Bob Chill

Some interesting looks. I'm actually a little confused why snowfall is sparse on both the eps and gefs. Hopefully that picks up soon. I am really liking the d15 height spread. Nearly every one is wintry and has potential. A lot of broad troughs in the mix. Get that going and our odds of snow are well above normal. About half the members have a closed ull of the coast of Socal. Jan 87 redux.

Been using them for at least 5 years. Worth it is subjective. I only sub from late nov through march and for what I use on the site it's worth it. The biggest reason is the massive # of EPS charts and fine detail on the gefs. I love ensmble data. If you don't look at ensemble guidance regularly it's not worth it as Pivotal has high res euro op for free. The biggest attraction for subscription services used to be euro op access but that's free for now,

Took a closer look at the 18z gefs. I suppose there's a longshot chance around NYE. Something to watch as we pass time wearing sunscreen.

Eps keeps trending colder d10-15 but looks pretty dry with limited snow chances. Very weak signal around the 4th-6th. Gefs is similar with things turning dry after we transition to cold around NYE. 18z gefs had a bit more of a signal for potential between the 4th-6th. Right now guidance agrees on the big picture in early Jan and also agrees that snow chances are pretty meager and don't expect much before late in the first week of Jan. Of course this is all subject to change every 12 hours or so

Yea, sure seems to be moving in that direction. Quite a bit of spread on how things evolve in early Jan. So much so that I have no idea where this is all going other than some mid winter cold is prob on the way. How long it lasts and whether or not frozen precip is involved won't be known for 7-10 days. With the way this year has gone I'm expecting some brand new ways to worry are in our future. Lol. Cold/dry is on the list. Lol

9 times out of 10, flipping out of a sh!t pattern and into a colder pattern doesn't include snowfall. Feb 2015 was an exception. We typically need the cold pattern to establish itself for a week or so before chances start popping up. Going off history in these parts based on what I'm seeing now... our first real chance prob won't happpen until after 1/5. Just a total guess but it's how we roll.

One important step that all guidance is showing is splitting unmitigated pac flow sometime between the 26th-28th. I would like to think that part is close to locked in and won't get kicked down the road. That's a very important inflection point.

The gfs op and gefs/eps are all signaling a return to a very amplified but still progressive flow. Wild swings on ops run over run will continue for days. Overall guidance (although turning cold) doesn't look promising for snowfall yet. Gotta crawl walk and run here. Crawl phase appears to end sometime around the 30th. Beyond that? Good luck guessing.

There were signs of things improving in Jan but the west coast trough kept getting pushed out in time. What's unusual is the way we get out of the warmish pattern. It's mostly atlantic driven. We appear to be getting lucky with the ridge in canada creating split flow. We're seeing quite a bit of agreement on that now.

This looks freekin good. I'm good with every member height plot on this panel and it's 15 days out in time. Not a bad one in the bunch. The ones that are warm have winter on the heels. Can't predict snow this far out in time but it def looks like we're getting some cold shots in early Jan.

Here's the mslp anomaly for the last 30 days or so. Confirms my thoughts about a persistent low pressure near the maritimes. I'm good with that continuing through the end of March

There's been a shift towards higher frequency of large/high qpf storms over the last 20 years up and down the east coast. Why it's happening is either random cycles or climate change. People can debate that in a different forum.

There's a parade of closed ULLs tracking through the southwest on all ops right now. Get the atlantic right and keep the parade going and one of them is going to hit us flush. One of the most persistent LW features since mid Nov has been 50/50s. I haven't seen the atlantic look this good since Jan 2011. There's nothing more fun than a classic coastal that hits everyone relatively equally. I liked seeing the Jan 87 analogs showing up on cpc. The only thing more fun than a flush hit coastal is a second one shortly after...

I do like seeing guidance lock in to a return to more favorable conditions before the end of the year. Important step #1 is to not have the 850 0c line north of the great lakes. That should be fixed before 2020. But like with all large pattern flips... they generally don't hit the ground running so patience required (as always....)

Very nice shift on the EPS towards a colder regime beginning just after NYE with a much more defined eastern conus trough in place by Jan 2nd. One of the larger run over run jumps (in the good direction) I've seen recently. ETA: h5 pattern looks good but oddly there isn't much going on in the snowfall dept.

I think all guidance looks the same now in general (including the CMC/GEPS). Ridge in the EPac splits flow and the blocking ridge in Canada forces the northern stream underneath as the Atlantic carves out a 50/50. All models are showing a similar progression with just minor differences in speed/placement of features. The most important thing to root for is the altantic carving out confluence as soon as possible. We'll be in the sweet climo window where normal temps are good enough by the time things improve.

Yea, now we have the big 3 globals looking the same at d10 and all ens support the idea of how/when things turn for the better. The GFS/CMC/Euro have a storm approaching from the SW d8. The Atl can make this happen with well placed confluence. Even with a west track we can do our CAD thing.

D9-10 deal on the euro was pretty close to working out. The atlantic is asserting itself nicely and it's within the realm for it to become a legit threat (of some sort). 0z EPS had a cluster of maybe 12 solutions that had at least a trace of snow. Will be interesting to see if 12z EPS ups the ante. It's probably waaay too fast to expect things to get right before Jan but it is something (the only thing) worth watching over the next 10 days.

The final panel is the best one. Must be pretty strong consensus to have prominent anomalies d16. Overall you can't ask for a better panel for our region as the panel implies a good storm track and plenty of cold. I hope all of Jan looks like this.

Heh... GEFS speeding up the transition in the east a little. 12z is the coldest/best look at the end we've seen yet.

It was an unusual pattern in the sense that we got crushed in the MA but the NE has a very different opinion of that winter period.

CPC superensemble agrees with 2 of the top 4 analogs being Jan 87.

It's encouraging to see the GFS d10-16 looks exactly like current ens guidance and shows how something can work out. The event itself as shown is obviously another fantasy here now gone in 6 hours but the regime is workable. It's going to take some patience but if we do get real split flow with a decent atlantic like the ens are showing then our chances for snowfall will be above normal imho.

Yea, but the mean 850 temp anomaly for the last 10 days is quite impressive so there's that

That wasn't the center of the discussion. Midlevel temps are scorched for the next 10 days with 850s above freezing until sometime after Christmas. Idgaf about surface temps when the 0c 850 line is in Canada. There is no chance for snowfall any time soon. That's what is troubling but hey, if 45-50 degrees on Christmas is a win in your book then great.