Pattern Jammin' January

[Rain Cold]

I see a lot of frustration and some terrible modeling by most models for the 8-10 day and especially the 10-15 day time frame. They can’t be trusted and that’s 100% correct logic.

Now, how you interpret that is up for debate. Heat does largely win out most of the time, and a lot of models have a cold bias in general, but I’ll have to disagree on trusting a full on torch for the LR just because heat is more believable to the eye.

If the models were showing a spectacular pattern but have been all over the place, the same people will be yelling not to trust the 10-15 cold because the models are inconsistent. So why the double standard?

Also, CR don’t take this the wrong way. We go way back. Just seeing a lot of the same stuff on twitter too..calling out the optimistic folks. I don’t really get it.

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No worries man. I appreciate your post. When models show cold, you rarely get any dissenting comments (like, “you just can’t trust the models”). But when they show warm, you tend to see a lot of posts, tweets, facebookings, blogs, etc. talking about how you can’t trust the models for this or that reason. I have been observing weather and models long enough to know that the truth of the matter is that you can’t trust long range model output most of the time, regardless of what they’re showing. On the other hand, I have seen far and away more instances of warmth in the LR verifying than cold in the LR verifying. Why is this? Maybe it’s because the models have a cold bias, like you said. Maybe it’s because the background climate is generally warm. Maybe it’s one particular variable or another like the mjo or ssw or whatever. And maybe that variable or combination of variables changes from season to season. But whatever it is, it’s easier for the models to be right in the LR when they show warm than when they show cold.

That said, you’re right, the models can’t be 100% trusted in the LR regardless of what they’re showing. But if they’ve been showing warm and we have been warm and they’re continuing to show warm, I think the best course of reason is to suspect that more warmth is on the way, unless there is some very compelling reason to believe otherwise.

Everyone that has done research this year will say that the back half of the winter was the part that was expect to be colder. That gives some reason to suspect (or hope) the models may be off at the longer leads regarding the warmth. We’ll see, but it is going to have to start showing up in the next couple of weeks at the LR if that’s going to pan out, unless we’re defining the last half of winter to mean the second half of Feb and March. I hope that’s not the case.

 

[Webberweather53]

That’s the light at end of the tunnel.

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

 

[pcbjr]

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

Very well said and worth a pin, Webb!
Phil

 

[pcbjr]

^^^
Oh, and BTW ...

 

[TheBatman]

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

We have had some of our worst ice storms also in February. For example 1985 and 1994 storms. That was pretty awesome.

 

[Webberweather53]

Intraseasonal forcing is also favorable for -NAO in the extended & is helping along the stratosphere. By the time the MJO reaches the western hemisphere, the Aleutian Low is usually near max intensity (shutting off downward WAFz reflection into northern North America) & the jet stream shifts equatorward over the longitudes of active convection (Atlantic, EP, Africa, etc), both of which are more favorable to negative NAOs. Hence, -NAOs usually follow a week or two after a Pacific MJO event, & it's arguably more likely here given the ongoing stratospheric warming event & the MJO is already strong in the Maritime Continent and far West Pacific. NAO predictability is going to be low here & I personally don't expect NWP to be too keen on this particular -NAO stint until it's almost too late, but we will definitely have the general ingredients to acquire a formidable -NAO in the 2nd half of January.

 

[Brick Tamland]

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

I think the early December storm threw everyone for a loop, and some were expecting a winter with threat after threat. Maybe we are just in a lull now until later in January. But, I am not so sure we'll have more threats here in the Raleigh area just because we did have a big storm already, and history shows we don't get more than one big storm here for winter, and if we do get a big storm that's usually the only storm of significance for us. I'd love another big one, or two or three smaller storms with 2 or 3 inches of snow. But that is so rare for us to get around here. But I am hoping this is the winter it does happen, and things start getting wintry again around the 15th of January.

 

[Rain Cold]

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

I think going warm a month or so in winter without anything to track tends to lend itself to a little pessimism. I don’t see a lot of whining outside of the banter thread. Sure there are a few posts here and there, but nothing widespread. Also, keep in mind that most posters on forums like this don’t have the background or experience to be able to analyze things the way a met or met student does. All they see are model images that show either cold or warm or rain or snow. I don’t see anything wrong with being skeptical no more than I do with being overly optimistic. The back half of the winter is expected to be better. But if you want the pessimism to abate, then there needs to be visible signs of it within the medium that most people have access to. Until then, we just deal with a range of human emotions, and that ought to be ok. There is a reason to be optimistic about later on. It’ll just be good when it starts showing up.

 

[Rain Cold]

I think the early December storm threw everyone for a loop, and some were expecting a winter with threat after threat. Maybe we are just in a lull now until later in January. But, I am not so sure we'll have more threats here in the Raleigh area just because we did have a big storm already, and history shows we don't get more than one big storm here for winter, and if we do get a big storm that's usually the only storm of significance for us. I'd love another big one, or two or three smaller storms with 2 or 3 inches of snow. But that is so rare for us to get around here. But I am hoping this is the winter it does happen, and things start getting wintry again around the 15th of January.

I don’t think you can use history that way. Statistics mean something, but there needs to be a context around them sometimes. If we get into a favorable pattern, the odds of us getting a big snow will be the same as if we had never gotten any snow in December.

 

[Brick Tamland]

The good thing is we have seen things go from looking horrible to a winter storm here pretty quickly. I actually don't want wall to wall bitter cold for winter. That's not when we usually get good storms here. It's a fine line, but I think we have better shots at good winter storms here when we have a lot of back and forth with the pattern, going from warm to cold, and it doesn't have to be super cold, either.

 

[Rain Cold]

The good thing is we have seen things go from looking horrible to a winter storm here pretty quickly. I actually don't want wall to wall bitter cold for winter. That's not when we usually get good storms here. It's a fine line, but I think we have better shots at good winter storms here when we have a lot of back and forth with the pattern, going from warm to cold, and it doesn't have to be super cold, either.

Also, as bad as things look in the LR, I don’t see a pattern that can’t get better fairly quickly. So that’s good.

 

[SnowNiner]

I'm still hanging in there. I think Jan 20 onward we're going to be well on our way to a solid pattern based on GEFS and it's handling of the MJO; it seems righter than most on that. Having EPS showing the constant western troughing though creates anxiety no doubt. But it's crappy verification on the MJO I believe is showing it's poor handle. GEFS showing -AO/+PNA in the more favorable phases long term just makes more sense. I just don't see why once we get in the favorable phases of the MJO, why we'd have such a crappy pacific with a disturbed/split/displaced vortex in a nino. Doesn't make sense to me.

We may not be in a score pattern by mid January, but I think we'll be close. I bet a week from tomorrow the models look much better.

 

[WxWatch]

The good thing is we have seen things go from looking horrible to a winter storm here pretty quickly. I actually don't want wall to wall bitter cold for winter. That's not when we usually get good storms here. It's a fine line, but I think we have better shots at good winter storms here when we have a lot of back and forth with the pattern, going from warm to cold, and it doesn't have to be super cold, either.

You're correct, it does not have to be super cold for snow storms. In fact, warm air must be around to allow moisture in the air to form those flakes. Some may not realize that there can be those "warm snow storms."

 

[Webberweather53]

I think going warm a month or so in winter without anything to track tends to lend itself to a little pessimism. I don’t see a lot of whining outside of the banter thread. Sure there are a few posts here and there, but nothing widespread. Also, keep in mind that most posters on forums like this don’t have the background or experience to be able to analyze things the way a met or met student does. All they see are model images that show either cold or warm or rain or snow. I don’t see anything wrong with being skeptical no more than I do with being overly optimistic. The back half of the winter is expected to be better. But if you want the pessimism to abate, then there needs to be visible signs of it within the medium that most people have access to. Until then, we just deal with a range of human emotions, and that ought to be ok. There is a reason to be optimistic about later on. It’ll just be good when it starts showing up.

Excessive pessimism and optimism both get really old after a while and leave you extremely vulnerable to making egregious errors in the interpretation of a forthcoming pattern, and it's this interpretation when viewed objectively & professionally, that's surprisingly is still superior to any one deterministic model solution. There are visible signs of one coming at least to me, HM, et al but I realize most people aren't familiar with phenomena at this frequency or aren't going to see any change until it's beyond obvious, snowing in their backyard, or is only a beneficial one.

The harsh reality is that the seeds were already being sewn for a pattern change sometime in January several weeks ago when the southern hemisphere polar vortex underwent a final warming event. This gave a massive jolt to the MJO in the Indian Ocean that eventually triggered the ongoing sudden stratospheric warming event in the Northern Hemisphere which was being preconditioned by active wave forcing from the troposphere this past fall & a low-level easterly QBO, coupled to a modest central Pacific NINO.

The evolution of this winter so far & going forward seems fairly monotonous to me for an El Nino. I've seen this script play out over, over & over again in the historical record, NC was fortunate enough to get a huge signing bonus for 2018-19 in early Dec. Hence, I'm not phased by the large amount of internal model variability going forward. Being in an El Nino isn't really that advantageous for cold/snow lovers in the SE US typically until late January & even the warmest NINO winters rarely avoid looking at least threatening in late January-February.

 

[1300m]

The amount of excessive pessimism and whining on here about this pattern lately is abhorrent & completely unnecessary. When you're living and dying by one or a few successive NWP runs (even though many don't want to admit it), even if it's an ensemble suite, & interpreting every long range modeled fantasy as something "worth watching" or a "threat", or exclaiming how the EPS or GEFS suite is "colder thru x-x date on x-x run" without actually understanding what's leading to the run-run changes or if they're actually significant, you're bound to end up disappointed & embarrassed. However, on the other end of the spectrum, you're interminably despondent and negative just because you don't want to be heartbroken or as a knee-jerk reaction to others that are living in their own world of denial that a storm is suddenly going to come knocking on their door in a few days, both lines of rationale will eventually come back to bite you.

Not to sound pompous or demeaning to the rest of the blog, but little has actually changed in the grand scheme of things in the last few weeks. I know I've mentioned many times on here that the favored window for cold/snow in +ENSO winters is late January-early March, & this year is really no different & is following the crowd in a general sense with obviously a huge blemish in early Dec for NC & VA.

It really shouldn't be news to anyone that mid-late January & February look more favorable than late Dec-early Jan for wintry weather in the Carolinas & the rest of the southeast.

You said what I've been thinking for quite some time. Thanks for taking one for the team lol.

 

[Webberweather53]

You said what I've been thinking for quite some time. Thanks for taking one for the team lol.

As usual we're on exactly the same page lol.

 

[1300m]

As usual we're on exactly the same page lol.

I actually think a lot of meteorologists are, but because the models are and have been so chaotic it is muddying people's perception of what was expected and somehow current model runs are being extrapolated to the end of winter already when in reality things are right on track at this point.

 

[Storm5]

As usual we're on exactly the same page lol.

I think I like y’alls old relationship better


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[pcbjr]

I think I like y’alls old relationship better


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I think I like things that exceed the NC state line ...

 

[Tarheel1]

You're correct, it does not have to be super cold for snow storms. In fact, warm air must be around to allow moisture in the air to form those flakes. Some may not realize that there can be those "warm snow storms."

I just had one, they suck