The SE Ridge from Hell... ENSO update

Lots of talk about this morning you sick twisted freaks so let's get right to it.
First off lets looks at the December 12 subsurface temperature anomalies for
the El nino regions. You can see from this latest Link there been significant changes over the western portions of the current El Niño... which would be regions 4 and part of 3.4

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/jsdisplay/plots/gif/Dep_Sec_EQ_5d_anom_comp.gif

This becomes even more obvious when you compare it to the data from let's say November 22.... which you can see here.
http://www.wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/nov22.jpg

Now taking a look at this one can easily argue for example that the area of +4c temperature anomalies below the surface is RISING as it moves east towards a coastal Peru and into El Nino regions 1.2 But what I think is for more important is that the western side all of the current El Niño which back on November 22 showed a large area of +4C and +5C has weakened a dramatically over the last couple weeks. Assuming this that is correct and assuming that my reasoning is also valid... then I suspect after this current warm bubble that is moving into the subsurface regions all of enso 1.2 passes through-- by the end of December 2006... that the overall ENSO will begin to weakened at a pretty steady pace. Unless there is a new surge of really warm subsurface temperature anomalies developing out by the dateline - enso region 4... then it is looking to me that by the end of DEC the worst of this current El Nino will have already pass-through and reached its peak. Anyway that is what the data is looking like to me .


There is some dispute within the various energy forecasting companies as to how cold and how soon the cold front is going to move through the Midwest this weekend and the Northeast early next week. This is mainly due to the wide discrepancy in the medium-range models about what happens along the front itself and the synoptics upstream . The operational European MODEL from overnight has a wave a Low pressure developing on the front that cuts across KY WVA into MD and ends up bringing the first decent snow of the season to portions all of northern Pennsylvania New York State and much of New England. However the 0z and 6z GFS say No dice... and are much slower with the cold front at a much stronger Ridge over the Southeast which really does not break down until DEC 22!!!

Now why is the GFS showing this? Well I think it's the same problem we had yesterday -- the GFS model trendency to over phase the "streams" to soon. Recall the 12z WED GFS which had the Low coming out of the Southwest states ... then phasing that feature with the next s/w dropping in on the northern stream -- and hence we had a major Plains snowstorm. Of course all the models now totally different with that solution... but the key point here for you do understand exactly GFS appears to be doing this again on the 0z and 6z runs day D5 and D6
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/06/fp0_144.shtml

With these 2 s/w phasing over the Mississippi valley the 0z and 6z GFS solutions actually end up reinforcing the Ridge over the Southeastern states as result the warmth stays over the East Coast until the Midwest low reaches the Coast on 12/22.

The operational Europeans does NOT phases these 2 s/w and keeps the northern s/w completely separate as it moves through the Great Lakes and spins up the Low pressure area on the cold front and hence the New england snowstorm.

The problem is of course trying to figure out which solution is correct. And this has longer-term implications because IF the GFS is screwing up D5 and D6 then it is may be getting the rest the pattern completely wrong as well. Ya follow?

As you can see the operational Ukmet and 0z CMC does NOT support the 0z and 6z GFS and they are both strongly within the European Camp. The northern shore wave does NOT drop into the system coming out of the Southwest and instead of blows on through in the Northeast and drives cold thru the big cities the Northeast much faster than what the GFS showing.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/UKHEMI_0z/f144.gif

http://meteocentre.com/models/glb00_144_4pan.gif

To looking at the 0z GFS ensembles we see several of them but not a convincing majority also take the northern shore wave across the Great Lakes and/or New England....p001 p002 p004 p007 p008 p009 .

In any event if we go beyond this problem with the solutions at Day 6-7 and/ or the position of the cold front and/ or the possible wave development on the front which might bring snow to New England... we then have to look at the actual system coming out of the Southwest itself!!!!
The operational European is much slower with the system coming out of Southwest which again could be the model bias of this model kicking in... with the result that we see a snowstorm over western northern Texas western NM and OK 12/20-21. By December 23 the model has the Low again on the East Coast -- either over Southeastern Virginia or off the Delmarva-- which is consistent what the model was shown yesterday... but there is no cold air over the cities of the Northeast or the mid-Atlantic so it's just a large heavy rainstorm. Inland the 0z Euro is showing significant snow possible over West Virginia Western Virginia as well as western Maryland and south-central Pennsylvania.

I have seen the European ensembles and they are significantly faster with the system--- both within coming out of the Southwest US and how it reaches East Coast and in knocking down the SE ridge .

The operational CMC GFS both 0z and 6z are also faster than the operational European and show pretty significant system somewhere over the eastern third US in the days right before Christmas say December 22 or the 23rd . The problem is again that there is no northern branch of the Jet stream close enough to the lower Great Lakes / southeastern Canada that can act as a source for a cold surface High to develop and as a result this system appears to be mainly a rainstorm for the Northeast big cities but could be a significant snowstorm for the mountains... from say West Virginia into central northern New England. This tendency is strongly supported by the Canadian and GFS ensembles.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ENSHGT_0z/f192.html

There is a chance at some portion of the Midwest could see snow out of this if they are exactly in the perfect NW quadrant and temperatures are just cold enough... but even so many areas of the Midwest would see heavy rains.

As you go out to d10 and beyond that is when I think the pattern has more potential because then will have the cold air in place with the new +PNA in position. I have never been a fan of trying to forecast winter storms in a very warm pattern and then counting on the model Day 6 or D8 trying to forecast the cold front to move in just in the "nick of time". Those sorts of scenarios are really fantasy and very very really happen and most of the time when they do its up across the northern tier states such says Minnesota the Great Lakes or northern New England. In any event event I think I have to figure out what the actual solution is going to be with regard to the system coming out of Southwest first and how fast or slow does the SE ridge last... before we get into any details about the week 2 forecast.