October 2022 Observations and Discussion

[Andie]

Tom, when the 2nd wave plowed through I was amazed at what appeared to be as close to a cloud burst as I’ve ever seen.
Visibility dropped off the table. It appeared as an opaque sheet rather than rain. Solid sheets of heavy rain pounded the roof.    

[Tom]

3 minutes ago, Andie said:

Tom, when the 2nd wave plowed through I was amazed at what appeared to be as close to a cloud burst as I’ve ever seen.
Visibility dropped off the table. It appeared as an opaque sheet rather than rain. Solid sheets of heavy rain pounded the roof.    

I saw some video footage of what appeared to be a strong down draft.  I'm sure that was quite the experience!  Glad you finally got to enjoy a strong storm and I'm elated that TX is on the receiving end of bountiful moisture.  More to come this Friday!

[Tom]

For our NE Peeps...can you spot the Face?  Precip chances are on the rise for some, esp @CentralNebWeather on Thu...

 

Ol' Man Winter is coming out of the gates Fast and Furious for the Western CONUS...Laying down the foundation up in W Canada as well...

 

 

[CentralNebWeather]

1 minute ago, Tom said:

For our NE Peeps...can you spot the Face?  Precip chances are on the rise for some, esp @CentralNebWeather on Thu...

 

Ol' Man Winter is coming out of the gates Fast and Furious for the Western CONUS...Laying down the foundation up in 
W Canada as well...

 

 

We'll take anything we can get.  Local forecasters not too enthusiastic about amounts, but hopefully this can overachieve a little.

[OttumwaSnomow]

So i got 1.73 yesterday 

 

1.92 for oct so far

 

Had 5.77 in sept

 

So sept n oct 7.69

 

Mostly since sept 10th

But still a 30 day period  with next to nothing!

Almost  no runoff. Pond maybe rose 6 inches. Mostly  it just keeps dropping. 

 

[Hawkeye]

2 hours ago, chescowxman said:

You've done very well, precip-wise, this month.  The entire middle of the country could use a month like that.  Even yesterday's significant rain event won't get us to 2" for October.

[Clinton]

39 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Evaporated? Huh?

It's important to not put all your eggs in the basket of the operationals, especially during volatile pattern changes. You'll get whiplash pretty quick. Besides wanting the occasional eye candy which the OPs can provide, stick with the ensembles, which as you can tell from the below charts the cold snap has not "evaporated" from. If we lose the ensembles, then by all means your call for 'winter cancel' would hold more merit. Luckily for us, that doesn't appear to be the case at the moment. Heck, even the latest Euro run still looks pretty dang promising (which I posted above). So unless you are basing your post on the whims of the GFS OP (which is an outlier of it's own ensembles), I'm not seeing what you are seeing.

What I am seeing in the below EPS charts is a more west-based cold snap that moves into the Central CONUS. E Coast folks will have to contend with a possible +NAO that nudges into their area a bit and will cause warmer temperatures. That general setup has not really changed since this snap first started coming into view but is seemingly becoming more likely.

What happens after the first week or so of November is anyone's guess. I wouldn't be comfortable calling this potential cold snap an "early start to winter" as the pattern could go really anywhere post November 8th or so, as evident by the spaghetti charts below. We could warm back up just as easily as we could stay in the freezer. Still lots to iron out! Although with the MJO forecast to hang around phase 7 things might lean towards the latter instead of the former. Perhaps @Clinton or @Tom could chime in on that more as I am still exploring using MJO as a forecasting tool.

I agree if you follow the ensembles you'll save yourself a lot of headache.  If the MJO stays in 7 and the EPO goes negative like forecasted I think we'll get hit with a good shot of cold the second week of November. 

[tStacsh]

Tis the season of long range false flashes of anomalous cold.  Every single run.  Love it.  I swear they built it into the models  to get more clicks.  

[NWbyNW]

Things are looking pretty OK over the OKC. 

Legit: that newer massive glass building is so out of place in the OKC city skyline.  Just sayin'.  It's like a smaller skyline just wanted to put the biggest building they could there for some reason.  It seems unbalanced.  

I mean look at this older view of the city skyline back in the day.  SO much more balanced!

Now over time, I am sure some other bigger buildings will fill in the cityscape, but it's been happening pretty slowly the past thirty years.  No defining skyscrapers except for that new glass tower, and I'd argue that nice art deco one with the spire.

Okay, back to the weather. 

[Iceresistance]

13 minutes ago, NWbyNW said:

Things are looking pretty OK over the OKC. 

Legit: that newer massive glass building is so out of place in the OKC city skyline.  Just sayin'.  It's like a smaller skyline just wanted to put the biggest building they could there for some reason.  It seems unbalanced.  

I mean look at this older view of the city skyline back in the day.  SO much more balanced!

Now over time, I am sure some other bigger buildings will fill in the cityscape, but it's been happening pretty slowly the past thirty years.  No defining skyscrapers except for that new glass tower, and I'd argue that nice art deco one with the spire.

Okay, back to the weather. 

I've always thought that the Glass skyscraper (known as the Devon Tower) is the Beacon for Oklahoma City!

[Clinton]

Pretty darn nice fall weather to finish out the week.  

[jaster220]

5 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

November 6th 1985 is the #1 analog. Two days later, Sioux Falls had an 8 inch snowstorm with a high of only 27 degrees. Over the course of the following week we scored another 3 inches. By Thanksgiving we had 9 inches on the ground, followed by another 5 inches of snow through the end of the month. Yes please!

Who was talking up the '85-86 analog? PNW forum peeps did you say? Well, there ya go. I clearly remember Saturday 11-7-85 when I did my first legit snow chase after seeing on the evening news the night before that further north in The Mitt there was the likelihood of snow. Was raining and 40-ish downstate in my hometown. Further north around Houghton Lake they had 7" OTG and a healthy snow falling like it was middle of winter. Was the first time I'd seen snow of that magnitude so early. 

[luminen]

The dew point peaked at 65.5F today, here.

[Black Hole]

Picked up another .64" this morning. Looks like a slight chance of something on Friday-Saturday.

[Clinton]

0z Euro showing a cutter on November 4th and 5th with some more rainfall in the same places that have been targeted recently and some snow on the backside.

Euro Control very wet

[westMJim]

It was a wet overnight here in MBY as I recorded a total of 0.89” of rain fall from yesterday afternoon to 7 AM this morning. For Grand Rapids the official H/L yesterday was 67/53 up to midnight 0.33” of rain had fallen at GRR. There was a reported 12% of possible sunshine yesterday. With the cold front now thru the temperature has now fallen to 46 here in my yard. From what I can in the back yard light it looks like a lot of leaves have fallen overnight. For today the average H/L is now down to 56/39. The record high of 78 was set in 1939 the record low of 24 was set in 1962 and again in 1990. The record snow fall amount of 2.0” fell in 1925. Last year the H/L was 53/36.

 

[Tom]

2 hours ago, Clinton said:

0z Euro showing a cutter on November 4th and 5th with some more rainfall in the same places that have been targeted recently and some snow on the backside.

Euro Control very wet

"Here Cutter, Cutter, Cutter"....Boy, it sure looks like "cutter season" is going to deliver a healthy storm track right over our Sub!  Love seeing the amount of Snow being forecast among the models out West.  They must be thrilled!  This is exactly the start to Winter I wanted to see for those out West and envisioned back in late Summer.

 

[chescowxman]

Our drizzly foggy mild weather will continue today with a couple of showers possible. We have picked up 0.09" so far today. We finally clear out tonight with mainly sunny weather through the weekend. Temperatures will cool to highs mainly staying in the 50's through the period.

The record high for today is 79 degrees set in 1963. Our record low is 24 degrees from 1950. The daily rainfall record is 2.35" set in 1943.

[Tom]

The models have slowed the rotation into Phase 7, however, both JMA/EURO seem to be on board that as we head into NOV it's going to get more active over the Central CONUS.  Phase 7 shows the idea of cold infiltrated over the Upper MW and trying to poke south while a SER pushes warmth north as the Seasons battle it out.  This makes sense as to why the overnight ensembles are suggesting AN precip during the 1st week of NOV.

 

 

Looking out even farther, I see something brewing up in the STRAT that will have an impact into the lower 48 post Veteran's Day and into the middle part of NOV.  My LR call is for NW NAMER to build up with severe early Arctic cold by NOV 10th (ish) and slowly begin to bleed south into the PNW/Upper MW right around Election Day.  Those warm 10mb anomalies blossoming over NW NAMER is indicative of High Pressure in the 3-4 week range.  If you extrapolate that from Oct 18th or so this would line up with the dates suggested.  Let's see if this happens.

 

 

[tStacsh]

Nothing but warm in the east through the first week of Nov.  Yawn.  

[Andie]

It’s officially Fall now. Rain, and we dipped to 40 last night.  
Crystal clear cool skies this morning and headed for 74*. 

[Tom]

59 minutes ago, tStacsh said:

Nothing but warm in the east through the first week of Nov.  Yawn.  

Don’t you prefer this weather anyway?  Enjoy it…

[tStacsh]

5 hours ago, Tom said:

Don’t you prefer this weather anyway?  Enjoy it…

I prefer early cold and snowy winters from  through about January 15th.   Then I'm done with it.  Nov 2014 spoiled everyone in West Michigan.   While I like the warmer weather this time of year.  I would like to see signs in the shorter range of some serious cold shots.  They are flashing some in the long range, but disappear pretty quickly.  

[Tom]

10 minutes ago, tStacsh said:

I prefer early cold and snowy winters from  through about January 15th.   Then I'm done with it.  Nov 2014 spoiled everyone in West Michigan.   While I like the warmer weather this time of year.  I would like to see signs in the shorter range of some serious cold shots.  They are flashing some in the long range, but disappear pretty quickly.  

I’m expecting by mid NOV for the Lakes to fire back up.  Should be good timing for the ski hills up north and maybe down by S WI to have at least a few trails open by Thanksgiving.  

[NWbyNW]

23 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

I've always thought that the Glass skyscraper (known as the Devon Tower) is the Beacon for Oklahoma City!

I could see that!  A beacon shining and towering over the plaines!  Seen from miles and miles away!  

[jaster220]

9 hours ago, tStacsh said:

Nothing but warm in the east through the first week of Nov.  Yawn.  

Early cold is a waste..

As nice as it was to get hit early on Nov 27th last season, I would gladly have pushed that off another couple weeks for it to have more staying power and ofc be closer to the holiday we normally want snow for. 

Many good early seasons kicked into gear around Dec 10th (+/- a few days) like '00, '08, '13, & '17

[Tom]

1 hour ago, jaster220 said:

Early cold is a waste..

As nice as it was to get hit early on Nov 27th last season, I would gladly have pushed that off another couple weeks for it to have more staying power and ofc be closer to the holiday we normally want snow for. 

Many good early seasons kicked into gear around Dec 10th (+/- a few days) like '00, '08, '13, & '17

Some cold and snow around Thanksgiving week puts me in the mood, but as you said, I’d prefer to see it snow and stick around when it counts.  Anytime around 12/15 is ideal due to shorter days and cold being able to hang around longer.  Living in the mid lats is more difficult for nature to keep snow OTG.  It’s crazy to think just to travel a few hundred miles north and you don’t have to even think twice of the lack of snow sticking around for longer periods.  Heck, even an entire season!

[Madtown]

Hoping the cold gets here ASAP. We got 20 kids under 8 ready to restart the hockey program up here. Let's get it on!

[Niko]

3 hours ago, jaster220 said:

Early cold is a waste..

As nice as it was to get hit early on Nov 27th last season, I would gladly have pushed that off another couple weeks for it to have more staying power and ofc be closer to the holiday we normally want snow for. 

Many good early seasons kicked into gear around Dec 10th (+/- a few days) like '00, '08, '13, & '17

I remember those 2 years like they were yesterday, especially 2017. I was having a Christmas party and remember seeing my front glass door full of icicles and along w/ several inches of snow otg. It was a brutal Christmas Day!! Some of my guests didn't come due to very icy roads and because of the bitterly cold temps.

Note: I agree its best to wait for Dec for action to begin. Anything we get in November , I see it as a warm-up, b4, winter hits.

[Clinton]

October looks to close out with average temperatures and perfect weather. 

[chescowxman]

Our gloomy weather will finally break today. Over the last 4 days we have received 0.58" of rain. October has been a wet month with rain on 11 days so far. Total rainfall this month has been 6.41" this is the 14th wettest October with records back to 1894 for Chester County PA. The wettest being the 9.12" that fell back in 2012.

Temperatures should average slightly below normal through the upcoming weekend.

[Tom]

Last night's 0z EPS may be starting to see the Pool of some major early season Arctic cold that's knocking on the door for the PNW peeps.  @Doiinko

Right around Election Day I have opined that this cold pool will begin to bleed south into the Lower 48, targeting the West and far North of the U.S.  The growing signal of High Pressures over NW NAMER and W Canada are being shown in the animation below.  Man, the mountains in the West are going to be Blessed with a tremendous amount of Snow.  Great time to book a ski trip for the Holidays!

[westMJim]

Yesterday was one of those days when the high for the date was just after midnight. So while the official H/L for the day was 60/33 that high of 60 was reached at 1:23AM. Most of the daylight hours were in the 40’s. There was 0.86” of total rain fall yesterday most of that fell before 7AM and there was no sunshine. The overnight low both here and at GRR was 29 that will be the new low for this month so far. Here in MBY I recorded 0.09” of rain fall after 7AM yesterday. At the current time there is some fog and it is 30 here. For today the average H/L at Grand Rapids is 56/39 the record high of 78 was set in 1927 and the record low of 19 was set in 1976. The record snow fall of 8.2” was recorded in 1967 and there was a snow fall of 2.2” in 1997. Last year the H/L was 51/31.

More and more trees are now bare. This year most of the area had good color and it lasted for some time. The oaks while still having still having many leaves have now turned to dark red to winter like brown.

[MIKEKC]

1.46 inches of rain ended up being my total for Monday's storm system. It was beautiful, may have saved millions of trees...they were dying all around town due to drought conditions. 

We need a follow up rain, hopefully that will happen a few times in Nov. After that, let it snow!!

I'm not sure if the drought has anything to do with this as I know drought stress can lead to early change of color and shed of the leaves. But, the Oaks and the Pear trees have already turned color and are dropping...even on irrigated residential lawns and commercial sites.(that's why I question if its drought related) Usually, the Maples/Ash trees turn color early and shed way before the Oaks and Pear trees. 

Last time I remember that happening, winter set up quite fast here in KC. We went from very warm(Indian summer following the major freeze last week) to winter. I have 3 years noted where that happened in the last 12 years and we had (3) winter events prior to Jan. 1 each of those years, one year had (4) winter events. All (3) years had above average snow here in KC  (going off our service logs and snow removal logs)

Just last year, we had the green in the Oaks and the Pears all the way up to Thanksgiving. This year, already turned color and shedding.... a whole 5 weeks ahead of last year. 

Please be a sign of an early winter!!!! I'll enjoy the 70's and possible a run at 80 next week. Yes, 80 is possible here later next week

[CentralNebWeather]

Got a whopping 0.10" this morning.  Most forecasts said 0.25-0.33" was expected.  Really tough to break a drought around here.

[Niko]

A lot of place were down into the upper 20s to near 32F last nite under crystal clear skies and calm winds. Plenty of frost around. 

[OttumwaSnomow]

9 hours ago, MIKEKC said:

1.46 inches of rain ended up being my total for Monday's storm system. It was beautiful, may have saved millions of trees...they were dying all around town due to drought conditions. 

We need a follow up rain, hopefully that will happen a few times in Nov. After that, let it snow!!

I'm not sure if the drought has anything to do with this as I know drought stress can lead to early change of color and shed of the leaves. But, the Oaks and the Pear trees have already turned color and are dropping...even on irrigated residential lawns and commercial sites.(that's why I question if its drought related) Usually, the Maples/Ash trees turn color early and shed way before the Oaks and Pear trees. 

Last time I remember that happening, winter set up quite fast here in KC. We went from very warm(Indian summer following the major freeze last week) to winter. I have 3 years noted where that happened in the last 12 years and we had (3) winter events prior to Jan. 1 each of those years, one year had (4) winter events. All (3) years had above average snow here in KC  (going off our service logs and snow removal logs)

Just last year, we had the green in the Oaks and the Pears all the way up to Thanksgiving. This year, already turned color and shedding.... a whole 5 weeks ahead of last year. 

Please be a sign of an early winter!!!! I'll enjoy the 70's and possible a run at 80 next week. Yes, 80 is possible here later next week

I also keep detailed records on all our lawn care and especially  snow and ice management  related  to the weather here. A couple  interesting  facts. Really only had 1 snowy November -2018..  4 of past 5 Decembers  have been horrible  warm and snowless. But 2008 to 2011 were  very active decembers snow wise.  Every  single march has been almost zero snow work (doesn't  stick on hard surfaces) except  last early march was better.  Jan feb 2014 by far our best winter period for steady  work.  But oct 2018 to march 1 feb 2019 our best winter by leaps (69"). Jan n feb 2021 a close  2nd 2014.  2015/16 our worst winter. Last winter was pathetic  but we eeked out 32 inches of snow and slush and since business  is much larger got thru... thats enough for now.. 2012 and 2017 by far worst drought almost  put us out of business.   Many many other dry periods.   Summer 2022 was 3rd driest. But again  business  is larger now so we get by. A side note summer 2010 was a lake..   close  to 70 inches rain that yr here, lake rathbun set iowa annual rain record 77" i think.

[CentralNebWeather]

Have had a persistent band over my house for over an hour that has dropped 0.31” and still raining at a good clip. Very unexpected and not forecasted to be anything but some light showers.  

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, CentralNebWeather said:

Have had a persistent band over my house for over an hour that has dropped 0.31” and still raining at a good clip. Very unexpected and not forecasted to be anything but some light showers.  

Maybe makng up for the lost opportunity earlier. 

[OmahaSnowFan]

Had .24” of rain on Monday and nothing since then, so that now means it’s rained 2x since 9/23.

October is going to end well above average and November start that way too with temps in the upper 60s and 70s. In fact lows next week look to be near the normal highs for the year which will have fallen into the 50s.