Bob Chill

It hasn't been dry in my yard. Over 5" of precip in Jan alone. And with avg highs pushing 50 shortly, cold is exceptionally important versus Jan. We go back and forth on this a lot and it's fun but let's be honest here, we need both and considering 80-90%+ of our winter precip is rain year after year, if it ain't cold we ain't snowing. Maybe in the mountains by you but not for 95% of our sub.

Exactly man. I stopped watching numerical indices. I'll check them now and again but the real story is always embedded in h5 plots and not nao/ao/pna/epo numbers. We can have a completely useless -2sd nao block. We just had it last year. Lol. Take it any way you can get it here and we're in the game for now.

Pretty interesting and completely unexpected for me. I had a hunch that the epo and or pna would visit at least one more time before season ends but I def did not see this setting up. Shades of FM 2014&15 but even those tpv intrusions didn't set up like this. Maybe one or 2. Can't remember. We did quite well timing stuff but we didn't have a prolonged stretch where the tpv parked like ens are showing now. Hope it's real man. Lol

Yes, our Atlantic "blocking" in an anti-atlantic blocking regime is the PV itself. I posted about this sometime last week if you remember. The tpv drops into the US often so that's not rare. But it usually drops south then pulls north. Without a -nao or -ao, the only thing that can "block" the tpv from a quick pull north is ridge extensions from either the EPO region or Scandinavia. Looks like both are showing up now. This forces the tpv track more laterally and ultimately squishes heights in the 50/50 general area. That's blocking regardless of what any numerical index says. In the panel below, the tpv itself is the block and it could end up being a good one. Lots of time to kill tho... Eta: blocking for our purposes is anything and everything that keeps a storm from tracking northward with ease. In the panel above, any storm that tracks north into that confluence is going to get stopped in its tracks. That's a legit upper level wall and if it's real, it will become quite distracting. Lol

Said it once... I'll say it again... I really really like what I'm seeing. It's a really convoluted way to get blocking but we'll take it any way we can get it. The types of storms that happen with compressed/confluent flow don't need a sub 1000mb slp for a big hit. It goes back to what I talked about when the fake bowl pattern was showing. Get the hose from the W-SW pointed at your yard on the cold side of the boundary and a foot+ is possible without a big synoptic event. We could use an "easy" one lol.

It's an honor and respect thing. Something I personally take seriously. There's joking around and then there's something else. That line is subjective but I know exactly where my line is and I don't take S from anyone acting in bad faith or "looking to F with people". This isn't Twitter or TikTok. It's a very niche common interest group. More like a family than broad social media like reddit/fb/Twitter etc. When I call someone out here, it's for the benefit of the board, not me flexing on a power trip. Location matters on the internet. I've personally ripped some redditors a new one in ways I would never ever do here. I agree that thick skin is 100% required to participate on any internet forum. But imho, rules are not universal. I don't care what any internet stranger thinks of me either but that doesn't mean I'll let anything fly whenever. This board isn't about me. Its about a group of common interest people looking to share and learn as a group. Post quality effects 1000s of people here. Many of which have never posted a word here. I always keep "them" in mind when being active here

Prob an age thing my friend. You grew up connected. Many here did not. For the older folks, words carry more meaning in general because we grew up in an era of face face face communication. It's a psychology thing. Not good or bad. It just is what it is and something to be mindful of

TPV placement is interesting and one of the reasons I'm interested in general. Pretty big +NAO but the tpv squishes the flow and crushes heights off the martimes. Pretty jacked up way to get blocking but for our purposes, it is blocking and would force storm track much more laterally than steep troughs and WARs. You guys up north don't have to sweat that stuff as much. We're always right on the edge of development here when things turn the corner and head north. I'm tired AF of that. Lol. Squish the flow to our NE and we can do pretty well with west or SW approach trajectory. Much bigger precip shields are possible too. God I'm sick of chasing little magic marker stripes on the cold side of storms too.... gah

Pretty interesting stuff showing on ens means and even fantasy ops. Not snowstorms but the height pattern. Major confluence signal. I'm not sure if that's even the right word here. Instead of a bowl, ens are showing compressed flow over a fairly large part of the conus. It's another way to get a nice event and it doesn't even need big synoptics. I'm not implying a heater is on the way or anything too weenie. Just that I can easily envision what a path to victory looks like with the general ideas being tossed around now. Late feb/early Mar upglide/overrunners are typically MUCH juicier than Jan-early Feb. We'll see how it goes but if things go down the advertised path, it's a different pattern than we've seen all winter and I like it a lot more than compact steep amplified hills.

It's a negative energy thing. Quantum entanglement is real. I don't claim to understand it but those who walk around in a cloud of negativity open the door for universe to help them out in notsogood ways. This post is 50% joke and 50% real from my personal experience. Doesn't cost anything to be a positive thinker. Even if it doesn't change the universe, it makes life a helluva lot more rewarding.

Hey now! That was quick. I haven't compared any ens run over run but the potential down the line didn't exist at all really and now there is a bit of convergence in speeding up the timing. Keep an eye on that part. This "warm" period may end up being a bit shorter than all of us first thought.

Could never pull it off this year. By the time the good windows for ensemble bowl looks hit reasonable belief ranges, reality was just another progressive steep hill amplification. Without a -AO it's hard to get the big bowl but def happens. 2013-15 had a lot of it. The most common scenario is the center of tpv dropping southward over MN or the lakes and not Dakotas or west then having any kind of ridge extension above it to make it travel laterally and not punch back north like the default track. Carves out a deep cold bowl of air where NS vorts either have to go over or under it but not thru it. Just couldn't pull it off. Got close even in real time but never got right (yet, still time. Bowls can happen thru late March)

All my experience in this silly game tells me the exact same thing. We had our standard compressed cold/active period and now it's time to let it all go... but I can't shake the intuitive feeling. Maybe it's snowflakes falling. Maybe it's my subconscious weenie. Maybe it's the DMT. Not sure

I've grown to love the back half of snow climo season. You get these killer warm days where you can start knocking out spring projects but just as quick as the warmth comes, it can get kicked right back out with a threat. Late Nina style winters that had front side cold can def flip warm and never come back. That's prob favored. My gut says the epo isn't done. I'm expecting the epo and pna ridges to come back into view or overhead within 2 weeks. Until then, time to start fencing my back yard and get ready to grow food.

Any strong cutter with the correct track will pass through the 50/50 region. It's a climo thing. 50/50s happen all the time but are usually transient meaning they are just passing by the sweet spot. When timing is linked up with something upstream, a 50/50 goes from completely unnoticed to the most important thing in Ji's life. We don't just need 50/50s. We need them linked up with other stuff. So basically, in a progressive pattern, you need 2 swift moving targets to be in the proper place at the same time. Tall order and often why they don't work. It's not bad luck. It's statistical probability. Blocking will lock at 50/50 in place. We still need 2 things to link up but only one is moving in that scenario. Far better odds and why we drool over that stuff

Pretty good broad look analysis identifying a common problem and why it's a problem. Anytime shortwaves are zipping north of us, there is a period of return flow sucking warm mid level air up from the south. Even with insitu cold underneath and overhead, it's an efficient airmass rotter and not something to ever be ignored at our latitude. North of us can get plenty of snow with return flow stuff. We usually get rain. Eta: Models can't resolve this stuff far in advance though. There have been countless times in the past where those NS vorts magically appear and disappear in the mid range. With a NS dominant pattern you always need to be looking at those when it counts

One thing we've fought consistently ever since things got going in early Jan is extremely small areas good lift and qpf. It's all little frontogen, jet streaks, or upglide stuff in very small target zones. Drilling down 2+ days in advance is just an exercise in watching noise and letting your brain fill in trends and blanks when there may not be any. I'm done tracking 50mi wide swaths until nowcast time. ROI sucks otherwise. Lol

I'm with CAPE's thoughts. The front sets up a nice wedge of cold surface and mid level air for a very basic isentropic upglide snow maker. This is the escape hatch and possibly the main show. This type of snow event does not rely heavily on synoptics from the coastal. This is where my eyes are until guidance locks into the low prob unblocked coastal runner.

Well, I've never seen either of you make an optimistic post about anything really. It's all doom and gloom. Or at least some sort of pessimistic connotation. I'm sure there are inspirational nuggets randomly hidden in the mix but you can't hide from a post history. When 90% are negative and pessimistic about everything, I'll call a spade a spade. Some people are glass half full and some are half empty. Me personally, I'm a 3/4 full kind of person about everything I do. Perception is reality. We all choose our own

Yeah, but not a single person here is surprised at your complete lack of optimism 24/7/365. Somebody has to make up for all that bad energy or it really will never snow again

I've never owned any thermo that remains accurate in direct sun. Even the ones that swear they do. I don't think they accountanted for increasing climate change sun angle in their design

We could have a 50" storm and PDI will still be #1 for me. When I hit the garage door opener shortly after sunrise, my life changed forever. I had never seen such a spectacle and I immediately became addicted to big storms. The desire to experience them only grew stronger during the decades following. For me, PDI truly was a life changing event. In a good or bad way is hotly debatable

Flush hits require more than what has been offered so on the balance, we're actually doing pretty good. Better than most similar years. Northern stream winters are always frustrating and always leave you feeling that it should have been MUCH better... if just "fill in blank" worked out. I look at it a little different. Any all snow event is a win. Any snowfall over 4-5" is a big win. We could repeat this same exact pattern every winter for 10 years and 1 or 2 will be really big, most avg at best but kinda lame, and some making you want to gently nudge little bunnies off your lawn. Problem is, there's no way to predict any of that in advance. You just gotta roll with the punches and see what sticks. Any time there's amplified flow with the right trajectory and/or axis, a big storm is possible. Not predictable at long leads. Not obvious with the longwave features. But still happen. That chance has been on the table and is still on the table for as far as you can see. But never lose sight of the fact that most if not all chances will be janky and not classic.

Whenever we sit in progressive NS flow (often AF lol), you have to mentally approach it with an open mind to what "can pop up at any moment". Just because nothing is there for a couple days on ops isn't a reason to close the blinds. 40 degree 850 temps and no cold north? Yea, slam that f'r shut. Revolving door of cold fronts where each pack enough cold mid level air on the heels to keep us in the game? That's like our default state in a non-shutout pattern. Lol