Despite Chilly Week, El Nino’s Strengthening
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm by Don Paul under Weather Watch 4
No extreme chill during the week, but chilly enough–especially by Thursday. A short wave and a cold front will set us up for a cold NW flow. As the cold advection continues Thursday night, current indications point to enough lift being generated synoptically by the wave to allow some limited accumulation on the hills to the south. A pattern change will begin to evolve on Friday, but especially over the wknd into early next week, as a ridge builds in the east and a warming SW flow develops. An el nino analysis follows below.
Devin,
It’s obvious I wasn’t talking about you. I’ll post a summary of my Winter Outlook this evening on a new thread.
Ida has weakened to a TS, now moving over cooler waters and encountering increasing shear. The satellite presentation of Ida’s center shows further weakening is progress. The storm is expected to meander to the east along the Gulf coast, evening though it’s most recent movement was toward the NNW.
Adam,
I can’t tell how your instrument would measure cloud base, unless it’s relaying information it gathers online.
Don, how does the overall pattern look for the next 14 days? CPC shows EC for Above or below normal temps for that time frame in our area. Your thoughts?
CPC shows near normal temps in the 8-14 day period, but above average in the 6-10 day period–in yesterday’s automated output.
The operational 12z GFS has a deep cutoff low forming between here and Quebec around midweek next week, which would make things lots more interesting. However, this extreme solution is not support by most members of the ensembles, so at this point I’d have to largely disregard the GFS out that far. And given that, I’d say temps will run slightly above average to moderately above average most of the time out to about day 8. Beyond that, I’m not going to speculate, because the NCEP 500mb ensemble mean shows no major cooling trend or pattern shift–just occasional low amplitude dips.
Don…on last night’s weather, Mike was discussing El Nino and its possible effects on WNY this winter…he tended to think that El Nino would not have a major effect on our area because we are so far away from the influence of the Pacific waters…your thoughts?…
ps…not trying to start a met war, just looking for different opinions!!
Don,
What it take to be able to at least “get by” reading/understanding models or ensenmbles like the NCEP 500mb?
Didn’t see Mike, but you had to have misheard something, because a moderate to strong el nino has a fairly well know impact heard ’round the world including parts of Africa and Australia, and that’s not in scientific dispute. Unless he was referring to a weak el nino, which we know is not the case at this time.
TS: I don’t have an easy answer to that but, again, I suggest you go over the Jeff Haby tutorials to get some basics down. Without some basic understanding of how the atmosphere works, models are nothing more than a toy. Haby writes in a straightforward manner, and I think you’d enjoy some of his stuff.
By the way, TS, before I dive into crunch time I thought of a silly but not too inaccurate analogy which fits with my phrase “toy” models.
I have Microsoft Flight Simulator. I know a smidge about aviation–enough to deploy flaps, lift the gear, etc, and make smooth takeoffs with a whole host of aircraft from 737s and 777s to Cessnas. Lotsa fun!
But I’ve never successfully found my destination and landed. Know why? Because there are all these excellent training modules I don’t have the patience to dive into….I think you get my point.
Mr.Don, Does 12UTC mean the same as 12z for a model run time?
Yep.
Hi,
I was wondering why the hurricane was starting to weaken until you mentioned cooler water and shear. Is it usual for the Gulf of Mexico to have cooler waters at this time of year??
I was also wondering what your outlook on the winter would be. Accuweather.com did their outlook a few weeks back and they were forecasting a potentially snowy and cooler than normal winter for the east coast with a weakening El Nino? but i hear you have been mentioning a strengthening El Nino which would favour milder and drier winter weather
It is typical for the shallow shelf waters of the northern Gulf to have begun to cool by November.
Andy B, when NOAA made the winter outlook back in mid-October, I posted that this outlook was mandated to be done at that time. In other words, private sector mets could pick a time of their own choosing when a confidence level might be higher than it would be on a mandatory date. I stated that I preferred to wait 2-3 weeks to see what was going on with el nino. Someone might say waiting is a form of “cheating”, but I look at it differently: there is no point in taking a shot at it when signs are still hazy if you don’t have to. My outlook will be posted here in a new thread shortly, but I did not specifically forecast a drier winter. I focused on lake effect potential, and tied it somewhat to the eventual strength of el nino, which remains in some doubt. As for AccuWx and some others who wanted to jump on a weak-and-weakening el nino earlier in the autumn, they may have jumped the gun, IMO.
I’ll be looking forward to that outlook. I find that you are more accurate than Accuweather and other weather sites. And I’m a big fan and been watching you for years, since the mid-late nineties.
Thank, Andy. Like most mets, I have my good days and I have my bad days.
In any case, THE NEW THREAD WITH THE WINTER OUTLOOK AND EXPLANATION IS UP.