Chris's Corner - Active March into March

Moderate sleet in Mascoutah

We have no hope of getting the next month/season correct if we dont first master the first 7 days.

Even the next 7 days has been challenging this season.

It seems the less resolution the models have, the more accurate they are.

I don’t know what the meteorology field looks like moving forward in terms of personnel shortages/overages, but it seems they are trying to substitute AI or modeling for the human element, failing to take into account trends, biases, and local nuances that only a human brain can realize.

That’s the point I’m at with long range forecasting. It’s so volatile there’s almost no point at trying to forecast a pattern a week or more out. I’m not going to knock anyone who does forecast that long out, it’s just not my cup of tea. 

Over the last 10 years of watching it closely, I'd say the -EPO is our best indicator for winter weather chances. Keeping in mind that normally correlates to fairly strongly negative values (200-300), and you can't look at it 15 days out (TWO MORE WEEKS). When you get those strongly negative EPO values reeled in to within 7 to 10 days, more often than not you are in business to at least have a chance at some winter weather.

Interesting twitter thread I just came across about the SSW event.

The tldr I got was we are feeling the impacts of the event now, but how long the effects linger is still very much TBD

I agree with you both snow and coz often very little effect on our weather. (Yes I know sometimes it does have effects ) All the Twitter Mets hyping the cold pattern a week ago have definitely changed their tune. Yes there’s a marginal threat of snow on the Illinois side late Saturday and Sunday morning but most models have temps in the mid to upper 30’s , so accumulating snow may be tough until you get further northeast into central and northern Illinois. Hopefully that changes and we get one more shot at accumulating snow. Iowa and Chicago look great the next two weeks for snow .

Just my two cents...

I don't really see 5-7 day forecasts, 1-3 month forecasts, and longer term annual or decadal forecasts the same way at all. They (in my opinion) are fundamentally different - the only common denominator is they all deal with the atmosphere-ocean system. The short-term forecasts are much more sensitive to initial conditions and the growth of forecast errors over time. The longer the lead time, forecasts are more sensitive to boundary conditions, radiation in vs out, solar flux, land use, state of the ocean etc. The subseasonal forecasts are in the gray zone between the two (analogues, ENSO, teleconnections). One of my professors who previously worked in subseasonal forecasting for energy firms made the point that this is what makes subseasonals the most difficult to forecast. What I always have found funny is that in the attempt to extend predictability beyond deterministic or ensemble models, we use teleconnection indices, which are themselves in many cases calculated from model output.

I guess my point is I personally view the weather and climate as fundamentally different systems with different mechanisms for (and magnitudes of) change, and different inherent stability; the accurate prediction of one does not rely on the accurate prediction of the other.

On another note, I love this forum, and check in often even though I moved to the Boulder, CO area in 2014. I think I still get more excited for a snowstorm in STL than I do for a storm out here lol

Looks like some sleet/wet snow is possible Sat PM/Sun AM that's followed by a significant shot of cold Mon/Tues. And models are trying to brew up something big later next week with what looks to be a possible overrunning system...but there are big differences between models and runs. The recent SOI dip suggests something coming through the S stream around the 15th and models are showing that in various flavors. Some of them show the N stream becoming involved with possible phasing/overrunning, so it could get interesting.

This sounding Saturday night sums up this winter perfectly

Definitely a better chance for frozen across the N counties...that looks close to a sleet sounding but probably a cold rain.

In other news, noaa says la nina is...officially over.

So what does la nina being over mean for our weather the coming months?

Well, it could mean the storm track settles further south. It could mean we stop seeing a flood of pacific air into the lower 48.

Or it could mean the exact opposite. Lol