The Iceman

While it's encouraging to see the looks in the long range progress, I want to see it get into the day 5 range and see what the long range looks like then. For all we know, this pattern change could last a week or two and shift back into where we are now. While that's still better than wall to wall pac puke pattern, I'm still skeptical we are in for a backloaded winter. I think it's more likely is a a 1-2 week window where we will have chances to score then we go through the cycle again especially with Nina climo in February.

7"? You did well that winter. I had 1.5". PHL had .3"

Gfs doesn’t even have the 2nd storm. This is going to be the time where it actually leads the way despite being a dumpster fire all season long in the mid range.

Too warm for an overnight event with a weak low passing south of us during what should be the coldest time of the year. Our climate truly is broken.

Its way too early to cancel winter but I will say it’s pretty eerie how similar this winter is playing out like 2019-2020. Got cold in December but didn’t have the storm tracks so we were warm/wet then cool/dry. PAC air flooded the continent by the end of December into January and we had a lucky c-2” event at the beginning of January then nothing else. Now we have a c-2” event Sunday and nothing on the horizon. Pattern changes were teased in long range for weeks on end but never materialized until mid-late March. We have the models showing hope again now for late month with a workable pattern but given the large scale changes we see in the day 7-10 range right now, it’s impossible to have confidence beyond that. Hopefully things play out better than 19-20 we also got incredibly unlucky a few times that season but the similarities thus far are striking imo.

12z euro for the 14th system is uglyyyyy. night and day from the GFS/CMC. Looks like it's going to be a straight cutter west of chicago. Probably going to lead the charge again like it did for the Christmas system sadly. Still wants nothing to do with the sunday/monday light event too. True Dr.No style.

The problem is that there's just not enough cold air in place nor is there a source to tap into as you said above. Outside of a thread the needle situation or full phase/manufactured cold, this one is going to struggle to snow in SE PA unless we see some big changes to the airmass in the coming days.

The CMC has the low 50 miles off the delmarva and it's still mostly rain SE PA.

Sunday night event is GFS/ICON vs everyone else. Not a good camp to be in. Probably another trace event.

That's a nice 3-6" event...of rain It honestly reminds me of the feb 2021 storm that lingered for days and days except with no cold air this time.

That's what Sunday's event SHOULD be but the airmass just isn't cold enough. It's pretty unbelievable that we have precip type issues in what should be our coldest climo with a good storm track and it falling overnight. This would be an easy WWA event in most winter's but as is we are going to be lucky to see a C-1" ending as light rain... Even in crappy winters, we used to be able to score minor events in these kind of set ups.

What do you mean, everyone knows the ensembles have 100% accuracy from 15 days out when it shows a dumpster fire for snow in the east. They only flip flop when it shows a solid pattern. Weenie Handbook pg. 26.

Looking like threat 3 in the long range is our last hope for awhile. Maybe we can pull off the one HECS then winter over like 2016? Similar to 2016 it’s been showing up consistently on the OPs and ensembles from a long way out. It’s a brief favorable window before the pattern goes back to hell. Maybe we get lucky again? Right now it looks like the pattern leans towards suppression and though that hasn’t been an issue this winter, it’s typical in Nina’s that you are sandwiched between cutters and suppressed. Im not all in on this threat yet but it’s definitely our best look of the winter so far. If that one fails though we are almost certainly looking at futility through at least the end of January. We can’t possibly have 2 all-time snowless winters in a 4 year period can we? Since its 3rd and 30, hopefully Mother Nature has Gannon as the d coordinator….

Up to 65 here now for the high. Wiggum Rule in effect

I haven't, I'm hoping we get a 1-3" "surprise" from at least one of them. Euro wants nothing to do with either of them though at 12z... Threat in the long range is basically noise to me at this point, lets see how it looks once we get into the mid range. A precarious set up that may lead to a SECS isn't something to be overly excited over at day 10. We've seen much better set ups this winter basically go to complete shit. In a progressive flow like we are in, there's almost no shot the models are nailing that set up 10 days out. Something to keep an eye on but I'd much rather focus on getting on the board for now and there's 2 threats in the mid range with that potential albeit minor. 1-3" will feel like 6-12" after the winter we've had so far...

OT but was looking out west at some of the snow forecasts, this one at Mt. Shasta is wild! 73 to 95" of snow with gusts up to 115 MPH over 36 hours. Imagine witnessing that, basically a snowicane Today Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 20. Wind chill values as low as -16. Windy, with a south wind 60 to 70 mph increasing to 75 to 85 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 115 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 19 to 25 inches possible. Tonight Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 12. Wind chill values as low as -15. Windy, with a south wind 80 to 90 mph increasing to 90 to 100 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 115 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 37 to 43 inches possible. Thursday Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Temperature falling to around 12 by 3pm. Wind chill values as low as -17. Windy, with a south wind 80 to 90 mph decreasing to 70 to 80 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 115 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 19 to 25 inches possible.

I will say it's pretty encouraging that the mid range has 2-3 legit threats for measurable snow. None are perfect threats and all are looking fairly minor, but I'd be fairly surprised at this point if none of them bring measurable snow. They look messy, ie rain to snow or snow to rain, but I'm growing more confident that we at least see a 1-3"er in there so we at least will be over a trace on the season hopefully...

Ridge in the west showing up a few days ago looks to have been a mirage. All major ensembles showing the trough out there through 384. January looking more and more like a punt month. Hopefully we score a measurable light snowfall with those shortwaves next week because after that looks like it’s time to close the blinds again.

I mean our climo naturally doesn’t give us sustained winters other than rare exceptions but if you look at the last 5 years I can understand the sentiment… 17-18 was a well above normal snowfall year but 3/4 of it fell in those 2 big events in March. Most of prime winter was spent in agony waiting for a pattern change. Plus I feel like most of the general public does not remember March snows because they are gone in 2 days. 18-19 was around normal snow but most of it fell in one-two events with one in March I believe. 19-20 was an all time snowless winter. 20-21 was largely a 2-3 week winter capped by the monster storm in February. Last winters snowfalls were almost exclusively rain to snow or snow to rain events that we nickel and dimed but none had much staying power. So in the last 5 years we’ve really had 1 winter with multiple weeks of snowpack(20-21). I can understand the sentiment of “it doesn’t really snow anymore” because when it does snow of late it rarely sticks around longer than a few days because either the pattern changes, it changes over mid event, or it’s March. There hasn’t been a real sustained winter since 14-15. And when you compare the 5-6 year period from 09-15, the good winters from that had much more staying power and multiple snow events in actual winter.

Alright Ralph I’ll bite. The looks advertised on both the GEFS and EPS after day 11 look solid. And should get us favorable storm tracks. However still concerned about temps. GEFS has cold building and leaking into the lower 48 by the end of the run but EPS still doesn’t show a great air source. Combine that with warm ocean temps and I think 95 will have precip type issues even if we get good storm tracks. But still a more wintry look than wet. A lot better than these next 7 days at least. Have a happy new year! let’s hope the look holds the next 5 days.

12z GFS:

500 MB isn't going to save us from the continent being flooded with PAC air

Looks great:

long range on the GEFS and EPS look awful. Ridge reloads after the 6-9th and we torch again. So one thread the needle event(90% fail) then more torching. Still time for changes but the magic pattern flip at mid month is looking to be in trouble...

Not being a downer but I’m not really seeing a great pattern being set up mid month right now at least on the ensembles. Better than the first 2 weeks of Jan? Sure, but that pattern looks pretty marginal mid month as opposed to close the blinds like this week+ as there just isn’t a ton of cold to work with. We are going to need to reload on that front to at least seasonable cold. Also, statistically there has only been 1 Nina at PHL with under 2” in December that finished above normal. Nina’s with under an inch in December, there’s only 2 that finished around normal(18.2” 1999-2000) and 18.3” (2008-09). I don’t think we get skunked this winter completely like 2019-2020 but I still think the scales are leaning towards below normal snowfall at least along 95.