Bob Chill

This is why I'm not engaged. I don't doubt a good snow pattern showing up (I'm as certain as anyone) but without snow it will feel like average boring late winter. Chilly in the wind, warm in the sun, daylight dinners and frosty mornings. If we were tracking an arctic blast like 2015, I'd be a laser. Once I see something that has higher odds than another longshot letdown, I'll be locked and loaded. Maybe this month, maybe March, or maybe next winter lol

For reasons above my pay grade, this entire winter never had a good analog set except for the time it snowed. Even when the mean looked good at times, nothing good ever matched. Imo- this year is far less a warmer earth problem than it is just a stubborn bad winter. Most of the analogs the whole trip this year have showed that over and over. You can take long lead op runs that look good and still come up with a bunch of turd periods. Very frustrating but far from uncommon. We've had plenty like this in the last 80 years. This is just an example. I know long lead ops are the last upper air pattern to pull analogs from but even with a very good look like this... the match dates kinda suck lol

I'm absolutely not convinced about a west track rain around the 12th-15th. Only how it looks to me right now. We've had a ton of rain last 2 months so dry hasn't been a problem at all. Would be a real ass chapper if we get a couple weeks of good air with no precip to mix with it lol

I think I figured out what I didn't like under the hood. My best guess right now based on everything I see is the pattern flip will preceded by a west track rain/front sometime around the 12-15th then we go dry for a bit and wait for something to undercut the pna. Guidance is kinda dry after the trough hits and it seems to last. If the northern stream is quiet and all precip events are lower slower southern stream waves, there's typically a 5-7 day gap in between. Maybe the goods are still a week beyond where ens guidance ends. Looking forward to the flip getting closer so I can track analog guidance. Analogs still look pretty bad irt snow chances

Complicated... lol. If the low stays completely separate from the northern stream like most guidance shows, a flush hit carries a huge risk of flush rain. Thermals are awful without stream interaction. Can that still happen? Sure, it's in the envelope. But getting stream interaction downstream is backwards. We need to tap downstream and pull cold nearly backwards. Idk man. That's a tall order lol

That's been happening since I started tracking. Reasons are simple. Storms want to gain latitude. It's their job. Strength of storm is never resolved so as storms look "better" or stronger as lead times shorten, there's like an 88% chance it fights to push north. Without a transient big block or more classic blocked flow, storms will always butt against walls and usually bully them a little. Happens both ways though. A good storm in the mid range that weakens will almost always end up south (or get squashed into dark matter lol). Blocked flow can easily push a storm south in the mid to short range. And that's certainly happened. Congrats short pump was born in that setup lolol Eta: one more thing. Op models appear to have a bias with depth of cold in the mid range. Fronts rarely push as far south as initially modeled and cold moderates more than expected. This is often a result of cold taking longer than expected to bleed east.

There's 2 separate schools of positive winter thoughts/discussion happenin and it can be hard to filter lol. I think most everyone agrees that getting no more snowfall is far less likely than getting 1 (or dare I say 2) additional accumulating snowfalls. More is always better lol but I don't see how we don't add to our totals without a complete reversal of how we currently see late Feb followed by a shitblinds March. Nobody is canceling that except for the notorious Schleprocks we have around here goin' all wowzee wowzee woo woo (wah wah lol). Where things are degrading is big storm optimism. We know our yards real well here. Uphill climo starts in earnest around the 3rd week of Feb and then big anomalous patterns are required in March. Doesn't mean we can't or won't get shellacked but history has a lot of arguments about a big finish once we cross into that 3rd week. The ironic thing this year is that even if we were to get a single 12" storm in late Feb, the winter appeal of our Jan magic week will put it to shame. Lol. Kids were sledding packed powder for 7 straight days with full coverage. South slopes took forever to go brown. 12" on Feb 23rd? Man, you better have your camera ready and take first run on the sledding hill cuz that appeal will last 48 hours tops and will likely be potatoes within 24

Oh trust me, i definitely have my radar on and am absorbing everything because this stinker period has a different feel. Kinda feels like this is normal now. Lol. Recency bias in play but still... there are trouble signs. The one thing I keep getting stuck on is warm oceans and gulf and how they effect winter storm track.... it sure seems hard to get anything to track under us from the northern stream now... always riding the edge and one of the reasons the SE has been suffering. They prob do better than us with a deep digging northern stream but it sure doesn't want to dig with a shortwave embedded lolol Eta: maybe the clipper drought is part of this. We say there's a clipper drought but I've seen a bunch skip us to the north last 5-7 years

Looking at h5 means I agree. But the mean isn't catching the flaws imo. So if this year is a sign of a pattern not working, then it includes Philly, NYC, and SNE. Can't get behind that yet. It's a aberration to me more than a sign. The "breaks" basically. If we're were raining when we shouldn't (oh boy there's been a lot of rain lol) and Philly or NYC kept piling up snow, that would make me think differently. Analog guidance has consistently shown mixy/messy/flawed since Dec 1st. The one time it lit up it snowed twice. The repetitive analog years have been bad too. Over and over with no signs of big storm history hitting the wires. Majority of the repetitive analogs were from the not great 60s winters and 80s were always there. The more recent analogs like 04 showed up a lot too. A good analogy is 92/93 and 13/14. Incredibly similar H5 pattern with incredibly unsimilar results. Fine details often make or break us as we are right on the edge of good snow climo and no snow climo lol. Maybe another Nino or hudson high pattern shows up and snows instead of rains. Wouldn't surprise me but this year doesn't want to work in the east and it's persistent

Next 10 days looks like a variation of Dec with the central/eastern Canada blocking ridge. I never want to see one again lol. H5 mean plots in the rear view will look "good". PSU illustrated that earlier this month. But ground truth is anything but. We don't see that type of setup much and I learned something.... It will prob never be cold enough for snow when the streams stay separate in this regime. When they do, they keep the warm and cold air all neat and bottled up away from each other with no mechanism to mix. . So it requires a phase of sorts to pull down workable air. But phasing also curls storms and a big flat Canadian ridge really isn't a block as much as a guardrail. So the phase requirement introduces significant storm track risk. Idk man. The longwave pattern has been hostile for east coast snow door to door so far except for fits and spurts. Sometimes it's just how it goes and not some big lesson or evidence of trouble in years to come. That's where my head is. I don't see this year as some big scary piece of evidence to fear the future. We get a lot of rain and warmth on the winter. The early 80s were terrible for that stuff. I mean TERRIBLE. This winter has reminded me of those stinker periods.

I'd be happy with a -ao of any strength, neutral NAO, and +pna. Just give us 14 straight days of that. It may not end up like 2003 but that type of pattern is what i personally think is most likely to deliver at this point. If we were going to get real nao help, we've typically already had several cycles or one long one. The hit and run we just had was a bubble buster for me. Stable blocks in general don't do that. They oscillate with a bias. This winter hasn't shown any of that from how i look at things. I not poo poo'ing anything though. Things look totally fine for winter wx in Feb. I'm just not excited with what ens are showing irt big storms. Weekly and monthly guidance leading into this winter had plenty of stable blocking ideas and they still do but we haven't actually had any yet lol. And winters with stable blocking show their hand earlier than Feb 1st in general. I understand that Feb has always had the strongest signal. No argument from me. But it's perfectly logical for me at this point to assume the NAO prob isn't the feature that pushes this winter into the "big" category. I'd pay money to be wrong tho hahaha

The pattern is flipping around and mostly on schedule from what I see. I just don't like what I see under the hood. Storms have been curling early and easy this year and cold has mostly just been a blast that moderates without a cycles of reinforcement (except for the 10 days we got 2 quite lucky storms). Basically, guidance never shows a good spread of ingredients that hang out for a few cycles in the east. I haven't been a fan of analog guidance at all this year except for the 1 period where it snowed. Always showing mixy/messy when ens guidance shows something much more promising. Idk. I'm mostly going off my gut instincts to what I see. My personal algorithm has only been set off once this year and that's 8 weeks of tracking lol. When it goes off again, I'll be here shotgun posting lol Eta: Important detail... I'm talking about bigger storms in a real pattern. Not a normal climo choas event or any moderate event. Something that checks off boxes and pastes the coast is about the only thing that can turn this winter around for the majority. Not feelin that yet

I hate doing it and always want it to fail but for some reason simply adding a week to any meaningful longwave pattern change (meaning the change puts us in a pattern that can snow a few times) nails it like 80% of the time compared to just using ensembles. When things degraded my stupid gut said the way out will be difficult.... gah We're not really that close to discussing anything other than being in the game down the line imho. We can walk right into an event during the next 7-10 days but it's more climo than pattern driven (imo again). A stable pattern that keeps cycling us in the game has been quite elusive this year. Up and down the coast really. Sure would like to see that general personality change pretty soon. Otherwise I have a hunch storm track will continue to be a fight for the balance of remaining winter. Just spitballin but this is not a year for the east, period. The season has spoken loudly and it's basically Feb now.

People sensationalize EVERYTHING nowadays. Gotta yell at the sky and your followers right?! Lol. Gotta be first too! Haha. It is a crappy snow pattern and it is happening as modeled. The way out has remained locked in. Doesn't have to be a scorch the earth and leave charred remains to be a terrible snow pattern. Imo, bigger deals are too often made with just about everything since the internet became more important than reality. Hahahaha

Here's the thing Rev, we all view the world through our own lenses/perspectives. We just walked out of an 8 day snow covered stretch mostly below freezing with 6-12" of snowfall in one week. Full coverage of excellent sledding and hiking snow for an entire week+ and the scenery was outstanding. That simply doesn't happen here often at all and that's a hard fact. It was a remarkable winter week in any winter. And what you are criticizing is people enjoying and being satisfied with a rare and beautiful anomalous week of winter weather. You obviously hated it and and nearly every post you make is a glass half empty. And you really want people to see it your way. Majority of people are actually optimistic on the balance and can be satisfied with the small things in life. Instead of criticizing that, maybe.... maybe consider trying to add some of that into your life. Satisfaction and happiness is a free will choice that we all make every single day. It's free, harmless, and the payoff is huge.

Exactly. Plus, 98 was warm for very obvious and unsurprising reasons. Far from apples to apples with Nino stuff other than sharing same name. I read PSU's post from yesterday about storm track. That's been ingrained into the winter pattern from the beginning and something that keeps me grounded. Sometimes things consistently line up similar but wrong for us. This winter has been wrong for I95 top to bottom so far except for our lucky slice. I personally don't look for reasons though. We're talking about 100 miles mostly. Imo- that type of wiggle happens just cuz. It cuts both ways as the 13-15 stretch is a great example of a long term lining up right. I doubt Feb has a consistent hostile 100mi wrong way storm track in an otherwise decent pattern. It's the best month for lower latitudes. But if the pattern sets in and things still slide overhead or west, it shouldn't surprise anyone imo

Analogs are starting to turn around. Top 5 d11+ adding winter back. 95 is a new one. Late Jan 95 showing with multiple dates. It was a good period as late Jan-mid Feb 95 was a wintry period. The analog that is scary is 1998 lol but prob just a Nino thing. I'm not concerned about it.

98 is showing up on d11+ analogs lol. But not at the top. Winter wx is making a small comeback on the analogs down the line already. That's encouraging considering how terrible they have looked last 5 days lol

Always a dam delicate balance lol. I don't like how intrusive the extensions are. The more I think about it the more it makes sense given the last 6 years of so. That balance is off for some reason as psu posted earlier. I'm going to pay much closer attention as lr guidance is consistently underestimating the extent of the intrusion. Feb is a deep winter month so may this time it progresses more traditionally. Maybe this is part of the new March effect. When wavelengths shorten, maybe the pac jet backs off of roids and ends up popping a correct +PNA instead of a convoluted flow ridge like we keep seeing. Idk man. Our problems seem more consistent to me as enso doesn't seem to change things all that much irt the ripping pac jet. Honestly, "traditional patterns" are becoming untraditional. Winter forecasts are consistently being upended. Even people who get US temps and snow right don't get it they way they explained but it verifies anyway lol

Thought provoking.... It's safe to say based on observation that the long range models are being tricked by this. Always quick to break it down in the long range only to back off an add a week as time rolls lol. Ish has been stuck on repeat lately lol. Brings up another thought. Maybe March being more wintry is a byproduct of this. Wavelengths all over the NH go through a transition and shortening period in late Feb thru March. Pac jet behavior included. Worth a look. I'm expecting a notable part of March to be more of a lion than lamb now. If we're going to keep having the same problems midwinter, maybe we keep getting the same bonus period late.

Seems like the extensions are more powerful and static than they used to be. You know more about this than me. I'm just using intuition. They often blast the entire continent. Maybe that's normal but I really don't remember massive recovery periods after "thaws" like we've been seeing. Could be a cycle in cycle that hasn't been figured out yet. The longer i live the more I recognize longer term patterns asserting influence that goes against what is predicted based on enso/climo/seasonal guidance. Maybe we should be expecting pac jet problems instead of being confused by them. Just spitballin'

The next couple weeks look a lot like late Dec / early Jan when east half of Canada was void of cold. The remnants of that anomalous height pattern cost us some snowfall with a good track. More often than not, big anomalous airmasses like to linger longer than guidance likes to think. Using that period as a guide, it's probably too optimistic to think we can flip to a snow window during first 7 days of Feb. I do believe the western trough undercuts and spikes the NAO or AO. Hopefully pac flow turns off right then and there. That would greatly speed up cooling the continent where it matters. Otherwise, we're prob normal temps at best with a though in the east until some sort of ridge deflects flow from the pac into the Conus. Right how, there is near unanimous agreement of this pattern in 2 week. Man, that's a continental problem lol If Feb 4th really looks like this, it's going to take a lot of work to reset and get back to workable. I'm gonna skip out of town to VA later this week and come back when winter comes back. Lol

Maybe? It's the only thing I keep returning to if climate has shifted. Dec is awful close to a fall month here anyways and that goes back to my birth lol. Long term cycles are weird though. Just when you think something is figured out... oops. Kinda like Judah and his Siberia snowcover scam lol. Warmer oceans obviously screw with the front side of winter. That's simple to understand. How that could change March gets muddy. It does seem winters have moved forward a couple weeks on the calender compared to 15 years ago. Idk. I just want it to snow dammit

I threw an edit in my last post. I dont want to come off like I'm canceling anything because I'm most certainly not. And I strongly believe winter will make a return. But man there were some high expectations going into this one. It would be a let down for me if @WxUSAFs guess happens and half the forum walks away sour lol. His guess is basically identical to what I'm thinking and I'd be more surprised if we didn't get another warned event. Just maybe not widespread 1-2'. The one wildcard in my head is March. For many years I expected March to be a spring month and it was right. That's changed. Maybe just cycles in cycles or maybe because oceans are warmer and it shifts climate bookends. Not sure but lately March has been better than many Dec/Jan's. March ninos are generally bad here but the front half of March can produce big storms. Maybe big storm window ends up there instead of Feb. We'll see

2015 was only snowless south of the Mason Dixon. North of there got destroyed and there was a ton of arctic air floating around east of the MS River. Very different personality to this winter in general. I haven't liked any analogs popping up for early Feb. I'd like to see that change sooner rather than later but I have zero control of that lol ETA: I'm only skeptical of some big long duration turnaround that destroys the coast. Mulitple opportunities and future snowfall are both very likely in the coming 6 weeks. Some people may not like the type though lol hahaha