ORH_wxman

NNE had a nice series of storms during that stretch. Northern part of SNE cashed in a bit too. Down in the pike region we only got the 1/23 happy ending for anything shovelable (had 5.3” here)…but once you got into CT/RI there wasn’t much. Maybe a couple inches for some areas in that one and not much else.

There’s def been a subtle trend colder in the lower levels for 2/23. Midlevels have been sort of static. Maybe a slight tick cooler as we’ve seen a little more snow/sleet solutions to start down here. Probably in terms of “high impact” threats, this one will have to be watched really closely for cold tuck in eastern zones. They don’t pan out all the time, but we’ve seen a couple or three in the last 5 or 6 years where it goes flash freeze…and there’s a risk in this one too. A place like BOS could get a couple inches of snow/sleet on the front end before 36F rain but then crash to 27F in a span of 1-2 hours…with precip not totally shut off yet. That’s dangerous…so even a 1 in 4 chance of that happening is worth watching.

Lot of guidance is showing that cold tuck draining into the interior. Gonna have to watch that because if you get one of those barrier jets developing all the way up to like 950 or even 925, it can go pretty far southwest.

Ukie was a nice snow thump for pike region. GGEM was a pelletfest

Tblizz just threw his phone out of the car

Biggest barrier for many moving to NNE (who want to) is economic opportunity. Esp outside of the hubs like PWM/BTV and maybe you could include some of the southern NH towns like ASH/MHT/PSM. Though the increase in remote work maybe be helping some for those who want a new landscape. But remote work is very white collar so that isn’t an opportunity for everyone. But it still holds true that many just hate the cold up there too…lol. I def wouldn’t mind but so many other people I know who go up there to ski or vacation in the summer are always like “winters are too damned cold up here…I couldn’t live full time here”. I’d prob live in Rangeley in a bachelor pad if I wasn’t married.

There is definitely a brand of poster who cares more about being “first” or “calling it” from a long ways out more than just looking at data and formulating a changing hypothesis from it. Usually those types of posters end up looking silly in the long run though because they will be more resistant to change if the data starts going the other way out of fear of “looking wrong”….honestly, most people don’t give a shit if someone is “wrong” about a 10-15 day prog.

At least we had some 70s that month too. The worst would be like a march 2014. Frigid but mostly cold rain when the precip does come.

Absolutely pounding sleet here

BOS average temp for January is around 29.5-30F or so. So it would take another 3 decades of warming to get them over 32F average on current trends. If it speeds up, maybe they could pull it off in 2 decades. February is actually still below 32F average too but only by a little.

That transient ridging in the Rockies showing up around Feb 28-Mar 1 is pretty good to see. Some may recall that’s a date that has been showing up in clown range…but seeing some larger scale support in the longwave pattern for something on the ensemble mean is always a positive. If we’re gonna try and sneak in a larger event (like double digits), then that is what you’ll need…some transient ridging out there with the 50/50 minimum in place, a shortwave enters …and boom. Hopefully we’re still talking about it next week.

The biggest problem is normal people hate the cold winters in NNE. Only sickos like us love it. So when you try to convince significant others to move there, you are starting from a disadvantage.

At least ski country is looking safer. Would suck for them to get a rainer during vacation week.

Euro was kind of close but it was too cold in the low levels for ice. The cold layer was too thick so it would prob pound sleet at 20 degrees most of the storm. But can’t rule out an icier solution in the future.

I’d take it if we can get 3 or 4 inches on the front end. Then sleet and ZR on top to solidify the pack for the next threats….I’d like a couple weeks of wintry appeal at least if we’re not gonna be able to cook up a big dog.

2/25-26 has been showing up quite a bit too on several different runs. Seems like from ensemble guidance, aside from 2/23, there are likely chances around 2/25-26 and 2/28-3/1

At least this is forming in a classic manner…when we get big UK/Scandi ridge retrograding into an NAO block, it is more believable than other evolutions. Sometimes we’ll get duped by shallower wave-breaking events in the North Atlantic or Labrador and they seem to fall apart easier in guidance. Hopefully this one is real.

Euro is able to ooze down the arctic airmass a bit which produces a much colder outcome. It’s really cold in the low levels. It has upper teens and low 20s over the interior of SNE during sleet.

Euro and Ukie trying suck people back in for 2/23. Euro is a pretty big sleet bomb (n of pike does get a bit of a thump prior)

Euro is trying to give a little snow north of the pike for the front-runner wave on 2/21.

If we retrograde the block into the western domain, it would prob force the SE ridge to retrograde some…there will be two opposing forces there…hard to say which one would win but on that loop it clearly retros the se ridge.

Yeah nobody should count on it being right…but if your looking for optimism, I can’t remember the last time we got a lot of weenie GFS runs before the last few days. Probably have to go back to early December at the beginning of that blocking period. It’s a sign that the pattern is more favorable than it was…but still keep caution flags up for all the reasons we’ve already discussed.

It was still a pretty weenie-ish run. Two decent sized snow events and a close miss on 2/23 (lots of sleet for SNE)