Texas Winter 2016-2017

[Ntxw]

Good Lord, you weren't kidding about 1+2

Niño 4
-0.1ºC
Niño 3.4
-0.2ºC
Niño 3
0.1ºC
Niño 1+2
1.6ºC

That's a very odd spike. I'm looking at the SST anomaly graphic on WxBell's site. There's a small pocket of very warm water near the coast of Mexico south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Otherwise, temps are close to normal or slightly below normal in the region.

Wxman57, Nino 1+2 is a small area near and west of Galapagos south towards the coast of Ecuador and Peru 0-10S, 90W-80W. Most of it lies in the southern hemisphere

[Ntxw]

Verbatim Euro develops -EPO Alaskan ridge end of its run similar to the period the GFS had. 1050+ HP dome descending NW Canada. Generally the first run of -EPO from the Euro

[TeamPlayersBlue]

This is the best pic ive ever taken. Im going to take a photo from the exact same spot this year as well. Will update.

[wxman57]

Wxman57, Nino 1+2 is a small area near and west of Galapagos south towards the coast of Ecuador and Peru 0-10S, 90W-80W. Most of it lies in the southern hemisphere

Right, I see it. That area is surrounded by temps below-normal. It's way warmer than the CFS forecast:

[wxman57]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/TeamPlayersblue/2015-01-27160424-2_zpscfd316d6.jpg

This is the best pic ive ever taken. Im going to take a photo from the exact same spot this year as well. Will update.

I'll take a wild guess and say that's not taken in Sugar Land. Where did you take it?

[TeamPlayersBlue]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/TeamPlayersblue/2015-01-27160424-2_zpscfd316d6.jpg

This is the best pic ive ever taken. Im going to take a photo from the exact same spot this year as well. Will update.

I'll take a wild guess and say that's not taken in Sugar Land. Where did you take it?

International run at Crested Butte, CO. This was 2 years ago. They werent having a very strong year that year, this year should be vastly different.

[Ntxw]

Wxman57, Nino 1+2 is a small area near and west of Galapagos south towards the coast of Ecuador and Peru 0-10S, 90W-80W. Most of it lies in the southern hemisphere

Right, I see it. That area is surrounded by temps below-normal. It's way warmer than the CFS forecast:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/C ... o12Mon.gif

Are you looking at a current anoms map? Its mostly above 1C in that region
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/pac_anom.gif

Even more impressive is below the surface, all warm. What I'm wondering is if the long duration -SOI kicks off onset of early WWB. None yet so far but worth keeping an eye on in Feb

[wxman57]

Are you looking at a current anoms map? Its mostly above 1C in that region
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/pac_anom.gif

Even more impressive is below the surface, all warm. What I'm wondering is if the long duration -SOI kicks off onset of early WWB. None yet so far but worth keeping an eye on in Feb

Yeah, that's what I was looking at. Area just to the north remains below-normal. Here's what I was looking at.

[Ntxw]

Its a small pocket of cool in what is a +PDO, warm epac MDR. Likely the reason this Nina never got off the ground to a stronger event. A strong Nina tends to be cold S of the Equator off South America but has been kaboshed.

[wxman57]

Look! Snow in the northern Panhandle February 5th! Warm superbowl in Houston.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

1000 MB low in South Texas with no moisture, wont believe it!

[Ntxw]

18z GFS showing -EPO alaskan block. Starting to get consistent between runs and different models zoning in on Super Bowl weekend for EPO blast. That early Feb 1989 analog.

[bubba hotep]

12z GFS is back to -EPO with Calender change. Not 300hrs but 200+.

Feb 1989 lurks

I'm not sure that is the loading pattern that we want to see. It also looks like that run continues cyclonic wave breaking throughout the run maintaining ridging on the West Coast.



It looks like we will have to wait for cyclonic wave breaking off the West Coast to give up before seeing any chance at legit cold. The 18z GFS was a step in the right direction in the longer range and the 18z GEFS was even better.



Still, the 12z Euro EPS was even better with a transition to anticyclonic wave breaking, -PNA, Pacific Jet Retraction, the whole package. It looks to be primed for a major -EPO driven dump by D15.

The 12z Euro EPS looks a lot like the Feb '89 loading pattern:



and it has the retracted jet as well:



The projected pattern in the Pacific also gives credence to the Euro EPS version of things:



The D6 - 15 are pretty much what we want to see. As of the runs today, our best last chance at a big cold snap is probably in the Feb 7 - 12th period +/- some days.

However, all this probably changes at 00z tonight.

[Golf7070]

Bubba, imo I think we will see some help from -ao sooner or later because of the ssw that has gotten underway. It won't be a big block but sometime in Feb we should see a period of -ao and possibly -nao.

[bubba hotep]

Bubba, imo I think we will see some help from -ao sooner or later because of the ssw that has gotten underway. It won't be a big block but sometime in Feb we should see a period of -ao and possibly -nao.

I was seeing a lot more chatter online about SSW before this trend showed up:



However, I don't really know enough to comment on what kind of sensible wx impacts that will have.

[orangeblood]

Overnight teleconnection indices forecasts appear to be aligning to all head negative as we head into Feb (a positive for winter weather lovers), particularly the AO - latest forecasts show the potential for it to fall off a cliff in the coming days which aligns with the SSW we've been discussing around here lately. Very impressive episodes of Poleward heatflux towards the North Pacific side of the Stratosphere shown on most models - a constant barrage of these WAFz will hopefully continue to displace the PV towards the north slope of Siberia allowing for a longer duration negative AO. As Ntxw has mentioned, hopefully the negative AO is the key to breaking this pattern/increasing WW potential but I remain highly skeptical that the negative PNA is a good indice for us in the southern plains this winter - I've found most of our significant winter weather events to be with neutral to slightly positive PNAs.

[Ntxw]

Ensembles do show raising heights in the polar regions which is a good sign to knock down the AO. Sure beats the sprawling tropospheric PV up near the pole now. Good trends overnight orangeblood. Perhaps the SSW will propogate down

[Portastorm]

The Southwest ridge which shows up in both the GFS and Euro long range is like our nasty summer high pressure, cockroach ridge. Both put their thumbs down on anything good! I'm hoping that the purported SSW event and the projected AO values shared by orangeblood above will shake things up. Cohen did say in his blog yesterday that the models often struggle at times like these when the polar vortex is disturbed and possibly breaking down.

Meanwhile, wxman57 is gleefully dancing on top of our heads. Record high temps today expected here in Austin.

[Ntxw]

:uarrow:

The Southwest ridge which shows up in both the GFS and Euro long range is like our nasty summer high pressure, cockroach ridge. Both put their thumbs down on anything good! I'm hoping that the purported SSW event and the projected AO values shared by orangeblood above will shake things up. Cohen did say in his blog yesterday that the models often struggle at times like these when the polar vortex is disturbed and possibly breaking down.

Meanwhile, wxman57 is gleefully dancing on top of our heads. Record high temps today expected here in Austin.

SW ridge is +PNA. It can work and often does during El Nino if you have a subtropical jet cutting underneath connected to NW flow aloft. But it can also be an enemy if it progresses east or collapses into the southern plains. It's always nice to see a big trough coming out from our west digging through.

We are working diligently to foil his warm plans one last time this winter . I am actually looking forward to the NW flow. If anything it will cutoff the mountain cedar (for DFW) for a few weeks...

[Ntxw]

If you want to see snow during +PNA this week, go east. NE Alabama, N Georgia and N Carolina has a good chance