My Winter Outlook 2023-2024

[Black Hole]

I haven't actually made a winter outlook for a few years, but I thought this year might be worth it.I want to be clear up front that I've heavily borrowed from the ideas and images of others, but I've tried to credit the posters name when I know who made it. In that sense I am directly saying that not everything here is my own original thoughts, but I've included what I think makes sense to me and intermixed it with my own commentary. 

 

Overall, there are mixed signals and I could see this winter being both great or a dud, but I think there is more evidence to suggest it will be an overall interesting winter for most of us. But even if not, the likely SSW should at least give us a window. For the northern Plains I think December might be your best shot while for the southern plains and the east Jan-Feb is probably the best bet. Anyway, hope you enjoy. 

 Winter Outlook.pdf

 

[Black Hole]

If I am wrong, the most likely way that I think I would be is that the Aleutian low is too far east and ridging settles over the northern Plains and southern Canada. This would result in a wetter winter in the PNW, and a warmer wetter winter for the southern Plains. That's more 1997-1998 like if it occurs. 

Another potential problem is if SE ridging flexes up and the Greenland block ends up so far southwest it just makes an east coast ridge. That would keep any cold air further west. It's not likely but some factors suggest its possible. 

[Black Hole]

Meteorological winter is wrapping up so I thought I would revisit my outlook from last fall. Here is my temperature map vs what was observed:

Spatially it's definitely the right idea. The worst miss was the southern Plains, where actual anomalies were near neutral instead of clearly negative. I thought the PNW would roast in Feb under a +PNA ridge but that didn't happen. The southeast similarly did not get enough cold air. Most of that can be traced to the oppressive upper level ridge hanging too close across south-central Canada:

This was pretty close to what I thought otherwise, but the persistence of that ridge definitely inhibited the ability of cold air to come south. For precip this is what I had to what was observed. Note that for some reason the website I was using had precip rate instead of totals, but its close enough to give the general idea:

This one was a little worse, though still serviceable. The southeast and northeast mostly went as expected. The southern plains were drier and the northern plains wetter than expected. The southwest was a bit drier and the northwest definitely wetter. Below was some of my other thoughts:

The Aleutian low was indeed weaker and further west and there was plenty of high latitude blocking, just not exactly where I thought it would be. We saw several SSW's, with our winter weather in January likely tied to one of them. I think what I had for Dec-Jan was reasonably correct, but Feb was a total bust. We did have frequent MJO cycling, but outside of Dec it didn't seem to be the dominant forcing. 

Overall, I might give myself a B- but it's hard to generalize. 

 

 

[Black Hole]

if there is anything to "learn" I think its that persistent patterns often continue to be persistent. That southern Canada ridging that showed by in the mean has been there since last Spring or longer. We probably should have paid more attention to that going into winter.