Winter '22 / '23 - 22nd Annual 'Season-total' Snowfall Forecast Contest: The Forecasts!

NYC - Central Park
Alfred Eisenstaedt (1959)

Welcome back all the veterans of winters' past.
No Rookies or Interns this year. Those who were in recent years have moved up to Journeyman this year.

Good Luck to All 🍀🍀🍀

Senior NEWxSFC forecaster Steve Okonski (Any.Wx) ... having made the best 'season-total' snowfall forecast for Winter '21 / '22 (as well as '04 / '05 and two 2nd place finishes along the way) ... is back this year to defend his 'Chief Season-total Forecaster' title.

Forecasters also compete against the Period-of-Record-Normal (P-O-R-N) and CONSENSUS.

Table below ranked by ascending season-total snowfall.

BLUE - 1st quartile
RED - 4th quartile

ORANGE - current Chief 'Season-total' Forecaster
GREEN - past Chief 'Season-total' Forecaster

P-O-R-N - Period-Of-Record-Normal
CONSENSUS - median of each station's forecasts

Forecasts issued with decimal values have been recorded as such for verification purposes;  however ... rounding was applied for display purposes only.

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Forecasters:  21
Total station forecasts:  575 (includes P-O-R-N & CONSENSUS)

Station forecasts for snowfall ...
BELOW average - 282 (49%)
AVERAGE - 26 (5%)
ABOVE average - 267 (46%)

Count of stations with 'likely' confidence (>= 65% of all forecasts by station) with ...
- ABOVE average snowfall:  0
- BELOW average snowfall:  0

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All forecasts at the Contest/s web site here (direct link to forecasts here).

Our individual snow storm forecast contests start when the flakes start flyin' from a contest-worthy storm.

'Call for Forecasts' announcements issued on the blog ... web site ... Facebook ... and via email.

Winter '22 / '23 - 22nd Annual 'Season-total' Snowfall Forecast Contest: Call for Forecasts!

NEWxSFC/s Director of Season-total Snowfall Forecasting

Here comes another winter with its oscillating Arctic and North Atlantic indexes ... sudden stratosphere warmings ... so-so ENSO ... and if we get lucky ... a seemingly endless parade of 'Miller A' LOWs raking the eastern seaboard.

NE.Wx/s 22nd Annual ‘Season-total' Snowfall Forecast Contest is the absolute best ... biggest ... and possibly ONLY chance to be recognized for your astute long-range forecasting acumen ;/

And it's s-o-o easy.
Cool prizes ... too!

All you have to do is issue the best 'season-total' snowfall forecast for 25 east coast observing stations between RDU and PHL and BOS and CAR!

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Forecast element:
season-total snowfall @ each station

Forecast period:
01-DEC-22 through 31-MAR-23

Error statistic: total absolute error
[Σ abs(forecast - observed)]

Verification:
NWS climate reports (CLM or CF6)

Low. Score. Wins.

Deadline for entries: WED ... 30-NOV-22 @ 11:59 PM EST (01-DEC-22 @ 4:59 UTC)

Read more »

Winter '22 / '23 - An over-the-horizon look at early autumn's a priori climate conditions

near Woodstock ... VT
Marion Post Wolcott (1940)

TL; DR

- The stars have yet to align for snow crows and other winter wx enthusiasts.

- Above-normal temperatures and below-normal snowfall for most NEWxSFC/s stations.

 

> Warranties neither expressed nor implied.

> User assumes all risk.

> Not intended for use by children.

 

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Decoder Ring

AO: Arctic Oscillation

CONUS: Continental United States

D-J-F: December-January-February

ENSO: El Niño - Southern Oscillation

EPO: Eastern Pacific Oscillation

M-A: Mid-Atlantic

NE: New England

NAO: North Atlantic Oscillation

NHEMI: Northern Hemisphere

NWP: Numerical Weather Prediction

PDO: Pacific Decadal Oscillation

QBO: Quasi-Biennial Oscillation

PNA: Pacific-North American pattern

SSTa: Sea-Surface Temperature anomaly

SSW: Sudden Stratospheric Warming

 

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To the extent ENSO ... QBO ... SSTa in the tropical Pacific and the NE coastal waters of CONUS ... sunspots ... PDO ... and the extent of Eurasian cover have any predictive value ... here laid upon the table is the current state of play heading into Winter '22 / '23 as divined from NEWxSFC/s Whirled Headquarters located east of the fall line in VA.

Read more »

Winter '22 / '23 - 22nd Annual 'Season-total' Snowfall Forecast Contest: Preview

ACY (2-day mixed precip:  1.38")

We/re gearing up for the launch of the 22nd Annual Season-total Snowfall Forecast Contest where forecasters predict the season-total snowfall for 25 stations from Raleigh ... NC to Binghamton ... NY to Burlington ... VT to Caribou ... ME.

☼ Everyone is welcome to submit a forecast
☼ Totally free to enter
☼ Prizes

► Window for submitting forecasts will open MON ... 01-NOV-22 @ 12:01 AM EDT at the Contest's web site.

Main announcement with a 'Call for Forecasts' coming late OCT.

Facebook ...
https://www.facebook.com/newxsfc

 

 

 

 

Winter '22 / '23 - Eurasia Snow Cover: SEP

Eurasia/s areal snow cover for SEP-22: ~2,520,000 SQ-KM

- Almost 60% above normal (1,620,000 SQ-KM)
- Ranks 6th during period-of-record (1967 - 2022).
- Highest since 1998 (25 years ago).

The extent of Eurasia/s OCT snow cover has been positively correlated with cold and snowy winter weather in the eastern CONUS so we/re off to a good start.

Data courtesy Rutgers University Global Snow Lab

Winter '22 / '23 - North and West of I-95: Why does snow in the Eastern US always seem fall to the West of I-95?

Are the snow-maker weather systems influenced by the fall line?

 

"This cold-to-warm transition zone is further increased by the presence of the Appalachian Mountains, which are found to the west of the I-95 corridor. This elevation increase starts at the fall line, the geological boundary between the low-level coastal plains and the foothills of the Piedmont.

 

"The fall line is the historical edge of this range mountains and is the point at which the elevation of the land starts increasing. In the short distance between Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles Airport, both near Washington DC, the elevation increases over 300 feet (90 meters)" 

 

More ...

Winter '18 / '19 - The Woolly Bear Caterpillar Guide to Winter Weather Forecasting

It/s that time of year again when long-range wx forecasters scour the bowels looking for ... well ... wadda you say we don/t go there.

More better ... consult the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Guide to Winter Weather Forecasting.

(Lightly edited re-post from USENET news group ne.weather 11-OCT-03)

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In recent weeks ... a spate of news articles have appeared about the woolly bear caterpillar and its legendary ability to foretell the upcoming winter based on the color and width of its black and orange stripes.

With so much good information scattered across so many sources ... there appeared to be a need to compile the forecasting rules.

This handy forecasting guide can be printed and kept inside your coat pocket for easy reference.

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The Woolly Bear Caterpillars Among Us

There is more than one kind of woolly bear caterpillar.  The one you use when forecasting is the banded woolly caterpillar ... which becomes the Isabella moth (Pyrrharctia Isabella) in the spring.  Pictures of the caterpillar and moth can be seen here: Caterpillar Moth

Science is Skeptical

It should come as no surprise ... entomologists pooh-pooh the very idea banded woolly bear caterpillars can predict future events.  These naysayers claim variations in band color and width are evidence of a worm/s age and the fall weather conditions when the worm reached maturity.

Worms exhibiting more black than orange are older and grew in wet conditions.  Worms exhibiting less black than orange are younger and grew in dry conditions.  And therein we find the caterpillar's predictive value. 

Read more »

Winter '22 / '23 - The Strangest Superstitions About Snow In History

Wilson Bently

Snow has "... been used as a basis for everything from miraculous church-building to questionable medical cures, from holy substance to cause of disease and potential breeding-ground for hairy grubs"

"A barefoot run in the first snow of the year is recommended for everything from preventing chilblains in children to frostbite and sore throat. Eating or drinking it, meanwhile, was a cure for many ills, including warts and toothache (and freckles, which needed a "treatment" at the time), and if you had a nosebleed it was a good idea to hold snow at the back of your neck, presumably to give you something else upsetting to think about."

 More ...

Winter '22 / '23 - General Winter Precipitation Forecasting - Jeff Haby

 

More ...

Winter '22 / '23 - Snowmageddon Weather in North America More Influenced by Tropics Than Arctic

"Winter weather patterns in North America are dictated by changes to the polar vortex winds high in the atmosphere, but the most significant cold snaps are more likely influenced by the tropics ..."

"The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters on December 27, 2019, also revealed that, unlike in Europe, the most extreme cold snaps affecting the whole of North America are not most likely to occur after a weak (polar) vortex. Instead, the shape of the vortex and conditions in the tropics were identified as stronger influences of these conditions"

More ...