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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Here’s a giggle. I pulled up Bar Harbor, Maine on weather underground and looked at the webcam to see this monster storm. The link uses “bahaba” no wonder they talk that way in Maine.
http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/bahabamaine/2/show.html
Merry Christmas Anthony and great team at WUWT.
The interesting thing about these nor’easters (which is a contraction of northeasters) is that they can do as much and sometimes more damage to a coast than a hurricane. Sometimes they even get an eyewall. These extratropical cyclones are definitely are hard to predict. Especially since it has yet to form.
Merry Christmas with or without snow.
Those of us initially splattered with every form of liquid by what the Pacific offers know in our bones what you all on the East Coast are in for as these systems move on to your neck of the woods, interacting with all the other pressure systems along the way. Douglas DC is correct in saying our turn is coming (again) next week. But that means you will get it AGAIN after this one coats your landscapes with white. What you are getting now still lays in my yard. And Wallowa County, for some reason, is not getting the intermittent snow eater in-between the white version of globalony liquid.
But let this be a warning to ya. If anyone says the word “unprecedented”, my greatgrandfather will rise from his grave just up the hill and drag his ghoulish body into your dreams.
I’ve been watching this for a few days now, after all, I’m in New Hampshire, have a brand-new snowblower that is waiting patiently (as opposed to me), and the biggest snowfall this season here is 0.9″. (Three years ago today I had 15″ of snow on the ground, down from 25″ on the 21st.)
On a Facebook discussion, I posted:
Discussion from NWS Gray, Maine, 931 AM EST THU: “… WHILE THINGS WILL REMAIN UNCERTAIN FOR A FEW MORE DAYS…THE SIGNAL FOR A STRONG STORM IS APPARENT ENOUGH…” Lessee, that should be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I’ll check back then. Sigh, is it any wonder I check Taunton first?
At the time, it looked like snow would be starting Sunday PM.
(The NWS office in Gray ME covers my area, Taunton MA has better skilled (some with snow lover’s bias) people. Their website has a page with links to discussions from the northeast area so I often start there and read their discussion first.)
OTOH, things do remain uncertain….
Snowmobile and snow moving equipment companies must be happy about this. Ski resorts should be doing a bang-up business too.
Is this what our fearless leader refers to as “shovel ready projects”? I’m sure that’s what he meant. Right? Right? Right? Buellar? Buellar? Buellar?
Mike McMillan says:
December 24, 2010 at 8:59 pm
> You won’t get any snow in the Northeast. It all got dumped here in the Midwest.
Our storms often pick up a slug of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. When we’re very good, the energy from your storm shifts off the Carolina coasts and forms a new storm charged with that gulf moisture, then the trick is to figure out the storm track within 20 miles or so.
Well, the real trick is to figure out the track before the coastal storm develops. And whether it will bomb out before reaching New England.
Pretty much all the TV meteorologists in New England are good – the poor ones don’t last long.
Download the ENSO weekly data from http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst.for and plot the Nino3.4 anomaly, from 1990 onwards. There seems to be a 12 year pattern. Let’s start from late 1994 to get past the effects of the Pinatubo explosion…
peak late 1994
peak late 2006 – check
minimum late 1995 / early 1996
minimum late 2007 / early 2008 – check
minor peak mid 1996
minor peak mid 2008 – check
minor minimum late 1996 / early 1997
minor minimum late 2008 / early 2009 – check
peak late 1997
peak late 2009 – check
minimum late 1998 / early 1999
2010 isn’t over yet, but it’s heading for a minimum in late 2010 / early 2011
So much for “predicting the past”; predicting the future provides more fun and profit. After dropping into negative territory in the 2nd quarter of 1998, Nino3.4 didn’t go positive until the 2nd quarter of 2001. Assuming the 12 year pattern holds, Nino3.4 shouldn’t go positive until the 2nd quarter of 2013. And the next major peak will be late 2014.
Here in Toronto, Canada, we had hardly any snow in December 1998. Ditto for December 2010. But January 1999 was our “snowmeggadon”. Toronto broke the monthly January snowfall record… in 2 weeks!!! And Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to dig out the city. If the 12 year cycle holds, watch out next month.
Joe Bastardi is predicting 10″ from Richmond north with local totals of 15-20″ as well as blowing and drifting. The JMA and GFS models have the most precipitation and 50-100 miles off the NJ coast they are showing over 1.75″ of precipitation so if the models continue to correct west, this could be a truly memorable storm.
Just finished “raking” 4′ drifts off the roof, from the last 2 weeks of “weather”, so Santa had to land in the street, which wasn’t much better. We wouldn’t mind sharing this weather to make Santa’s trip easier.
A Merry & Blessed Christmas
From the link provided above here is Piers Corbyn
All this without a Met Office style supercomputer. How very sad!
The Carbon Haters will be absolutely beside themselves…… Their world is all upside down….. 🙂
It’s official (at least the BBC says so) – coldest December here in the snowbound UK since…yadda yadda. It’s worse, sorry, colder than we thought!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12078425
Keep warm!
Atlantic Canada has been hit for the last three Monday with storms and high winds and high tides:
The storm surge from the current system, coupled with the astronomical high tides from Tuesday morning’s lunar eclipse is adding to the large tidal distortion. Officials say the alignment of the Earth, moon and sun and the pull from each object is what helps to enhance the size of the tides, as opposed to the eclipse itself.
“The moon is at the perigee so that it’s the closest distance between the earth and the moon so as a result, the astronomical high tide is very significant,” says Claude Cote, with Environment Canada. “And because of the actual weather element set up, we’re looking at persisting strong northeast winds gusting to 90 km/h so there’s also the wave build up. So we’re looking at the astronomical high tide and because of weather elements we’re looking at additional swelling of water levels.”
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=powerful_noreaster_sweeps_i_191210&eccode=WWCANL0001&warningdisplay=ec&warningtype=sw?ref=stormwatch_city
I’ve just finished raking the snow off my roof for the second time in a week. What was Al Gore’s city again? I’d like to ship him some snow as we’ve run out of places to put it. We even tried filling up the Metrodome but there’s just too much of it.
Well as of right now Accuweather is calling for 9.8″ through Sunday night where I live on the DelMarVa peninsula with more on top of that on Monday:
http://www.accuweather.com/video/90462062001/a-blizzard-of-2010.asp
Kaboom
December 25, 2010 at 1:31 am
“facile ignorance ”
Don’t tell me ,you waited till past midnight and only received a lump of coal.
Curiosity , is why I come to Anthony’s site.
Northbound says:
December 24, 2010 at 11:29 pm
> The Chemtrail /Geo-Engineering Coverup
Better send Anthony some coal too, chemtrails are on his banned list.
We will be reporting global warming in feet in 2011 as using inches will be seen as exagerating the fall. Hat tip to James Hansens logic, using degrees F versus degrees C.
I will be stocking up popcorn, any globull warming events amuse me now, which TV twit will coin the dumbest description of winter weather this snow storm? Up here the lakes are frozen well and its safe to fire up my CO2 belching snowmobile.Merry Christmas.
Ric Werme
December 25, 2010 at 10:49 am
“Better send Anthony some coal too, chemtrails are on his banned list.”
I am, acknowledging my ignorance on this subject, and curiosity.
A point to some credible literature would be very helpful.
Thanks.
@Dallas
We do indeed talk that way in Maine. We’ah lookin fowahd to the stohm up he’ah. Put the cah in 4 by and head to the mountain for some wicked good skiin!
Merry Christmas to all and safe driving! Thanks Anthony et al!
I am biased toward the Canadian weather models, the GEM and Global. They handle these storms quite well in my estimation and experience. I feel for the poor folks in the Canadian Maritimes. They have been hit with 3 storms in the past few weeks. They have serious flooding. This looks like another bad one for them. The Global model looks like it takes the brunt of the precipitation just off the east coast of the U.S. and then towards Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. But it is very close to New England!
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/model_forecast/global_e.html
A Christmas Carol – Alternate Title: In The Bleak Midwinter – Verse 1
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
— Christina Georgina Rossetti (1872)
For The Full Christmas Carol, as sung by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir.
Music: “Cranham,” Gustav Theodore Holst, 1906, and much much more,
see the website of the Fraudulent Climate, by clicking the name “Axel”.