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Pattern The Great December Dump

Jon said:
Here’s a food CFSv2 example of a flip cold the last 3 days of runs that actually verified. This model can be run the last 3 days of the prior month and verify just as well.

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So yeah, not a good sign it got rid of the cold trends to end the month. We’ll be lucky if this trends near normal, but history tells you to expect a warm dec...
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Also notice the last few days Alaska is also trending colder (+EPO), another bad sign if you’re hoping for even a normal December around here & definitely raises the chances of (another) torch. Here’s to 9 above normal Decembers in a row. ?
 
There appear to simply be no patterns of any type anymore that lead to a cold first half of winter. Nina, Nino, Neutral, high solar, low solar, +QBO, -QBO, it doesn't matter. It's going to be warm every December. And there's a different reason every December. At some point, it becomes statistically unreasonable to think we understand what the real mechanism is driving this outcome.
 
Rain Cold said:
There appear to simply be no patterns of any type anymore that lead to a cold first half of winter. Nina, Nino, Neutral, high solar, low solar, +QBO, -QBO, it doesn't matter. It's going to be warm every December. And there's a different reason every December. At some point, it becomes statistically unreasonable to think we understand what the real mechanism is driving this outcome.
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The latter point is pretty easy to understand if you acknowledge man made climate change is real and is significantly moving the base state in a milder direction. You don’t get 9 warm Decembers in a row by random chance
 
Rain Cold said:
There appear to simply be no patterns of any type anymore that lead to a cold first half of winter. Nina, Nino, Neutral, high solar, low solar, +QBO, -QBO, it doesn't matter. It's going to be warm every December. And there's a different reason every December. At some point, it becomes statistically unreasonable to think we understand what the real mechanism is driving this outcome.
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But it snowed for a lot of people in the SE, the last 2 December’s, and if it hadn’t been for those unicorns, they would have been totally dumpster fire winters
 
I dont recall the last 2 Decembers being mild. Or maybe the fact they were so snowy tricked me into thinking it was cold.
 
Webberweather53 said:
The latter point is pretty easy to understand if you acknowledge man made climate change is real and is significantly moving the base state in a milder direction. You don’t get 9 warm Decembers in a row by random chance
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You can lump it under climate change, manmade or not. That's probably the general reason, but it doesn't offer a specific reason why it's no longer possible to have a cooler than normal first half of winter.
 
Jon said:
Guys it’s not even December yet...don’t cancel January.


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Calm down, it’s going to be OK, nobody cancelled January or December for that matter. Deep breaths


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Rain Cold said:
You can lump it under climate change, manmade or not. That's probably the general reason, but it doesn't offer a specific reason why it's no longer possible to have a cooler than normal first half of winter.
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It doesn’t? There’s literally no other way to explain the observations of warming than it being man made, natural forcing dictates a cooling or stable climate and warming has continued unabated. As for it not providing a specific reason, when the climate warms, the entire distribution of temperatures for a given region shifts along with it, which also means the probability of below normal temperatures decreases substantially while above average temperatures increase in both frequency and intensity. December is not the only month this has been happening lately, it’s just the most extreme example
 
Webberweather53 said:
Also notice the last few days Alaska is also trending colder (+EPO), another bad sign if you’re hoping for even a normal December around here & definitely raises the chances of (another) torch. Here’s to 9 above normal Decembers in a row.
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I won’t cheer to that, lol. I’ll always hope for a colder than normal December 10 times out of 10. But I know what I expect...


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Tarheel1 said:
That really is the only glimmer of hope, if all of our winter months are going to be AN, atleast we know it still CAN snow!
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Eventually, we’ll reach a point where this won’t occur but most of us will probably not be alive when this finally happens. Even though it can still snow and will be able to for decades to come over the upper south, the air masses that are associated with winter storms of today are at a major disadvantage from those of the “good ol days” because they’re starting out at a warmer initial state over the Arctic.
 
Rain Cold said:
There appear to simply be no patterns of any type anymore that lead to a cold first half of winter. Nina, Nino, Neutral, high solar, low solar, +QBO, -QBO, it doesn't matter. It's going to be warm every December. And there's a different reason every December. At some point, it becomes statistically unreasonable to think we understand what the real mechanism is driving this outcome.
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What’s interesting is we haven’t had a legit snowfall in February since 2015. All of our memorable events the past 4 winters have been in Jan or Dec.
 
Webberweather53 said:
It doesn’t? There’s literally no other way to explain the observations of warming than it being man made, natural forcing dictates a cooling or stable climate and warming has continued unabated. As for it not providing a specific reason, when the climate warms, the entire distribution of temperatures for a given region shifts along with it, which also means the probability of below normal temperatures decreases substantially while above average temperatures increase in both frequency and intensity. December is not the only month this has been happening lately, it’s just the most extreme example
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Just for argument’s sake, that doesn’t explain why November is a solid BN month for us almost every year now? If we can be below normal then, why can’t we be below normal 30 days later? I’m skeptical
 
Webber do you think there will ever come a time when snowfall becomes almost nonexistent in places like Atlanta and Birmingham ? I mean to the point where it only snows once every 20 years?
 
SoutheastRidge said:
Webber do you think there will ever come a time when snowfall becomes almost nonexistent in places like Atlanta and Birmingham ? I mean to the point where it only snows once every 20 years?
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I thought it was already nonexistent in those places? At least I live in a CAD favored area so if blind luck and solid blocking shows up by chance maybe my great great great great grandkids can still see some ZR every now and then
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
Just for argument’s sake, that doesn’t explain why November is a solid BN month for us almost every year now? If we can be below normal then, why can’t we be below normal 30 days later? I’m skeptical
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Internal sub decadal variability explains some of this and so does changes in the SE Asia Monsoon and wavelengths of Rossby Waves in the jet, but collectively more months out of the year have been getting warmer more frequently even against a climo base period thats loaded with warming vs the early-mid 20th century.
 
SoutheastRidge said:
Webber do you think there will ever come a time when snowfall becomes almost nonexistent in places like Atlanta and Birmingham ? I mean to the point where it only snows once every 20 years?
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Eventually this will become the case if we continue along the path we’ve set for ourselves but it’s highly uncertain when this occurs, it’s well over a century away in all likelihood so virtually none of us will be alive to observe it
 
Webberweather53 said:
Didn’t mean for this thread to turn into a discussion over climate but it’s hard to ignore its potential influence in the backdrop of shorter term natural variability when you’ve had nearly a decade of warm decembers in a row.
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The over 1C of warming is definitely being felt and much easier to tease out of the noise.


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Web I posted an article about the MJO in the GW thread. Thoughts?


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SoutheastRidge said:
Webber do you think there will ever come a time when snowfall becomes almost nonexistent in places like Atlanta and Birmingham ? I mean to the point where it only snows once every 20 years?
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Even the snowfall yearly from Memphis to Nashville has decreased since substantial each decade ... I live right in between them cities
 
tennessee storm said:
Not. Webber... but personally ... yeah we’re heading in that direction imo
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My argument would be, that we only have realistic records for a little over a century. I could be wrong, but 100 years IMO is not a good sample to view a changing climate. We don't really have a good idea about what happened during the ice age. Some may argue that our dips in climate have been getting warmer, but do we really have proper data to measure this. Sure you can measure droughts and that stuff with trees and ice caps. However, I can guarantee nobody knows how much snow we got in the 1000's. That's even though, I 100% agree we have gotten warmer over the century and overall have had less snow, but with the argument of why this is happening, if it's not due to CO^2, it will change. Still lots of questions.

Hopefully, this isn't too much of a Climate change discussion. Feel free to move this post.
 
Arcc said:
Yet in AL it's the golden years are far as snow fall goes.
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“Golden” years... Huntsville, AL’s snowfall average has been virtually cut in half from nearly 4” from 1950-1985 to about 2” from 1986 to present. It’s all a matter of perception and I’d hardly call the more modern era “Golden”.
 
Webberweather53 said:
It doesn’t? There’s literally no other way to explain the observations of warming than it being man made, natural forcing dictates a cooling or stable climate and warming has continued unabated. As for it not providing a specific reason, when the climate warms, the entire distribution of temperatures for a given region shifts along with it, which also means the probability of below normal temperatures decreases substantially while above average temperatures increase in both frequency and intensity. December is not the only month this has been happening lately, it’s just the most extreme example
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Man made or natural warming is beside the point. Warming is happening. If we're going to blame the annual late start of winter in the general "because it's getting warmer" notion (which may very well be the root cause), then I don't get the point of worrying much what the state of ENSO is or any of the other background variables. We can just say, "The climate is warming and it's just going to be warm in December from now on." It sure makes forecasting a lot easier. My guess though, is that there are some things going on playing into this that we don't quite grasp, in terms of the actual mechanisms that are the real keys to the start of the season.
 
Rain Cold said:
Man made or natural warming is beside the point. Warming is happening. If we're going to blame the annual late start of winter in the general "because it's getting warmer" notion (which may very well be the root cause), then I don't get the point of worrying much what the state of ENSO is or any of the other background variables. We can just say, "The climate is warming and it's just going to be warm in December from now on." It sure makes forecasting a lot easier. My guess though, is that there are some things going on playing into this that we don't quite grasp, in terms of the actual mechanisms that are the real keys to the start of the season.
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It’s not besides the point if the question is what is actually causing warm Decembers. Those other background variables like ENSO do matter especially at smaller temporal scales where internal variability plays a larger role than at interdecadal scales and can temporarily mask the obvious changes in the basic state climate that have been and will continue to occur
 
I mean it would make sense that cities that are already marginally cold enough for snow would see a dramatic decrease in snow with even a slight increase in average temps. As it is, you don't have to go much further south than Atlanta before you reach an area that sees snow only once every 20 years.
 
This belongs in banter, but I’m here to bring holiday cheer. MSLP was cold chasing moisture but damnit boy that was close to a nice fantasy output! ? 80990D50-4EB1-4978-B5D7-18423619FD65.png
 
It's possible we don't see another freeze into mid Dec. The upcoming cold spell first of the month now only has 33 as the lowest temp, according to NWS anyway. Probably see one, but may be just one night. Nov is going to end up around -3 BN, so nothing spectacular.
 
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