My Winter Outlook 2017-18

11th Annual Winter Outlook can be read at the following link. Historical accuracy for long term outlooks has been 81% since the outset in 2006, which can be seen in my website.

Comments and questions appreciated!

http://www.lightinthestorm.com/archives/1108

Thanks for the write up Tom. Nice read. Good luck with the forecast.

Thank you Tom for the write up and map you posted Hopefully this winter will be better than last winter and the winter before that one .good luck with the winter forcast

Thank you for the write up. I have a question about analog years. Namely, how many factors go into determining analog years and how are they weighted? Also, are there rules for analog years or does each forecaster use their own determining factors?

Always a pleasure to read your work Tom. Thank you for posting it to the forum for the members to read. Good luck with the forecast. I do agree with you that the cold and possibly even most of our snow this year will come in the first half. Historically second half La Nina's tend to show warmer temperatures. Should be fun!

I know this is probably gonna be a stupid question. But are we ever gonna have a winter that is not La Niña and El Niño. They don't seem to exist anymore. Every winter seems to be one of those two. Why is this and will we ever just get a normal none one again

Thanks for teh write up Tom and best of luck!!

Thanks everyone for the comments - appreciated.

track17 wrote:I know this is probably gonna be a stupid question. But are we ever gonna have a winter that is not La Niña and El Niño. They don't seem to exist anymore. Every winter seems to be one of those two. Why is this and will we ever just get a normal none one again

We will. Our last neutral ENSO winter was 2013-14. See the following link. Years without red or blue are neutral ENSO - red = Nino, blue = Nina.

http://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

Thank You so much for your help. Hopefully we get that soon so we can get a good winter. Thanks again

Verification:



http://www.lightinthestorm.com/archives/1108



VERIFICATION



Meteorological Winter Temperature Departures:



Last3mTDeptUS





Meteorological Winter Precipitation Departures:



Last3mPDeptUS





Local Statistics:

Dec-Jan-Feb Temperature Departure Outlook: +0.5 to +1.5; Warmer than normal

Actual DJF Departures:

NYC: +1.1

Newark, NJ: +1.4

LGA, NY: +1.2

Snowfall Forecast: New York City: 27-34”

Actual Snowfall for Winter 2017-18:

NYC: 35.2″

Newark, NJ: 33.9″

LGA, NY: 32.0″

*Note* – snowfall was significantly greater immediately south of NYC, and east of NYC over Long Island with totals of 40-50″+.



Commentary and Grading

This winter could not have gone much better as far as overall temperature departures – values fell directly within the ranges provided from the winter outlook, circa +1 for the DJF period. The way in which we arrived there was quite volatile, and expected to a significant extent. The cold/much colder than normal December verified, as did the very warm second half of the winter. The second half of January 2018 turned very warm, but the cold in the first half of the month led to a colder than normal January departure, an unexpected curve-ball. Nevertheless, the warmth was more than sufficient in the second half to countervail the negatives, and produce a solid positive/warm anomaly.

Nationwide, the idea that the South and the East would be warmer than normal w/ the core of the cold over the Rockies/N Plains verified well. One flaw was that the Southern Plains ended up cooler than forecasted.

Precipitation wise, the general idea of wetter than normal over the inter-mountain West, and the Appalachians/Northeast-Mid-Atlantic with drier conditions across the South verified fairly well.

Select snowfall for other cities:

Red Sox Suck: 57.5″ / Forecast: 50-57”

NYC: 35.2″ / Forecast: 27-34”

LGA: 32″ / Forecast: 27-34”

JFK: 31.8″ / Forecast: 27-34”

Newark, NJ: 33.9″ /Forecast: 27-34”

Islip: 61.3″

Bridgeport: 39.9″

Philadelphia: 29.8″ / Forecast: 17-24”

New Brunswick, NJ: 40.6″ / Forecast: 27-34”

Wash DC: 7.8″ / Forecast: 9-16”

Baltimore: 15″ / Forecast: 12-19”

Dulles: 11.9″

Worcester, MA: 86.6″ (+/- 3″)

Hartford, CT: 48.3″ (+/- 3″)

Providence, RI: 45.9″



Overall, the snowfall forecast verified very well, with the forecast for less snow than normal south of the Mason-Dixon line, and snowier than normal in New England, working out correctly. NYC itself verified well. The one flaw/unexpected area was from portions of central NJ through Long Island, which had quite a bit more snowfall than I expected (40-50″+). Favorable storm tracks benefited these areas. Snowfall is always the most difficult part of a long range forecast due to the non-linear/stochastic nature of snow storms.



Final Grade – this, overall, will go into the “hit” column, bringing my long term accuracy rate since 2006-07 up to 82%.

Precipitation: A-

Temperatures: A

Snowfall: A-

Winter 2017-18 Final Grade: A-

Tom,

You are a gifted man. Thank you for sharing your forecast on this forum. I thoroughly enjoy reading your work. I look forward to next year's winter forecast. Excellent job!

Frank_Wx wrote:Tom,

You are a gifted man. Thank you for sharing your forecast on this forum. I thoroughly enjoy reading your work. I look forward to next year's winter forecast. Excellent job!

Frank,

Those words mean a lot - thank you very much. Likewise, you're an excellent LR forecaster, and I look forward to further conversations with you in the future, as well as the coming summer season and next winter!

Tom, I was just reading this over with my dad, with whom I've spoken to him about you before, and in our conversation I stated the following regarding your snowfall forecasts:

"From a lead of over a month, and for March, FOUR MONTHS, he pretty much nailed snowfall forecasts better than than our mainstream yahoos do for any given single storm. That's incredible."

While I don't think any further elaboration need be provided for the point to ring home, I will join Frank in further complimenting you on your absolutely phenomenal gift and skill at forecasting the long range, and now that I know where you reside, I am looking very forward to continuing to learn from you and the several others you converse with, as well as broadening the ways in which I approach various meteorological questions. You, and they, as well as our members here, possess an amazing wealth of knowledge that is just absolutely incredible to draw from and be a part of in discussions. I'm so honored to be one of the relatively few who "know" you, and have the ability to converse with you on whatever topic(s) is/are at hand. Too cool!!!!!

rb924119 wrote:Tom, I was just reading this over with my dad, with whom I've spoken to him about you before, and in our conversation I stated the following regarding your snowfall forecasts:

"From a lead of over a month, and for March, FOUR MONTHS, he pretty much nailed snowfall forecasts better than than our mainstream yahoos do for any given single storm. That's incredible."

While I don't think any further elaboration need be provided for the point to ring home, I will join Frank in further complimenting you on your absolutely phenomenal gift and skill at forecasting the long range, and now that I know where you reside, I am looking very forward to continuing to learn from you and the several others you converse with, as well as broadening the ways in which I approach various meteorological questions. You, and they, as well as our members here, possess an amazing wealth of knowledge that is just absolutely incredible to draw from and be a part of in discussions. I'm so honored to be one of the relatively few who "know" you, and have the ability to converse with you on whatever topic(s) is/are at hand. Too cool!!!!!

Ray,

Thank you for that awesome compliment. It means a lot. Looking forward to many more intellectually stimulating discussions with you and others!

Tom it’s hard to see giving you any less than an A for your winter outlook this year. Yes a few micro areas were off some in snowfall but with these mesoscale events especially like we received in March across much of the NYC Metro that’s impossible to predict months out, even a day out, so forget those.

A big thank you for listing DULLES airport as a separate entity and not part of WDC as some outlets, most notably TWC, did for years. Being 32 miles NW of WDC and 300 feet higher and in another state would be the equivalent of using Montville NJ to report NYC totals.

Excellent, excellent work. I’m already looking forward to next winters outlook.

Thank you CP, Scott, and Syo for those kind words. Much appreciated. Each year brings with it more curve-balls and challenges to hopefully improve the methods. Looking forward to more great discussions with all of you.

Tom,if I had a trading system with various investment vehicles with the accuracy of your Long Range Forecast, I would have the Holy Grail.Great job and looking forward to the Fall already for your next one.