I see you have came up with a forecast for the start of november. How about the rest of the winter?

Tom, the winter outlook (our forecast) will be on NewsChannel 9 11@11 this Wednesday, 11/7 and I will have it on The Morning News Thursday Morning, 11/8.

I was just looking at the 00z models, and it seems that Lake Effect is a for sure thing. The GFS is picking it up at hours 126-144. I'll have to look at the short range models to get a more accurate picture.

Everyone can expect moderate snow/rain with the passage of the front.

Bad news for procrastinators.  :-(

Good news for skiers! :-D

BRING IT!  I am ready for the snow to come and stay till the end of March Madness, A good old-fashioned CNY winter!

The only weather forcast who shows next weeks temps in the 30's is NEWS CHANNEL 9..............
ACCUWEATHER - Mid 40s...Chance os snow/rain depending on elevation...Much Cooler over the next 2 weeks...
WSTM - Mid 40's nect week...Sunny..Chance of snow showers Thurs...
WTVH - Mid 40's nect week......Sunny...Chance of snow showers Thurs...

WHY IS NEWS CHANNEL 9'S WEATHER ALWAYS HYPED UP....THEN THEY LOWER IT AS THEY GET CLOSER TO THOSE DATES....JUST WATCH...YOU WILL SEE...

AccuWeather.com Winter Forecast
Posted 2007-10-22
JOE BASTARDI'S ACCUWEATHER.COM WINTER FORECAST
The extended winter forecast for the months of November through March calls for a cooler than normal start and end but the traditional winter months, December through February, may be one of the top 10 warmest winters ever for the southeastern United States. The heat will be centered over the Tennessee Valley and the Carolinas. For the nation as a whole, this winter will be warmer than last winter; especially in the second half of January and February when last winter season was at its coldest.

When looking at the past three winters, we find that population weighted, this may be as warm as the 1998-99 winter and the 2001-02 winters. Unlike the winter of 2005-06 and last winter, where significant shots of cold and snow showed up in major areas during 35-50% of the winter months, this winter may have over 75% of the days above normal in most of the nation southeast of line from the Great Lakes to the Southwest. The only signal for below normal is over the Pacific Northwest.


We are heading to the classic cycle of the warm Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and La Niña and it's the ocean that is running the show. La Niña is officially defined as sustained cold sea surface temperatures anomalies across the central tropical Pacific Ocean but also displays a pressure tendency as well. El Niño is the warm version of this phenomenon.

The AMO is the sea surface temperature cycle taking place in the northern Atlantic Ocean, which, in its warm cycle, can contribute enhanced conditions for tropical system development during the Atlantic basin hurricane season. These two major players appear to have the stage. Supporting the theory of what cold there is being early and late is an idea from scientists in the Southern Hemisphere, which says the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) will telegraph the Northern Hemisphere winter. The AAO is a measure to compare certain levels of the atmosphere relative to normal from 20 degrees south latitude to the South Pole. Their winter season had a quick cold start, and a colder end, but the difference is the surrounding water is much colder there.

The effect across the United States may be that we have the colder parts of the cold season relative to normal early and late. It may feel shockingly cold compared to the record setting warmth of October and the warmth of the Winter but not extreme compared to normals of the time of the year -- in other words, colder than normal but not extreme. The warmth coming at the traditionally coldest time of the winter will be very unusual.


Pattern analogs:
It is rare when the years picked out match so closely objective guidance in winter. AccuWeather.com forecasts for the last two summers used this technique to produce accurate temperature ideas but it is easier to see it in the summer. Last winter, there were differing opinions at AccuWeather.com on whether the El Nino would collapse or maintain its strength.

This gave us the analog of 1965-1966 to lean on for the major reversal. The winter before, the 1933-1934 analog ran rampant in the middle of the winter, but the point is, in both cases, there were many options to choose from. Last year, instead of blending, we worked hard to pick the best one out based on our idea of the pattern, and it worked. The coming winter season forecast has a higher confidence level than those two due to the fact that all 5 major analogs for the coming season fit to a very similar pattern.

First of all, the La Niña has gone to AT LEAST where we thought it would go and there is no stopping it. We are projecting a moderate to strong one well into the winter and may wind up with a top 5 ranking as far as the nino3.4 SST. In addition, the forecast cooler west-than-east idea is a known warm signal for the United States as a whole. In addition, the warm AMO and the type of autumn we have had also fit well into 5 analogs: 1949, 1950, 1954, 1955 and most recently 1998.

The most amazing thing is the maps drawn from this match extremely closely to the maps that we are seeing from two major objective seasonal guidance sources -- the European seasonal models (ECMWF) and the US Climate Forecasting System (CFS). It's as if those two models simply chose our analogs and drew the winter forecast from that. The forecast La Niña plus the trend also lines up for a very warm winter, as the La Niña for the winter will be at least moderate.


What can go wrong?
While the confidence in the forecast warmth is running high and as warm as the forecast, it could be even warmer. There is some correlation between the phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), the solar minimum that we are in, though coming out of, and a colder version of La Niña for a colder forecast than expected. The QBO is a fluctuation of the equatorial zonal wind between easterlies and westerlies that has an effect on the upper atmospheric circulation during winter in the Northern Hemisphere. And the collapsing of the La Niña and a turn to a negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO the revenge of winter, though that appears more likely late rather than early.

We are, in fact, predicting March to be normal to below normal month for much of the nation but an earlier than normal onset would lower the warm departures from normal. But for the core of the winter, this one looks like the warmest of the last three for much of the nation. Once it gets warm, it may stay warm all winter and not reverse like last year, or it will be cold the first and last 3 weeks of the winter like 2005-06.

The analogs chosen look very, very good, and its not just one out of 7 like last year, where we determined the correct one from a bunch, or blended them like the year before, but the host of them line up nicely with objective guidance. We simply feel that these ideas are the players that will take over the game, and the other factors will not be strong enough to control the ultimate outcome, and if they don't show at all, this could be an even warmer winter than forecast.

The evolution of the water temperatures in the Pacific and the Atlantic basin feed right into this. The colder water developing in the north Pacific with the warmer water between it, and the cold la Niña current, offer the case for a stronger than normal "fire-hose" jet into the Pacific Northwest that would then lift through southern Canada and into the north Atlantic with a stronger than normal positive arctic oscillation for the winter season. This will be masked in November and again in spring as the jet does not reveal its true colors until it matures.

The weaker jet with the shorter wavelengths very often will get winter off to an early start, with November turning colder than October in the very places it was warm and this can persist into December. However, as the jet continues to intensify, the feedback processes cause a stronger and stronger vortex to develop and bundle arctic air. This does offer some risk as the lack of cold air anywhere in North America since the April outbreak will not be something that we will have this winter. It will be getting very cold in much of western and northern Canada and the risk of this coming southeast occasionally means that ice storms may be more of problem from the Plains to the Northeast than snowstorms this year.

The characteristic of this winter appears to be that in most areas from the Plains east, even when it gets cold, the warmth will be seen coming back in a short period of time. In other words, sustainable week after week cold like last year is not likely. More likely are mid-winter intrusions that hit and run, and rarely, if at all, visit the Southeast.

A thought about the words "normal" and "average": let's not mix them up. If the average high temp for a day is 51, then experiencing an actual high of 45 is "below the average" but is it "below normal"? It depends on how often it gets that cold or colder.

Many of the discussions by the (awesome) channel 9 team and the (sometimes long-winded) readers count occurrences of "above normal" or "below normal" temps or sunshine, and they probably mean below or above the average. Well, 50% of the days are going to be below the average and 50% above (since you can never be exactly right on) so I don't think that's significant.

There's no solid definition for "normal", but I'd say if you experience a day in the lowest 10% based on temperature, you could say "below normal". Looks like this Wednesday we will be below normal, probably not a record, but getting there. Otherwise, hey, it's the weather!

Let me finish my morning coffee before I try reading Ed's Blog agian....But then agian all the coffee in the world wont help with that mumbojumbo!!

I do not disagree w/ what Ed said regarding "awesome Channel 9 team".  They know there weather.......And they do a great job...

But one has to sit back and question why the highs/lows are a differance of 6-10 degrees from the other local weather forcasters?   But like I said before, they will adjust the highs and lows as we get closer to midweek.....

last year chirstmas eve no snow on the ground and bet no snow  

Just a quick note regarding my original post.  Temperatures still look to be close to "normal" as we head toward the 15th of the month.  The computer models still forecast some sort of trough in the east, but nowhere near the amplitude and depth as what's indicated above.

Now onto the matter at hand....this week.  Jim Teske and I have been pouring through the numbers and looking at the airmass upwind of us and we did bring temperatures up some the next couple of days.  

First off, it looks like the sun is going to get out for a time on Tuesday, so I felt we had to raise the high to near 50.

Now Wednesday.  The computer temperature guidance has been indicating highs in the mid 40s.  Keep in mind, they have climatology factored into their equations, and with the normal high around 50, that may be pulling those forecasts up a bit.

Jim and I took a look at the temperature profile in the lower atmosphere for Wednesday.    Given what we saw, the amount of precipitation forecast, and but also keeping in mind the expectancy for quite a bit of cloudiness, we did bump the high up to 40 for Wednesday.  The air should dry out nicely on Wednesday and the winds will switch to a more northwesterly direction, so the coverage of lake effect snow showers should diminish some during the day Wednesday.  The lower atmosphere should be well mixed through the lowest 2000 feet, so that would yield highs in the low 40s.  

Still though, things could be quite interesting north of Syracuse Tuesday night, across Oswego and Oneida counties, especially across higher elevations.  We'll be keeping an eye on that.

Lake effect precipitation should swing south closer to Syracuse during the day Wednesday, but again, with temperatures above freezing, it'll be hard to accumulate anything during the day.  Some minor accumulations could occur Wednesday night in the hills south of Syracuse.  We shall see.