CAPE

The 2 snow events and 10 days of solid winter in Jan- which was pretty much the whole winter- was nice. Otherwise, drought.

Not really a crap pattern, just not especially cold. With a big trough over eastern Canada and an EPO ridge, cold air will be lurking close by next week. There will also be some energy coming east from the trough out west, and possibly interacting with a little southern energy moving NE from the western Gulf.

Looks cold enough on WB at the surface and 850 for snow for almost all of VA, MD and DE for both waves.

For the chance around the 6-7th the 6z GFS has some energy in the flow underneath the western trough moving eastward and combining with southern energy ejecting northward from the upper low over southeast Texas. Nice wall of chilly HP to the north in the convergence/confluence zone associated with the NS vorticity.

The 0z GEFS and EPS are still hinting at a little something in the Feb 6-10 window.

The mean is fine. Much more useful in the LR as all of us here know by now.

In the case of the ECMWF the control is the deterministic. The post you replied to was intended be a more general explanation of how a control run is used in an ensemble system. Point stands though. The control/deterministic by itself with a single set of initial conditions integrated over 15 (or 46) days provides one possible outcome without accounting for uncertainty in the IC.

Snow and ice slowly melting on my stone driveway in areas that that don't get much sun, combined with some thawing but still frozen ground underneath, is making a rutty mess. All despite being in a severe drought here lol. Winter is just different.

We all rely on guidance mostly, and frankly it's all subject to change esp beyond day 10. Things that were 'supposed' to occur at one point, a few days later might look quite different, more so when we are clearly moving out of what was a sustained pattern to something else. Models sometimes struggle with where exactly it goes going forward. In this case the volatility its mostly related to uncertainty with Nina induced forcing in the tropics. This sort of thing causes the mood in the LR thread to often resemble a sine wave lol.

Still normal to below normal surface temps there, and op and ens guidance are currently hinting at some wintry potential in the 6-10th window. Ultimately maybe the pattern goes to crap around D15, but something good might happen just before that.

The Control in an ensemble serves as an unperturbed 'reference' for the perturbed members. It really has no more value by itself than any other single member.

Not sure why you post control runs. In the case of the extended product, it is 1 of 101 members in the ensemble. Why would it have any value at all over a 46 day period by itself?

At 12 days out, there is a pretty decent chance the outcome on the 12z Euro isn't correct. I just don't think that has much to do with the 12z GEFS going apeshit with the -PNA or SER.

EPS hasn't looked that way. One might be more correct than the other. Wonder which one?

WB keeps getting suckier. Precip maps come out way ahead of 500 mb or p-type. Still sitting at hour 156 at h5 on the 12z Euro.

6z and 12z GFS both have a wave around the 10th with some frozen. Weakish though. 12z Euro-

I don't care for it much in Summer either.

GFS was trying there too.

That was a pretty active run. A couple close calls.

Meanwhile the Euro/EPS have a mild juicy rainstorm cranking in the middle of the country on the 7th with a low tracking towards the GLs.

Something like that. Verbatim probably mostly/all snow for N MD.

Yeah it looks juicy.

Looks like a Miller B

Yeah at that point it would be a thread the needle deal to get frozen into most of our region. 6z GFS has something in that timeframe as well but frozen is to our north. The following wave around the 10th looks interesting, but way the hell out there.