ORH_wxman

Yeah there's optimistic snow weenies and pessimistic ones, but they both love snow. I mean, Ji in the mid-atlantic was the biggest snow weenie for years but he was always so cynical until the snow was on his doorstep. I don't think Luke is as cynical as Ji, but just pointing out the directional similarity....you can be pessimistic and still love it.

I'm not getting sucked into decent rates/QPF until the Euro shows it....Euro was a big red flag last system. Doesn't have to mean it will be right this time, but I'd lean that way for now. 1-2 slushy inches near and N of border....coatings for pike region.

I don’t think we should blindly discount a couple super warm days though either…to the point to mocking the idea…that’s parakeets and flamingos if you end up south of that gradient. But I’ve thought for a while that it could be a lot of back and forth…we catch a warm sector (maybe), but mixed with arctic shots and probably some legit threats mixed in too. But anyone saying we’re definitely going to be cold or definitely going to torch at this point is probably full of crap…

Euro does have some overrunning snow/ice (eventually changes to light rain) for Feb 5-6. But it’s not a particularly juiced system.

Let’s lock in Feb 8-9 on Euro.

Euro is very weak sauce. Maybe 1-2” north of the MA border up through central NH. Ends as a coating in the pike region. Flaccid rates mostly.

My first winter back up here near ORH as a very young snow weenie was 1988-89…horrific for snowfall. But it was pretty cold. Awful combo. There were others before that in the ‘80s.

Anytime you see that large area of -20 to -30c 850 temps painted near the Canadian border, I’ve always instinctively bet against any sustained warmups. Yeah, a 65F warm sector in a cutter can def happen in these SE ridge patterns, but that authentically arctic air being so close always seems to find a way back in here fairly quickly. Unfortunately (and you already know this)…that doesn’t mean we’re gonna get a bunch of snow events either. Could just go cold—-> cutter warm sector—->arctic front….rinse and repeat.

Yeah not buying much down here. If we can get one more tick then maybe. I think it will change to snow but not soon enough for good accumulations.

Yeah we pop a western ridge in there which could get something more coastal into the picture versus overrunning/SWFE threats. We’d obviously want to see more support for that.

I see plenty of concerns prior to 2/10 too. That said, I’m def more “bullish” mid and late February than probably most people are.

We’re def getting a monster KU on like March 26th after everyone has thrown in the towel and done with winter.

I remember even as recently as the 2008 ice storm the GFS had low 40s in ORH overnight between the 11th and 12th (the period when most ice accumulated)…it was ghastly. We obviously knew to ignore it back then with the mesos showing differently but it is still funny to think about. It’s def come a long way in resolving CAD.

I don’t think anyone will care regardless if it doesn’t snow. We could get a +2 February but 25” of snow and everyone will say what a great month it was…or it could be a +1 or neutral February with 4” of snow for the month and everyone will say “see? I told you it sucked”

Still seems off because TT is like +1.5 to +2C warmer which is definitely not the difference between those two climo periods.

I don’t think we’ve had any cold up north the last couple winters. Every single time either Canada was completely torched or the cold was well west in Canada with no cold east of Manitoba. That’s the biggest difference I see compared to +4 and +5 Januarys/Februarys of recent years. It still might not work out…but I’m always doing Bruce Willis on big warmth when the cold-loading looks like that.

Did they mention the Global Spectral Model? Or LFM?

First few days of the month were mild too…so that helped bake in some warm departures before we got the several weeks of colder wx. That said, the cold departures definitely underperformed due to lack of radiational cooling. I also think the lack of deep snow cover over a lot of the northeast moderates the temps too…because the H5 height anomalies are like -100dm over us for this month. Can’t really blame it on AGW…maybe a very small component on the rad pits, but even the high temps “under performed” for cold given the upper levels.

To be fair, ORH and BDL are persona non grata if we want unbiased ASOS.

I’m def not fully aligned with tulips and mild wx…we have a deeply -EPO which can produce warm episodes if we wind up to the east of a system…often very warm at that…but I don’t see it sustained at all. The EPO cold-loads Canada so it doesn’t take much to bring arctic air back into here. We get one or two runs where the models flex the SE ridge into Quebec and all of the sudden I’m supposed to believe it? Eh…I’ll believe it when I see it much closer. Again, not talking about a 1 day 60-65F warm sector either…those can happen easily if you cut a system to Detroit or BUF in this pattern. But I’m not throwing in the towel on winter wx the rest of the month…as much as I might want to old-yeller this winter.

11-15 has been very volatile recently. I will also note that a lot of those warm looks have gotten colder as we get closer.

Ironically despite the rhetoric in here, the EPS mean is about as snowy as it’s been all winter out to the end of the run. It’s somewhat high variance as is often the case in a gradient pattern, but it shows that there are likely multiple threats and a decent number of the ensemble members are producing solid snow events in them.

Weeklies keep getting colder for late February too.

Euro is marginal but it’s def cold enough for snow over interior in pike region. It would be pasty but that would likely be several inches. I’m still skeptical of that solution though. Need more continuity.

There’s a couple waves beyond Friday to watch. First one is Sunday but it looks fairly small…but can’t rule out a few inches of WAA snow if it pans out. Second potential might be a bit bigger later next week. These are all isentropic/overrunning/WAA type waves…we’re not talking deep coastal cyclogenesis. But if we can tap into a bit of gulf moisture for the one later next week, it could still be significant. We’ve obviously seen some large overrunning events in the past. This one isn’t currently modeled to be huge but worth keeping an eye on within our sea of uninteresting weather.