psuhoffman
-
Posts
26,411 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Blogs
Forums
American Weather
Media Demo
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by psuhoffman
-
Most of the area got a coating just before new years and 1-3” around Jan 8th. It’s wasn’t as snowless as you make it you were just getting frustrated because the pattern had way more potential and we were hecs hunting.
-
That’s why getting the TPV out of the Baffin area is so important. We don’t need Canada to be “cold” but we do need to get enough northern flow in eastern Canada to prevent it from being 100% maritime air and to get some cold transported into our area. The TPV is far enough northeast there to allow the flow to turn NW behind it. Still not ideal but 1000 times better than where it is now.
-
I guess we could live with a crap longwave pattern if we just keep getting lucky with thread the needle perfect secondary developments and h5 cutoff lows.
-
I can't believe they still put out those exact same maps as when I was at PSU in the 90s. And they were crap then!
-
It's also possible we might get the Pacific longwave pattern to retrograde just enough that a more neutral Atlantic could work also. It's a scale, the more help we get on one side the less we need on the other. Historically the easiest way to make this whole thing work though is if we can get a true -NAO. That would make this whole thing a lot simpler. But we do need the TPV to get away from Baffin. Sitting there is going to create a strong west to east flow under it and blast maritime air across.
-
That’s definitely a first step. But so long as the nao stays positive the flow to our north will be west to east and pac maritime air will dominate. The pac trough would have to retro really far for that equation to work, see 2003 and 2015 for what that would look like. But I don’t think we’re likely to get that. Ultimately until the nao goes negative we’re going to struggle with temps and be rooting for a lot of convoluted things to go right to overcome very marginal at best thermals.
-
He knows 90% have no idea what he’s talking about. The way I look at it…to simplify, in a true west based modoki Nino like 2003 and 2015 the N pac trough is likely to set up far enough west that the nao isn’t as critical. In a super east based super Nino like 1998 the pac trough will be displaced so far east and dominant the nao won’t matter we’re screwed. But in all the rest the NAO is critical in determining our fate. If the NAO is negative enough to buckle the flow we will get enough trough in the east for the equation to work. If the nao is positive there is nothing to stop the pacific airmass east of the pac trough from just blasting across the CONUS under the positive NAO. Luckily the tropical forcing in a Nino is such that it also has the e highest correlations to -nao of the enso states. Add in ascending solar, descending -QBO and a weak spv and we “should” be good. Right now Webber can troll because with a raging pos NAO that pac configuration won’t work. But watch what happens if the nao flips.
-
They went back to flipping the NAO/AO negative by early Jan and run the table that way. PAC backs off some creating the “it” look for mid Atlantic snow. I don’t bring them up everyday. I tend to view them over a period of time for trends. I brought them up the other day not because they suddenly were bad but because they were bleeding the wrong way consistent for 5 days. I finally thought it was worth mentioning after multiple worse runs. Usually I wouldn’t bring them up again so soon except since I seemed to start a mini shitstorm (it’s a technical term) with my observation of the negative I’d point out they had a very good run today. I disagree. As long as you don’t freak out over every single run. Each run has the same exact value the old 2 runs a week had. Only now you don’t have to way several days to see if it was a fluke. You can watch trends. Come to some conclusions quicker perhaps. More data is better so long as you aren’t emotional about each run. I know that’s a big ask though.
-
https://x.com/webberweather/status/1735025491352912155?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw his troll game is A+
-
Frankly some of our snowy Nino periods were even warmer than people realize because snow cover severely depresses temps.
-
Euro weeklies bounced back in a big way today.
-
I’ll admit I judge a pattern purely by how likely I think it is to produce a snowstorm. I could care less if it’s +3 or +20 or even -5 for that matter, if the long wave configuration is unlikely to produce snow it’s all the same to me.
-
It as warm as 2015 is a pretty low bar. Don’t be fooled by the fact we got incredibly lucky with a secondary development along a frontal passage…if the predominant December pattern were to continue all winter we aren’t sniffing some of the ambitious (including my own) snowfall predictions. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as some recent total duds but again that’s a low bar. While it may not be the super torch some trolls hyped it’s not what we need for a snowy winter. Yea there has been some improvement and positive signs today but let’s not pretend we’re in some good pattern now.
-
I choose to read it this way
-
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think they still haven't aligned the GEFS to the new FV3 GFS. So they are not as cohesive as is typical of most Op/Ens tandems.
-
Historically absent a NAO block the other feature that showed up next most frequently in our warning level snow events was a "west of Hudson Bay" ridge. If we can get that ridging up top centered a little further west we would have a chance. Of course ideally getting the vortex off Baffin Bay will help enormously but I really don't see that setting up shop permanently...the SPV is too weak, any TPV will be susceptible to destructive interference.
-
IF, big if, things were to continue to follow a 2015/16 type pattern progression but slightly colder given the weaker enso, I would take that. Our area just missed out on about 3 other big snow events in Jan-Mar because temps were just a few degrees too warm. A pattern repeat of 2016 but slightly colder could be a big win.
-
It's way too early for that, I still think its going to work out. But...if it fails we would have to look at all the options, effects of last years eruption, there was a pretty significant solar flare recently, did tropical forcing end up in a state more conducive to a +NAO than the typical Nino, or random chaos... and of course it has seemed to be harder to get a -NAO recently, especially if you factor in we've been in an ascending solar phase where blocking SHOULD be more prevalent recently yet it wasn't. But I am hopeful we never have to do that analysis.
-
Given the weak SPV it's possible for the NAO to shift quickly, all it would take is a good wave break to possibly set off a chain reaction. One thing that does bother me a little... in the years that flipped in our favor there was pronounced Scandinavian ridging ahead of time in late December that proceeded the NAO going negative. We don't have that this year...it looks like we will be relying on wave breaking to get it done and that's not how it went down in past Nino's that had an NAO flip Dec to Jan.
-
One may have had it 12 hours sooner but both picked up on it about the same time since it showed up quick and not at super long leads.
-
That and this is a basin wide nino which isn't a bad thing...provided you have some NAO help. But were not in a modoki like 2003 and 2015 where the pacific low will be displaced far enough west to work absent any NAO help.
-
I tend to agree, weak SPV, descending -QBO, ascending solar... we shouldn't get a raging wall to wall +NAO... but that is the domain we need to be watching for changes more so than the pacific even imo. The biggest reason for the loss of the better pattern projected for the end of Dec and early January on guidance was the degradation of the look on the Atlantic side more so than the Pacific.
-
I'm becoming increasingly confident this is entirely about the NAO. First of all if you look at all the best analogs identified, 1958, 1966, 1973, 1987, 1992, 1995, 2010, 2016 the thing that differentiates them wrt snowfall was the NAO in those seasons. 58, 66, 87, 2010 were negative and snowy in the mid atlantic. 73, 92, 95 were positive and not. 2016 was the most ambiguous with some blocking in Jan/Feb but not as pronounced as the others and it ended up in between. Also look at days 4-8 on the EPS. The problem isn't the Pacific. At range things get washed out and give the wrong impression. Because pieces of the main vortex keep getting pulled off and diving into the CONUS, at range timing differences make that look like the vortex is actually extending into the west more than it is. But look as it gets closer what it actually looks like. That low off the west coast is cut off, that's not a problem...the main Pac vortex is centered west of AK. There is ridging into western Canada. The issue there is the TPV over Baffin or IOW a raging positive NAO. Because of that the PNA ridging just spreads out east across the CONUS. If the NAO was negative that pacific look right there, day 4-8 not way out in time, would work just fine. This seems really simple to me...if we get the NAO to flip negative we will be fine, it will promote enough northerly flow into the northeast on top of us for these STJ systems to work...but if the NAO stays positive were screwed, the ridging out west off the PAC will just spread east and we end up with a full continent pacific onslaught. In a nino it really is all about the NAO. There have really only been 2 exceptions in modern history...2003 and 1998. 1998 was so east based and so extreme due to the contrast between the super nino and a colder pac base state that it torched the CONUS despite a -NAO. And 2003 was opposite, the Pacific trough was displaced west by the extreme modoki nature of that nino and so it worked out despite a less favorable NAO, although it wasnt as bad as what we have right now, not sure anything would save us with a strong vortex over Baffin, thats just nightmare stuff right there.
-
Today’s raging pacific with that incredibly +AO is likely a disaster. Next week on guidance doesn’t exactly look promising for snow. Let’s just hope we don’t have to test that theory. 1973, 1992 and 1995 failed primarily because the NAO/AO were positive. 1998 the AO/NAO flipped negative but the North Pac vortex was just out of control and flooded pac puke all winter regardless of the nao. 1998 was extremely east based though and combined with a colder pac profile around ENSO created maybe the greatest contrast which likely lead to the strength and displacement east of the pacific nino long wave pattern. Other than 1998 which was an anomaly, the other analogs all fell in line snowy or not based on the NAO. 1958, 1966, 1987, 2010 the NAO was negative. 1973, 1992, 1995 the NAO was positive.
