psuhoffman

Our best threat is still after these miller B waves. But it looks like the better chance is the second of those (what would be wave 4). An illustration. This is the setup for wave 3 on the 12z GEFS. Euro 0z looked similar. What’s new compared to a few days ago is X. That NS feature coming across over the top changed things. It’s still not impossible but we need that feature to get out in front more. If they come across in tandem x suppresses Y. If X gets behind it likely pulls it to our NW. the win has to be either a perfectly timed phase OR x gets far enough in front to suppress the boundary but give Y room to develop. It’s not impossible. Todays Gfs almost pulled it off. But X has made the equation more complicated. We don’t often do complicated well. But look at wave 4 Same good longwave setup. The pattern looks stable btw and unfortunately if we weren’t about to run out of clock we likely would get a snow from this eventually. But no sign of a NS feature to complicate this wave. The next SS wave is coming out of the SW. The longwave pattern in the pac will kick it out as another ridge tries to build into the west. Blocking will force it east not north. Leads to this on gefs and eps 50/50 from whatever wave 3 does. Blocking. SS wave coming across under our latitude. No sign of a NS wave in the way. Now at this point a few days ago there wasn’t any indication of NS interference yet either. So that could pop up if the NS wave timing changes. That’s what happened to wave 3. A NS wave trended way faster and is now over the top v back in the pac. Wave 3 could still work if that trend continues and that NS wave X ends up out in front enough. Wave 4 can also work. After that I think our clock has expired regardless of how great the pattern is. Unfortunately our best pattern is coming late. But we rarely win with the initial major amplification in the east in a blocking regime. Wave 1 and 2 are really both that amplification. They used to be one wave a week ago when guidance was spitting out some crazy stupid solutions. They ended up splitting into two waves so neither is a super storm. But we score more often after the major amplification as the pattern relaxes if a SS wave can take advantage while the boundary is still suppressed. Just a shame that period isn’t coming until around the 17-24th. This is very similar to March 18 but we’re running about a few days behind from the SSW to the everything after. We all joked “wonder what happens if we got 2018 a little earlier”. The snow gods said “let’s see what happens if you get 2018 a little later hahaha”.

Is it a huge deal? no Is it better to show that than some cutter…yes

That’s exactly where you want the Gfs at that range. Joking not joking.

it was on my twitter weather feed... one of those "experts" that likes to focus on one thing or another and talks in tongues I think. I think it was a 10 year trend. So hard to say. I do think a flip to a more favorable longwave pattern cycle will help. Some of this is the fact we are getting what would be a hostile period in any era superimposed on a warmer base state. The question imo is how much does it help. Chuck just pointed out that despite the waning of the nina the pacific hadley cell is not being altered yet, and that usually precedes a nino. 2019 did almost nothing to alter that factor and I am worried that a nino wont simply cure all this. I hope it does. I really really do hope we got like 100" of snow next year. But I am curious to see how much of this can be cured simply by altering the enso state.

I keep warning people that a nino alone might not alleviate that problem

I also don't think my "emotions" are driving my points here. Actually, what I am doing runs contrary to emotions. I don't want this to be true. I think emotions are actually the reason many are so hostile and resistant to some of this data and get upset when it's presented. Actually 90% of what I have posted in this thread isn't predictive at all...its simply pointing out data and evidence of trends that have already happened. First of all this trend is not just the last 7 years. Snowfall is a very anomalous fluky thing in our region. It runs in cycles some of which have some regularity based on decadal cycles and some of which is pure fluke luck mixed in. So if you focus only on one small sample size you can skew the picture. But when you pull back and look at 100 years or more the patterns become more meaningful. Yes there are up and down cycles within the trend line but there is a downward trend within that chaos. The up periods are less up and the down periods are more down. This current down cycle is no doubt a "down period" but it's worse than the last comparable down periods of this type. This trend has been going on for a long time not just recently. It's definitely more apparent in the median than the mean because within this trend there is a phenomenon that we are also getting a few super crazy snowy years mixed in. Part of this seems to be because the frequency of HECS events has increased. This can also logically be explained by the same phenomenon causing the lowering of the snowfall median as a warmer base state with both reduce the number of snowfalls but also increase the chances of a super big snowstorm in the rarer instances that it is cold enough. There are a lot of factors here going on that in isolation each one might be hard to attribute a significant portion of this but the issue is all of these factors are all influencing things the same way, and if taken in totality I don't think its a stretch to say that is what is impacting our snow climo. Unfortunately we are in a region that is being most affected by several of these factors when it comes to snowfall, at least median, like I said the mean is less affected because of HECS events skewing the mean. But factors like the expanded Pacific Hadley cell, the Indo-PAC warm pool, and the warming gulf and atlantic basin are all impacting our area specifically more so than some other places. We don't have the latitude or elevation to survive even a small push northwest of the boundary during winter along the east coast, and unfortunately all of those factors lead to that end result. The indo pac warm pool is favoring hostile mjo phases which leaves more of our winter in shit the blinds patterns. The expanded hadley cell is shifting the jet north and causing a compressed flow over the north pacific (pac firehose) directing more warmth into the CONUS than was typical in the past. The warmer gulf and atlantic is feeding the SER. The warmer base state of the pac is favoring la nina's in the effort to balance the heat which is a bad thing for us. It's a nasty feedback loop for our snow hopes and dreams. My emotions actually make me want to resist this some. That is why I almost always bust high on my seasonal predictions. You know from my posts all summer and fall i knew this year was going to be awful. I think everyone got tired of me saying how god awful things looked wrt prospects for this winter. Part of that was a generally bad longwave configuration but a lot was me knowing what that imposed onto the current warm base state would look like for us. But when it came time for me to make a seasonal forecast I did go below avg snowfall but not nearly enoough below. Because I just didn't want to fathom a snowless winter, but in my gut I kinda knew this was very possible if not likely. But I went more hopeful in my forecast. I did that again with right now. I knew in my gut that given the extreme warm base state it was unlikely any patter was going to work out in a big way for us in March...but I didn't want to just give up on winter totally and I knew March was likely to be our only chance at a decent longwave pattern so I held out hope and said maybe we do get something in March. I am actually to optimistic wrt our snow chances because of my emotions. I sometimes ignore the data and evidence because I want it to snow and I want the data to be wrong. All that said I am also sure this is also a down cycle. We have had a run of hostile longwave pattern seasons where even in a better climo period it was likely to be a down period. This period can be analogous to similar periods in the 1950's, 1970s, and late 80's into early 90s. Those were all bad too...just not as bad. I am sure we will have a better period ahead at some point...but will it be as good as past good periods... probably not and that is the issue. I am sure the next time we get a 30" winter some will say "see the doom and gloom was wrong, everything is fine" but that isn't the point. No one is saying it can't snow anymore. We are saying it is snowing less. ANd all the data proves that. That isn't predictive its a reality we have been living for a while now. The only valid question is "how much less".

I am sure anything that falls at my place this morning would be snow...I was actually almost into baltimore when I saw the flakes. There was a very brief shower around 7:20 am and there were flakes mixed in.

It's pretty logical... a lot of those 2-4" storms of years gone by were flawed. The airmass wasn't that good. The track wasn't perfect. It came together late. That's why they weren't 10" snows lol. Now those flaws are cited for the reason snow isn't even within 200 miles of us! The other reasons is SOME of them were "clipper" type systems along the arctic boundary and that boundary just rarely makes it this far south anymore. I saw some graphic about a year ago showing how the average location of the polar jet has shifted north.

I saw a few mangled flakes on my way into work this morning.

I have no doubts we can still get a huge snowstorm from a SS dominant storm that bombs up the east coast like 83/96/2010/2016. We had enough wiggle room with those type synoptic setups that I highly doubt the equation has changed so much so that those are now impossible. Eventually if this trend continues...but I doubt yet. My concern is can we still get those smaller storms in marginal temp setups that actually make up a MUCH bigger part of our snowfall climo. And I see very little evidence of that.

It does...but wave 3 looked exactly like that 48 hours ago also...then morphed into a more NS dominant setup as it neared the range guidance can start to resolve wave spacing and interactions with a bit more clarity. The pieces are all there... both wave 3 (it could still evolve its not actually that far from what we need just have to get that NS feature out in front a bit more to both suppress the thermal boundary AND give the SS wave room to breath) and wave 4 for this to work. Unlike most of the ridiculous nonsense models were showing that were simply a product of chaos these setups have the longwave pattern features necessary to possibly work. Problem is we are down to one last shot, time is running out, and climo is now working against us to the point that even if everything goes right it could just be too warm...and that is without even factoring in that it has been too warm sometimes for no damn good reason in mid winter lately. But it's worth tracking, why the hell not. BTW after some of our discussions lately...where I focus more on "why this should work" and you focus on "but this is why it isn't" I realized what the difference in our focus is. With all these you are 100% right in what the limiting factor is. Yea sometimes there was a NS wave running interference over the top. Sometimes the thermal source region wasnt perfect. Sometimes the wave too a track a bit inside of perfect. But here is where my perspective differs... IMO those are valid reasons why none of those were flush hits. None should have been a 8" snowstorm. But none of those excuses are reasons why we don't get ANY SNOW AT ALL ANYMORE for long long long stretches anytime the pattern isn't amazing unless we get cross polar flow like last January. Here is my reasoning... I pay attention to the pattern analogs. We are underperforming them constantly over the last 7 years. When we have had really good patterns and the analogs were spitting out historic periods we ended up just getting some snow. But more often the issue is, and this was true much of this winter...the analogs weren't good...but the analog periods also weren't complete shutouts. There were often 1-3" snows within a few days of the analog dates all winter. There was one really truly awful period from about January 7 to Feb 3 were the analogs were actually shutout patterns. But most of the winter the analogs while nothing good were not total shutouts either. Yet we weren't getting those 2" snows with a flawed storm....we were getting absolutely shutout. This is not just this winter...this has been true for many years now. Flaws that should mean we just get 1-3" before rain or on the back end of a storm...now mean we get absolutely nothing and frankly not even close to anything. That is the difference between a bad year being 10" of snow and at least tolerable and an unbearable raging pile of shit like 2017 and 2020 and this year.

The run ends at 90...it's coming. The 6z euro actually didn't trend worse at h5 but it trended weaker with the SS wave. The problem for us is that is actually our best chance at some snow here...is to have a stronger initial SS wave. The NS upper low is actually slightly south of 0z even...but because the SS wave was weaker the secondary is developing slower and we didnt get that initial slug of WAA moisture from the SS so we get left out...but that low is about to go nuts in the nest few frames as it phases with the NS. On the one hand the euro didn't really move towards the gfs wrt the main event...compare the 6z euro and gfs at h5 and you see its worlds apart...and the 6z euro looks pretty much the same at h5 as the 0z...but we need so so so much to get perfectly right here... in this case the SS is slightly weaker and its game over regardless of the h5 track. We would still need that h5 to be about 100 miles further south of the furthest south model that is known to be too far south on these lol. I am holding out some small hope...I am still keeping an eye on it...because every once in a while something crazy can happen...but I really really really doubt it here. Actually if you told me one of 2 options was going to happen and said I had to bet on one of them and my life depended on it... and choice A was our area gets a significant snow and choice B was even the NYC area gets screwed and it ends up north of them also.... I would easily put my money on B.

Across most guidance (Gfs is kinda on its own) we got about half the trend we would need to get a big snow into at least the northeast half of our region. That’s good. But some caution…we need a trend against the typical correction to Continue . And as it gets closer continues trends become less likely. Additionally the euro ukmet and NAM have a nasty history of being over amplified too quickly with these type storms. That combo has authored done massive head fake busts on miller B late developers over the years. And they are the models that are actually closest so we might need more than we think. Guess that’s a long winded way of saying that while I think the Gfs is way too underdone history suggests some degree of compromise is most likely and that won’t work for us. I’d actually be nervous about that if I was in places like NE PA or NJ that are expecting a massive snow but are close to the western edge and ignoring the Gfs. The last 24 hours got us back in the game. But it’s like we were down 28-0 at halftime and now we’re down 28-14 going into the 4th. We have a shot now but we’re still down and time is running out.

Stranger things have happened BUT the euro is the only model really close and it has a tendency to over amplify in the medium range. Also these NS dominant miller b systems have a history of developing later not earlier. Some of NYCs biggest busts ever were when they were expecting a big snow from one of these and it trended north. It happens to then too we just don’t care when it does lol. If I had to put money on it, it’s actually more likely to trend the wrong way imo. But I’m wrong sometimes and it’s not no chance. I’m just not holding my breath.

Need the upper low to dig more for that to happen.

It’s actually not that crazy different as it seems on the surface. Not like when it was off by 1000 miles on key features last week! It handles the NS SS interaction different but the waves are similar. Last run it kept the NS consolidated and phased in to our west. this run the NS stayed split in 2 waves and acted to suppress the SS. We needed an in between solution. It’s gonna move around a lot run to run. But this is the threat that at least has the ingredients to possibly work.

Dunno it was an incredibly rare unique setup. I didn’t see many looks like it in the hundreds of storms in the case studies I did.

Lift is focused along the inverted trough. If it was a mature low without that feature it would be. Still early in it’s development

It’s close enough for that range

The waves around the 20th have the best chance. But we need that NS vortex up over the northern plains and upper Midwest to dig and phase into the SS. Recent runs have it stop and spin which pulls the SS waves to our NW. That needs to either continue east and provide the confluence in front so a SS wave can do it alone, or dive SE and phase in. ETA Gfs does eventually phase but over MO after pinwheeling. We need that NS feature to not stall and continue east.

For this to work we need one of these waves to have the NS phase into the SS not the other way.

The St Patty's storm was 2014. I was talking about the anafrontal wave in March 2015. The St Patty's storm was a follow up wave but it had enough separation I wouldn't consider it anafront. The 2015 one was one string of waves the last of which got us as the boundary pressed south under a suppressed TPV.

2015. I got 13” from it. I think DC area got like 4-8”

I have no doubts that a Nino still gives us better odds. 2019 while disappointing was still the snowiest winter across our region as a whole of this 7 year dreg period! But…my fear is that if we do remain in a longer term -pdo that the impact of ninos might be muted some. Not totally. But if you look at the h5 from 2019 it matches the mean h5 from ninos during a -pdo cycle. Often during a -pdo a nino muted the pacific ridge but cannot eradicate it to produce what we consider the canonical nino split flow STJ dominant pattern. Ninos were still pretty good during the last -pdo predominantly because mjo phase 8-1 which they favor also promotes blocking. With blocking we won a lot with a more NS dominant nino pattern back then when the mid latitudes were simply colder. I have my doubts how that might work now. It would obviously be better. But maybe not as much better as we expect. There were some more canonical ninos during the last -pdo. 1958 was one. So we still could get lucky with one of those. But there were more like 2019 than 2003/2010/2015 or even 2016. And again even a not as good Nino is better than what we’ve been getting so I’ll take it. Just not sure “Nino” is the panacea for all that ails us. But even if ninos are still awesome and we get 50” next year…I still don’t see that as the solution to what I’m upset about. We aren’t going to suddenly get ninos 50% of the time! Ya it’s good if 1-2 times a decade we get a huge anomalous snowy year from a Nino, but what about the rest of the time? What I’m lamenting is that it seems like getting snow in an enso neutral or Nina is becoming REALLY hard. Like as if we suddenly all moved to Richmond hard! Those 1-2 huge years a decade are great but it was easier to tolerate that equation when the other 80% of the time we were still averaging a decent amount of snow and the even getting a random 1979/1982/1996/2000/2014 big non Nino season in there. I’m not ok with getting 1-2 snowy winters a decade of the other 8 years are like they’ve been lately

Well before it was too warm and the pattern was bad so storms were tracking 500 miles north of us. Now the pattern is great, storms are tracking where we want but it’s just too warm.