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Misc Winter Whamby 2020, a New Decade

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GaWx said:
For a change, I don’t see an endless torch dominating anytime soon. So, I think the “bad pattern” is finally over for the winter. But we’ll have to see what actually verifies obviously.
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Maybe so. But I may be a minority here but if it's not going to snow I'd rather have 65-70. Going back 30 years (and I don't think it's a good idea going back further than that, if even that far) it's only snowed and inch or more at GSP 3 times in March! Not sure about CLT or RDU, but their climo is probably similar. Once we reach March along the 85 corridor and south and east, it's usually all she wrote unless it's a flizzard car topper! So in my opinion we're down to the final 2 weeks in February. Good luck! We'll need it!
 
Snowless & Grumpy said:
Maybe so. But I may be a minority here but if it's not going to snow I'd rather have 65-70. Going back 30 years (and I don't think it's a good idea going back further than that, if even that far) it's only snowed and inch or more at GSP 3 times in March! Not sure about CLT or RDU, but their climo is probably similar. Once we reach March along the 85 corridor and south and east, it's usually all she wrote unless it's a flizzard car topper! So in my opinion we're down to the final 2 weeks in February. Good luck! We'll need it!
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We’ve still got a long way to go. And even early March is semi-prime for a winter storm somewhere in the SE. Geez, even way down here we got over 1” in early March of 1986 and snow also in mid March of 1993 in addition to a late Feb 1” in 1989. Going back further, one of the worst icestorms of alltime hit within 50 miles of here in early March of 1962. And we just missed snow on 3/11/1960 while CHS got some. Going back even further, there was a doozy of a ZR/IP storm on 2/25/1914! And then there’s our 2nd heaviest snow on record with the doozy on 3/3/1837.

So if even way down here we can get significant wintry in very late Feb to mid March, surely you could at least keep your hopes up for then. Don’t count on it, of course! Just keep it in the back of your head as a realistic chance, especially if the SE really does get into a BN pattern then.

Edit: I forgot to add that we also got some ZR on 3/2/1980!
 
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Snowless & Grumpy said:
Maybe so. But I may be a minority here but if it's not going to snow I'd rather have 65-70. Going back 30 years (and I don't think it's a good idea going back further than that, if even that far) it's only snowed and inch or more at GSP 3 times in March! Not sure about CLT or RDU, but their climo is probably similar. Once we reach March along the 85 corridor and south and east, it's usually all she wrote unless it's a flizzard car topper! So in my opinion we're down to the final 2 weeks in February. Good luck! We'll need it!
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I had 3 1 inch snows in March 2018.

That might be a bit of an exaggeration but I do think it snowed enough to whiten/cover the ground 3/4 times that month
 
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Snow totals by decade at GSP:

1970's: 60"
1980's: 75.3"
1990's: 33.9"
2000's: 39.2"
2010's: 42.9"

So while it's clear the good ole days are gone, we have been climbing little by little each decade since the 90's went to crap. And the 2010's had the big goose egg in 11-12. So even if we poop the bed this year with a big fat goose egg, odds are it won't happen again next year!
 
Snowless & Grumpy said:
Maybe so. But I may be a minority here but if it's not going to snow I'd rather have 65-70. Going back 30 years (and I don't think it's a good idea going back further than that, if even that far) it's only snowed and inch or more at GSP 3 times in March! Not sure about CLT or RDU, but their climo is probably similar. Once we reach March along the 85 corridor and south and east, it's usually all she wrote unless it's a flizzard car topper! So in my opinion we're down to the final 2 weeks in February. Good luck! We'll need it!
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It's not a good idea to only limit your sample size to the last 30 years, you don't get enough events in that period to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. Trend-adjusting over the entire record is a better way to approach this issue.
 
NoSnowATL said:
I think 93 was similar to this winter, kinda bla until March. Not saying it will happen. I’ll have to go back and see.


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Yeah it was at least up here. We had 0.4 in February 93. Not sure what day as I only have the monthly totals for each month. Then 9.8 in the superstorm. So yes it can turn around.
 
Webberweather53 said:
It's not a good idea to only limit your sample size to the last 30 years, you don't get enough events in that period to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. Trend-adjusting over the entire record is a better way to approach this issue.
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I agree with the small sample size being less than adequate. But I'm sure the warmer base state now will have to play at least some part. But maybe the good news is with the tPV being very strong and bottled up it may can release some very cold air by March standards that we normally wouldn't see. But that may be me just wishcasting!
 
Webberweather53 said:
It's not a good idea to only limit your sample size to the last 30 years, you don't get enough events in that period to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. Trend-adjusting over the entire record is a better way to approach this issue.
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Random, internal variability over that small period may still be larger than any low frequency signals or trends you're trying to measure. In the 1970s for example, at basically the end of March when our climos favor temps well into the 60s, 3 out of 4 years had a snowstorm on the exact same day(s) in late March in parts of the NC piedmont.

March 25-26 1971 NC Snow map.png
March 25-26 1972 NC Snowmap.png

March 25-26 1974 NC Snowmap.png


Some would look at this data and go "wow, this must be a trend!" but it's still only 3 events (which is still in many ways "random") and a storm of comparable magnitude in that point in March hadn't been observed since 1940.

March 24-25 1940 NC Snowmap.png
 
The ENSO is in a neutral state now and is predicted to remain (60%) neutral into spring (2020) Atlanta is know to get significant winter storms during a netrual ENSO. These are significant winter storms that occurred for ATL during a neutral ENSO from 1934 to 2014, 10 major winter storms! Most of these were during Feb and March.

• 02/10/1934 - 4.0”

• 01/30/1936 - 6.0”

• 01/23/1940 - 8.3”

• 02/26/1952 - 3.9”

• 03/11/1960 - 4.0”

• 02/18/1979 - 4.0” (sleet)

• 01/12/1982 (Snow-Jam ‘82) - 4.0”

• 03/13/1993 (Blizzard 1993) - 4.2”

• 03/1/2009 - 4.2”

• 01/28/2014 - 2.6”





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WxWatch said:
The ENSO is in a neutral state now and is predicted to remain (60%) neutral into spring (2020) Atlanta is know to get significant winter storms during a netrual ENSO. These are significant winter storms that occurred for ATL during a neutral ENSO from 1934 to 2014, 10 major winter storms! Most of these were during Feb and March.

• 02/10/1934 - 4.0”

• 01/30/1936 - 6.0”

• 01/23/1940 - 8.3”

• 02/26/1952 - 3.9”

• 03/11/1960 - 4.0”

• 02/18/1979 - 4.0” (sleet)

• 01/12/1982 (Snow-Jam ‘82) - 4.0”

• 03/13/1993 (Blizzard 1993) - 4.2”

• 03/1/2009 - 4.2”

• 01/28/2014 - 2.6”





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1939-40 & 2008-09 were not neutral ENSO winters, neither is this year.
 
Webberweather53 said:
It's not a good idea to only limit your sample size to the last 30 years, you don't get enough events in that period to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. Trend-adjusting over the entire record is a better way to approach this issue.
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Honestly looking back most of MBY Jan snowstorms have been garden variety, all the big events have been Dec or Feb/Mar, I cant recall a single storm in my lifetime in Jan that exceeded 8-10"....

Another one to add to the March 25th time frame....I remember this one I think we may have had thunder with it....

march_24-25_1983_nc_snowmap.gif
 
The last significant March events for Raleigh that I recall are the March 2009 and March 2010, both early March. It seems like the last week of Feb has been a fortunate time for a winter event with nino's. It's realistic to see snow around her through the first week of March.
 
Downeastnc said:
Honestly looking back most of MBY Jan snowstorms have been garden variety, all the big events have been Dec or Feb/Mar, I cant recall a single storm in my lifetime in Jan that exceeded 8-10"....

Another one to add to the March 25th time frame....I remember this one I think we may have had thunder with it....

View attachment 31680
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That's actually a pretty interesting anomaly in the historical record. Most of the rest of NC has seen at least one storm of that magnitude in the last several decades whereas the last 8"+ event in January occurred all the way back in 1933 in Greenville. I'm actually really surprised at that statistic.

January 13-14 1933 NC Snowmap.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
1939-40 & 2008-09 were not neutral ENSO winters, neither is this year.
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NOAA said ENSO-neutral conditions were present on the latest update from 1/20/20 and also said it's also favored through spring. That along with the update from the IRI yesterday says neutral. I've seen your tweets and it doesn't seem like a shared opinion by the powers at be. Not doubting you-- just wondering why there's such large discrepancies....you'd think it would be simple.
 
WxWatch said:
The ENSO is in a neutral state now and is predicted to remain (60%) neutral into spring (2020) Atlanta is know to get significant winter storms during a netrual ENSO. These are significant winter storms that occurred for ATL during a neutral ENSO from 1934 to 2014, 10 major winter storms! Most of these were during Feb and March.

• 02/10/1934 - 4.0”

• 01/30/1936 - 6.0”

• 01/23/1940 - 8.3”

• 02/26/1952 - 3.9”

• 03/11/1960 - 4.0”

• 02/18/1979 - 4.0” (sleet)

• 01/12/1982 (Snow-Jam ‘82) - 4.0”

• 03/13/1993 (Blizzard 1993) - 4.2”

• 03/1/2009 - 4.2”

• 01/28/2014 - 2.6”





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Don,
1951-2 was actually El Niño though it technically ended early and may have been done by Feb.
 
Jon said:
NOAA said ENSO-neutral conditions were present on the latest update from 1/20/20 and also said it's also favored through spring. That along with the update from the IRI yesterday says neutral. I've seen your tweets and it doesn't seem like a shared opinion by the powers at be. Not doubting you-- just wondering why there's such large discrepancies....you'd think it would be simple.
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WxWatch said:
Past ENSO Events https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/past_events.html

According to NOAA, the ENSO is to remain neutral. This was updated not too long ago.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/produ...ng/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

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NOAA uses arbitrarily defined thresholds for ENSO criteria and only uses ERSSTv5 for their analyses (my ENS ONI is a lot better). There's definitely a pretty clear NINO lean to this winter that's not normally present even in "official" events & I've stated my case on here many times and on twitter and I certainly don't feel like repeating myself again.

You don't get extreme tropical +AAM spikes like this when ENSO is "neutral" (which it's clearly not this year), in fact the tropical +AAM was so strong that it was westerly in the means for the first time ever in the satellite era.



Nor do you see incessant dateline westerly wind bursts for several months in a row when ENSO is "neutral", the base state has to be advanced enough towards El Nino to do this, which it is this year.
1579708881469.png






The current SST configuration also closely resembles the "modoki NINO" flavor of ENSO.
1579709110689.png


The upper level circulation anomaly configuration also resembles El Nino w/ a wavenumber 2 pattern in the global tropics, strong uplift over the Indian Ocean has become a staple of modern 21st century El Ninos, this year it's just stronger.

1579709261697.png

As for a previous post where it was claimed 1939-40, 1951-52 2008-09, & 1979-80 were "neutral" ENSO winters

1951-52 was a weak-moderate NINO winter, 2008-09 was a La Nina winter, 1939-40 was a late blooming moderate El Nino, 1979-80 by some metrics was also an El Nino.

This is taken from my webpage & research on the Oceanic Nino Index which uses twenty six SST reconstructions and reanalysis datasets. The values derived here are more robust & meaningful than NOAA's which uses only ERRSTv5 (w/ no quality control of the data):
https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

It's in really close agreement w/ NOAA's index over the latter portions of the record, only differences emerging from the fact that I use a lot more datasets and filter out bad/potentially spurious data.

1579708601859.png

1579709017823.png

1579708649957.png

1579708637424.png
 
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