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Pattern ENSO Updates

I think I'm picking up what you're dropping down haha. Basically maybe some would say I'm being a Debbie Downer or don't know what I'm talking about, which the latter is quite possible. I'm playing Devil's Advocate or just being a realist but in my humble opinion an El Nino basically says I'm supplying the fuel but the rest of the players need to step up to close the deal.

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Yeah that’s essentially how everyone should treat El Niño winters like this around here, the propensity for storms and esp large ones is so much higher in Ninos but this usually favors areas that already have high snowfall climo.
 
Here's the same analysis with more than double the amount of samples using pre-1950 ENSO data via my ENS ONI index.
Each red/blue color increment represents a difference of 0.5, 1.0, & > 2 sigma from the available NINO samples.

El Nino winters generally tend to slightly favor the piedmont and mountains if anything, there's some noise in the coastal plain and coastal areas like Wilmington. Charlotte actually averages more snow in strong-super El Ninos than Raleigh does, again hinting at this underlying favorability to the piedmont & mountains. We're clearly headed into a weak-moderate El Nino this year so I could do a similar analysis with even more samples and see if any discernible signal emerges, likely will be a muddled one if anything in the west-central piedmont and mountains.

View attachment 7028
Man I completely misspoke, or miss typed, in my original question to this chart. It's been a long day I did not mean averages I meant don't you think some of those snowfall totals for the individual El Nino Winters may be skewed. You know what I'm saying for instance the winter of 1930 - 1931 there's some big totals in there, were there just one or two big dog systems or was it a cold snowy winter overall? I guess my point to all of this is as has been mentioned before El Nino doesn't guarantee a great winter there certainly are a lot of other things that need to lineup for things to work, guess I'd rather just temper my expectations so to minimize the disappointment later haha.

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Man I completely misspoke, or miss typed, in my original question to this chart. It's been a long day I did not mean averages I meant don't you think some of those snowfall totals for the individual El Nino Winters may be skewed. You know what I'm saying for instance the winter of 1930 - 1931 there's some big totals in there, were there just one or two big dog systems or was it a cold snowy winter overall? I guess my point to all of this is asriel he's been mentioned before El Nino doesn't guarantee a great winter there certainly are a lot of other things that need to lineup for things to work, guess I'd rather just temper my expectations so to minimize the disappointment later haha.

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It's a scratch off lottery ticket (this isn't South Bend or Buffalo) ... but it's fun like at the Kangaroo counter dropping that $5.00 on the chance for ... :confused:
 
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Man I completely misspoke, or miss typed, in my original question to this chart. It's been a long day I did not mean averages I meant don't you think some of those snowfall totals for the individual El Nino Winters may be skewed. You know what I'm saying for instance the winter of 1930 - 1931 there's some big totals in there, were there just one or two big dog systems or was it a cold snowy winter overall? I guess my point to all of this is as has been mentioned before El Nino doesn't guarantee a great winter there certainly are a lot of other things that need to lineup for things to work, guess I'd rather just temper my expectations so to minimize the disappointment later haha.

In case anyone cares, ATL had a few small events (traces) in 1930-1 and what may have been a moderate icestorm in mid-Dec,, but it was otherwise a typical cold rain dominated winter with some close calls. Total SN/IP only 0.1" vs 2" average.
 
Man I completely misspoke, or miss typed, in my original question to this chart. It's been a long day I did not mean averages I meant don't you think some of those snowfall totals for the individual El Nino Winters may be skewed. You know what I'm saying for instance the winter of 1930 - 1931 there's some big totals in there, were there just one or two big dog systems or was it a cold snowy winter overall? I guess my point to all of this is as has been mentioned before El Nino doesn't guarantee a great winter there certainly are a lot of other things that need to lineup for things to work, guess I'd rather just temper my expectations so to minimize the disappointment later haha.

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1930-31 is very analogous to 1986-87 in terms of both snowfall amounts and how they were distributed in east-central NC. A 2-3 day monster CAD event in mid December (Dec 15-18 1930) was the big dog that winter, producing something in the ballpark of 7-8” on average over the state (more than we usually get for an entire winter) and completely screwed over Raleigh and areas east with an IP fest. A pair of moderately sized winter storms appeared on January 8-9 1931 & January 14-15 1931 (I'm in the process of analyzing those events and quality controlling the data associated w/ them), and another medium event came on March 3-4 1931. The storm on March 3-4 1931 completely screwed over areas like RDU (again) while the central-western piedmont and east-central coastal plain cashed in. In terms of statewide average snowfall, the winter of 1930-31 ranks among the snowiest (I havent but doesn’t seem to be quite as snowy as winters like 1935-36, 1926-27, etc)

December 15-18 1930 NC Snowmap.png

March 3-4 1931 NC Snowmap.png


If you wanna see something crazy snowfall-wise in your backyard from a pair of big dogs just wait til you see the 1947-48 winter seasonal snow map, it was like 1926-27 in terms of snow amounts except the northern coastal plain got annihilated this time. Areas like Scotland Neck got 30", and Nashville about 36" of snow on the season.
 
1930-31 is very analogous to 1986-87 in terms of both snowfall amounts and how they were distributed in east-central NC. A 2-3 day monster CAD event in mid December (Dec 15-18 1930) was the big dog that winter, producing something in the ballpark of 7-8” on average over the state (more than we usually get for an entire winter) and completely screwed over Raleigh and areas east with an IP fest. A pair of moderately sized winter storms appeared on January 8-9 1931 & January 14-15 1931 (I'm in the process of analyzing those events and quality controlling the data associated w/ them), and another medium event came on March 3-4 1931. The storm on March 3-4 1931 completely screwed over areas like RDU (again) while the central-western piedmont and east-central coastal plain cashed in. In terms of statewide average snowfall, the winter of 1930-31 ranks among the snowiest (I havent but doesn’t seem to be quite as snowy as winters like 1935-36, 1926-27, etc)

View attachment 7029

View attachment 7030


If you wanna see something crazy snowfall-wise in your backyard from a pair of big dogs just wait til you see the 1947-48 winter seasonal snow map, it was like 1926-27 in terms of snow amounts except the northern coastal plain got annihilated this time. Areas like Scotland Neck got 30", and Nashville about 36" of snow on the season.


As an aside, to go along w/ the aforementioned theme with big winters, most of 1947-48's snow came in those back-to-back monsters in late January and early-mid February 1948.

I'd also like to mention that you got a white christmas in northern Halifax county during 1947-48 on top of getting about 25"+ of snow on the season.


December 24-25 1947 NC Snowmap.png
January 31-February 1 1948 NC Snow map.png
February 9-10 1948 NC Snowmap.png
 
I remember it like it was yesterday
As an aside, to go along w/ the aforementioned theme with big winters, most of 1947-48's snow came in those back-to-back monsters in late January and early-mid February 1948.

I'd also like to mention that you got a white christmas in northern Halifax county during 1947-48 on top of getting about 25"+ of snow on the season.


View attachment 7031
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Now 3.4 is all the way up to +1.1 C.

Where are you seeing this? On tidbits the 3.4 region is around .55C and hasn't been any higher than .8C this year.
nino34.png
 
Interesting. So what data do they use that justifies the higher temp anomalies? Do they have buoys, ship data, or other satellite derived data they blend?

Great questions that I don’t have answers to off the top of my head. By the way, I should add that Tidbits and the buoy based maps also often don’t jibe well.
 
Great questions that I don’t have answers to off the top of my head. By the way, I should add that Tidbits and the buoy based maps also often don’t jibe well.

CPC uses the weekly version of OISSTv2 in their analyses, this dataset uses buoys, satellites, ships, & optimum interpolation to fill in the gaps
 
Sure looks to me like we are heading to a stronger/weak classification or weaker/moderate El Nino. The key for us will be where the warmest water is located, the central to western Pacific or the Eastern Pacific and all indications point to the Central Modoki type
 
We’re almost certainly headed for a modoki-esque event this winter, the big hint to that is the positive North Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM) & negative SPMM with cold water east of extratropical South America. Weaker El Niños are also more likely to be focused in the central Pacific because the thermocline is often not suppressed enough to compensate for the considerable and enhanced upwelling that takes place on the equator due to the cyclonic wind stress curl associated with the westerly winds that via Sverdrup Transport, increase meridional mass transport
 
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