Bob Chill

Exactly. The euro solution verbatim is a toaster bath scenario with cold escaping before precip but the progression/track prior keeps the door wide open. The timing of the weak southern shortwave is far from nailed down. Heck, the existence itself of said shortwave isn't nailed down.

Whether it's a hit or not, the timing of the HP and shortwave progression is very good. Gives plenty of wiggle room for a weaker/further north HP placement.

GEFS seems equally spread out between amped/rain, mixed, or mostly snow from what I can tell. It hard to capture spread with a single time stamp but this shows it well enough. The only clear thing we don't want to see is a strong storm as all the strong solutions are the wrong ptype.

Need to see the member solution but the mean is meh imo. Cold chasing precip. Def has the TN valley wave though...

We're going through the typical shotgun medium range solutions. Solutions do seem to be slowly converging on the idea of some sort of system approaching from the SW at the same general time late next week so that's good. Still an eternity away from figuring out the important details. It's more common for the for us to fail than score on the first chance after a shutout pattern. I'm very interested in how long the winter wx window lasts down the line. Is the whole setup just a transient shot of cold before a return to blah or will there be multiple shots at something before the wheels come off?

I'm shocked that the 1052hp on the 6z gfs disappeared. Much weaker cold push = blah

Would be nice to take advantage of a pressing airmass instead of a retreating one. Surface CAD is usually modeled too warm so we can make assumptions there but if precip is moving towards us with HP to the NE then the mids almost always get roasted faster than models. Can't really parse much this far out though. The front that ushers in the cold air is still 5+ days away.

I'd like to see ops converge on a deep CAD solution by D5. Cold supply on these types of setups is known to back off as leads shorten. We want NC/SC to be very worried about their electricity by the time we get to D5 or less.

chips or raindrops. One or the other.

Euro type solution is plausible. As leads shorten the two terms we want to avoid are "amplified" and "slower". The workable window is short. Quick and sheared will get the job done much easier than amplified and slow. I don't see our chances as any better or worse after the overnight runs. 0z Euro/EPS is in the slow/amplified camp but plenty of time for things to change. And they will every 6 hours.

Dude, I've known you for like 14 years and never once have you broken character...until this post. I think we need to send someone out to check on you

Here's a visual showing what I was trying to explain. We're seeing ens converge in this general idea mid month. I'd be perfectly fine with this setup anytime during met winter.

Yea man, I'm interested in the entire period once we get past warm rain. It's an unusual pattern with both streams burping shortwaves with split flow. The tpv is so big it creates like a quasi 50/50 with compressed flow to our north and general storm track is more W-E than what we typically see with unblocked progressive flow. Thing is... do we believe it? Imho- biggest risk is everything evolving into a more typical progressive flow with tracks to our west and cold running away before precip arrives. I'd be thrilled with a 1-3/2-4 mixed event. Having an event in the front half of Dec can be a sign of decent winter.

I know you know that this is the first legit threat window of winter but not a good setup for all snow or a big event. You sure you want to get involved? Would 1-3" with a sleet/zr topper be remotely satisfying?

Euro shows how short the window for winter wx is with no blocking and progressive flow. Weird evolution and that's a red flag in itself but the idea of running precip into cold HP remains on the table for late next week. Like always... small differences in timing and placement will have large impacts on sensible wx. It's how we roll in these parts without a block.

Just a little CAD on the euro

@psuhoffman No ideas worth mentioning. I'm inclined to think it's nothing more than the streaky/tricky nature of how we get snow and not some big picture change in climate. Some years the little things that we always need to help snow chances come easy and other years the little things do the opposite and screw us. I do like where the GFS/GEFS is going in fantasy land. This is a great overrunning type pattern and supports the op's general idea:

The broad conus trough is key. We won't have a deep entrenched cold airmass but we can play with fire on the edges. I hope the gfs/gefs has the right idea versus the steep ridge/trough stuff we're seeing on the euro/eps.

I'm all in until I'm out. Luckily there haven't been much if any hints that things go to hell and stay there. OTOH- patience will likely be tested over the next few weeks. Any potential event will need sweet timing as winter wx windows appear to be short lived in progressive flow. But I do agree that flow is active and the southern stream seems prone to get involved. I'm hoping the d10+ EPS "bias" we've seen over the last couple years of digging too deep in the SW and pushing cold east too slow is happening right now. I'm not head over heels with ens guidance D7+ but it's far from a shutout look for now. Overrunning is our best chance as it seems like anything amplified is going to pass west of us.

+PDO continues to slowly build so that's good. That "Nino" though... not lookin so hot. I didn't expect to have Nino conditions this year so not much of a surprise.

Just caught up with the overnight runs. My suspicion of the 12z Euro yesterday being too fast (unfortunately) appears to be the case. Plenty of lead time to watch things evolve and we won't even be back in the game until the prog'd cold front pushes through here mid next week.

Just so we're on the same page... Unless there's a transient 50/50 or a very lucky track, the general setup favors a west track by a good margin. Ops and ens are showing a pretty decent cold hp to the north and a decent cad signal. Get something to come at us from the TN valley with a departing HP to the north and it's one of the most common ways we get a light or moderate event but not all snow. Last 2 gefs runs support the general idea as does the eps. All we can do is discuss the potential in general terms. This is the best shot at winter wx I've seen so far. It's flawed and unlikely to be all snow if it snows at all. No reason to poo poo it or go all in yet.

The exact snapshot on the euro was a big storm look. Ens support the idea but they also support rain, mixed, or nothing at all. A lot has to happen first. Once the full latitude trough/front clears then any shortwave zipping along after has potential. We're 5 days min away from models focusing on a discrete shortwave that actually exists. Overall the setup is so-so but it's our next chance so it will get a lot of attention.

MSLP panels look pretty good. CAD sig in place and low pressure to the SW. I'd be perfectly fine with a west track front end thump. Whatever it takes to get on the board with something other than a T

Don't stress man. Odds strongly favor things not working out.