I believe the ensemble members of the GFS and Canadian are starting to pick up on this in small increments. It won't go from mild/warm to cold and stormy in a day, but it should progess to colder as we move closer to the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 before the January Thaw comes calling around January 10ish. Let's see how that plays out.

What I will show below is the ensembles showing light snow on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. It isn't much, but going from no chance of snow at all and very mild to the ensemble mean average at least suggesting a chance of snow should at least be a hint that this month will not just go quietly.

Image 1: GFS Ensemble 12Z Dec 12 for 24 hour period ending Dec 25 7 PM

Image 2: Canadian Ensmeble 12Z Dec 12 for 24 hour period ending Dec 26 7 AM

What this means is both models show, at least, a little snow Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

 

[beaver56]

11 minutes ago, BuckeyeGal said:

From Met Josh Ketchen (he posted this BEFORE the latest operational model runs, which are definitely now agreeing with what he said):

 

 

[Cary67]

1 hour ago, BuckeyeGal said:

From Met Josh Ketchen (he posted this BEFORE the latest operational model runs, which are definitely now agreeing with what he said):

 

Don't know if the term "January thaw" can be used for a pattern that is unseasonably mild and gradually turns cooler for a week to 10 days before turning  mild again. I guess a chance of flurries on Xmas is something. 

[TheComet]

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1734951966474661943?s=20

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by TheComet

[SNOWBOB11]

22 minutes ago, TheComet said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1734951966474661943?s=20

 

 

 

I don’t think that look is too bad even for the early part of January. Maybe not for very cold but hopefully storm chances?

[SNOWBOB11]

Seriously though how can this track in December not give snow to the lower lakes lol.

Edited December 13, 2023 by SNOWBOB11

[Hoosier]

1 hour ago, TheComet said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1734951966474661943?s=20

 

 

 

Give me that look.  I'd take my chances.

[Hassaywx1223]

2 hours ago, TheComet said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1734951966474661943?s=20

 

 

 

I mean with that at least we have average temps and not a torch with more chances of snow 

[Cary67]

56 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Give me that look.  I'd take my 

+NAO shifting to slightly negative with a bit of SE ridge isn't bad for our area.

[Pghsnow]

I had been wondering about this as it seemed something was off on the GEFS as compared to GFS.

Keep in mind when analyzing the GEFS vs the OP…The GEFS was upgraded to use the FV3 core in 2020. However the GEFS have not received the changes that were made to the GFS in Version 16 in 2021.

https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/users/meg/gefsv12/

[Pghsnow]

CFS for January

[Mulaman984]

Some significant changes on todays 12z gfs/gefs 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Mulaman984

[beaver56]

6 hours ago, Mulaman984 said:

Some significant changes on todays 12z gfs/gefs 

Here is to hoping the trend continues! 🎅🥂

Edited December 14, 2023 by beaver56

[StormfanaticInd]

A lot going now with this pattern 

[StormfanaticInd]

 

[StormfanaticInd]

12z cfs 30 day🤔

[so_whats_happening]

11 hours ago, MaineJay said:

Almost Joe. If you always forecast cold and snow, eventually you'll be right.

Too many social media METs  want to appease winter weather lovers. Fighting for eyes with increasingly hyped up language. It's frustrating.  I'd recommend going back to page 25 to see some of the forecasts.  I think there was, and still is a "grouo think" mentality that this is a modoki Niño, I'm less convicted now than back then.  The pattern that was highlighted seemed to be rotated clockwise on the northern hemisphere. So instead of a +PNA ridge, you get +EPO ridge over Hudson Bay.  I'm my humble opinion, this is directly a result of the Niño being canonical.

  Waaaay too much sensationalism from folks who should know better. 

There is a lot of group think going on. Yet again another reason I have stayed away from social media stuff, people over hype years way too much. I do agree if we are looking strictly at SST anomalies we are having that canonical EP Nino feel, this seems to quickly be heading west though within the last month. This has been evolving very similar to 1997/98 as far as SST configuration and IOD with a mix of 2015 SST setup with the equatorial warm tongue and the warmer IO and north Pacific look. No year with similar Nino strength has this mass of warm waters sitting off Japan like this. However there are differences when looking at similar SST years (Strong to super) to this one.

I will say though for awhile 2009-10 was looking like a fairly close match but when we pushed the warmth in 3.4 around October and especially November and 1.2 even 3 failed to cool to near neutral it became fairly clear the pattern would not evolve in a similar fashion. 

Some differences include VP placement, SOI, MEI (which integrates 5 mechanics into the equation), and the PDO state. Im probably forgetting more but whatever. Ill take a look at similar years later tonight at work and see if these differences show up from the more canonical or at least similar SST years to the more modoki like years. This is a record for -PDO state +AMO state and SST anomalies on the Equatorial Pacific in recorded data. Certainly witnessing a different flavor of an EP El Nino state in a warm climate lets see how it plays out.

[so_whats_happening]

Christmas time on the Euro has certainly changed up a bit. One run of course but I do like to use the Euro less fluctuation unlike the GFS and it is 240hrs can't go wrong with that. The EPS has a sort of similar approach it does flood Europe/northern Asia with warmth like crazy it does have a similar neutral to below average look around Christmas while most of Canada slowly wanes the warm pattern toward the end of the month. 

For some reason cant get the temp one to load so yea 12z euro sfc temp would show you that warm up over Europe and northern Asia.

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by so_whats_happening

[Grace]

11 hours ago, TheComet said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1734951966474661943?s=20

 

 

 

 

Why does Eric do that?  The weeklies have been showing it turn colder for several runs, the first run it has that's a different narrative he has to run to Twitter and post itike it's gospel, lol. Is that really being objective? 100% not!

I wonder why he didn't go back on twitter today and say that today's run for the weeklies was colder than yesterday's? As much as some of these guys hammer JB, when they do the same thing the opposite, they need to preach to themselves.

I follow Eric & really like him. He's brilliant! But he loves to troll winter lovers when he can...mostly met winter lovers, & ends up being the very thing he's upset at them for doing. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Grace

[StormfanaticInd]

The euro is trending much colder for next week

[so_whats_happening]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:40 PM, so_whats_happening said:

We need more Cyclonic wave breaks (negative tilted systems) to really throw the Stratospheric vortex (SPV) into a death spiral and unfortunately the Atlantic side has not cooperated at all so we only get Pacific driven wave activity. This led to the large displacement (upper level ridging pattern at 10mb) around Alaska, this wave 1 displacement while it did weaken the SPV it caused a typical response which was to have all the cold over into Europe and Asia.

We saw a different approach last year where we had a large wave 1 response (warming) over the European and Asian continents thus shoving the core of the cold into AK and  Western Canada, unfortunately the tropospheric pattern was not conducive for a cold blast across the country it ended up in the west and SW while we baked in the east. It was almost like a triple whammy of sorts: La Nina/-PDO,-PNA, and SPV displacement which did favor cold in North America but alas the other factors caused us to not have a fun one.

Now this year with the background state we could have better opportunities with a displacement pattern but again we need the Atlantic to really step its game up a bit. I think the most ideal aspect would be to get another round of wave activity to set up with a dieing ridge near Alaska( at 10mb) that moves over to about Greenland with time and this would allow enough of a perturbation on the Atlantic side while having strong activity on the Pacific side of things to really act on the SPV. Does this happen not a clue unfortunately. The fact that we are seeing a weakening MJO wave traveling through 4-7 is not an ideal setup for a strong attack on the SPV. So yes we may keep a weakened state but sitting where it is not going to help the situation especially if it tries to connect with the 500mb pattern.

If this pattern holds (instead of relocating that ridge to Greenland area and producing another strong warming episode like I mentioned above) it could at least provide the idea of some cold with a more pronounced Western US/ Alaska ridge scenario as it connects which would be toward the second half of winter, we have yet to see it connect to the lower levels meaningfully during this warming episode.

Well we may just get that in the bolded. Some runs are starting to show the dislodging of the AK region ridge and moving it east with time. It doesn't seem to weaken all too much as previous runs showed though. So if we can get a strong onslaught of cyclonic wave breaks to occur in the Atlantic to European region we may just be able to have some fun with this strat. I do like the fact that the cold is being dislodged from Europe and northern Asia ahead of the Stratospheric warming this will help our chances at a colder outcome if one does come about.

I don't expect a major SSW to occur before mid January but will have to wait to see how things evolve in the next week. We can usually see it in OP models at the hour 240 time stamp if we were to get such a result.

[StormfanaticInd]

Storm system this weekend is starting to look like a beast

[so_whats_happening]

9 hours ago, so_whats_happening said:

There is a lot of group think going on. Yet again another reason I have stayed away from social media stuff, people over hype years way too much. I do agree if we are looking strictly at SST anomalies we are having that canonical EP Nino feel, this seems to quickly be heading west though within the last month. This has been evolving very similar to 1997/98 as far as SST configuration and IOD with a mix of 2015 SST setup with the equatorial warm tongue and the warmer IO and north Pacific look. No year with similar Nino strength has this mass of warm waters sitting off Japan like this. However there are differences when looking at similar SST years (Strong to super) to this one.

I will say though for awhile 2009-10 was looking like a fairly close match but when we pushed the warmth in 3.4 around October and especially November and 1.2 even 3 failed to cool to near neutral it became fairly clear the pattern would not evolve in a similar fashion. 

Some differences include VP placement, SOI, MEI (which integrates 5 mechanics into the equation), and the PDO state. Im probably forgetting more but whatever. Ill take a look at similar years later tonight at work and see if these differences show up from the more canonical or at least similar SST years to the more modoki like years. This is a record for -PDO state +AMO state and SST anomalies on the Equatorial Pacific in recorded data. Certainly witnessing a different flavor of an EP El Nino state in a warm climate lets see how it plays out.

Currently the VP is the furthest west we have seen in such a strong El Nino (we do not look to go super status if the December numbers hold up but worrying bout .1-.2 is not extremely important given where we are).

I used Sept-Nov composites to do a 3 month period to drown out some noise but this year compared to all the Nino years going back to 1950 that were near our similar trimonthly or more. The years(peak values in()) were 1957-58 (1.8 DJF), 1965-66 (2.0 SON/OND), 1972-73 (2.1 OND/NDJ), 1982-83 (2.2 Oct-Feb), 1987-88 (1.7 JAS), 1991-92 (1.7 DJF), 1997-98 (2.4 OND/NDJ), 2015-16 (2.6 OND/NDJ). I chose not to use 1951-52, 1963-64, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2009-10 because they all had lower trimonthly peaks to where we are; the lowest I went was 1.7 trimonthly. For Super years I used a trimonthly above 2, meaning 2.1 and above. The trimonthly data came from the CPC site.

Modoki years:

Nino years with Trimonthly over 2

The all Nino years composite centers it around 140-160W while 2023 has it centered west of the Dateline extending eastward to about 140W, it also has a really strong -VP cell over Africa. The Modoki years kept the Velocity closer to the dateline in comparison to Super years which had it closer to 3/eastern 3.4.  This excluding other factors such IOD state and PDO state.

 

SOI for each of the years leading up to winter with similar trimonthly levels:

https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

1957-58: Sept -9.4   Oct -.3    Nov -11     Dec -4.3

1965-66: Sept -13.5    Oct -11    Nov -16.7   Dec .3

1972-73: Sept -14.1    Oct -11    Nov -3.4    Dec -13.4

1982-83: Sept -20    Oct -20.5   Nov -30    Dec -22.6

1987-88: Sept -10.6    Oct  -5.3   Nov -1.5    Dec -5.8

1991-92: Sept  -16.2   Oct -13.5    Nov -6.9     Dec -18.3

1997-98: Sept -14.1   Oct -16.7    Nov -13.9    Dec -10.8

2015-16: Sept -16.7   Oct -21.3     Nov -3.2    Dec -10

Looking at years with Modoki like atmospheric state:

1991-92: Sept  -16.2   Oct -13.5    Nov -6.9     Dec -18.3

1994-95: Sept -16.2    Oct -13.5    Nov -7.3    Dec -13.1

2002-03: Sept -7.3    Oct -7.6    Nov -4.1    Dec -13.4

2004-05: Sept -3.2    Oct -3    Nov -7.7     Dec -10.1

2009-10: Sept  3.6   Oct -14.9    Nov -6.4    Dec -9

 

2023: Sept -13.9  Oct -6.6  Nov -8.4  Dec? (but it is currently sitting at ~-4.

Overall there doesn't seem to be too much rhyme or reason to SOI values but there is a noticeable lower SOI value (larger negative value) in Super Nino years versus lower trimonthly and modoki style years.

 

MEI unfortunately only goes back so far (1979). So can only do the more recent years for this one.

https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/

1982-83: fairly close to ONI values in fact exceeding those values as we got to spring maxed at 2.9 bimonthly value.

1987-88: Just about followed suit with ONI values maxed at 2

1991-92: again just about followed suit with ONI values and maxed at 2 late winter

1994-95: wash rinse repeat followed suit with ONI values and maxed at 1.5

1997-98: followed suit but had quite an extensive stretch of of over 2 values maxing at 2.5

2002-03: this ended up cooler than the ONI and maxed at only a value of 1

2004-05: Fairly weak Nino but kept inline with ONI values for the most part maxed at .7

2009-10: ended up weaker than ONI and maxed at 1.3

2015-16: ended up weaker than ONI by quite a bit and maxed at 2.2

2023:  well we got an update to .8 with a current ONI trimonthly of 1.8 quite the difference

MEI is made up of 5 different variables to get values 1.) Equatorial pacific SST 2.) SLP 3.) zonal winds 4.) Meridional winds and lastly 5.) OLR. If one or more of these are off we get lower MEI values versus things being more suited into an El Nino/ La Nina state would have higher values, closer to ONI values. Basically how well connected everything is or not. We seemed to have a shift of lower MEI values after 1997-98 in comparison to ONI values meaning the SST anomalies was probably not the factor in a lower MEI value. SLP and likely zonal winds were probably some of the larger issues we saw for such lower values but would really have to dig into each year and sorry that just aint happening tonight.

 

PDO state in each of the years:

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/index/ersst.v5.pdo.dat

1957-58: Extremely Positive Fall 

1965-66: Neutral Positive

1972-73: Was deeply negative but rose to around neutral in the Fall

1982-83: rather neutral state, maybe slightly positive averaged out

1987-88: Extremely positive falling to a lower positive value

1991-92: Deeply negative to low end positive (large swing this year)

1994-95: weakly positive into a negative state as we went into winter

1997-98: Extremely positive

2002-03: moderately negative to neutral and then to extremely positive over winter.

2004-05: neutral overall with a moderately negative look toward winter

2009-10: Deeply negative to near neutral

2015-16: moderately positive to neutral

2023-24: Deeply negative to moderately negative so far.

Nothing overly standing out but the years where we did have more modoki like setups did tend to have a -PDO state stick around the only one was 1972-73 while it did rise to neutral it was the only one even close to values currently seen with an ONI of this level.

Overall the VP anomalies seemed to be the most modoki like feature, SOI was just too random but weaker values did tend to occur in a weaker ENSO state/ modoki like years, MEI while unfortunately not being able to go past 1979 showed a change up around the 2000 area to a weaker MEI state versus ONI readings, and lastly the PDO state again the years with more modoki like qualities had a more negative PDO state but nothing too one way or the other and again the randomness of 1972-73. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by so_whats_happening

[Grace]

BSR...shows initial colder dump west early JAN but moves east rather quickly:

 

By JAN 8th time frame 

 

Again, stormy looking period the last week of year.

Cold dump centered further west almost central CONUS with storminess to start new year.

This regime moves east & currently modeled to remain that way during that 2nd week of JAN. 

EDIT:  Always keep in mind what the Ohio valley needs is not necessarily what the North East needs. Some patterns favor both some patterns favorite one over the other.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Grace