Haven’t talked about this in awhile…La Nina:
Where are we? Still in a moderate La Nina after a moderate-strong event last winter. This is our 2nd consecutive winter.
NCEP (National Center for Environmental Prediction) says this will probably continue through Spring 2012. Here is a plot from the CFS2 model, showing the same thing…the negative numbers are La Nina conditions, positive=El Nino. Note that in AMJ (April-June 2012) it’s still in La Nina territory.
I found this little nugget (I’m a week late) on Klaus Wolter’s MEI page: “…Beyond that (Spring 2012), it is worth noting that of the ten two-year La Niña events between 1900 and 2009, four ended up as a three-year event, so I would put the odds for this to occur in 2012-13 at 40% right now. Interestingly, the other six all switched to El Niño, leaving no ENSO-neutral case. Will be interesting to see how 2012 evolves.” The bold is my emphasis. Isn’t THAT interesting? Those of you with more time might have already know about this, but 4/10 double La Ninas (this year) end of going into a 3rd winter of La Nina, but 6/10 went right into El Nino conditions. There were no cases where this current pattern was followed by a “neutral” winter.
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
Long range ECMWF forecast into first week of January has very cold weather developing over SW Canada Dec 25-Jan1 and then the cold air extends south over the WA, into parts of OR by the first week of Jan…..arctic air getting into the PacNW so soon after prolonged dry spell has happened only a couple times in in 119 years. Then again the year 2011 has only happened once in the past 5 billion years or whatever since the planet Earth was formed.
If that happened it would have already been rather cold at low elevations E and W of Cascades for a prolonged period.
So, what kind of an arctic outbreak or prolonged cold period would it take to freeze the Willamette over enough to walk across?? It used to be a fairly regular occurrence from what I understand, and my Great Grandfather walked across the ice from the East bank to Downtown. Hell, the Columbia used to freeze over — my Mom has a photo of her Mother when she was a child with her family posing in front of their car ON the Columbia after they drove across the ice from Vancouver somewhere around where the 205 bridge is today — those were probably the same year… What’s it take to get that, and why can’t we seem to get one of those winters again?? 😦
Hey Paul, can you throw the link up to the long-range ECMWF maps? All I’ve got is some UNISYS links for 10 day forecasts.
I think we will be headed for those cold winters over the next 15 years. I remember seeing a picture at a bar in Whidbey Island from 1910 showing a car and horse & buggy out on the frozen Columbia! But back thaen the flow of the water was slower and now since the dams went in we don’t see it freezing over as much.
The Willamette will freeze over with three weeks of lows 21 degrees or less and no highs over 34. There was another pic looking east from Oak Harbor toward Camano Is. and the sound was froze over with horse & buggys out on it!!!
Oh, I know that the Columbia will not likely freeze over because of the dams, regulated flow and whatnot, but the weather conditions… let’s get THOSE going here again, at least get the Willamette to freeze over again! There’s no practical reason why we couldn’t get a winter with conditions conducive to freezing over the Columbia, were it not for the dams, right??
We need our ENSO “Neutral” years….Goodbye south windstorms…
😦
33° at 8pm here.
So you’re saying the next 3 months will be pretty much like Jan, Feb, March of last year?
Yeah, but if this were really a La Nina year, shouldn’t we be getting soaked now?
I’d be curious to see if someone’s done a correlation between NinoNumber and Precipitation.
Thanks Mark. You must be feeling better with all the great posts. In fact, you could be a “poster child”!
Brad
Ah, Another “green tomato” summer…
Regarding the closer term, quite the interesting scenario coming together tomorrow night.
I haven’t read the last thread, but I think a lot hinges on how much sun we get tomorrow. If we get up into the 40s, kiss any snow chances goodbye. But…if we fog in tonight, and clouds linger all day tomorrow, keeping us in the 30s…things could start to look a lot like Christmas in Portland 🙂
With the low tracking in south of Astoria, we’ve got a good shot at staying out of the southerly flow!
A lot can go wrong, but…finally something to watch and inevitably scream “BUST!” at Thursday morning!!!
LOL I might as well have cut and pasted Mark’s post from yesterday! That’s what I get for posting one-handed with a 4 month old in the other. 😛
I put our chances at getting a dusting at 30%, fwiw.
what would you say if you live north of portland by 100 miles and live at 600 ft
I would say Cliff Mass’ blog might be a more appropriate place to ask for specific information about that particular location…
Ha, well put! 😉 I am no expert in forecasting for the Seattle area. Cliff Mass, on the other hand, is one of the most respected meteorologists in the Pacific Northwest. I’d bet on him.
Is it safe to jump off the “false spring cliff” right now, Mark? Or do I still have to wait until the 3rd week of February even in a Niña year?
Fascinating. But all I really care about is the chance of cold and snow in the next 8-12 nweeks.
So this means we could wait till June again to see that first 80. 😦
that means we’ll be waiting for June for our first arctic blast.
Thanks Mark, and there a first time for everything… who knows
Cool! No, really… cool! 🙂