George001

Light snow isn’t really a big deal for commute, the bigger worry is the ice.

Yep, this is why I disagree with the idea that the best period will be later in the month or even early March. It could happen, but the ensembles are lit up for the next couple weeks and peak climo is the last week of Jan and the first 2 weeks of Feb.

Often these SSWs don’t pan out as advertised for the east. Everything has to go right, the cold air goes to this side of the globe, it doesn’t split right on top of us leading to suppression, etc. At least for my area I would not be surprised at all if the next 2 weeks are the snowiest period of the winter, and it has absolutely nothing to do with any SSW or blocking. I’m pretty sure the NAO is supposed to be positive most of this coming period.

There is a good chance the next 2 weeks are the snowiest period of the winter for better or worse

Yeah, that photo of the 934mb low cropped in was taken about a month or so ago I believe, wasn’t there one run that had a solution like that for the 1/11-1/12 threat?

Looks icy for the first threat

Same here, but it’s good to see something in the mid range. Worth keeping an eye on, but need the Euro to jump on board soon. Euro has been doing pretty good recently. It did good with the clipper, had it going north while the gfs had it going under us and giving us 5-6 inches of snow. Euro was also more north for the storm happening now, and it was right again. If the Euro is way north again, that would be very concerning.

The gfs shows how we score in these patterns. You aren’t getting big storms in this pattern, its multiple minor storms. But if you are on the right side of the gradient they can add up quick.

Yeah, looks like more fast flow garbage to me. I’m sick of the fast zonal flow, hard to get huge storms in that pattern. I wouldn’t say no to smaller storms, but it’s hard to get excited about a pattern that doesn’t have that monster blizzard upside.

We will have our chances but I have a few concerns with this pattern. 1. The orientation of the western ridge is SW to NE, not north-south. 2. The western ridge axis is too far west 3. The troughing over the central US is broad, and there are very high heights over the SE. This doesn’t look like an amplified pattern.

im glad to see the realistic posts about where we are at this winter and how things look, rather than the whole “oh just wait until Feb 10th” or even the whole “Wait until late Feb-early Mar, SSW will save us” bullshit. When you are kicking the can 10+ days during what is supposed to be PEAK SNOW CLIMO, thats a ratter.

Yeah this La Niña developed very differently than recent ones. Still feel the ENSO state for next winter is up in the air, I’m not really sold on an El Niño yet. Multi year cold ENSO periods immediately followed 6/9 of the last strong or super ninos, with 3 of those being the 15-16, 09-10 and 97-98 El Niños.

Also, good winters like 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 by this point in winter already had at least one major storm

It’s never a good sign when you are looking to the long range during peak snow climo. Some of the other boards im on I am seeing a lot of 300+ hour maps being posted, in my opinion that means winter is cooked. In a normal winter we would be consistently tracking 1-2 threats inside 7 days late Jan-the first half of Feb.

Ouch, that’s a big whiff.

Yeah can’t really argue with that, the NWS and none of the TV mets bought it. My weather app was saying 5-6 inches of snow for me starting from 3 days out and stayed in that range. Well, the gfs is doing it again giving my area 2 feet of snow a week out and this time I’m not buying it.

I’ll believe it when I see the snow falling. This keeps happening, the models show big snows a week out and then the rug pull happens in the short range. Can’t even trust it even 1 day out, the gfs and euro had me getting a fairly significant storm last time and I only got a minor snowfall.

Agree that it’s a good ice storm setup. The 12z eps for Feb 2nd during the first part of the storm has surface temps in the 20s and the 850s are +4-5C AN

Another thing I noticed looking at the snow records is that snowfall outside of winter used to be more common. In the late 1800s, there was a 10 year stretch where Boston recorded an inch or more of snow in November 5 years. Boston apparently recorded 17.8 inches of snow in November of 1898, and the previous November had 8.1 inches. That is mind blowing to me, a rarity back then, likely impossible now.

I thought I understood what Tip was talking about in terms of the human psychology and many forms of climate change denial, from full blown brain damage levels of denial to simply underestimating its reach, but I didn’t. I think it finally clicked for me, the whole false narrative about how cold this winter has been…. one that I fell into myself, relying on my senses rather than the actual facts, that IS a form of soft denial. When it’s super obvious like hitting 80 degrees in Feb, that’s a different story. But cold snaps being a little less cold over time, warm stretches being a little longer….. all these little things. Our senses don’t detect them. I don’t know if it’s our subconscious not wanting to face the reality of HOW fucked we are or something else, but it’s clear that there is some kind of bias rooted in human nature that leads to society as a whole underestimating climate change. I’m disappointed in myself for allowing myself to succumb to climate change denial of ANY form. I should know better, we all should. The narrative about how frigid this winter has been, it’s all a lie. The comparisons to 13-14, that’s bullshit too.

This is a good reminder that as “cold” as this winter has been, it really has only been slightly BN. AGW has skewed our perspective, a slightly below normal winter feels like we entered the ice box because it’s been so fucking warm the past decade. I’m guilty of this myself, having referred to December as a cold month and January as “frigid”. Our senses may lie, but the data doesn’t. Our climate is changing right under our noses and we just sort of adjust to it, it becomes the new normal. Really, it puts things in perspective the extent climate change has progressed.

It really has been awful. Northern energy doesn’t dig as much as it used to.

This is what bothers me more than anything. You can make up a snow deficit very quickly with the right pattern in late January into mid Feb. But in good winters we are consistently tracking 1-2 threats inside 7 days during the late Jan-mid Feb period. If we are looking to the long range for hope in late Jan, no way around it that is bad news. 1 clipper threat and nothing else over the next 10 days doesn’t really move the needle.

This is killing us in New England too. Unlike areas farther south, we need more than just one big storm to get to average snowfall. Actually, the lack of clippers has been a problem for a while and has been getting worse and worse over the years.

I get it, I did the same last winter. If you are already checking out I take it you aren’t buying the optimism for this upcoming pattern. I still track even when things look objectively bad because I’m a huge weenie, but if things don’t get better I’ll likely end my winter tracking a month early (usually track until early April). It does get old chasing ghost after ghost with nothing to show for it, even for me. Personally I am of the opinion we had our HECS window 1/11-1/12, and whiffed.