sidenote: Alaska is having a humdinger of a winter...
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Misc Winter Whamby 2020, a New Decade
- Thread starter ForsythSnow
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Of course it snows a little in charleston and I miss it bc im out of town for work.
When it snows at the beach but won’t snow at your house with 10x better climo
So what is that dude isotherm smoking that most of the other mets, scientists, smart weather forum denizens are not? Is he just a negative nancy so always comes up right when Winters don't pan out extreme cold? Or does he have some pattern recognition genius that others don't? Just wondering..
Laying here watching it snow at folly beach, on a webcam, on January 21st...when I haven’t seen a flake since 2018..you can’t make this stuff up
Depression is my current stage right now
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Logan Is An Idiot 01
Guest
I swear when it's a -pna, and +AO my depression is worse. No kidding. My meds aren't as effective.
Actually drops some snow in TN/N.AL. That could be a big deal. The EPS members have been honking a storm in that period off and on for days.
850’s were fine.,2m’s in upper 30’s..if it happened, it would be of the heavy March variety
@Rain Cold This a decent look? Asking for ?’man
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Logan Is An Idiot 01
Guest
That's an awkward track for a low.
Attachments
Not really. Upper level trough cuts off, pulls the surface low north then NW.
Newfoundland Express!
Ilovesnow28
Member
Looks like I will never see a snowstorm again smh
Yep. Would be cold and dry. But let's get the cold in here first and worry about precip later.
tennessee storm
Member
No worries. When precip comes in. The cold will go out ... one them winters
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Logan Is An Idiot 01
Guest
Then immediately following the storm temps will get cold again
I'm still glad I hung it up the other day. This bad pattern has held all winter and I don't see anything at the moment to suggest it breaks down in February. Sorry but March snows just don't happen much. At least not anymore. And even if it does who cares? It'll melt within a day and be 65 the next!
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.
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!
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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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!
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!
NoSnowATL
Member
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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Webberweather53
Meteorologist
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.
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.
Wulfer
Member
Anyone thinking forcasted temps are going to bust today?
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
Meteorologist
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.
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.
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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• 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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Webberweather53
Meteorologist
1939-40 & 2008-09 were not neutral ENSO winters, neither is this year.
Downeastnc
Member
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....
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.
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
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.
Jon
Member
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.
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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Don,
1951-2 was actually El Niño though it technically ended early and may have been done by Feb.
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
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.
The current SST configuration also closely resembles the "modoki NINO" flavor of ENSO.
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.
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.
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