As some of the other threads are starting to get polluted with this question, here is the place to discuss your outlook for the 2012 Australian snow season.

La Niña is showing signs of weakening, although I'd say that the SOI seems to generally head down this time of year.



If we do have a more neutral SOI, I'd have expectations of better season than last.

I'll have a go at a very early, very uneducated and likely very wrong guess!

1) SOI going into and predicted to stay in weakly positive to neutral territory over winter i.e. generally favourable territory according to many for snowfalls

2) IOD predicted (no idea how reliable IOD model forecasts are) to be going into weakly negative territory over winter according to BOM and Jamstec it seems after quick google. This is generally a good sign as negative IOD leads to more moisture injected into systems from the north west, but the negative IOD does not look to be too strong at this point which is good, as strong neg IODs may lead to excessive amounts of moisture, warm and rain form the north-west cloud bands instead of snow.

3) Global temps are dropping. Both the north and south hemispheres and are reaching a low point as low as 2008 and 2001 lows points. Dip in global temps after a la nina usually has about a 2-5 month lag after the peak of la nina. This la nina peaked in Jan which would mean the low point in global temps would be sometime from mid autumn into early winter and would drop that dip to be even lower than 2008/2001 lows and therefore produce the coldest global temps since Pinatubo blew its top in the early 1990s. I've just tried to google to find a plotted dataset of where satellite temps are at, but in my limited time over my lunch break it seems impossible to find something that is not biased and objective. Stupid global warming arguement.

4) Finally, whether its fact or fiction, olympic/leap years always produce better snow years.

Very dubious prediction: We are in for a goodun.

And the x-factor of course is SAM. It could over ride all the others factor and rule the season. Lets hope it spends a lot of time in the negative!!

One thing is certain . It will snow .(Sorry couldn't help myself from getting in first and stating the inevitable) otherwise interesting insights thus far .(Is anyone taking bets on how many pages this thread will be by august?)

Interesting, I've observed that trend as well looking back at the data. I wonder if there is any pattern or just coincidence.

I predict that the usually suspects will predict a bumper season and it will turn to shit. My itchy right knee has given me this insight.

This year is the beginning of the ice age.
2m in Jindy by mid april.
5m base from June to October, in the village Thredders.
Over next summer the base wont dissapear above 1600m
This is the beginning of our new Ozi glaciers.

I'll be skiing in my backyard in Sydney

We might want to keep this sensible?

Weaker La Nina this year may mean that temps will drop quicker this autumn as there is less moisture about, which would set us up for a nice cold winter.

Although weather patterns change rapidly over the months, so we could end up with frustrating blocking patterns as well. At this stage it's anyone's guess.

Just like how spring arrived a month early last year, and I thought that meant a consistently warm summer. It was consistently warm for January, but December and February were disappointing.

[quote=BlueHueI've just tried to google to find a plotted dataset of where satellite temps are at, but in my limited time over my lunch break it seems impossible to find something that is not biased and objective. Stupid global warming argument. [/quote]

Try this site by Ole Humlum for quality charts - http://www.climate4you.com/

The 2011 annual summary is up and includes historical charts.

Read his bio page here:
http://www.mn.uio.no/geo/english/people/aca/geogr/olehum/index.html

and

Read his published page here:
http://www.climate4you.com/Text/BIBLIOGRAPHY%20OLE%20HUMLUM.pdf

Cin's predictions are much better reading

I don't predict until April.

I asked a long term local farmer the other day at the pub and he said he would tell me in October.

according to my memory

2008 ok
2004 good but late
2000 fan-bloody-tastic
1996 ok at falls but a disaster at buller
1992 good but late
1988 can't recall so probably average or ok
1984 good but very late (like 2010)
can't recall before that

Well the BOM, for autumn, thinks it will be relatively neutral to wetter (NSW) for rainfall



And cooler than average for autumn



From Autumn outlooks issued today.

Best post so far

If La Nina weakens to a more neutral range (-5 to +5) then we could very well be in for a good season.....Also keep an eye on the SOI for April/May/June - Sandy who I am sure will post something sooner rather than later - if it starts to rapidly fall then that's apparently a good sign?

This guy (Bruce Petersen) uses snow depth cycles and trends, calculated from Snowy Mountains Hydro data, to predict peak snow depth at Spencers Creek:

http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~peterson/snowdepth.pdf

he's predicting (guess-timating?) 205cm.

His record over last couple of years:

2010: predicted 181.2cm; actual 192.5cm

2011: predicted 201.5cm; actual 164.4cm

There's a graph in the article where he gives his predictions and actuals back to 1997.

At least he is honest enough to compare his predictions with actual depth. That graph shows that he has got the approximate pattern if not always the depth, and 2006 defeated him..like everyone else.

lots of warm water off WA if it sticks around for winter could be interesting

[quote=SAL]This guy (Bruce Petersen) uses snow depth cycles and trends, calculated from Snowy Mountains Hydro data, to predict peak snow depth at Spencers Creek:

http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~peterson/snowdepth.pdf

The last paragraph of that report makes some depressing reading. He makes it sound as if the days of season-long, consisent snowfalls are over.

IMO that's bad... tends to cause interesting weather in Perth, which often results in blocking patterns over eastern Aus...

A couple of interesting obs as per this article released on SMH this morning (Yes I know Sydney has nothing to do with the correlation of a good season down south):

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weathe...0229-1u3ic.html

"Sydney has not had a December so cool since 1960. It has not been this wet since 1991."

Yet (as I posted elsewhere), while Melbourne had a far from extreme summer, our minimums were 2 degrees above average and maximums were also above averages.
I wouldn't read too much into it for winter.

Here is something to consider.

Interesting PG that just a cursory glance would suggest the amount of rainfall for the continent appears constant, but in the areas we want rainfall/snow i.e. The Alps its been lowest on record.

Why the half year extra in that time frame? Wouldn't it be better to show full seasonal cycles?

Be interesting to see a rolling 5 (or 10?) year map for each year to see how that pattern changes.

2007-2012?