ORH_wxman

Xmas Eve had an absolute monster snowstorm in 1961. A lot of central and eastern SNE had over 20” in that one. One of the more underrated KU type storms around here.

A massive rainstorm hit in 1994. Subtropical low. I think there were hurricane force gusts on the coast.

There’s at least some support for that follow-up storm.

Congrats scooter on the 21st Euro.

Never underestimate the CAD over interior CNE.

We’ll be tracking the pressure by the minute at BTV. Someone can start a thread.

Finally busted out of the inversion around noontime. Haven’t had much wind yet though

There’s probably two shots between 12/20-12/26 if we’re trying to read the tea leaves on the ensembles. There’s two distinct ridge spikes that occur…the first one is near 12-20 and then the whole thing retrogrades a bit and a second one occurs around 12/25.

Still 39 here...but 50s really close by

GEFS actually looked good the week of Xmas. Funny part was the EPS previously was the one looking the best now it’s the GEFS. EPS doesn’t look bad, just not as good as it did. There’s actually a decent shot at something between about 12/21-12/22 and 12/26 looking at the position of the mean longwaves. The western ridge retrogrades after the 12/21-22 “threat”, which would open up some room to get an additional system within a few days after.

00z yin-yang. 12z guidance seems to be more optimistic the last couple days while 00z looks ugly. Most of the ugliness so there’s no real antecedent airmass for the pre-Xmas threat.

Let’s get a 2017 Xmas out of that trough.

It used to be more optimistic in here circa 7-10 years ago. We need a solid stretch and it will become so again. We have lots of mentally weak spoiled weenies here who can’t believe we’re taking it on the chin after out-performing our snowfall climo by like 50% over a 15 year period.

EPS has a signal for Dec 21-22…it’s weak but it’s definitely there. Can’t really say much more when you are 11-12 days out. So much can change even in the longwave pattern.

I do think there is room to try for an event in that 12/20-12/22 period or so. @Typhoon Tip laid out the larger scale argument already…there’s probably going to be some decent antecedent cold available. Just a question of getting a shortwave to dive into the mean trough and amplify. EPS looks better than GFS suite on this but both offer some support.

This has been our mean pattern since 2016…obviously there’s a couple of good winters in there but that pattern is pretty familiar at this point. The flat Aleutian ridge with some poorly placed weakness in the Bering/WPO region and the western troughing of course. When the mean ridge anomaly in the east is on top of our head, it’s gonna be tough sledding

Some argue that CC has changed the large scale pattern to a “new normal” where we are like 3-5F warmer than the 1991-2020 baseline winters. I don’t personally buy that theory but if you torch for 8 out of 10 winters then you might start wondering. We’ve had pretty warm stretches before compared to climo (late 40s/early 50s was somewhat similar…big western troughs many of those years too until it flipped in the mid-1950s) You def notice it in the “tail distributions” too and not just marginal setups. For example, an extreme pattern that used to produce 60-65F in February might produce 70F now even though in the means we haven’t had 8 degrees of warming. But yeah, overall, December is a month you get a decent number of cutters anyway. Esp the first half of the month. Our big problem going forward isn’t cutters per se, it’s a positive WPO and expanding Aleutian low that is interfering with the flow in a negative way. The Aleutian low almost becomes a GOA low for a time which rolls the sharp PNA ridge over itself after about 12/22 and warms up the CONUS until the low retrogrades back west (which would prob be closer to the end of the month.) Guidance has been very volatile though on this. Even the 12/19-12/22 period is a lot colder now than a couple days ago on EPS.

You might be far enough west to not get wiped out. Does Stowe village hold CAD well? Not familiar with the CAD microclimate there. Track of low make it so you prob don’t spend much time at all in the true warm sector. Maybe none of your location CAD’s well.

A lot of it is for clicks. You keep the hype and the bait up and you’ll get clicks. I do think there is potential to get something in the 12/20-12/25 range but it’s far from a huge signal or lock. It isn’t clear how amped the western ridge is going to be. You see something like the OP Euro go bonkers with the ridge and then look at the EPS and it’s trying to roll it over which usually is bad for us. Guidance isn’t quite sure what to do with the Aleutian low right now. Some guidance tries to push it east a bit during that 12/20-12/25 period (acting more like a defacto GOA low) which actually would force the PNA ridge to roll over and warm us up and limit big storm potential at the same time…then it retrogrades and we go cold/stormy later on deeper into the future. Other guidance at times has not moved it as far east and keeps the PNA ridge building up and would likely produce a colder week leading into Xmas and better chances for a winter storm.

I wasn’t in Ayer but I was in ORH for it and we got 18”. Not quite the jackpot but close enough. We got 6” per hour at the peak.

Yeah your area is basically a lock for it I think.

Correct. Tonight is mainly north of rt 2. But as the mesolow passes by us overnight, it is going to tuck the sfc cold back south into MA. I think anyone from NE MA outside of 128 into central MA needs to pay attention. Could get quite icy…assuming we drop temps into that 30-31F range and not 32-33F. Some of the guidance has upper 20s in NE MA and in that Rt 3 corridor near ASH to Billerica.

There could be a big problem with FZDZ over much of the interior (esp pike northward) tomorrow and into tomorrow evening. Big cold tuck showing up on guidance. The question is how far below freezing it drops. There’s a decent difference between 31.5F and 29F

Yeah makes a big difference for NW New England. VT never warm sectors and dendrite-land maybe for only 3-5 hours. Diminishes winds too except out in eastern half of SNE they are still ripping.

I don’t think the tuck will directly affect wind potential. The tuck happens well before any wind event. The winds will be almost totally dependent on the main sfc low track and strength…a weaker low traveling almost overhead will keep winds to a min while a very strong low further west will cause them to rip.