I share with Amar's sentiments over the somewhat ridiculous ST article.
Amar why do you think strong ridging over the pacific and west coast will move? Are you saying that it is statistically unlikely to stick around for the remainder of the season based on historical observation?
I don't think it will move for certain, the worst-case scenario I mentioned above would include that ridge sticking around (on average) through the entire rest of the season. But that is very statistically unlikely, and in fact, would be unprecedented over the 80-100 year period for which we have reasonable snowfall and snowpack records from at least several mountain locations in the Cascades. There have been a couple of really bad snow seasons (back in the early 1940s) where such ridging did stick around from January or February through the entire rest of winter and spring, but those did not have that ridging throughout earlier in the season like this year.
Cliff Mass seems to think there is no evidence that the persistent ridge is going anywhere. Just curious on where your thoughts differ. Thanks for your input. It is much appreciated.
Cliff's latest blogs indicate that the seasonal outlooks and tools which he looks at show no signs of such change (just like the ones which are publicly available), but that really means very little since none of the tools have almost any forecast skill.
There is absolutely no way to predict whether the ridge will remain over the next few months, or vanish, or return later if it vanishes for a while. Numerical weather prediction models are only run out to about 14-16 days, and really only have predictive skill over the first 5-7 days out, maybe 8-10 days max under certain conditions. Seasonal outlooks (30-90 days out to one year) such as the ones at
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
are not based on numerical weather models and are not really forecasts at all (which is why NOAA now usually refers to them as outlooks, not as forecasts), but instead are a blend of climatology and various statistical models, plus a lot of black art and voodoo. See
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictio...ong_range/tools.html
for more info on what goes into the seasonal outlook sausage and how it turns out (
"FOR ALL MODELS PRECIPITATION FORECASTS ARE GENERALLY LESS SKILLFUL THAN TEMPERATURE -- WITH MARGINAL SKILL FOR ALL TOOLS EVEN IN THEIR BEST SEASONS AND LOCATIONS UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES"), and see
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictio...ng_range/fxus07.html
and
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictio...ng_range/fxus05.html
for non-technical discussions of the current 30 and 90 outlooks. They are only statistical and probabilistic in their predictions, and have very little forecast skill as stated, a situation which is unlikely to improve much over the upcoming decades (these seasonal outlooks have not been improving much in recent decades, unlike numerical weather models which have improved immensely over the past 2-3 decades, and even the past few years).
