Thursday, December 20, 2018

Winter '18 / '19 - Dismal December

After a rousing early start to the season on 16-NOV ... winter left the building leaving the forecast area with little ... if anything ... to show for itself.

The lack of contest-worthy storms in DEC has happened several times in the past including NEWxSFC/s '99 / '00 inaugural season ... '06 / '07 ... '11 / '12 ... '14 / '15 ... and '15 / '16.



Worse yet ... - only '14 / '15 reached the Contest/s historical median of eight snow storms for the season and the NEWxSFC station/s aggregate observed season-total snowfall was above average (1,597" v. 1,096").

Winter/s not having a DEC snow storm have other dismal associations ...
- All years AO index > 0; 4 years > 0.74
- All years NAO index > 0; 4 years > 1.30
- Mixed bag for ENSO ... PDO .. and QBO (3/5 +ENSO; 3/5 +PDO; 3/5 QBO-W)

If the incipient sudden stratospheric warming event doesn't throw us a bone come JAN ... might could be time to stick a fork in Winter '18 / '19.

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