P
PowderMiner
Well-known member
OK so after a few years of playing with snowfall data for the Lake Wenatchee area (nice middle of the state location) I was getting a relatively good idea of the snowfall results for the year estimate (not anywhere close when I added my own guess to it, funny, it was always a disappointment)… any way I did pickup on the method of using the entire years average ENSO 3.4 average (and average of the forecast models for current year) seemed to be a little off. I decided to use the last 6 months of the year and the results were similar but a little more accurate. I also noticed that it seemed that while a negative ENSO was good what was more influential was the rate of decline (that is if you like cold and wet 
). That is why we have had a few winters of late cold weather and snow.
Searching for this month’s update I stumbled across a study showing there is a lag from the ENSO 3.4 to our weather of about 8 months. And an indicator of where we are historically (NOAA Scatter Plot with red * and triangle).
(NOAA)
That this sequence of patterns does indeed occur in nature is verified by comparing the time series of SSTA anomaly in Niño 3.4 (6N-6S, 170W-120W) (blue line) with that of the pattern correlation between the optimal structure and the corresponding SST anomaly pattern eight months earlier (red line). Vertical line shows the beginning of independent forecast for Real-time Surface Marine data. For each time series plot, the corresponding scatter plot is also given, along with ONE standard deviation of scatter from best fit line. Red asterisk denotes the current Niño 3.4 SST anomaly value and the pattern correlation of the optimal structure with the SST anomaly pattern eight months before. Arrow denotes value of current projection onto the optimal structure.
Anyway; The ENSO really started declining last April… April + 8 months = Boy! (Different story) Orrr… more accurately December… It went negative the first week of may and continued to drop until…??? Still Low –1.3°. That seems to indicate colder and wetter season for the next 8 months, at least. I’m sure due to every other weather-influencing factor that just means seasonally cooler and wetter not the dream world of an ICE AGE
.
SO taking the latest data and applying the Average of the forecast models for the last two 3 month ENSOs… I came up with a 6 month Average of –1.45°. looking at the Plain Annual Snow totals vs. the ENSO that gives us a total of 181” in Plain. That represents 133% of average. As you can see the R² is only .2972 but for weather, I’ll take it!
While this model has not been very accurate for Plain, I do feel it has represented our snow conditions as a whole fairly well. Last year it predicted 77% of average, 2009 – 103%, 2008 – 123%.
We’ll see if it seems like this year is 132% of average???
Just for fun… by the way a guy from NOAA had a similar model of the Columbia River water flow vs. ENSO with eerily similar results, the only difference was he had PHD in front of his name, oh – yea! and gets paid for it.
). That is why we have had a few winters of late cold weather and snow. Searching for this month’s update I stumbled across a study showing there is a lag from the ENSO 3.4 to our weather of about 8 months. And an indicator of where we are historically (NOAA Scatter Plot with red * and triangle).
(NOAA)
That this sequence of patterns does indeed occur in nature is verified by comparing the time series of SSTA anomaly in Niño 3.4 (6N-6S, 170W-120W) (blue line) with that of the pattern correlation between the optimal structure and the corresponding SST anomaly pattern eight months earlier (red line). Vertical line shows the beginning of independent forecast for Real-time Surface Marine data. For each time series plot, the corresponding scatter plot is also given, along with ONE standard deviation of scatter from best fit line. Red asterisk denotes the current Niño 3.4 SST anomaly value and the pattern correlation of the optimal structure with the SST anomaly pattern eight months before. Arrow denotes value of current projection onto the optimal structure.
Anyway; The ENSO really started declining last April… April + 8 months = Boy! (Different story) Orrr… more accurately December… It went negative the first week of may and continued to drop until…??? Still Low –1.3°. That seems to indicate colder and wetter season for the next 8 months, at least. I’m sure due to every other weather-influencing factor that just means seasonally cooler and wetter not the dream world of an ICE AGE
. SO taking the latest data and applying the Average of the forecast models for the last two 3 month ENSOs… I came up with a 6 month Average of –1.45°. looking at the Plain Annual Snow totals vs. the ENSO that gives us a total of 181” in Plain. That represents 133% of average. As you can see the R² is only .2972 but for weather, I’ll take it!
While this model has not been very accurate for Plain, I do feel it has represented our snow conditions as a whole fairly well. Last year it predicted 77% of average, 2009 – 103%, 2008 – 123%.
We’ll see if it seems like this year is 132% of average???
Just for fun… by the way a guy from NOAA had a similar model of the Columbia River water flow vs. ENSO with eerily similar results, the only difference was he had PHD in front of his name, oh – yea! and gets paid for it.
LOL
