The trend is MY friend

sorry for the delay -- one of busiest days ever here at wxrisk that did NOT involve a Major landfall threat and or a SECS/ HECE/ MECS


The trend is my friend. It has been that way for several days and all the data continues to be going "my way". In case you did not know it by now the Australian folks have dropped the critically important ENSO 3.4 SSTAs to +0.9c which is now officially dropping this El Niño event to weak status from the moderate levels of just a few weeks ago.

I hope that you can recall the BLOG entry you from last week where I forecasted a significant drop would occur in the data .... then noted when it was released on Monday and sure enough both sites the Australians and the CPC data show a drop of -0.2 .

This is in the new piece of the puzzle as to what the second half of the winter is going to be like. As I mentioned earlier last week one of my competitors- the folks at WSI - issued a statement which was released into the media forecasting a continued mild pattern right through March across most of the Conus. That idea was based upon two fundamentally flawed on premises--- that the moderate El Niño of December would continue and the vortex over the Bering Sea will hold in place. Exactly WHY they continued to see the pattern holding when it was obvious by late December that conditions were changing I am not exactly sure. Hopefully they are seeing things ina different light.

I got a e-mail earlier today from somebody named Red Scott saying that I am out on a "limb" with my forecast for the pattern change and that I better be right about the GFS. I can understand this sort of commenti being made LAST week or this past weekend but given what the models were showing today I have to question the sanity of the person making that comment.

I may have been out on a LIMB last week but surely that is not the case now. Surely some of you can recall how the operational GFS run after run after a run ALL last week showed a Huge Ridge either over the Southeast coast of just off the Southeast coast which was going to delay the cold front arrival until at least the 17th if not the 18th of January and even then the the pattern did NOT look all that cold for the Northeast.... Midwest and Plains looked cold but not the East coast.

Really this is NOT complicated folks.

Lets say YOU are are one of those weather hobbyists or forecasters that last week argued strongly that there was no significant pattern change coming up... and that if it does get cold over the Eastern third of the CONUS by Jan 15 it was only going to last for 7-10 days... then the pattern would rebuild with the trough shifting out west the Ridge over the southeast comebacks and most of the 2nd half of the winter will feature more mild conditions.

Based upon what you have seen over the weekend and this morning the dramatic shift in the operational and GFS ensembles should be a warning sign that your "scenario" of how you think the next two weeks are going to play out is in trouble.

To be sure you could be correct. I could be wrong. There are no guarantees. But let's follow this logic carefully OK?

WHY has the last two months of this winter-- all of NOV nearly all of DEC and the first 10 days of Jan --been so warm?

You could argue it was the moderate El Niño. I sytated earlier that when the El Niño was weak we were cold and September October... when it reached moderate intensity the pattern turned mild.

You could argue it was the developmental large vortex over the Bering Sea flooded western Canada with a fairly strong Pacific Jet that prevented any sort of amplification in the northern branch of the Jet stream. Of course such a vortex in THAT location is common during moderate El Niño events.

You could argue that the Pacific Ocean -- the PDO -- was in the Negative Phase which means a lot of cold water over the eastern Pacific / West coast which supports a trough of the West Coast and therefore Ridge in the East
.
You could argue that one reason was the lack of any High latitude blocking over eastern Canada Greenland because of the very bad unfavorable sea surface temperature configurations in the Northwest Atlantic.

You could argue that since the Polar Vortex was on the other side of hemisphere ---that is to say over Asia it has been impossible to get any sort sustained cold pattern in North America since the heart of the cold air is on the other side of the world.

You could argue that is because the EPO has been a positive phase for most of November December and the first 10 days of January there cannot be any sustained Ridge on the West coast.

Pick your reason. You may pick or select several of them. I would. Some of the above stated reasons are interrelated.

SO.... If you a forecaster that is still arguing that the pattern shift is not really a big deal.... and it's just a cold weather interval... then you have a serious problem.

If your reasons for issuing a warm forecast and a continuation of the more pattern over North America to all November all the semblance first 10 days of January... how do you STILL make that forecast since almost ALL of those item / facts I listed above have changed?

A+B+C+D= forecast

The moderate El Niño? Well baby's is a dead and buried. And if you're going to argue that a weak El Niño means the same sort of overall general pattern as a moderate El Nino over N.America while I am going to have to ask you to stop forecasting because its prerry clear you don't what you talking about.
The vortex in the Bering Sea? That sucker's gone and we now have a large Ridge over Alaska.
The negative Phase of the PDO-- the cold water along the West coast of N.America and eastern Pacific --is still there but their been plenty decent Winters we've had a -PDO.

While we do not yet have a -NAO we do now have a Polar vortex appearing over North Central or northeastern Canada for the first time since October. And that is a major change.

The EPO has also switch signals dramatically as well ... from the positive phase which produces trough and along the West Coast ...into the Negative phase which generally supports Ridge and along the West coast of North America

Whatever your reasoning for forecasting the very warm pattern we have seen from November 1 of January 10 almost all of those pieces of the puzzle now changed or have moved into a dramatically different direction. This was NOT the case when the first cold blast in the first seven or eight days of December developed. The cold blast over central and eastern North America could NOT hold since... the PV was still over Asia... the El Niño still rampaging in moderate intensity.... the Bering Sea Low was still there... in other words nothing had changed. Thus you should of forecasted a short seven-day interval of cold water followed by return of the mild pattern. I did that.... as did MOST forecasters . No big deal.

BUT to still hold the same view at this time is to argue or suggest that WEATHER does not really operate on a scientific process. That things like Teleconnections and patterns and SSTA and Indicies like the EPO and NAO and PNA have no real meaning. I don't agrew but we will have to see.

I have seen some talk out there all of similarities with this upcoming cold pattern to what we've saw back in the Winter of 1977 -78. In my opinion that's just hysteria and hype mongering to the nth degree... its just a effort to get ahead of the curve through over done headlines.
There is nothing in this coming pattern that is going to be as impressively cold .... to what we saw in 1977-78. Not even remotely close . The whole idea is ludicrous. You cannot through that term around loosely like that and NOT expect to be called on it.

If we were to get blocking over Central northeastern Canada.... and we were to see a -NAO ...THEN and only then one could make the argument on the similarity in overall pattern to that infamous and severe winter. But as the data stands right now for next two or three weeks... no.

Lastly I am gratified to see that some of the posters over easternus wx who last week asserted I was going out on the limb... and misread the models.... that I was not recognizing the southeast Ridge and I was too fast and strong with a cold front ....and jumping the gun on any possible wave development after January 15 along the East Coast .... are now talking about all sorts of potential promise with this pattern. The truth is while I did mess up the December forecast I was the first one that I know of to correctly predict the collapse of the El Niño several weeks ago. And I was one of the first ones last week that was pretty gung ho about the coming pattern shift. I know a lot of my energy trading fans are very happy today and making good $$$ off of my ideas and forecast from last week. I just hope that e some of the regular readers remember what was said last week.

hhhh