George001

Realistically I could get anything from rain to a couple inches of fluff to 12-18 inches of snow. Not too common to see that wide a range of possible outcomes this close in.

I’d be surprised if I see less than 6. 10:1 snow maps tend to be underdone in these setups.

The low location is 200+ miles NW of where it was being modeled 2 days ago on the GFS. Fast flow patterns are really tough on the models.

I like this setup, yeah you aren’t getting a huge blizzard here but this is a COLD airmass. I love the look on the 6z gfs, around a ~1000mb low near the benchmark with frigid upper levels and surface temps in the mid 20s at the height of the storm. It’s a similar setup to the storm 2 weeks before the huge blizzard in Jan 2022.

So it looks like we have the Navy on board for the day 7 threat. This is a big deal, as other guidance is more weak and strung out. Navgem rule says to watch out as the SE biased Navy being this amped is a red flag…

Yep, the NAVGEM rule is that when the Navy isn’t the farthest SE of all guidance, that’s a red flag the other guidance is too far SE. I wouldn’t ignore the Navy here.

Horrible

A common theme in modoki la Nina’s is the storm track shifts north in Feb and Mar. Usually that’s not good for the east because it means rain. However, this year has been both colder and has a MUCH farther south storm track than a typical modoki Nina. So the cold shifting more west with the storm track shifting NW come Feb-Mar may not be such a bad thing snow wise. Also depends on what the MJO does. Yeah, If it goes into the null phases after 2-3 that would help us out a lot. Avoiding phases 4-6 is the key. Feb is a tough call, looks more stormy on the long range guidance but temps are a big question mark. It will likely be warmer than Jan, but there is a huge difference between normal or even slightly above normal and a +5 torch. That could easily be the difference between big snows and no snow.

Yep, the snowy -EPO dominant patterns with little to no blocking like Feb 2015 had the western ridge axis centered near Montana. The pattern advertised on long range guidance near the Jan 20th period is different because the western ridge axis is off the west coast. My read on the advertised pattern is it’s a cold pattern, but not a snowy one for coastal areas since the pattern favors lows running inland and warm sectoring us. Definitely looks more like 18-19 than 14-15, classic cold warm up rain, then cold again pattern. Not going to get a classic east coast nor’easter with that look for sure, but hopefully we can score some swfe type systems.

Definitely not impossible to recover and salvage average snowfall, but at this point the probability is higher that we finish with a below average snow season than an above average one. The issue is many areas are a foot or more BN and the long range looks fairly dry. I don’t like that we are approaching mid Jan in a modoki La Niña (which are usually frontloaded) with barely any snow. I was optimistic a month ago, but whiffing on both the 1/6 and 1/11 threats isn't good. Oh well, it sucks but it is what it is. Hopefully I am wrong and we get buried in the second half of winter. Regardless, at least its been cold enough for the ski resorts to make snow.

Rain?

Blocking is gone. Good

The next window is 1/19-21. Although the antecedent airmass is good, I am not optimistic about this setup and would pump the breaks here. Why? https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/eps/2025010800/eps_z500a_namer_45.png 1. The western ridge axis is a lot more west than ideal. Classic east coast cyclogenesis setups have that ridge centered over Montana, not south of Alaska. 2. The trough is positively tilted with energy getting buried in the SW again. This raises concerns about missed phasing. I suppose an SWFE type system is possible, but there isn’t a lot of room for error here. It’s more of a thread the needle type setup, if you phase too early (if there is a phase, it would likely be west of where we want it), the storm cuts and it’s a Midwest blizzard while we rain. If you don’t phase, it gets shunted south and we get nothing.

What im hoping is that when we do transition to a -PNA pattern the storm track shifts north and we get hammered. That is a possibility, but it also could easily shift more north than we want and be congrats NNE. If it is congrats NNE while Massachusetts rains, probably looking at a ratter.

Realistically the path to a near average to average snow winter this year (above average is unlikely at this point) is for us to be on the right side of the gradient when we transition to a -PNA in late Jan into Feb, and then to get lucky and get a monster blizzard in March. The pattern we have been in since early December has not panned out snow wise, storms are being shunted south while we are left cold and dry in Massachusetts. It sucks, but I do feel like I learned something from this. Trust your gut and zoom out, there was reason to be skeptical of the 1/11-12 threat. The western ridge axis was never ideal. It was about 300 miles west of where you want for east coast cyclogenesis AND was oriented SW to NE rather than north-south. I focused too much on the former, so I thought we were looking at a March 2017/Feb 2021 repeat with coastal ptype issues but an interior blizzard (would have been a much better outcome than this). I overlooked the orientation of the western ridge axis, leading me to discount the weak sauce OTS Euro runs. I won’t make that mistake again. Yes the Euro buries energy out west too much sometimes, but ignoring the Euro inside 5 days once it locks in on a solution for several cycles isn’t the best idea.