Winter 2022-2023 | Discussion and Outlooks

[NKYSnowLover]

Importing this topic thread over to our new home!!!

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Less than 10 months until next met winter. Might as well get the jump on a new thread.😉 

Few certainties for winter 22-23 - all of which I believe happened in 21-22, so let's recycle them again:

1. It'll be cold in some parts of the country, it'll be warm in others and even some will just be normal. But with certainty, the CFS will bathe us all in oranges and reds.

2. It'll snow... somewhere. It'll rain... everywhere.

3. There will be no less than 3 major mental breakdowns in the Wx Twitter community AND 3 faux calls for SSW's that'll drop the tropospheric PV into Florida.

4. 80% or more of winter forecasts made in Sept./Oct. will show a cold east / warm west look. Almost all of those will show at least part of the I-95 NE urban corridor as getting above normal snowfall. At least 1 map will show a top 5 snowfall prediction for NYC. 

5. The truth is no one really knows what'll happen, but that's what makes it fun and exciting!

Carry on with the thoughts, ideas and discussion!

[so_whats_happening]

You forgot to add there will be constant talks of potential RRR situations and 2014/15 redux. If we get a warm December everyone will think oh boy here comes 2011/12 redux. Wash rinse repeat. lol

Honestly really hope we can drop the La Nina over the summer neutral winters are fun because we can get the bigger pattern drivers, other than ENSO, to run the show more. We saw the big pattern drivers this year but the La Nina definitely played the overall show this year and last. Last year (2020/21) was a little funky with the Nino like atmospheric pattern within a La Nina base.

[MotownWX]

I mean, seasonal forecasts have gotten rather easy and predictable for the Great Lakes and upper Midwest:

• Warm, pleasant fall
• Mild, uneventful early winter
• Stormy and cold after mid-January
• Frequent cut-off lows and cold shots right through end of April.  

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

[StormfanaticInd]

Wonder if this la nina will carry over into winter 🤔 

[Al_Czervik]

On 4/28/2022 at 1:01 AM, StormfanaticInd said:

Wonder if this la nina will carry over into winter 🤔 

I am betting on yes.

[so_whats_happening]

Im not so certain now. Will have to monitor the next month with changes possibly abound. More WWB presence showing up to knock the La Nina in oceanic temp wise. Atmospherically we are not seeing major changes yet but that could be in the works over the next month.

[Snowbelted]

https://apnews.com/article/what-is-la-nina-drought-wildfires-hurricanes-619a4a1a928fdb80d301c7dca0c45dcf

 

 

[SOMOSnow]

About 5 months until occasional, potential Winter storms arrive. 

Anyone checking on how things are lining up thus far with ENSO, etc? 

[Grace]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:43 PM, SOMOSnow said:

About 5 months until occasional, potential Winter storms arrive. 

Anyone checking on how things are lining up thus far with ENSO, etc? 

Right now it seems all models are on board with another La Nina winter or weak -ENSO. (CFS is coming around.)

Back to 1950 we only have 2 periods of 3 consecutive La Nina winters:

1973-74

1974-75

1975-76

 And then

1998-99

1999-2000

2000-01

 

The 3rd La Nina winters of 1975-76 & 2000-2001 are polar opposites. 

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Grace

[so_whats_happening]

8 hours ago, Grace said:

Right now it seems all models are on board with another La Nina winter or weak -ENSO. (CFS is coming around.)

Back to 1950 we only have 3 periods of 3 consecutive La Nina winters:

1973-74

1974-75

1975-76

 And then

1998-99

1999-2000

2000-01

 

The 3rd La Nina winters of 1975-76 & 2000-2001 are polar opposites. 

 

Oh hey welcome back!

Yea two total different situations going on there. 1975/76 was coming off a weak La Nina the year before to then becoming a strong La Nina that winter. Where as 2000/01 was coming off a moderate/strong La Nina in to a weak La Nina state. As I posted in the ENSO thread I wish we had more data for surface and subsurface SSTs for before 1979.

This is the first time though since 1975 where we have actually cooled the waters in spring coming out of a La Nina. 

Comparing the two years we have total opposite situations going on. Could make the argument we aren't too far off from 2001 levels atmospherically speaking. High latitude blocking more pronounced that spring than this year so far where we have had a more pronounced east coast ridge pattern.

1975

2022

2001

[StormfanaticInd]

 

[so_whats_happening]

Thoughts are that we see a little El Nino like atmosphere this fall with the warming that has taken place in the tropics recently. If I remember correctly this tends to leave us with a fairly warm fall (indian summer type of deal) would have to do some monthly composites to get a better idea. The last 2 weeks though have a seen a rather impressive La Nina like return at least via surface winds and remaining high SOI values, this may take hold and allow for it to come back somewhat leading into winter. The overall thought is cold neutral but chance we see a weak La Nina to be our triple dip situation.  Early onset to winter and then depending on how quickly the La Nina or weak state erodes will be interesting for the second half of winter.

The one kink in the potential is the warming of the PDO region. We are starting to lose our typical horseshoe look of cool anomalies along western North America but the warm tongue from east of Japan is still very much present so a weaker -PDO is likely to evolve coming up. Can see by eastern Pac tropical weather picking up that the PDO is slowly eroding. The waters near Kamchatka are on fire relative to the norm. Persistent ridging in this region has allowed the temps to just go nuts over the past 2 weeks. The ridging over Northern Canada has been stupid persistent too but seems to be breaking down a bit in the near term which may allow for some pretty intense heat to build eastward instead of being centralized in eastern SW region and TX for the past 2 months.

 

[so_whats_happening]

9 hours ago, StormfanaticInd said:

 

It is very possible given we are going from a moderate La Nina into a potentially weak La Nina cold neutral. Maybe not on those levels as things don't often repeat in the same way but cooler than average may be the way to go for November/ Deecember.

[Grace]

On 7/12/2022 at 8:43 PM, so_whats_happening said:

It is very possible given we are going from a moderate La Nina into a potentially weak La Nina cold neutral. Maybe not on those levels as things don't often repeat in the same way but cooler than average may be the way to go for November/ Deecember.

 

Until we actually have a front-loaded winter again I'm going with backloaded no matter the ENSO. 

[so_whats_happening]

On 7/16/2022 at 10:14 PM, Grace said:

 

Until we actually have a front-loaded winter again I'm going with backloaded no matter the ENSO. 

This is a fair point it has been many years since we have had that scenario. Im curious if the triple dip potential may serve up that reality. If it doesn't it may be reasonable to consider we have entered a new mode. El Nino will not offer a front loaded winter so La Nina is typically the best chance of this.

[StormfanaticInd]

On 7/18/2022 at 12:22 PM, so_whats_happening said:

This is a fair point it has been many years since we have had that scenario. Im curious if the triple dip potential may serve up that reality. If it doesn't it may be reasonable to consider we have entered a new mode. El Nino will not offer a front loaded winter so La Nina is typically the best chance of this.

We are WAY overdue 

[Grace]

 

[so_whats_happening]

Here we go round 3 incoming

[StormfanaticInd]

3 la nina winters in a row would really be something. New normal?

[StormfanaticInd]

1 minute ago, StormfanaticInd said:

3 la nina winters in a row would really be something. New normal?

 

[Ohiobuckeye45]

My internal alarm clock starts to go off late July every year for upcoming winters. Anytime you start hearing of "rarities" and minimal data it gets more exciting because disappointment has a hard time settling in if there's truly no data to compare 😅

[ClicheVortex2014]

It looks like we'll have our third 3-peat La Nina since 1950... others were 1973-75, 2010-12, and now 2020-23.

It's interesting how it took at least 23 years (from when reliable records started) to get the first three-peat... then almost 40 years between the first three-peat and the second, then a little less than 10 years between the second and third. Might be an impact of climate change. Too early to tell for sure.

Edit: I wanna add, too, that we think/thought that the 2015-16 Super Nino was possibly attributed to climate change. This three-peat Nina doesn't necessarily negate this possibility; climate change could be making extreme ENSO events more likely.

Bright side for winter lovers is that each of the past 3peats were followed by a string of brutal winters. The infamous 1976-78 and the less-infamous-but-still-memorable 2013-15. 

For now... this winters Nina looks front-loaded like 2016-17. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by ClicheVortex2014

[so_whats_happening]

1 hour ago, ClicheVortex2014 said:

It looks like we'll have our third 3-peat La Nina since 1950... others were 1973-75, 2010-12, and now 2020-23.

It's interesting how it took at least 23 years (from when reliable records started) to get the first three-peat... then almost 40 years between the first three-peat and the second, then a little less than 10 years between the second and third. Might be an impact of climate change. Too early to tell for sure.

Edit: I wanna add, too, that we think/thought that the 2015-16 Super Nino was possibly attributed to climate change. This three-peat Nina doesn't necessarily negate this possibility; climate change could be making extreme ENSO events more likely.

Bright side for winter lovers is that each of the past 3peats were followed by a string of brutal winters. The infamous 1976-78 and the less-infamous-but-still-memorable 2013-15. 

For now... this winters Nina looks front-loaded like 2016-17. 

We actually failed to get a 3 peat in 2010-2012. Winter of 10-11, winter of 11-12, but 12-13 was a neutral ENSO (slightly warm). The last technical 3 peat was 98-99, 99-2000, 2000-2001 which settled down spring of 2001 and made for a cool neutral state for 01-02.

Periodicity of these event seems to be about 20-25 years. We should at least maintain this strength into Fall and maybe early winter before it starts to lose the battle and push to neutral state by end of winter early spring, but we shall see this isn't exactly a slam dunk forecast as it could potentially go into a moderate/ strong La Nina if conditions like we are seeing keep prevailing.

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

Pretty impressive hovmollers for this time of year. The fact the MJO has just been so dead was probably our first sign this was not going to evolve into el nino let alone warm neutral. Just had to wait it out though as some signs started popping it could flip.

 

In other areas to start watching we have increasing solar activity should hit a solar max in a few years so increasing energy from the sun, we have a westerly/ positive QBO descending and is at about 30mb where things are starting to go neutral/ positive, and a 3rd year La Nina. Could be quite the wild card as solar energy increasing tends to provide us with a warmer pole colder mid latitudes but depending on the state of La Nina this could be negated out as 3rd year La Ninas do tend to be mixed bags. Also just how quickly the westerlies descend is another important factor with a westerly QBO we tend to not have SSW events but La Nina atmospheres tend to produce the precursors for SSW events. So it is definitely one to watch and see how it evolves. Going into a little bit of uncharted territory as the ocean temps are rather warm still globally and a -PDO still seems to be present overall. Just so many mixed signals but overall the biggest one to watch will be the ENSO state and things should kind of follow that path with minor changes here and there.

[ClicheVortex2014]

11 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

We actually failed to get a 3 peat in 2010-2012. Winter of 10-11, winter of 11-12, but 12-13 was a neutral ENSO (slightly warm). The last technical 3 peat was 98-99, 99-2000, 2000-2001 which settled down spring of 2001 and made for a cool neutral state for 01-02.

Periodicity of these event seems to be about 20-25 years. We should at least maintain this strength into Fall and maybe early winter before it starts to lose the battle and push to neutral state by end of winter early spring, but we shall see this isn't exactly a slam dunk forecast as it could potentially go into a moderate/ strong La Nina if conditions like we are seeing keep prevailing.

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

Pretty impressive hovmollers for this time of year. The fact the MJO has just been so dead was probably our first sign this was not going to evolve into el nino let alone warm neutral. Just had to wait it out though as some signs started popping it could flip.

 

In other areas to start watching we have increasing solar activity should hit a solar max in a few years so increasing energy from the sun, we have a westerly/ positive QBO descending and is at about 30mb where things are starting to go neutral/ positive, and a 3rd year La Nina. Could be quite the wild card as solar energy increasing tends to provide us with a warmer pole colder mid latitudes but depending on the state of La Nina this could be negated out as 3rd year La Ninas do tend to be mixed bags. Also just how quickly the westerlies descend is another important factor with a westerly QBO we tend to not have SSW events but La Nina atmospheres tend to produce the precursors for SSW events. So it is definitely one to watch and see how it evolves. Going into a little bit of uncharted territory as the ocean temps are rather warm still globally and a -PDO still seems to be present overall. Just so many mixed signals but overall the biggest one to watch will be the ENSO state and things should kind of follow that path with minor changes here and there.

You're right... I can't believe I messed up on that. It was 1998-00, not 2010-12. 

So the 3peats were actually 1973-75, 1998-00, and now likely 2020-22. More even than when my memory failed me earlier today. But the question as to whether ENSO is becoming more extreme is still valid.

Edited July 26, 2022 by ClicheVortex2014

[so_whats_happening]

18 minutes ago, ClicheVortex2014 said:

You're right... I can't believe I messed up on that. It was 1998-00, not 2010-12. 

So the 3peats were actually 1973-75, 1998-00, and now likely 2020-22. More even than when my memory failed me earlier today. But the question as to whether ENSO is becoming more extreme is still valid.

No worries it happens. Yes I do tend to agree with the notion of ENSO extremes happening I actually mentioned this in the ENSO thread a while back that MEI data may suggest El Nino events may not be quite as atmospherically intense as we move on but the oceanic component is rather intense as each super Nino episode has had higher temps than the previous one, could argue the idea 09-10 Nino didn't get as strong due to being in a solar min why it didn't post higher numbers than the previous super Nino but we can't exclusively say this because 97-98 happened in a solar min too🤷‍♂️. This could be due to the warming of oceans playing a role in making this happen and thus giving us potential warmer La Nina episodes over the time? In the last 20ish years we have not crossed the -1.6 trimonthly for ENSO we managed to do this 2-3 times in the previous 20ish years and then another stretch of not attaining this. Wonder if there is a pattern in this at all too?