Merry Christmas! The best numerical weather prediction models in the world have been churning out 5-day forecasts for the past few days that will make someone pull their hair out. The main question is how far east will the major extratropical cyclone or blizzard develop over the Atlantic off of New England. The track details will determine who will get a dusting of snow and who could possibly get 1-2 feet. As the event unfolds, this post will provide additional links.
Current precipitation totals from the NAM 00z model for December 25, 2010 for liquid is well over an inch over most of Southern New England. A 1o to 1 ratio for snow to rain along with blizzard winds will make early week travel as bad as at Heathrow, where snow can be a “very rare and exciting event”.
From meteorologist Ray Hawthorne, fellow FSU grad:
This is one of the most complex forecasts I’ve seen since the infamous, so-called Blizzard of 2000. There appear to be four distinct shortwaves — one along the Texas Gulf coast, another in the Middle/Upper Mississippi Valley, a third in the Middle Missouri Valley, and a fourth in western Ontario province, Canada. The numerical models are having an extremely difficult time handling the interaction of these four waves. Even worse, the model initial conditions earlier today were not very good (see NCEP model diagnostic discussion). Add in the Gulf Stream and what is a gradual breakdown of the high-latitude blocking we’ve seen for several weeks and you’ve got chaos. That said, the trend is clearly westward in the last several NAM and GFS model runs — something that is going to be extraordinarily hard to ignore for much longer. The upcoming two model cycles of the ECMWF will be extremely significant because watches and warnings are going to be needed for many areas in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast fairly quickly. This is the lowest confidence forecast that I can remember seeing in this past decade.
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Understand our turn in the Pac Nw is coming next week…
Stay safe folks…
Here in NE Alabama the low is projected to move across the northern Gulf and our snow amounts are projected to now be increased from a dusting to possibly 3inches. It will all depend on the 500 millibar temps when the moisture arrives. current temp here is 32 and falling. We may get a little more than projected if the temps continue to drop. This could be a real storm for the southeast we aren’t prepared for this much global warming.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Bill Derryberry
And then there was this forecast: http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=281&c=5
Predicted by Piers Corbyn…
You won’t get any snow in the Northeast. It all got dumped here in the Midwest.
This is one of the most complex forecasts I’ve seen since the infamous, so-called Blizzard of 2000. There appear to be four distinct shortwaves — one along the Texas Gulf coast, another in the Middle/Upper Mississippi Valley, a third in the Middle Missouri Valley, and a fourth in western Ontario province, Canada. The numerical models are having an extremely difficult time handling the interaction of these four waves. Even worse, the model initial conditions earlier today were not very good (see NCEP model diagnostic discussion). Add in the Gulf Stream and what is a gradual breakdown of the high-latitude blocking we’ve seen for several weeks and you’ve got chaos. That said, the trend is clearly westward in the last several NAM and GFS model runs — something that is going to be extraordinarily hard to ignore for much longer. The upcoming two model cycles of the ECMWF will be extremely significant because watches and warnings are going to be needed for many areas in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast fairly quickly. This is the lowest confidence forecast that I can remember seeing in this past decade.
Disappointing that serious snow is so rare in NYC. Move it here!
Well if it has anything to do with lunar tidal waves in the atmosphere, the repeating patterns from the last three cycles should be close, to what will be going down this time under the same conditions.
Click name link to see if it works out close to the same again……
Accuweather was saying two days ago that the models were all wrong for this one.
Good luck, everyone, and have a happy Christmas Day.
Ryan Maue
Thanks for the forecast. You forecast that Florida was going to be hit with a freeze starting Monday Dec 13. You got it right on.
It depends on if it bumps back and holds, looks like a lot of gore bull warming coming to Washington dc….. enjoy!
Another Christmas with increasing AGW doubt.
Merry Christmas to Anthony and all you great contributors here!
Yep…it’s all happening. The pressure is building very strongly in the Arctic again, so there will be consequences. We all should learn a lot from the perfect storm position we are in right now. The NAO/AO in negative phase will be the big story over the next 2 or 3 decades, and we will discover how EUV is such an important player in climate variation.
[ryanm: the NAO is not a dynamical oscillation in my opinion, it is a statistic. the modulation of the North Atlantic storm track is largely driven by upstream and often tropical convection influences, i.e. ENSO in the Pacific. the NAO is a proxy, a reflection of the upper-level jet stream configuration over the North Atlantic. Here, the mean-state is an average of 4 specific flow regimes. The mean-state rarely exists and is not “real”.]
This is a great set-up for an upper southeastern and mid-atlantic snowstorm:
A big “stationary” 50/50 vortex and a negative NAO.
Note the 50/50 here:
http://www.intelliweather.net/imagery/intelliweather/sat_goes8fd_580x580_img.htm
And then its a blizzard for New England…batten down ye hatches.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Our ski resorts in the NE could use some significant snow. Bring it on! (I’ll be tuning up my carbon-emitting snowblower just in case…)
From Piers Corbyn website.
“For NE/E USA we predicted (12-12-10)
Very Major snow and blizzard events will strike NE & E USA in a double hit centered around 25-27th & 29-30th Dec; One of the most significant snowfall/blizzard periods in NE & east USA for decades.”
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=286&c=5
The Chemtrail /Geo-Engineering Coverup
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Drewsick/videos/24/
I think that this would make an interesting topic with your world wide following.
Happy HoHo to all
The results vs. the models was interesting here in central Illinois. As I was in Florida early this week, I was very interested in the forecast as I needed to be home for Xmas. Early model runs predicted 3 – 5″ of snow starting Thursday afternoon. As the week progressed, the storm appeared to weaken and by Wednesday night only 1 – 2″ was expected. I still left a day early to drive back the 1100 miles just to play it safe. The predicted snow was still expected to start before daybreak. In reality, it started around 10am and was fairly light. Then, by 1:30pm, all heck broke lose and snowed heavily (1/8 mile vsb) for two hours (late model runs predicted this). We will end with around 6″ of snow, which would have been enough for a WSW and not the WWA that was issued.
Moral of the story: computer models can predict well sometimes, but human interpretation of them is subjective.
Latest word is that there is “growing confidence” the storm will miss the mid-Atlantic but still possibly slam New England.
Northbound,
You are at the wrong site indeed, for publishing your facile ignorance for all to see.
Begone, you idiot.
I’m visiting inlaws with my kids on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. They have never seen snow (we are from Florida). They would be thrilled to death if it snowed on Christmas day!
Merry Christmas to all the WUWT readers. And thank you Mr Watts for all your effort keeping your Blog alive. I can’t descibe how much I enjoy WUWT.
I’ll go have some more eggnog now.
The UK ‘Daily Mail’ were running a story about some ‘scientists’ saying the snowy weather as caused by melting arctic ice changing the weather patterns.
Others better than me will understand this one more than a mere numpty like I … but surely the point is that the arctic ice melt is in fact no different to normal.
The UK transport Minister has asked th govt chief scientist what weather patterns can we expect in the future … is the unseasonally early extreme cold and snow the start of a trend.
This has all the prospects of throwing a spanner in the works for ‘warmists’ as the Chief Scientist puts his reputation on the line. i suspect he will say ‘we don’t know’.
HO HO HO CHRISTMAS EVE
Cold for Christmas, but the thaw is coming
A 4-7 day apology from mother nature is on the way as a major warmup comes into the northwest, and indeed, much of europe gets a break Its a bit later than what I thought from earlier this month, and so we get the white Christmas but a soggy New Year from the warm up is on the way. That is also the case for the eastern US, which after cold and snow the front part of the week, warms with a soggy New Year in the eastern US. There will be a return of the cold though, but probably not till after the 5th and relative to averages stronger further south.
I want to explain to you why the idea now being put forward by the AGW crowd that the cold is being caused by global warming is out of touch. You folks, the big thing you should be concerned about is the total energy of the lower troposphere of the earth, a shadowy measurement at best. There is no reliable way to measure that. And with out proving that there is feedback that is meaning an accumulation of energy that can not escape, there is no way to say there is global warming for sure.
I am going to give you an example of this, and this is why I get incensed at people that try to use every single event that occurs as an excuse to say man is changing the climate in a way that is demonstratable or destructive.
You see, it takes much less energy to heat cold dry air than it does warmer air, or water. The rise of temperatures to 10-20 degrees ABOVE normal over Greenland, where temperatures are normally brutally cold is not nearly as big a deal in the total energy budget of the earth as the drop of 3f in the tropical pacific ocean temps. In fact, I would venture to guess that the global temperature is not “suffering” at all. A drop of 10f in temperatures in a place that has a normal of 45 is more impressive energy wise than a rise of temps of 20 degrees in a place where the normal is near 25 below 0. And without that buildup of excess energy, there is no true increase in the global temp. In fact what is going on now, we can see the OPPOSITE is occurring.
I suspect alot of the people in the AGW camp KNOW what is about to happen. With all the visibility given to this argument, its only a matter of time where people notice the up and down in relation to the enso, and will demand that the natural cycle theories are given their day in court.
As far as the blocking, I do become upset when people claim that is global warming, when I have gone to great pains to show and even forecast, the affects of low solar and volcanic activity is something that can lead to that. Its not co2 that is causing blocking and while I there is reason to debate my reasons, they make far more sense than saying c02 is causing something, that apparently must have happened before, since we are seeing weather that happened before, but in the time of solar min and in the 19-teens, after major arctic volcaanic activity.
A very merry Christmas to all of you, and my sincere thanks for the love and loyalty you have shown me over the years. I am sorry, because of my work load, I cant post more, but I hope I have given you enough notice on this, and raised awareness on some other matters, that involve a reach beyond ones grasp, not the shutting down of mans natural inclination to climb. All the best
Sorry, forgot to add the link.
It’s from Joe Bastardi of course:
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
As I rest frm digging myself out of another six inches of “unseasonal” snow that fell overnight here in the Taunus, let me wish everyone here a very merry Christmas – especially Anthony and his team. The German Meteorological Office is risking the ire of the Green Party here by talking about us entering a “Mini Ice Age”…
Ah well, time to go and shovel some more…