Phil

I'd argue the atmosphere generally leads the oceans when looking on a sub-yearly resolution, at least in regards to the more significant low frequency regime transitions. Complicated, though.

Apparently the atmospheric circulation doesn't care.

Aleutian trough/+PNA, -SOI, +AAM integral = Niño regime. Intraseasonal, of course, but still. Hard to argue against it.

We were radiating nicely until 830pm, before southerly winds developed and spiked temps by 10 degrees in under 2hrs. Currently 67 degrees as of 1030pm. Feels like September.

I've wasted so much time and energy bashing the blob/PDO stuff, much to the dismay of Flatiron et al. Thing is, if the PDO were deeply negative right now, east coast weenies would be ignoring it, while west coast weenies would be humping it. That said, I definitely agree with sticking to weak Niña or neutral analogs this year. The Niña circulation might be pathetic, but this is certainly no Niño year.

Thing is, it's not just the strip of ENSO SSTs that matter. It's the global tropical SST distribution that can really tilt things. The cooler IO overall, juxtaposed with the warm off-equator Pacific SSTAs and an Atlantic Hadley Cell in a -AMO state, is a natural destructive interference state in relation to the Niña cell. While a -IOD itself is a boost to the Niña state, a cooler IO in its entirety isn't a good thing, as it leads to a longitudinal contraction of the Walker Cell, which under the aforementioned destructive interference regime, makes it highly vulnerable to extratropical perturbation, which in turn can ignite instabilities in the tropical macroscale state (MJO), possibly leading to the destruction of the Niña cell altogether.

Hey now, this east coaster certainly doesn't. Regionalism is the Wx-Community version of racism.

Actually, the ECMWF seasonal has a raging warm bias around here, regardless of the ENSO sign. It's warm biased just about everywhere, in fact, and appears to over-couple with mid latitude SSTAs.

Let's be honest with ourselves..this niña cell is pathetic. It's a weak, impotent piece of crap. As in, it barely even registers on most low pass filters, and has been weakening since September. As of now, I don't see any signs of a significant +SOI. The Walker Cell has been weakening for the last week, and this should continue for at least another week.

Another massive -SOI day, -32.88. That's super niño territory. You just don't see behaviors like this in La Niña. As Jim said, weird year.

I don't see any GOA ridge, at least not on the improved version of the weeklies (new version contain improved ocean/atmos coupling algorithms). Looks more like a west coast ridge to me.

Heh, we actually agree on something.

My question..why do people care so much? The blob obsession never made any sense to me.

That's been my thinking for awhile now. Pattern variability under an impotent niña background state.

Ding ding ding ding!

Fair enough. I just don't think it's as "impossible" as you make it out to be. I guess we'll find out eventually.

Jim is gonna love the 00z GFS. Huge NPAC trough, western ridging, eastern troughing.

So, another ridiculous blowtorch autumn? So sick of this bulls**t. Hopefully things turn around during the second half of November.

Okay, so just to test for continuity, I rolled these years back to October. This is the result I got..honestly I wouldn't say it's very convincing or internally coherent. Relative to the current regime, this aggregation even seems to hold an anti-correlation. http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww243/phillywillie/Mobile%20Uploads/BF815D85-5204-4B14-B329-1BE66964B580_zps8rccu8bm.png http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww243/phillywillie/Mobile%20Uploads/028FC2D8-C1F9-4579-966A-3E599AC3C559_zpsforahnlb.gif

Uh, that's definitely an Aleutian low/extended jet look with the latitudinally overlapping anticyclones. In other words, +PNA. No use denying it.

Shouldn't that be November 1979 instead of November 1980? What about 1978/79? Or 1955/56?

That's what I was thinking, lol.

Sure, that's a long time from a human perspective. However, I don't believe it says anything in regards to whether such an event is possible today. As historically cold months have occurred in many areas across the northern hemisphere in recent years, this suggests to me that indeed such an event is still possible today. Sure, the climatological circulations (both over the NPAC and globe as a whole) have changed significantly during the J/F/M timeframe, however, I don't think these low frequency changes preclude a historically cold January, or a pattern analogous to those which produced great PNW Januaries in the past. Rather, I'd argue it's simply more difficult to achieve today given the differences in the dominant circulatory modes.

I'm rooting for a huge wind event this winter, something like February 2011, March 2008, or another one of the big dogs from the 2003-2006 era (I don't remember too much before that). Last April's storm was great (the strongest since 2011 here), however still wasn't quite in the league of 2011/2008 et al. I think the March 2008 storm delivered 70-80mph gusts at all three local airports. Last April, by comparison, gusted to 67mph @ IAD, but just 56mph @ DCA.

DCA gusted to 44mph today. Have a feeling this might be a windier than average winter. Maybe similar to 2010/11?