The Return of the Forgotten Ophelia!

Folks you are taking a look at Ophelia. Pretty much the world of weather had forgotten about Ophelia because she had degenerated into a remnant low. However, Ophelia has always been a trackable entity. On our facebook page ,

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We have been constantly talking about this system and keeping track of it. Matter of fact we had mentioned yesterday already that we felt this was a Tropical Depression as its appearance on satellite had definitely improved and you could clearly see a center of circulation rotating east of the convection.  Today the NHC as of 5 PM has finally acknowledged this as once again a tropical depression.

The question is what is going to happen to Ophelia? Well lets look at the environment around Ophelia so we can determine the answer to this question.

First thing we come across is that the system is elongated from SW to NE. Essentially what this means is it will take a little extra time to strengthen.

Wind shear is not really an issue at this point and time with about 5-10 knots ..however there is indeed more shear to the north of the system which could be effecting the northern side of the system.

Divergence is decent across the system ..meanwhile convergence is a little lacking with the best convergence off to the east of the system.

So, overall the environment is decent for some slow strengthening to occur with Ophelia. Now what about movement. Well we need to look at the guidance and we need to look at the steering currents to determine the movement over the future with this system.

Now the above is the GFS with 12 Z and 18 Z , as well as the ECM & also the GGEM. The GGEM actually has landfall very close to if not on Nova Scotia. While the GFS/ECM both suggest that this will NOT make landfall in Nova Scotia and all three models suggest that this will stay away from the United states.

While this is the most likely scenario we have to suggest that in order for these models (at least the GFS & ECM) to be correct the system has to more or less start to move towards the Northwest from the beginning..Is this possible?

The steering currents show a subtropical ridge to the North of Ophelia. This ridge has been in place for some time now and this would suggest that Ophelia would have to continue to move off to the West Northwest in the short term. This would lend some credence more towards the GGEM.

Ultimately what should happen is that the trough that is over the central to eastern part of the country should move off the coast and this SHOULD cause Ophelia to stay out at sea..

However..if you are in Bermuda or Nova scotia you may want to pay attention to the future of Ophelia . With the environment supportive of strengthening we do think that Ophelia should become a Hurricane..

Stay tuned for more information and updates are constantly posted on our facebook page!

Hurricane season & Winter Season Research!

When we released the Winter Outlook for 2010-2011 ..we looked at something new for the winter forecast season and that was to see if there was a relation between and active hurricane season and a colder and snowier then normal winter season.

What we did is we took the top ten active hurricane seasons for “named storms” ..those years were as follows:

1995 -19 storms
1887 -19 storms
1969 -18 storms
2008 - 16 storms
2003 -16 storms
1936 -16 storms
2007 - 15 storms
2004 -15 storms
2001 -15 storms
2000- 15 storms

We could also add on to this the year 2010 as that season had 21 named storms.  Now looking at the list above since we have transitioned into a La Nina this hurricane season we have to determine what years were La Nina years and then we are going to look at the winter that followed those La Nina hurricane seasons. What this means is if the winter that followed the La Nina hurricane season was not a La Nina it will not be included.

The purpose of this is to determine if a active hurricane La Nina season is followed by a colder & snowier winter.

So looking at the list above the following were La Nina winters ..

1996, 1970, 2008, 2001, and we can add 2011.. Records of La Nina /El Nino do not go back as far as 1888 to make the determination of whether La Nina/El Nino so we will not include that year for not enough data..

So when we look at these winters that followed La Nina Hurricane seasons we look like the  following:

Now as you can see out of the 5 years that were left “4” out of the 5 were colder then normal across the east and NE and majority of the country.

Granted it is a small sample size but the theory is that an active La Nina hurricane season followed by a La Nina winter resulted in a colder then normal winter four out of five times.

Now out of those 5 years above only two of them had a – PDO and those were 2008 and 2011.

Now out of those two years only 2008 had a negative QBO  to go along with the –PDO..but as we see the results of 2008 were the one year that ended up above normal temperature wise. This may lead a person to then think that we should be looking towards a warmer then normal winter . However..the difference maker we believe comes down to the AO and NAO .

The above is the NAO & AO time series which if you look at 2008 you can clearly see we were dealing with a positive NAO and a positive AO. There after you can see that we have been dealing with predominantly negative NAO and negative AO ..Also refer to images from the last research post issued a couple days ago.

The research provides shows a couple things. First it shows that a La Nina winter following a La Nina hurricane season four out of five times ended up colder then normal. The second thing that it shows is that the most important equation of the winter forecast is the AO & NAO.

The end result equals active La Nina hurricane season followed by a La Nina winter with a –NAO &-AO four out of five times has resulted in a colder then normal winter which leads to more evidence towards a colder then normal winter forecast as was issued by Real Wx Service along with Lehigh Valley Weather Patrol!

Research For The Winter 2011-2012 Winter Forecast!

The purpose of this post is to show people exactly what La Nina Winters looked like and then to come to a reasonable conclusion from there. It is important to remember that just because the ENSO is LA NINA does NOT mean that is the only thing that counts. If you think that..then you know NADA about the weather. We are going to look at the warm years first..

Those are the warm years. In general there were 11 La Nina winters that ended up above normal across a good portion of the US or the NE in general which is what we are looking at..

Now lets look at the colder years ..

Now as you can see by the images above we have ten years that were considered colder then normal or at the very least average temperatures. NOW if winter depended on ENSO alone ..one could make an argument that because this winter of 2012 is going to be La Nina…odds slightly favor a warmer winter..However…that is not the way it works!

As we have discussed in our winter outlook there are other teleconnections that need to be looked at.

One of those is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. We are currently in a negative PDO (click here)

So out of the years above lets look and see what were negative PDO years..

1950,1954,1973,1974,1975,1976,1989,1999,2000,2008, (those are the warm years that were –PDO)

1955,1956, 1962,1964,1967, 1971,2011 (these were the colder la Ninas with a negative PDO…

So with looking at LA Nina years that were negative PDO we are now down to 17 years out of 21 years. Now lets look at the Quasi Biennial Oscillation or QBO ..We are presently negative (-0.49 click here)

1950,1954, 1974,1975.1989, 2008 (those are the warm years)

1955,1956,1970,1971,1984,2001 (these are the cold la nina winters with a –QBO..

As you can see we have now covered the –QBO years and the – PDO years when the Enso was La Nina..

Now another oscillation to look at is the AMO index..We are presently in a + AMO stage.. all this means is that the sea surface temperatures are above normal..

So now lets eliminate the years that were not +AMO . This would take about 1964 thru 1995 out of the equation.. So we eliminate the following years:

1970,1971,1974,1975, 1984 & 1989 . That leaves us with 6 years that were + AMO which were 1950,1954,1955,1956 & 2001, 2008. Again this would leave us evenly split down the middle with 3 warm winters and 3 average to below average winters…

1950 was a positive NAO

1954 was a positive NAO

1955 was a negative NAO

1956 was a negative NAO

2001 was a negative NAO

2008 was a positive NAO

So lets look at where the NAO has been recently for its running calculation..

 

As you can see the NAO has been predominantly negative so we would have to rule out the years that had a positive NAO and that eliminates from the list above 1950.1954, and 2008.

Ironically enough the three years that remain are 1955,56 and 2001 and the Arctic Oscillation those years was also negative!

So with the research above showing that we do indeed have a –PDO, –QBO, +AMO –NAO, –AO and a La Nina.. it only makes sense that you would look at the La Nina years and then look for the years that had the same atmospheric setup teleconnection wise in order to come to a logical conclusion for the Winter 2011-2012 season.

So as you can see by the above ..evidence lies very much in a colder and snowier winter. with the NAO and AO being the most important factors ..more important then the PDO & QBO .

Maria Update #2

Latest visible image of Maria above from 17:45 UTC. As you can see the center of Maria is exposed and this center is moving towards the west at a very slow speed.

While many people have stopped talking about Maria we continue to follow Maria because if anything MARIA has not been go according to the guidance and MARIA has been well to the south and the west of the NHC track.

Of course we have been talking about the possibility of this occurring on our Facebook page.

So this brings us to the guidance today again which still shows MARIA moving NW and then due North but in order for those tracks to happen and to occur MARIA has to start moving due NORTH almost immediately..

The problem lies in the fact that MARIA is moving to the South of a subtropical ridge. Now all models have had MARIA as a deep cyclone , which would then cause MARIA to find the weakness in the ridge and then begin to feel the influence of the two troughs that are moving off the east coast. First one not all that strong but the second one is strong. This would cause MARIA to get tugged NW then N and then quickly NE OTS. However…a weaker system ..which remains further south has the potential to sneak underneath that weakness in the ridge.

The images above show two things. First image which is the satellite shows the due west movement. Second image is ADT which shows the center confirming that it is west of the convection and also exposed.

Now lets look at the environment surrounding MARIA. Shear across the system is anywhere from 10-30 knots. This is due to an upper level low that is around 25 N and 65 W.  Convergence and divergence is decent across the system but as long as the shear is in place this is going to keep MARIA not only a sheared cyclone but also a weak cyclone which enhances the possibility of continuing to move more towards the west and sliding under the weakness!

So this is the scenarios we are seeing right now:

1. Scenario # 1 is MARIA continues sliding off to the west northwest and comes closer to the state of Florida as a weak tropical storm.

2. Scenario #2 is because of the exposed center MARIA dissipates.

Presently historical probabilities have a 23 % chance of this cyclone making Landfall in NC. This is up from 21% early yesterday!

If MARIA does manage to continue moving west ..the further west she gets before she starts to turn NW would bring her closer to the east coast. Keep in mind that generally storms that make it across 65 W and under 25 N this threat increases. So statistically speaking the east coast threat has increased but in the end it is going to come down to whether or not MARIA is picked up by the trough or not!

Stay tuned cause I believe we are the only ones ..that have been ahead of the game with MARIA..