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ThunderSleetDreams wrote:orangeblood wrote:Quixotic wrote:09-10, 02-03 and 77-78 didn’t have big arctic outbreaks. It was cold but just steady split flow with polar air. I have fond memories of 09-10 but 77-78 seemed like there was a chance of snow every day for all of January and February.
Just curious, what do you consider an Arctic Outbreak? Jan and Feb 1978 had numerous days of 20-30F below normal, about as extreme as you get around here...
To me, I think people confuse 30s and even sometimes upper 20s with Arctic outbreaks. We can achieve that without a true upper air pattern that delivers Arctic air.
When I think true Arctic plunges, they typically happen in neutral or La Niña years when the EPO tanks. Typically robust Arctic fronts will put most of us in the teens. Last January, a reporting station 80 miles north of me reported 3 degrees. That’s Arctic air.
I’m El Niño’s we tend to stay below normal but we can achieve it without the traditional upper air delivery that taps the Arctic. That’s not to say we don’t get them.
If I’m not mistaken, our modern benchmark Arctic blast occurred in a La Niña in 1989.
It's also perspective of course. The late 1970s the globe was much colder overall. There wasn't really a massive singular dump of cold air. But it was persistent enough that any one of them achieved some colder temperatures (at DFW for example) than anything that has occurred in a singular blast the past 20 years or so. But in contrast to that period it was nothing unusual, there was no record breaking HP systems.
An SOI crash would really get things cranking I believe
