psuhoffman

It tracks a 982 low over Cleveland.

You’re right. There is some debate here. But why does that chart use only May to Sep? The pdo during winter has way more impact on what we care about lol. My interpretation of the data was there seems to be more variability during a +pdo than a -pdo. This was true during the last +pdo also but the base state was more positive then so the negatives were more neutral. But look at the lack of variance from the late 40s to the mid 70s. But it’s possible I’m wrong. I hope I am.

Inside 120 hours the control mirrors the op in a lower res version most of the time.

But that meso band that gets us isn’t a feature we can’t rely on at this range. The NW trend if the storm actually continued. Sorry but Imo it was a worse run in every way except the clown snow map.

The PDO seems to run in roughly 25-35 year cycles. After a transition period in the 40s was mostly negative from 1949 to 1976 then in transition again until 1981. From 1982 to 2018 it was positive the vast majority of the time. Since it’s been negative. I don’t know for sure but Imo we’ve entered another -pdo cycle. We were about due for a flip. If so we can expect the pdo to be negative most of the next 30 years or so.

The snow is from a front runner wave. The main show actually trended slightly northwest. Something like that could happen but just pointing out the main event didn’t truly improve Imo.

@CAPE This is the mean h5 from the core of the last -pdo again adjust for the colder base state and look at the pac. That’s just how it’s going to be most of the time for a long long time

Little is talked of this but ninos didn’t have the same pacific response during the previous -pdo. This has been the mean Nino h5 during the most recent +pdo from 1981-2018 that we are used to and associate with a canonical Nino The primary feature is that north pac low. For our purposes it’s simple, we want the Nino centered further west because in years that low is west towards the Aleutians (2003/2010) we get cold/snow and in years it centers too close to the west coast (1998) we get flooded with pac puke and in years it shifts around we get a mix of torch and cold/snowy periods. But that setup put us in the game for big snowy periods. Btw I know you know this just illustrating for everyone. But the pac response to a Nina during the last -pdo was this… You have to compensate for the colder base state. But look where the center of the pac anomalies are. Right against western Canada. That’s hostile! Look at the Aleutians…higher pressure on the means! There were some ninos during that stretch that had a more +pdo response (1977 and 1978 especially but they came at the tail end of that pdo) but it wasn’t as common. Look at some of the ninos during that era.., does that look much better? Would that help? or this??? This was one of the best ninos of that era and the pac response is closer to a +pdo but look where the low is centered. Today would that even work or flood too much pac puke? That’s borderline now imo but was one of our snowiest winters ever. and look at this… This was another blockbuster snowy Nino winter. But look at the pac? Would that work? So of course I’ll take a Nino v a Nina, but during the last -pdo ninos didn’t cause as good of a north pac response and some of them did absolutely nothing to alter the base state. I’m telling ya if we can’t snow with an Aleutian high pna trough anymore we’re fucked because that’s going to be the base state the vast majority of the next few decades and during the last -pdo we didn’t snow by getting a better pac, most of our snow came with an atrocious pac by finding ways to overcome it.

But during the last -pdo even a fair number of ninos still featured a -pna. More ninos managed to overcome the base state than ninas obviously but overall we had a -pna base state about 80% during the last -pdo cycle. If this -pdo is anything like that there is no way it’s going to Snow enough during those rare periods to offset no snow the other 80%. Plus if we’re only gonna get any snow that rarely I don’t even care how much it snows during those rare moments it doesn’t offset the long stretches of dreg

Fair it’s not totally dead. But the Gfs coming more in line with other guidance isn’t the trend we need Imo.

I think ensembles over-predict for your area because they don’t have the resolution to handle ridges and valleys. You’re seeing a smoothed mean. So valley locations in an area like your are getting a mean more indicative of an avg elevation for the region which is likely closer to 3,000 ft.

The northern most outlier coming in line with the consensus doesn’t help when the consensus is already too far north. It’s too late to stop the bleeding once the patient is dead.

@CAPE let me clarify. I’m not saying every winter will be like this one. There will be some winters where the pac is more variable. There will be some rare winter months with a +pdo within the larger -pdo. We will get some +pdo periods. About 15-20% over the next 30 years if the last pdo cycle is any indication. But not every +pdo is gonna be a snowstravaganza. Some will get ruined by a +AO. Some won’t produce because of bad luck. so my point is if we’re going to be in a -pdo about 80% of the timr and it can’t snow anymore ever in that base state…yea we will get some snow over the next 3 decades in those rare anomalous periods but what we’ve been experiencing the last 7 years is gonna be the new normal and Baltimore is gonna avg like 10” of snow.

An Aleutian ridge -pna combo is a hallmark base state feature of a -pdo. It’s likely going to be that way the vast majority of of the time for the next 30 years. If we can’t offset and snow from a -NAO despite that pac base state we are FUCKED!

I was pessimistic when the current period looked good 10-15 days ago for this reason. Around March 10 the pattern does start to move towards what might be a meaningful change. Maybe. I’m more hopeful for a few reasons. Blocking progression. March wavelengths. High amplitude mjo wave progressing into the central pac. If those 3 factors in tandem can’t squash the SER I don’t know what will.

This is just my opinion, but I’ve found they’re not nearly as misleading if you factor in probability and take a mean of multiple runs. Since usually we’re looking at events for long leads with the ensemble I think it’s best to take an average of say 2 days of runs for any one discreet threat or period. What I’ve noted is sometimes some have a tendency to over weight the snowy runs and forget the non. If a couple runs are snowy and a couple are not you can either say “the guidance is wrong no matter what” which is the weather53 method or you can factor them all in together and interpret that as probabilities were never that high. not once all winter did the 3” probabilities get near 50% for any consistent period across guidance. And only once all winter did the probabilities for 1” get near 50 and that was when we did get that minor snow and about 1/2” in many places. You’re right if you simply add up all the snow from each individual run of guidance it’s grossly over predicts snow. But Imo that’s misleading because it fails to account for both runs that don’t show snow or probability which often shows the mean is skewed by snowy outliers and not what is indicated as the most likely outcome.

This is similar to 2020 imo. Worse than those other years unless we pull a late save in March. I don’t think I change my style it’s just when it’s really bad my bluntness gets on peoples nerves if they are trying to hold onto hope. This same thing happened in Dec 2019 when I made that “winters over” post around Xmas and some got upset and tried arguing but the thing was I never actually said “it’s over” I simply posted the pattern and showed how every historical comp ended up horrible. They weren’t really fighting with me they were fighting history because they didn’t like what was the clear inference from the data. I will note for the record that both in 2020 and this year at times I took a period off and it was no better. The same people who were engaging with me just started fighting with someone else. The only thing that will make things better when it’s this bad is either snow or when most finally call mercy and surrender to fate usually sometime in late February

You have to know how to read them. If there is a mean of 3” over 15 days but the probability of 3” is only 25% that does not mean the ensemble is predicting 3” of snow.

There was one significant threat in March 2018 around the 15th that got suppressed before the storm we got around the 20th. Maybe that is the one that would hit this time. I think we get opportunities. We will still need some luck. Just less than what we were facing all winter until now imo.

You’ve been grounded with this imo. I wasn’t criticizing you. For me the red flag wasn’t any one model run. Which model was showing what is irrelevant. It’s that the temps were so marginal and the mean boundary location is still to our NW during the period in question meaning we need a lot of factors to all go perfectly. There is just way more fail scenarios than win in that background state.

And how often has it snowed? There are some others who are saying nothing but positive things every model run all winter no matter how bad it actually looks. They haven’t seen a long range prog they haven’t said was hopeful yet. I haven’t complained about that ridiculousness. That’s fine. But if there is room for that then there should be room for realism also imo. I do think we have a legit chance to get some snow in March, been saying that for a month now, and it wouldn’t shock me if this threat managed some snow in the northern portions of this sub, but it’s still a long shot. When a higher probability threat shows up I’ll be optimistic. I haven’t identified a discreet one yet beyond just a general window I expect for something to pop up. You know from the past I’m not a deb when I actually think it’s going to snow. I’m just not a smoke blower when I don’t.

This x1000

Been trying to prepare ppl for and thus soften the blow.

But what’s the trajectory of the rain?

Next