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Hey Gary,

Was the southern snowstorm yesterday analagous to the big December ice storm according to your theory?  If not, when did/will the ice storm event show up again this time around?  

When do you see the big pre-Christmas snowstorm - the one that hammered St. Joe and other points north and west - showing up again?

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This next Sunday through Tuesday set up and storm is related to the ice storm from December.  Yesterday's storm and this storm, sort of, flipped position within the cycle, and we have seen this before in other patterns when there is a series of storms.  Be happy that the Arctic air retreated. Otherwise we would be set up again.  It is close on Sunday.  But, it should be just warm enough.  It is something we must watch closely. 

Gary

I seem to remember someone refer to a meteorological "winter" as opposed to the equinox winter. If that is true, when is the end of a meteorological winter? I would assume it is earlier than the spring equinox.

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Meteorological winter is considered the three months of December, January, and February.  So it ends this year on February 29th (leap year).  I am not one to talk about this as spring doesn't really begin until three weeks later. 

Gary

Gary

Great shot of the kids at Brookridge Gary!!   I went there 30 years ago and it has always been a great school.  

It would be nice to get some cool soaking rain/thunderstorms Sunday, lets hope the temps stay above freezing so we dont have to worry about any ice.   Sounds like with Monday getting so warm, it should not be a problem as the temps should trend up.

Joe

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Thanks Joe,

The kids were fantastic today, and Stormy put on quite a show.

Gary

Gary, a nice rain with a few rumbles of thunder on Sunday would be music to my ears! Every day without 30-40 mph. winds and arctic air is an absolute blessing. Your latest 7-day is right down my alley, what are your thoughts on the rest of feb? Have a great weekend!

I will wait for 8:30... ;-)

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Scott,

What do you want me to talk about?

Gary

Where is everybody?

Wow - I had no idea storms could switch places within your cycle theory.  Can you tell when storms are going to switch places ahead of time, or is that some sort of wild card?  That's a new twist to me.

So which period did yesterday's southern snowstorm that produced some 12"+ totlas  in southern KS line up with if it wasn't the ice storm?  

If the ice storm is related to the upcoming late-weekend event, when do you see the big pre-Christmas snowstorm that hammered areas to the north returning?

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Notes,

Welcome back!  I thought a statement like that would pull you into the conversation.   We noticed it a few years ago, and it may happen more often than that time and this time, but it isn't something that we have really analyzed.  But, it makes sense, only if you believe in the theory.  When we notice the "slide by" storm coming in on Thursday and I showed that it was really related to the storm on December 15th it caused some controversy because that would put that storm on around a 46 or 47 day cycle.  But, it is 54 days, so how could this be?  And, then as we have moved forward to this next storm approaching, it is taking on a more similar look to the "ice storm" storm that came through before the "slide by" storm.  Which then, would put us right back on schedule near the 54 days. 

Have I lost you yet? 

Remember on Tuesday when we had the "mini blizzard".  An Arctic front blasted down and we dropped to 11 degrees by 1 PM, after it was 55 degrees at 6 AM.  A truely amazing weather day.  Then, the next storm approached, and in many ways we are very fortunate it was more like the "slide by" storm. If it were more like this one approaching now, guess what would have happened.  That's right, another ice storm.  Look at Sunday's set up.  There is a warm front heading our way, and it will likely pass through Sunday night.  If that 6 degree, Arctic airmass were in place, then this rain event on Sunday would be a very bad ice storm.  But, this storm is now approaching without that baroclinic zone in place (it is not as cold), so we will avoid the ice storm set up, even though it is still close and something we have to pay close attention to.

So, the storm systems are related anyway as they are rotating through the "long term" longwave trough position.  I don't know why, but I can show you that it is a strong possibility that this flipping did occur (if that is even the correct term to use). 

I know this is a far fetched concept and possibility.  The entire LRC is being highly debated, and even if it exists I have had many meteorologists tell me "so what, how does it help....IT DOESN'T" is what they tell me.  But, it does.  It just doesn't help much when the storm arrives.  As, we still have to use our forecasting skill to make the best forecast.  The LRC is still a minor factor in the Nowcasting stage of a storm, but it isn't really the major factor.

Notes, this may bring you to some questions.  I have time tonight, so let me know what you are thinking.   If you are just rolling your eyes at this, fine.  But, what can I tell you, we see this.  The LRC exists!

Gary

So looking at the latest GFS, was December a fluke, Jan has been boring and I don't see that much down the pike.

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Well, I wouldn't consider January being boring.  It wasn't as exciting as all of December, but it is still early. The last week of December also had some bigger, more amplified storm systems.  That part of the pattern is still 10 days away.

Gary

Gary, please correct me if i'm wrong but I think your initial winter forecast was for 19" of snow with 2-3 arctic blasts, and some warm spells. So far that's lookin' pretty good, is it not?

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Yes, it is looking good.  I will be surprised if we don't go above 19 inches though.  It would be fascinating if it ends up right on 19 inches.

Gary

I wouldn't call jan boring either. I found Tuesday's events amazing! It was awe inspiring to experience such a powerful event. No not much snow but the dynamics of that day were unreal!

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I agree! To go from 55 to 11 during the day with a mini blizzard!  And, throw in the below zero nights, and the other storm systems.   It was an exciting month.

Gary

Gary,

"Have I lost you yet" - well, to be honest, no you haven't because you never really had me with this cycle in the first place.  I'm not trying to rib you on that, just being honest.  In particular, it is this repeating cycle part of your theory that I just don't agree with.  The "long waves get set and are persistent for weeks and months at a time in similar locations" part is something that I've always agreed with - I've always seen that as a well-accepted fundamental tenet of synoptic meteorology for most who study it.  But even though I haven't bought into your cycling theory, I've still be curious to read more and follow along this winter and see what you came up with.

I can't help but to think introducing this twist of storms "switching places" in the cycle reeks of some pretty significant fudging the data:  forcing the observations to fit your supposed theory.  Again, that is just my view.

Can you predict ahead of time when storms are going to switch places?  Will they revert back to their "rightful" place in the cycle next time around or will they stay reversed when they show up again ~54 days from now?  Or is that something you can't foresee?

If the weather really cycles on something close to a 54-day pattern, I'm curious why you don't get more specific on the long range outlooks.  I can't help but to think that a forecast like "4-7 storms" during a 20-30 day window is a bit of an affront to meteorologists, as most of us understand that there are 4-7 storm systems in virtually *any* 20-30 day period.  Fitting 7 storms into 30 days would roughly place one every 4-5 days...that is how nature works nearly any week or month of the year, in my view.  If you would like to name any 20-30 day period, I would be able to pin down dates of 4-7 storms during that window.  Do you see where I'm coming from?

Do you still see storms being "stronger" this time around, like you anticipated in your long-range forecast from early January.

If you have faith in a roughly 54-day cycle, can you throw out one or two dates for me to look for - such as something 54 days from yesterday's event or from the Monday event?  I know you've said you'd get more specific in the future, but since you said you have some time tonight, can you even just toss out one or two particular dates now that are ~54 days out from the storms of this week or next week so I have something to watch for rather than continually putting the specifics off until another time?

Whew ... since you said you'd have some time tonight, I typed out more than I even expected to.  Thanks again for responding.

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Notes,

I know I don't have you on the LRC yet.  If it truely exists, then you will be with us, along with everyone else, somewhere down the line.  It does look like "fudging" of the data, but I have no motivation to do it.  We are just telling you what we see.  Jeff Penner is about to write his thoughts, and I am anxious to see what he has to say, so let's communicate in a little while.

And, the forecasts!  I will attempt to make it more specific in the future, as we had discussed, this 45 day forecast is my first specific one.  Let's see how this ends up and then I will get more specific.

Gary

While you're answering - I just remembered I had one other question regarding the winter forecast.  I was a bit puzzled as to how you came up with these two sets of stats:  

Chance of 4” to 10”:   20%
Chance of 11” to 14”:   25%
Chance of 15” to 19”:   40%
Chance of 20” or more:   15%  

It seems as though you feel that 19" will fall, but there is only a 15 percent chance that more than that falls.  With the above stat breakdown, it seems like your midpoint is more around 15.5" or so - the point at which you put about a 50% chance there'd be less than that and 50% chance that there'd be more than that.  Statistically, those values you forecast seem at odds with one another.  If you felt that 19" would fall, it seems like you'd place the 19" at the midpoint, with 50% odds above and 50% odds below, do you see what I mean?    

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Notes,

Yes, you are correct.  But, I really should have had the 20" or more at around 25%.  We did that at the last second and just didn't put enough though into it.  It obviously isn't linear!  If I were to do it back then the right way, I would have taken 5% out of the two lower categories and place the 10% into the highest one, then it would have fit the 19".

We have learned more about the pattern since that day.  A lot more.  Do you at least see similarities in these storm systems to the past events this season?  What blows me away is that so many can't see the similarities, even when I post the comparisons.  They seem so obvious to us.

Jeff is working on the blog right now.  I can't wait to read it myself.

Gary

What is a dormant sunspot cycle??

gary do you think we are still likely to have any big snow storms or does this warm air take over and put us into severe weather season will these storms stop digging deep and flatten out and be less consicuntial .would expect a average severe weather season or above average

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There isn't a lot of warm air yet.  Severe weather season will be tricky, my first instinct says that we will have an active one.

Gary

I am drooling to get into this discussion, but I will stand back.  This discussion is to the LRC, and to that I would likley make things a bit more confusing than it already is.

Notes is a bit more articulate than I, so I will follow his lead in this banter.  Many of these thoughts I share, yet still support the cycle as I currently do see it. I have seen the cycle in both the upper air patterns as well as at the surface.  Of course, I use a different method for surface analysis, but that is a topic for elsewhere.

;-)

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Scott,

"Many of these thoughts I share"?  Notes does not think our weather pattern is cycling, or repeating.  So, which thoughts do you share with him?

Gary

Hey bloggers and weather team:

This is  a little off the topic of the LRC but since we are talking thunderstorms and Spring weather just around the corner I wanted to share this link.  Check it out, it's on the next generation radar system, Phased Array Radar, being devloped in Norman Oklahoma.  Wow...45 min lead time for tornado warnings.  It's worth the read so check it out.

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/research/radar/par.php


Don

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Don,

We are actually going to be doing a story on some of this technology this month.  I am not sure which night yet.

Gary

Does anybody know of a site where you could view historical weather maps in an animated format.  I know a place on spc.noaa where you can call up any two maps for comparison, but it would be great to look at a 54 day animation beginning Oct. 10th or so, and compare it to the next predicted cycle, starting approx. Dec. 5th.

Might be easier to pick out cycling features if you could see them in motion.

Can't wait for the story on Phased Array,Gary.

I am crossing my fingers for Bigger snow storms. 6-12"+. I loved that video from Lake Tahoe, that's the kind of snow, I want to see!!

I didn't get a chance to watch the news tonight at 10....so, sorry if you addressed this already, but am wondering...how confident are you that it will be above freezing on Sunday?  Not really concerned about ice?  Kathleen

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It looks like it is above freezing when the chance of precipitation moves in.

Gary

Gary, how late in the day are we looking at for thunderstorms?  I don't want a bunch of storms occurring while watching the Giants knock off the Patsies.

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Thunderstorms/rain are possible during the game! 

Jeremy