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Allow me to retort

Message from Sam TN

You know, I wonder if Dr. Cohen knows he's being pitted against a lowly person like me? He'd probably laugh and I'd laugh with him! It's silly! This guy should STOMP me 9 times out of 10...AT LEAST! I have no business competing with his greatness. Neither does my cat who also predicted a warm winter for the East.

Opinion/off-hand prediction: I think no matter what actually happens, there's a select few on here that will be sure to twist or cherry pick something that shows I'm wrong. Just a hunch...



In reality, if I'm wrong, I guess I can be like any other weather prognosticator then, right? I can be wrong and still predict weather again next year.

Dr. Judah Cohen is at odds with your winter forecast. He calls for a mostly negative AO, and a colder than avg winter for the South and Eastern US.

Examining the AO from the popular GFS and Euro models we have a positive AO at least for now and the foreseeable future, but things can and surely will change some over 90 days, but empirically it's all we have right now...




Here's the lasted Euro and CFS projections for kicks. It looks like I have some powerful company as well considering the Euro is the best model on the planet right now, and certainly better than Dr. Cohen!

Conclusion: Looks like the models say I have the early advantage. If this plays out, that's literally one third of winter that I predicted 100% accurately as I see it. Which would be amazing!









As for the colder than average winter for the South and Eastern US, I might be tempted to agree for the area of Texas or Louisiana, but for the majority of us in the East and SE, it's going to be an above average winter when you look at a DJF composite I'd say. I've outlined this in my winter forecast, but February is a month I'm concerned with from cold/snow.

He claims to have a 75% accuracy rate...well, that's great. By whose standards? His or mine? Is there a way to track what's right or wrong? With all respect to Dr. Cohen, I'm sure he has his rate to be supported by some sort of analysis which I don't care to hear or read because the Eurasian snowfall analysis is loaded up with flaws and it's pretty easy to spot. Just my opinion.

Our research has shown when Eurasian October snow cover extent or the Snow Advance Index are above normal, this favors a negative phase of the winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) or weakened polar vortex, most often in January. The AO isn't the only player in the big game here. El Nino is the king of this winter, let's not kid ourselves. Negative or not, it doesn't mean it rules an outcome. Anyway, it's interesting to note that I read not long ago that right at the end of October into early November that average was kind of 'ho-hum'. But what do I know?

The Arctic is much warmer today than it was just twenty years ago and with much less sea ice not only in extent but especially volume. This is a controversial topic but I do believe and quite strongly that a warmer Arctic is forcing colder winters in the mid-latitudes. In 1997-98, it was cold across much of northern Eurasia and even northern Canada. I think if we were to have a repeat of 1997-98, the much warmer Arctic of today would favor a southward displacement of the cold.
True, but when you moderate that cold over very warm water and then circle it back into land like the current pattern is doing, the air warms. I have no problem with saying winters are growing colder the last few years as I predicted in 2011/12 on here.

Overall his temp anomalies are not that bad and close to average, however, with a warm December the Jan and Feb anomalies would be a bit colder than these numbers. He has a departure for mean Dec, Jan, Feb temp of around -0.5F for Philadelphia, -.6F for Savannah, -.4F for Mobile, AL, -1F for South Texas, -.4 to -.2 for Central and S. Florida, etc.

Overall this winter wouldn't be bad with his numbers, as long as the extreme cold is short lived, and we don't have zone busting temps.
The data he presents for Gulf Coast locations, I don't really disagree with! So I'm not sure where the disagreement is. But for the interior South (TN, KY, NC, etc.) on up into the Midwest (IL, OH, IA, etc.) and NE-Mid Atlantic (NY, NJ, DE), I see things above average. That doesn't mean winter lows can't dip below normal, but I doubt most locations in the East will see zone busting lows. Most everyone should stay at or above there. There's too much persistent moisture in the air to allow for a post-radiational cooling from Arctic blasts to take hold for very long in duration too. But this stuff is harder to predict. We all can have a night of 20F below zero and still average above normal for winter.

Recall, I've got February down as a month of questions. I'm thinking it's going to be possibly snowy and anomalously average to below average, but the winter as a whole should be rather benign with a cold ending and start to spring.



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