Re: Long Range Thread 8.0

[skinsfan1177]

I really hope we can get blocking this time it's been absent the past few years.

[Quietace]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

[nutleyblizzard]

I really hope we can get blocking this time it's been absent the past few years.

I hope so too. Last year despite a raging positive AO/NAO, we still had a good winter. I feel we would be pressing our luck if the Atlantic doesn't cooperate again.

[skinsfan1177]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

So Ace with what your saying is that bath tub out their the Atlantic could cause issues for us with surface temps being to warm come winter time

[amugs]

Ace that would make a nuclear coastal for god's sake with these bathtub spa like water temps - imagine we get a trop cyclone.

Check out the warm signal after day 7

[Quietace]

Ace that would make a nuclear coastal for god's sake with these bathtub spa like water temps - imagine we get a trop cyclone.

Check out the warm signal after day 7

Yeah, these SST aren't going to start cooling at a noticeable rate until after September. Of course, that has its pros and cons when it comes to regional effects as we move further into winter.

[Quietace]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

So Ace with what your saying is that bath tub out their the Atlantic could cause issues for us with surface temps being to warm come winter time

As always with coastal regions early in winter, SST play a role especially in coastal systems due to the easterly component in the winds, and the overall effect of them. The warmer the SST temps are, and the less coastal systems to churn the ocean causes the depth of the warm water to depend, effect the rate it cools. And the longer it is before they cool, the greater the chance they have longer lasting impacts then normal for coastal regions.

[algae888]

part of steve d long range thoughts this morning...

I am very interested in the forecast of this El Nino based on the latest model guidance. I want you to notice the blue areas, that is the latest forecast and note every one of them is below the ensemble forecast, which again means the models are shifting to a faster decline of this El Nino as well.
If the forecast is correct, then a weakening El Nino would mean the Polar jet stream is not overwhelmed by the Sub Tropical jet stream, as soon as late December, and a colder weather pattern IS possible, not guaranteed but certainly possible.

[Frank_Wx]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

This is an excellent point and one not being pointes out by enough people. Atlantic SSTs off our coast are running well above normal. Just like the warm SSTs have lead to ridge formation over the Pacific the last couple of years, it could do the same for us here on the Atlantic end. I'm not saying we'll be warm and see rain all winter, but I'm getting the feeling we won't see many days of crippling cold and sub zero wind chills like we've seen the last 2 winters. Also, a southeast wind from any Nor'easter that develops better come with a -AO/-NAO or the coast will be in a constant battle of rain/snow line.

[Frank_Wx]

part of steve d long range thoughts this morning...

I am very interested in the forecast of this El Nino based on the latest model guidance.  I want you to notice the blue areas, that is the latest forecast and note every one of them is below the ensemble forecast, which again means the models are shifting to a faster decline of this El Nino as well.
If the forecast is correct, then a weakening El Nino would mean the Polar jet stream is not overwhelmed by the Sub Tropical jet stream, as soon as late December, and a colder weather pattern IS possible, not guaranteed but certainly possible.

He is correct. The weakening of the MJO could have something to do with this.

[nutleyblizzard]

part of steve d long range thoughts this morning...

I am very interested in the forecast of this El Nino based on the latest model guidance.  I want you to notice the blue areas, that is the latest forecast and note every one of them is below the ensemble forecast, which again means the models are shifting to a faster decline of this El Nino as well.
If the forecast is correct, then a weakening El Nino would mean the Polar jet stream is not overwhelmed by the Sub Tropical jet stream, as soon as late December, and a colder weather pattern IS possible, not guaranteed but certainly possible.

He is correct. The weakening of the MJO could have something to do with this.

Let's hope this model is on to something. The more this Nino weakens in time for winter the better. A Nino strength of 1 to 1.5 would be more than efficient to supply ample moisture while not vastly disrupting any northern stream intrusion.

[Quietace]

Watching the trends on the GFS for the coastal system next week..
0z Last night compared to 18z today at 500mb




Euro is much different @500mb. Is handling the ridge vastly different than the GFS



The GEM is very similar to the ECMWF, but uses the cut off ULL to rotate separate vorticities around itself. Has three separate lows form and effect the area.

[sroc4]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

This is an excellent point and one not being pointes out by enough people. Atlantic SSTs off our coast are running well above normal. Just like the warm SSTs have lead to ridge formation over the Pacific the last couple of years, it could do the same for us here on the Atlantic end. I'm not saying we'll be warm and see rain all winter, but I'm getting the feeling we won't see many days of crippling cold and sub zero wind chills like we've seen the last 2 winters. Also, a southeast wind from any Nor'easter that develops better come with a -AO/-NAO or the coast will be in a constant battle of rain/snow line.

There is NO DOUBT these SST off the NE coast will influence the coastal plain and maybe more early in winter.  If storm track isnt just right we are def going to see the mid layers warm rapidly when that wind direction is NE-E-SE.  Last year the coastal plain from Dec into Jan was def influenced by the warm SST off the coast. (this was about the time I was buying up everyone's winter stocks during the great panic/selloff of the 2014/15 season Syo you made me a rich man )   Early on we got some rain/slop events.  However; the +PDO/-EPO signal kept driving the arctic air further and further deep into the eastern half of the country which eventually dropped the SST's enough to where they were no longer as big a player for change over along the coast.  Instead they still remained above normal relative to avgs.  Those fronts would stall just off the coast and weak LP developed along them and the coast, esp out on the eastern half of LI got several baroclinically enhanced snowfall amts .  Just look at my signature below.  I received my entire avg snowfall amt(28.05") and then some in the month of March alone!  

Now we are going to have to see how this all plays out.  We have a long way to go here.  Check this out.  First image is the Atlantic SST from last year Sept 30th 2014.  Second picture is from today.
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Notice how the Cold pool has shifted a bit further into the NE Atlantic and the Warm pool is much more expansive and cohesive relative to last year.  I have to give Frank the credit for this idea here but he made mention a day or two ago.  We may get trapped between the western ridge ala -EPO/+PNA signals from the warm pool off the west coast, and a SW Atlantic ridge.  Depending on which one dominates we could see the el nino charged Sub trop jet try to take our storm tracks somewhere between GLC and coastal huggers.  That Spells disaster for the coastal plain.  
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Now hold your horses here folks..lets not go cliff diving just yet.  There is still lots to look at and alot that will happen between now and The April/May 2016 thaw.  Here is the global SST with a few key areas outlined.  You can see there are some differences globally in the SST meaning this will be awesome to see how it all plays out.  Indian Ocean is much warmer as a whole as well relative to last year.  And you can see the warm pool last year is tucked high and tight into the Gulf of Alaska; whereas this year it is centered further S and a tad further west with that small cool pool in along the coast. Some think that the entire GOA will warm again as we head towards the new year.  We shall see. (Sept 30th 2014 first then Today)
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[Noreaster]

Good post Scott.  If your and Frank's thoughts end up correct, pray for a strong -nao.  Then when it relaxes some we can get a good track for us.  

On a side note: As much as I enjoy reading seasonal and long range forecasts/posts, there's so much that can change or go wrong that I usually will stick to medium and short term rage "forecasting". 

 I put "forecasting" in quotes bc you guys are better at it than me. .

[sroc4]

Good post Scott.  If your and Frank's thoughts end up correct, pray for a strong -nao.  Then when it relaxes some we can get a good track for us.  

On a side note: As much as I enjoy reading seasonal and long range forecasts/posts, there's so much that can change or go wrong that I usually will stick to medium and short term rage "forecasting". 

 I put "forecasting" in quotes bc you guys are better at it than me. .

Ill leave Long Range "forecasting" to someone else.  I like to use the phrase "Using current observations to make inferences on the Long term weather pattern".  The way it stands now it looks to me like the winter will be back loaded again, and we will have all the throwing in of the towels by Mid-late Jan again, but as you said still a long way to go and a lot can change.  Personally Im not quite ready for winter, but I am soooooooo ready for fall.  Go away heat and humidity; bring on the 50's and 60's.

[Frank_Wx]

The ENSO and PDO regions continue to warm. It's impressive how much above normal those waters off the US and South American coasts are. Exactly which ENSO region the warmth concentrates could have big impacts on how our patterns sets up for winter. For that matter, we have watch closely how the month of September and first couple of weeks of October shape up.



What is interesting - though not surprising - is to see the waters in the northern Pac. begin to cool a bit. I am not sure if this will continue, but Iv'e been looking at analogs and it's very difficult to find one where we had a strong El Nino and a negative EPO.

Also with early season systems, warm SST right offshore will have a effect with Surface Temps as always.
But these are rather impressive, and with the warmer pattern lasting into September, the SST along the coast will take time to cool.
Another note is that any coastal low that decides to form this fall will have a abundance of energy to work with...

This is an excellent point and one not being pointes out by enough people. Atlantic SSTs off our coast are running well above normal. Just like the warm SSTs have lead to ridge formation over the Pacific the last couple of years, it could do the same for us here on the Atlantic end. I'm not saying we'll be warm and see rain all winter, but I'm getting the feeling we won't see many days of crippling cold and sub zero wind chills like we've seen the last 2 winters. Also, a southeast wind from any Nor'easter that develops better come with a -AO/-NAO or the coast will be in a constant battle of rain/snow line.

There is NO DOUBT these SST off the NE coast will influence the coastal plain and maybe more early in winter.  If storm track isnt just right we are def going to see the mid layers warm rapidly when that wind direction is NE-E-SE.  Last year the coastal plain from Dec into Jan was def influenced by the warm SST off the coast. (this was about the time I was buying up everyone's winter stocks during the great panic/selloff of the 2014/15 season Syo you made me a rich man   )   Early on we got some rain/slop events.  However; the +PDO/-EPO signal kept driving the arctic air further and further deep into the eastern half of the country which eventually dropped the SST's enough to where they were no longer as big a player for change over along the coast.  Instead they still remained above normal relative to avgs.  Those fronts would stall just off the coast and weak LP developed along them and the coast, esp out on the eastern half of LI got several baroclinically enhanced snowfall amts .  Just look at my signature below.  I received my entire avg snowfall amt(28.05") and then some in the month of March alone!  

Now we are going to have to see how this all plays out.  We have a long way to go here.  Check this out.  First image is the Atlantic SST from last year Sept 30th 2014.  Second picture is from today.
" />
" />

Notice how the Cold pool has shifted a bit further into the NE Atlantic and the Warm pool is much more expansive and cohesive relative to last year.  I have to give Frank the credit for this idea here but he made mention a day or two ago.  We may get trapped between the western ridge ala -EPO/+PNA signals from the warm pool off the west coast, and a SW Atlantic ridge.  Depending on which one dominates we could see the el nino charged Sub trop jet try to take our storm tracks somewhere between GLC and coastal huggers.  That Spells disaster for the coastal plain.  
" />

Now hold your horses here folks..lets not go cliff diving just yet.  There is still lots to look at and alot that will happen between now and The April/May 2016 thaw.  Here is the global SST with a few key areas outlined.  You can see there are some differences globally in the SST meaning this will be awesome to see how it all plays out.  Indian Ocean is much warmer as a whole as well relative to last year.  And you can see the warm pool last year is tucked high and tight into the Gulf of Alaska; whereas this year it is centered further S and a tad further west with that small cool pool in along the coast. Some think that the entire GOA will warm again as we head towards the new year.  We shall see. (Sept 30th 2014 first then Today)
" />
" />

What's interesting about the SST's, if you look at them closely, not much has changed in terms of the cooler or warmer than normal regions. The ENSO is still El Nino, the N. Pac. is still warm, the Atlantic is still warm, and the Indian Ocean is still warm. Difference being, they are much more robust this season. Which is quite amazing if you think about it. To go through 2 (likely 3) full seasons and not one oceanic region changed from one extreme to another.

[Guest]

Without any "science" I feel that all of our seasons are now about 1 month later in their start and end times than they were when I was a kid.  SSt's or no SSt's track is EVERYTHING here on the coastal plain.  Without a northerly component to our easterly winds during winter storms there are always mixing issues.  But the warmer waters add more moisture and equate to stronger storms with more precip.  so its an even trade off even with the mix/precip issues. That being said this is the year that the interior gets SLAMMED 100"+ LHV on north.

[amugs]

Interesting news article today on the USCG icebreaker Healy making it to the North Pole recently [link]. They made the trip a week faster than planned and encountered a lot of rotten ice. From the article:
The scientists aboard Healy tried to gather ice measurements along the journey but were stymied by finding slush instead of solid ice until they were within 100 miles of the North Pole, they said in a Coast Guard press release. "It’s hard to believe how slushy the ice has been so close to the pole; this was the first area we were confident enough in the ice conditions to allow on-ice science experiments," they wrote. "Despite being thick, the ice we encountered further south was simply too soft and unstable to safely put individuals on."
Ground-truthing of satellite data is difficult in regions such as the Arctic, but it's an essential part of validating what the remote sensing data is actually showing

Here is the extent of the sea ice at this time.



You may ask why so early are you posting such information. Well it is this time of year when things are starting to take shape up in the freezer section of the world that will give us our cold air. If it slow in getting going than that much will be delayed with our cold air and winter. There is a direct correlation between this abundance of cold air and the AO. The placement of this sea ice and snow cover is also a factor.
Now we have are the 4th lowest seas ice minimum since records have been kept and have started to even out. There is a cluster of LP systems that are progged to hit Central Northern Siberia.

From another met on this topic - knowledgeable lad - There's some colder air, though, GFS shows a large area of sub -10C 850s stretching through and across the Arctic Basin, into Northern Greenland and across to the Atlantic side. This bubble of cold air weakens as a high pressure ridge builds into the Arctic next week, pushing more of the cold air into Siberia and away from the Arctic Ocean.

These maps also show a very cold pattern for Central Siberia. A bit off topic, but a cold and stormy pattern in the higher latitudes of Central Siberia should cause drastic increases in Northern Hemisphere snow cover, even if the arctic sea ice is slower to form.

Also, last night Bill Goodman (no relation to John) from the NWS out of Brookhaven gave a 2 hour presentation, discussion on hurricanes and its effects on the forecast area and El Nino and what can or might happen this winter. He stated that the PDO may be waning from a solid positive state to a neutral to negative state. Don’t jump off the bridge yet here peeps for our winter – there is still a massively large body/pool of warm waters in the NPAC the issue being as depicted on SROCs map the cold waters off the Japan island coast. This is due to very active typhoon season in the PAC this summer which has caused tremendous upwelling or mixing of the deep waters of the PAC to rise to the surface cooling that area. We have to wait to see what the next few weeks will bring, if it remains very active and these typhoons stay in the PAC and move into the GOA then the waters will cool even further thus eroding our positive PDO. What implications may this have? This would cause the EPO to go positive if strong enough and thus collapse our ridge out west. The cold air would then get either bottled up in the North Central part of North America.

So as bill said and as frank has said –w wait until the numbers from October come in and we see the trends and pattern. One thing he did for sure is that the STJ is going to be pumping with the strong EL Nino.

On El Nino, the models and indices lag the actual readings. The models can lag by as much as a weeks for actually what is happening at the surface or the depths. So he said that if the Euro shows a weakening in El Nino it may be wrong – SHOCKER! Oh and he said the jury is still out on the GFS. In essence the start and the wanning/slowing down of an El Nino maybe not truly depicted in the chart, graphic met tools we all read – hmm, mother nature doing us in again? How can we now, SROC fire up that boat and take a ride out on the PAC with some instrumentation to see if the models are right – HAHAHA!! DOCTOX will be your first mate and SYO will be the night watchman if he doesn’t jump ship beforehand!

The snow cover extent SAI (Snow Advance Index) reading or indicy is MUCH better tool to use to correlate to the AO. It was stated on here that the correlation between the July NAO would be almost parallel to the winter time NAO reading or measurement. July NAO was negative by 1-2 standard deviations. Also, the waters in the Davis Straight are way above normal, could this help with the NAO – possibly. It sure as heck helped the last couple of winters slowing down our progressive flow to allow for the storms to slow up somewhat.



Janet correct or add anything if I am in error here about Bill. So, time will tell and we shall see ………

[amugs]

More on EL Nino - found this

Orange lines = strong ninos
Blue lines = moderate ninos

The shading is as follows (my subjective interpretation)...
Pink shaded area = East based SST conditions
White area = Basin wide SST conditions
Blue shaded area = Central based SST conditions

Dashed area is the key fall to early winter time frame for winter interests



E= East

C = Central

[oldtimer]

Amugs Very interesting and I can even understand most of it thanks

[sroc4]

Great Post Mugs! I am on it. We leave port at 0600 tomorrow.

[sroc4]

Even if the SST in the GOA cont to slowly erode we still may be ok. Remember the -EPO leads to the alaskan ridge which leads to the strong cross polar flow. BUT...the warm pool that is off the SW coast of Cali is not going anywhere (IMHO). This may lead to a persistantly +PNA which may still do us just fine. If we can get the NAO to cooperate some this year we should still be in business. Its all speculation and what not with many other factors to consider, but the + PDO IS going to flip...if not this year then within the next one or two again IMHO.

[nutleyblizzard]

                                                                                                                                                       

Looks like our Nino will start flexing its muscles before too long.

[Frank_Wx]

Mugs, good post. Lots of good info in there. I have to do more research between the SAI and AO. I actually don't support the correlation as of now.

Even if the SST in the GOA cont to slowly erode we still may be ok.  Remember the -EPO leads to the alaskan ridge which leads to the strong cross polar flow.  BUT...the warm pool that is off the SW coast of Cali is not going anywhere (IMHO).  This may lead to a persistantly +PNA which may still do us just fine.  If we can get the NAO to cooperate some this year we should still be in business.  Its all speculation and what not with many other factors to consider, but the + PDO IS going to flip...if not this year then within the next one or two again IMHO.  

The PDO should keep our mean PNA postive. With the sub tropical jet roaring and an active MJO, I'm pretty confident in that. I'm more worried about there being cold air available though.

[dkodgis]

Another mainstream, popular source about the El Nino being El Nino Grande"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/get-ready-for-one-of-the-strongest-el-ninos-ever/

[dkodgis]

Maybe the magnetic fields will flip, too.

[Guest]

Great job Mugsy

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