Long Range Winter 2013-2014 Outlooks, Forecasts/Trends, Thoughts, Forecasts and Trends Options

[The Snowman]

You are riding a slippery slope to trust the GFS Stratosphere forecast at 240hr when the Euro is quite different.

GFS 100hPa has the warmest anomaly over the SW Bering Sea


European 100hPa has the warmest anomaly over the Northwest Territories of Canada.


GFS 10hPa has the coldest anomaly on the Greenland Sea


European 10hPa has the coldest anomaly on the Laptev Sea coast of Russia

Have tried multiple times on both phone and computer to access Euro products, to no avail over the past few days. Not sure why, as of last night it still was not working so I could not factor it into my forecast, unfortunately.

[Spwild47]

Actually Eurasian snow cover was way way above normal at end September with the highest Eurasian SCE since the SAI was first measured...

The northern hemisphere snow anomaly is worthless for tracking SCE anomalies in October because week 39 snow coverage is 67% in NA and Greenland so the anomaly numbers tell you nothing about Asia where the SAI is based...and Asian and NA/Greenland SCE have only a corellation of 0.22 on average during the SAI timeframe

Too early to throw in the towel on SAI for this year

I'm not really surpised to be honest.

Snow cover was above average in Asia around Oct 1st and Below average in North America around Oct 1st... Now as we approach November it is clear that both sides compensated and we are back towards average as a whole for the Northern Hemisphere...

This does not mean that the world is thawing and winter is over with a SE ridge developing and lasting through December... (It wont be the cause anyway)

And, I know you already know this blizzard, but i'd just like to point out to those that may be confused that snow has increased since October 1st but has grown at a slower rate bringing us back toward avg. (Again because Asia was WAY above average and NA was not)

[ohiobuckeye45]

Great read!! One concern I have is that I couldn't help but think about the recent uptick in sunspots over the past week. Hopefully this isn't a trend.

Grace, the October sunspot number average will easily be the highest since solar cycle 24 began. We are just coming off the maximum but to put it in perspective this month will still be well below where we were in solar cycle 23 for the progression (sunspot #) of the cycle. It appears after sunspot 1875 rotates off the visible disk the activity will calm down again.

Yes sir...aware of it but thanks. I was just referring to what Steve said could cause things to go wrong with his forecast. He said:
I'm not sure how strong of an unexpected jump he means. Solar activity is very low compared to precious cycles but more activity right now than we've seen in a while in this cycle. September was the lowest in solar activity since January, 2011.

No, September 2013 had lowest sunspot mean since February 2012. Steve is no solar physicist. In the scope of things one month will not change anything. In addition you cannot just focus on the sunspot number. Look to the magnetic field of the sun. The trend is clear.

http://www.leif.org/research/

Sun Has Been Very BusyOctober 24, 2013; 8:46 AM

Many people have been commenting on how quiet the sun has been recently. Well that has certainly changes in a big way and very quickly!


Image of the Sun showing the sunspots that have caused all these flares




In the last 12 hours, the Sun has experienced five solar flares. Yesterday afternoon and evening, the Sun had a very rare event, back-to-back-to-back solar flares in a matter of hours. The last solar flare was the strongest of all five solar flares, a M9.3 flare (all five solar flares were M-class flares).


Image of one of the flares. The Sun is the light, bigger circle; the flare is the bright circular area in the middle.




If yesterday's event was not rare enough, this morning EDT had two more back-to-back flares. Very impressive!

So what does this mean to us on Earth? Well, in terms of our day-to-day life, not much. There were no disruptions to communications, WiFi or cell service because, those these flares were strong, you need a stronger flare to cause problems.

However, we will likely see an uptick in northern light activity Friday night and this weekend. Why is that? Well, one of our dedicated AccuWeather Astronomy experts Daniel Vogler has found evidence that a CME (coronal mass ejection) occurred and that it may be Earth directed. We will have more information on this event on AccuWeather Astronomy as we get some more data. Hopefully we can get a Kp of around 7!

This post has been edited by ohiobuckeye45: Oct 25 2013, 06:44 AM

[grace]

SST anomalies in the N. Atlantic & especially SW of Greenland look very supportive of a -NAO at some point

[robweather2013]

I think this kinda goes in the long range forecast eventhough it's El Nino related. I put the El Nino chips together and it looks like June 2014 we'll get the weak El Nino going...new info just in.

I also added some info on the link below if you want to see the custom graphics I made to show the trends. So with a neutral pattern, as we suspected which factor will be the dominate one this winter?

http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/index.php?...&Itemid=179

[blizzardOf96]

We have seen a pretty significant WWB around 140E, 10N over the last week or so with the KW train becoming very active over the IO/Maritime continent area. This has helped fuel subsurface warmth across the far western pacific. In addition, an upwelling oceanic rossby wave has helped cool off SST's from the dateline to around 120W as is evident in the noaa ENSO monitoring plots.
 wkxzteq_anm.gif ( 134.39K ) Number of downloads: 1


These waves have left the pacific in a temporary state of a warm-cool-warm-cool setup, which should begin to transition to a warm W pac, cool central and warm biased east pac which is concerning. The euro seasonal is showing an el nino like GOA ridge which is dependent on a central PAC warm pool. This looks unlikely to occur in time to make a significant impact on the winter season(2-3 month lag time between ENSO and CONUS impact). This doesn't mean we won't see any el nino like patterns this winter, much like which we are currently seeing.
 Tropics_ensemble32mean_sea32surface32temperature_132month.gif ( 27.3K ) Number of downloads: 0


Several factors are falling into place that could contribute to a fairly potent cool shot for the second week of november. Another strong MJO pulse is expected to take place over the central/eastern atlantic next week with a potentially 2.5 sigma phase 1 event on the way. If we see movement into phase 2, coinciding with a cool period based on the BSR, expect another significant -EPO/+PNA setup with a major cool shot moving into the east.
 ECMF_phase_51m_small.gif ( 24.39K ) Number of downloads: 0

A strong wave 1 response from the stratosphere is going on right now which is another factor that should encourage a mid nov eastern trough.
 Screen_Shot_2013_10_24_at_9.39.50_PM.png ( 254.56K ) Number of downloads: 0


This post has been edited by blizzardOf96: Oct 25 2013, 03:49 PM

[wx140]

We have seen a pretty significant WWB around 140E, 10N over the last week or so with the KW train becoming very active over the IO/Maritime continent area. This has helped fuel subsurface warmth across the far western pacific. In addition, an upwelling oceanic rossby wave has helped cool off SST's from the dateline to around 120W as is evident in the noaa ENSO monitoring plots.
 wkxzteq_anm.gif ( 134.39K ) Number of downloads: 1


These waves have left the pacific in a temporary state of a warm-cool-warm-cool setup, which should begin to transition to a warm W pac, cool central and warm biased east pac which is concerning. The euro seasonal is showing an el nino like GOA ridge which is dependent on a central PAC warm pool. This looks unlikely to occur in time to make a significant impact on the winter season(2-3 month lag time between ENSO and CONUS impact). This doesn't mean we won't see any el nino like patterns this winter, much like which we are currently seeing.
 Tropics_ensemble32mean_sea32surface32temperature_132month.gif ( 27.3K ) Number of downloads: 0


Several factors are falling into place that could contribute to a fairly potent cool shot for the second week of november. Another strong MJO pulse is expected to take place over the central/eastern atlantic next week with a potentially 2.5 sigma phase 1 event on the way. If we see movement into phase 2, coinciding with a cool period based on the BSR, expect another significant -EPO/+PNA setup with a major cool shot moving into the east.
 ECMF_phase_51m_small.gif ( 24.39K ) Number of downloads: 0

A strong wave 1 response from the stratosphere is going on right now which is another factor that should encourage a mid nov eastern trough.
 Screen_Shot_2013_10_24_at_9.39.50_PM.png ( 254.56K ) Number of downloads: 0

I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment of thinking that the pacific isn't going to cause the GOA ridging

[blizzardOf96]

I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment of thinking that the pacific isn't going to cause the GOA ridging

I'm not saying their will never be any GOA ridging... but it isnt supported in the mean DJF H5 pattern based on most indices unless you are counting on a very fast kelvin flop. Please back up your claims with facts if your going to disagree...

[ILStormwatcher]

Solar Activity went from dead to gangbusters in a hurry with X-Class Flares going off fast and furious. I suspect this will cause some good heating and intensify the Polar Vortex. If this persists too long its not going to look too good for Winter especially if the other variables don't fall into place to balance out a much more active sun.

This post has been edited by ILStormwatcher: Oct 25 2013, 06:10 PM

[wx140]

I'm not saying their will never be any GOA ridging... but it isnt supported in the mean DJF H5 pattern based on most indices unless you are counting on a very fast kelvin flop. Please back up your claims with facts if your going to disagree...

No I'm sorry but it is supported. A +QBO favors alleutian/GOA ridging

[WEATHERFREAK]

Solar Activity went from dead to gangbusters in a hurry with X-Class Flares going off fast and furious. I suspect this will cause some good heating and intensify the Polar Vortex. If this persists too long its not going to look too good for Winter especially if the other variables don't fall into place to balance out a much more active sun.

Current solar activity is still below average as Snowman showed on his blog.

[grace]

Current solar activity is still below average as Snowman showed on his blog.

This is correct! It's active for this quite cycle but still weak compared the last two cycles. With that said...I'm not sure how the current activity affects the stratosphere. Maybe someone more knowledgable could help explain that.

[grandpaboy]

Have tried multiple times on both phone and computer to access Euro products, to no avail over the past few days. Not sure why, as of last night it still was not working so I could not factor it into my forecast, unfortunately.

Then would you agree your forecast is slightly skewed since its based on the GFS.......A forecast produced by missing pieces is just............" "

[The Snowman]

Then would you agree your forecast is slightly skewed since its based on the GFS.......A forecast produced by missing pieces is just............" "

Not really, my forecast could still stand as is without the GFS strat portion. Second ECMWF image would still result in ridging West, troughing Central/East verbatim. I'm not too concerned if the GFS strat portion doesn't verify, it's not a hugely significant part of the forecast.

[blizzardOf96]

No I'm sorry but it is supported. A +QBO favors alleutian/GOA ridging

Thats a good point actually... A more poleward aleutians ridge is favoured in +QBO years where ENSO is neutral or cool. By bringing this up you have brought me a step further. If we isolate for neutral ENSO years with a -PDO and a downwelling +QBO(matches up with our current state) you get a better representation of the pattern setup that could occur this winter. Notice the warmest month for the east is december and colder month is february. Another important note is the fairly strong polar vortex which stays on our side of the globe... it starts over central canada in early winter and slowly drifts eastwards. A -EPO/SE ridge pattern is favoured as well.
Dec:
 q1DOUrfXEA.png ( 14.16K ) Number of downloads: 4

Jan:
 oDg58BYsZQ.png ( 13.86K ) Number of downloads: 1

Feb:
 mJwkIVG8H8.png ( 13.17K ) Number of downloads: 1

[jdrenken]

Not really, my forecast could still stand as is without the GFS strat portion. Second ECMWF image would still result in ridging West, troughing Central/East verbatim. I'm not too concerned if the GFS strat portion doesn't verify, it's not a hugely significant part of the forecast.

The Euro images were dynamic, so they are going to continue to change. Hence why I included the exact location of each compared to the GFS on your site. Also, the second image linked the AO which had nothing to do with positioning of the trough/ridging.

[wx140]

Thats a good point actually... A more poleward aleutians ridge is favoured in +QBO years where ENSO is neutral or cool. By bringing this up you have brought me a step further. If we isolate for neutral ENSO years with a -PDO and a downwelling +QBO(matches up with our current state) you get a better representation of the pattern setup that could occur this winter. Notice the warmest month for the east is december and colder month is february. Another important note is the fairly strong polar vortex which stays on our side of the globe... it starts over central canada in early winter and slowly drifts eastwards. A -EPO/SE ridge pattern is favoured as well.
Dec:
 q1DOUrfXEA.png ( 14.16K ) Number of downloads: 4

Jan:
 oDg58BYsZQ.png ( 13.86K ) Number of downloads: 1

Feb:
 mJwkIVG8H8.png ( 13.17K ) Number of downloads: 1

Glad I can help!

[OSNW3]

Most of the #midwest to see above average temps the first half of December based on #OSNW3 #LRC #ISO model. http://www.theplayerstour.net/osnw3/wxclim.../maps-temp.html

 ott10.png ( 54.45K ) Number of downloads: 13

[The Snowman]

The Euro images were dynamic, so they are going to continue to change. Hence why I included the exact location of each compared to the GFS on your site. Also, the second image linked the AO which had nothing to do with positioning of the trough/ridging.

Misunderstanding- was referring to the second overall image (first ECMWF image) for ridging/troughing, in this case where the colder anomalies would translate to ridging and warmer anomalies translate to cooler weather and troughing.

[grace]

Most of the #midwest to see above average temps the first half of December based on #OSNW3 #LRC #ISO model. http://www.theplayerstour.net/osnw3/wxclim.../maps-temp.html

 ott10.png ( 54.45K ) Number of downloads: 13

I clicked on the link & checked for Paducah, Ky. I don't know if I'm reading it right but it appears it's saying I'll will have almost ZERO of a winter. Am I looking at it right?