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Pattern December - Deal or No Deal?

Just to lighten the mood a little....Bama and GA you are the 18z FV3 winners
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Just to give some more background on my post above. I looked up some winters that traversed Ph4-6 to see how they evolved. Again, not a ton of analogs but just to give an idea.

Here is what the pattern looked like as MJO enters phase 5.

View attachment 9196


10 days after Phase 5...look familiar?

View attachment 9197

20 days after phase 5....not to bad. This would put us roughly mid-January.

View attachment 9198

30 days after phase 5....this would put us end of January.

View attachment 9199


Again, I hope I am wrong, I hope the models are wrong, I hope the models modeling MJO are wrong. I hope we flip January 1st and we are all measuring snow with yardsticks. But, I don't appreciate getting attacked by baseless responses.

MJO is not a baseless yardstick, and if there is an attack, let's all hope it gets stalled in Ph 8 until March, due to bad weather ... :cool:
 
Just to lighten the mood a little....Bama and GA you are the 18z FV3 winners
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That looks familiar,
Just to lighten the mood a little....Bama and GA you are the 18z FV3 winners
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This look looks familiar, only difference is the 4 turned into 12in and my dusting turn into a dusting.
 
I mean has legs, extremely marginal setup, but we take what we can get. If the FV3 were to verify there would be some wet snow via dynamic cooling under those bright bands

fv3p_ref_frzn_eus_24.png
 
The climatological window in which most El Nino winters throughout the observed record have benefited the Carolinas the most is sometime during the 2nd half of January and thru early March. Before some lose their minds over impatience, it's important to remind them that this year has an argument to be the snowiest El Nino winter, and perhaps the snowiest winter in general thru the 2nd week of December on record with arguably the biggest winter storm observed this early in the season, and our statewide average on the year is already ahead of about 35-45% of entire winters already thanks to that storm last week, and we're a really long ways from when most El Nino winters like this typically hit their stride, and to be quite honest we're putting a serious hurting on most El Nino winters atm, it's not even close. If we get 1 more storm of comparable magnitude to the December 8-10th event later this winter, that would give NC as a whole more snow than all of last winter, which was among the snowiest of the 2000s thus far.

Via World Climate Service, polar vortex displacement events, like the one that's forecast to occur near the end of December this winter, are usually not followed by a tropospheric response (negative NAO/AO) until about 3 weeks later which ironically also puts us somewhere around mid to perhaps late January to benefit from a Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event.

DuPmxIKUUAANHhF.jpg

Usually, in El Nino winters, the biggest event of the season in NC doesn't show up until mid-late January and sometimes as late as mid-late March, this winter is far from over and you could even perhaps go insofar as to say the best is yet to come. Just be patient...

Here's a few examples that came to my mind from both recent & ancient NINO winters with the biggest event of the winter in this aforementioned window (mid January- early March) during a NINO background state. I could come up with more examples (February 9-11 1973, March 1-2 1980, etc.) but I'm pretty sure you'll get the point well before then.
February 25-26 1914 NC Snowmap.png

February 9-11 1919 NC Snowmap.png
February 27-28 1924 NC Snowmap.png
January 29-30 1930 NC Snowmap.png
January 23-24 1940 NC Snowmap.png



January 25-27 1966 NC Snowmap.png


January 22-23 1987 NC Snowmap.jpg

February 25-26 2015 NC Snowmap.png

January 22-23 2016 NC Snowmap.gif
 
I don't have any substance to add other than an opinion ...

I've learned a great deal over the last few years, especially from many posters here. I am by no means an expert. I enjoy looking at statistical analysis as well as pattern predictions. I love analogs, historical analysis, and pattern recognition. GaWx and Webber as well as several others, have great posts in those areas. As has been said many times, snow in the south is difficult to come about. Overwhelming cold usually brings suppression. As memory serves, we usually get our best storms during a pattern flip. Also, some of our best storms were not locked in on much more than a week away - if that - in a pattern that would not be expected to produce.

Without going back and looking a specific posts, I believe that most of the projections in the latter half of October had November warm - and we see how that turned out. Remember, most of us are all in this together. We are all wanting the same thing. So let's just hang in there and remember weather has a way of surprising all of us. I am rooting for us all to score - congrats to many NC folks who have already. In the meantime, I will enjoy the ride. And if it doesn't come to fruition for us this year, then I am a Braves fan, Georgia fan, Falcons fan, and Hawks fan ... I am used to heartbreak. But I always have that hope at the beginning of each season!! Good luck and hang in there.
 
Just to give some more background on my post above. I looked up some winters that traversed Ph4-6 to see how they evolved. Again, not a ton of analogs but just to give an idea.

Here is what the pattern looked like as MJO enters phase 5.

View attachment 9196


10 days after Phase 5...look familiar?

View attachment 9197

20 days after phase 5....not to bad. This would put us roughly mid-January.

View attachment 9198

30 days after phase 5....this would put us end of January.

View attachment 9199


Again, I hope I am wrong, I hope the models are wrong, I hope the models modeling MJO are wrong. I hope we flip January 1st and we are all measuring snow with yardsticks. But, I don't appreciate getting attacked by baseless responses.

The general theme of this composite evolution you've shown above is generally consistent with what you'd expect from El Nino events with a early-mid winter sudden stratospheric warming event. Troughiness over the Pacific-Arctic, Bering Sea, Alaska, and far eastern Siberia coupled to a Barents Sea/Scandinavian high (the renowned "tropospheric precursor pattern") increases wave forcing from the troposphere, and momentum from these waves gets deposited up to the stratopause onto the polar vortex with circulation anomalies usually taking about 2-3 weeks or so to propagate into the troposphere and significantly degenerate the tropospheric vortex/ & thus implicate the Arctic & North Atlantic Oscillations. We're mirroring the evolution of most these years so far, the westerly QBO regime we're entering has arguably expedited the process a little. We'll see what happens going forward, but I like the persistence & intensity of this tropospheric precursor pattern the next few weeks, where we stand in terms of QBO evolution, and solar activity (SSWE frequency usually increases during solar min and max), in addition to how weak the vortex is vs other SSWEs, all of these are playing in this year's favor to succeed in getting a major sudden stratospheric warming event that eventually triggers a period of prolonged tropospheric high-latitude blocking during the 2nd half of January &/or February. I'm ecstatic we managed to crank out a big dog this early on in an El Nino winter because this puts us far ahead of the curve against most good NINO winters for another month (or more in many instances).
 
The general theme of this composite evolution you've shown above is generally consistent with what you'd expect from El Nino events with a early-mid winter sudden stratospheric warming event. Troughiness over the Pacific-Arctic, Bering Sea, Alaska, and far eastern Siberia coupled to a Barents Sea/Scandinavian high (the renowned "tropospheric precursor pattern") increases wave forcing from the troposphere, and momentum from these waves gets deposited up to the stratopause onto the polar vortex with circulation anomalies usually taking about 2-3 weeks or so to propagate into the troposphere and significantly degenerate the tropospheric vortex/ & thus implicate the Arctic & North Atlantic Oscillations. We're mirroring the evolution of most these years so far, the westerly QBO regime we're entering has arguably expedited the process a little. We'll see what happens going forward, but I like the persistence & intensity of this tropospheric precursor pattern the next few weeks, where we stand in terms of QBO evolution, and solar activity (SSWE frequency usually increases during solar min and max), in addition to how weak the vortex is vs other SSWEs, all of these are playing in this year's favor to succeed in getting a major sudden stratospheric warming event that eventually triggers a period of prolonged tropospheric high-latitude blocking during the 2nd half of January &/or February. I'm ecstatic we managed to crank out a big dog this early on in an El Nino winter because this puts us far ahead of the curve against most good NINO winters for another month (or more in many instances).
Thanks for the "good" news, Webb! Wanna go swimming? Water's not gonna be too chilly in the Ichetucknee River this winter ...
 
The general theme of this composite evolution you've shown above is generally consistent with what you'd expect from El Nino events with a early-mid winter sudden stratospheric warming event. Troughiness over the Pacific-Arctic, Bering Sea, Alaska, and far eastern Siberia coupled to a Barents Sea/Scandinavian high (the renowned "tropospheric precursor pattern") increases wave forcing from the troposphere, and momentum from these waves gets deposited up to the stratopause onto the polar vortex with circulation anomalies usually taking about 2-3 weeks or so to propagate into the troposphere and significantly degenerate the tropospheric vortex/ & thus implicate the Arctic & North Atlantic Oscillations. We're mirroring the evolution of most these years so far, the westerly QBO regime we're entering has arguably expedited the process a little. We'll see what happens going forward, but I like the persistence & intensity of this tropospheric precursor pattern the next few weeks, where we stand in terms of QBO evolution, and solar activity (SSWE frequency usually increases during solar min and max), in addition to how weak the vortex is vs other SSWEs, all of these are playing in this year's favor to succeed in getting a major sudden stratospheric warming event that eventually triggers a period of prolonged tropospheric high-latitude blocking during the 2nd half of January &/or February. I'm ecstatic we managed to crank out a big dog this early on in an El Nino winter because this puts us far ahead of the curve against most good NINO winters for another month (or more in many instances).
Thanks Webber!
 
I think the only thing that is off the table is end to end cold. There is fairly good agreement on what the pattern will be the next couple of weeks and it will take time to change after, if it changes. My guess is we are headed to a 14/15 repeat where things turn in February. I hope I am wrong and it’s mid January.
It's really not reasonable to consider punting before we hit 1 Feb, no matter what models are showing earlier.
 
I actually think that has some legs though. Probably light accumulation outside of the Apps at best but something to look at.
Well, Goofy has the 0 line in the gulf again....what could possibly go wrong, lol. On the other hand Goofy has been wanting to put cold air and rain together in the days before Xmas for a good while now, so maybe the 0 line will get to the oil rigs.
 
It's obviously too early to be certain if this will actually translate into anything in the long run, but in concert w/ this favorable tropospheric pattern that often precedes SSWEs, we'll see a big uptick in heat flux in the mid-upper stratosphere the next few weeks. Heat flux essentially measures the strength of vertically propagating waves into the stratosphere, more frequent & stronger vertically propagating waves from the troposphere increases both the heat flux and the temperature in the polar stratosphere.

The graphic below integrates the heat fluxes near the "surf zone" from planetary-scale waves with wavenumbers 1-3, low wavenumbers implying larger waves (in terms of spatial scale) and it's only the largest & strongest tropospheric waves that actually impact the stratospheric polar vortex. Momentum fluxes from higher frequency, smaller waves usually get refracted back into the troposphere &/or often aren't sustained long enough to seriously impact the vortex. In order to disrupt the polar vortex and generate a stratospheric warming event, and a coveted period of sustainable, long-term blocking following said stratospheric warming event, you need strong bouts of easterly momentum to emanate from tropospheric waves to decelerate &/or even reverse the westerly jet. Waves will tend to deposit momentum onto a waveguide (i.e. jet stream) that's of the same sign as their phase speed. Meaning that waves moving from west to east, when propagating upward, will deposit some of this west to east (westerly) momentum onto a corresponding jet when they become dampened/weaken & vis versa with easterly waves. We know from basic Rossby Wave dynamics that larger Rossby waves with low wavenumbers tend to be either quasi-stationary and/or retrograde from east to west against the mean flow due to planetary vorticity advection. Thus, in a hand-wavy sense, you can probably get a basic understanding for why you need persistent momentum fluxes large, long planetary-scale waves because they're not only more likely to be persistent, but also possess an easterly phase speed and thus deposit easterly momentum onto the westerly polar night jet, which is needed to breakdown the polar vortex and trigger a sudden stratospheric warming event &/or subsequent tropospheric blocking.

(the surf zone is the interface between ozone rich, high potential vorticity, mid-high latitude air vs ozone poor tropical & subtropical airmass wherein planetary waves "break" and deposit their momentum onto the polar night jet that seals off the polar vortex from the rest of the globe).
Screen Shot 2018-12-15 at 9.13.40 PM.png


This year has consistently been near the top of the pack in terms of eddy heat flux in the middle-upper stratosphere, a far cry from last winter
Screen Shot 2018-12-15 at 9.20.49 PM.png
 
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