ORH_wxman

Last December never looked that good down there. Models did have a big NAO block but marginal cold so it would’ve been a heavy lift south of NE if it did materialize. This is different type pattern with a huge arctic dump into CONUS but in the west…more akin to Xmas week 2022 though still a few differences from that one too.

Gonna be tough to snow SE of 84 and E of 495 in this one.

At least we have cross polar flow so it’s arctic air not too far away. Still doesn’t help us a ton though if we start digging troughs into Baja and SCal. Hopefully guidance is a little too aggressive otherwise we’re prob cooked for at least a week.

I think we just focus on bad outcomes a lot more nowadays. Def didn’t used to be like that. Even years like Dec 2008 where we got a big -EPO western trough, we’d track the goodies and then bitch a little about the Xmas Eve cutter but then jumped right back on the horse. It def helps when you are getting good events mixed in. When you squander the favorable part of the pattern it prob causes everyone to focus on the negatives…which is how it has been the last few years. Partly bexause we had so few favorable patterns.

Prob 2-4” outside of 495…and esp with some elevation.

It’s when the western trough digs really deep underneath the EPO ridge.

Fwiw I just deleted like 20+ posts. We have the whining/banter thread pinned so no real excuse on not using it.

NAO blocking feels unlikely given how strong the PV is. But what frequently happens when you have an AK ridge that poleward is the eastern ridge becomes flatter with time. So you end up with a gradient pattern with a lot of cold spilling over the top.

AK ridge never really truly goes away. It reloads a bit west but this is very poleward so caution flags for the all-torch-all-the-time crowd despite New England looking warm on this prog…there’s certain types of patterns where it’s easier for torches on models here to underperform and this is one of them.

Here’s EPS. Despite OP run showing nada, there’s def a weak signal for a system around that same time the GFS is showing one…if we can tighten up that northern stream just a bit then we have something

If there’s a type of pattern where modeled warm spells could actually underachieve here for a change, it’s that type of look in the N PAC. I still expect some mild days but perhaps it won’t be these week-long 45-55F type patterns we’ve seen a lot of in the past two winters. If you’re keeping legit cold nearby, you hopefully tap back into fairly quickly when you get a mild spell.

Brutal. I experienced a smaller version of that in Ithaca during college. Places maybe 20 miles north in Cortland county would get into this decent bands on NW multi-band flow…while not quite as organized as those single band events, they would often get some of the meatier bands within the event and get 10-15” while we were dinking and dunking for 3” or something. But unlike IAG, at least sometimes we’d get the right flow and get a single band down the finger lake of Cayuga…and when that happened, it was like real lake effect. We’d go total whiteout and get 4” per hour type stuff. Usually didn’t last too long in that flow but it didn’t have to when you snow that hard. @OceanStWx can attest. It was often frustrating but def not as bad as IAG. IAG might be in the worst spot for snow within 75 miles. You might have to go well southeast to a snow hole like Elmira before getting into worse snowfall territory.

Yeah far N Canada above average is fine. It’s when southern Canada gets furnaced is when we have issues. That’s our source region which is why we’re frequently torched when they are.

18z euro was a bit sharper with shortwave. Trend that a little more and could sneak some 3”+ amounts. I’d want to see it trend a bit more though.

Weeklies looked pretty good at least. With that WPO/EPO ridging and no sign of consistent west coast troughing, we might see relaxations fairly short lived. We’ll see though…we’re always on edge when even a transient west coast trough hits these days.

GEFS and EPS both warming us up mid-month for sure. I do like that the EPO/WPO ridging is maintaining though so that often limits the duration of warmups. As for before that…after the clipper, I think the best shot is more like 12/8ish. That look on GFS seems a lot better than the later 12/10 look on both Euro and GFS but given how far out 12/10 is, not gonna get too definitive there. Could easily look better in a span of a couple runs.

MJO wave looks pretty weak once past the second week of December on most progs…we’ll see if it stays that way but I’d suspect it isn’t the primary pattern driver by that point if it verifies that weak.

EPS has a pretty large ridge spike out west around 12/9-12/10. The only issue is that it doesn’t have to be snow if you phase too much crap to the west. That’s what the OP run did…granted it’s day 10-11 by the time the storm hits. GFS is def focusing on the shortwave a couple days earlier trying to bring something for 12/8.

Didn’t look as good as 12z but it wasn’t that different. Shortwave wasn’t quite as sharp.

Euro really blows up that clipper on 12/5 in gulf of maine. It’s a few inches for most of SNE but if that digs just a bit more it could be something more significant.

Let's see if we can trend this clipper a little juicier for next week....then I'll worry about mid-month relaxations. Euro and GFS trying to pop it a little bit late as it exits eastward....so might be something to watch.

I don’t take them seriously either way. So it’s not really an interesting detail to parse to me. But I’ve def heard the SV maps have a reputation for being overdone. But then again, 10 to 1 is often overdone for various reasons too whether models overdo QPF or snow growth is bad or temps are marginal. Sometimes they’re underdone on occasion when snow growth is good.

Hence why we call them clown maps and clown range.

If someone offered us 8-10” of snow between now and 12/12, I think most of us would take it in SNE. There was prob a time I’d rather roll the dice, but not now. NNE a different story since many will get warning snowfall tomorrow.

GFS almost pulls a 1/27/15 in clown range. But the longwave pattern is somewhat similar to the 2015 pattern with the trough axis extending from Quebec down through New England and a huge western ridge axis sitting over Idaho/Washington/Oregon. I don’t know if we’re going to get a good snowstorm or not but I’ll be very surprised if there aren’t several legit chances that show up on guidance.