psuhoffman

Keep in mind phase 8 is not as good in March as earlier in the winter...Phase 1-2 are really the best phases as we head into March for cold/snow here. That's one of the factors why if it wasn't for the fact climo is deteriorating I said I would favor late March for snow. We might end up having to see where the end of our workable climo intersects the start of the best pattern coming up. None of that means we can't get lucky with something BEFORE the best pattern period actually begins. Luck is a HUGE part of all this. Always

I think in the macro sense DT is right that often these west to east amplified waves that we need to not gain any latitude to work out...don't work out. Usually they either get squashed or cut. That's because the balance you need between suppression and amplitude is delicate. That said...they do work more often in a blocking regime AND later in the season. So given the micro here I wouldn't discount it. My biggest issue with it is simply the complexity between all the waves here and the lead time. It's a realistic progression imo, but the issue is we are talking about 3 waves in pretty close proximity that will all affect one another and at the lead time we are still talking about how likely is it that the guidance is getting those details between all 3 waves correct? Usually when we have seen guidance nail a snowstorm from this range its a much simpler situation with a split flow, a strong STJ wave being ejected into a blocking regime. That is the kind of stable setup guidance can be expected to have a reasonable representation of even at day 7. But whenever we need to resolve multiple waves and energy transfers between streams the odds its being modeled correctly outside 100 hours goes way down.

I am not saying these waves before have no shot, but just my gut from the way this is progressing, our best chance at a big snowstorm will be around mid March. I might even say late March but by then the pattern is fighting against the clock. I think mid month is when the best pattern and still workable climo might intersect.

You live in the right region!

There are like 5 progressive waves in between now and that event and the exact outcome of each is going to impact the eventual results for the one we're looking at...and even the one we are looking at is a complex multiple wave system where the trade off between each wave will impact the outcome.

I know we're just having fun and it's been just awful so I totally get it...but we do all know its way way way way way too soon to be worrying about operational run play by play right?

The larger picture is terrifying though. Look at the larger mid latitudes across the CONUS. And you can see where snow is increasing to the north in Canada as the boundary is more north so areas that typically were cold/dry in winter are now getting more moisture and are still cold enough. This makes logical sense. It's also clear the impact of all those monster HECS east coast storms the last 30 years. But the median, which I care about much more because that is more indicative of what our typical winters will be most of the time, and what we experience 8 times a decade affects my mood way more than those 1 or 2 anomalies, is tanking. Also...if we continue this trend and start to lose some of those HECS storms...that little area of blue along the coast will creep north or disappear completely. This is also visually discredits something I've seen a lot lately where people post about how its snowing somewhere out west without the context that its at 8000 feet in elevation which has NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CLIMO! I ski out west a lot. It's raining more often at places like 5,000 to 8,000 feet a lot now...but yea it still snows a lot at those elevations...and yes at 10,000 feet its still going to snow a ton and maybe even more if we increase precip due to warming...but that has absolutely NOTHING indicative wrt our climo. Its a totally different phenomenon. Or showing how its snowing more in Canada...so what...they want the boundary to be further north up there. We do not. That map shows that at our latitude the trend is VERY CLEAR.

It's actually slightly depressing though, that there is still that much SER in the means with that look everywhere else. The PAC ridge has shifted well east into AK there...there is a ridge bridge over the top to the NAO domain, strong 50/50 signal...and yet there is still a SER in the means... yea sure we could get super picky, the pacific isnt PERFECT...but if we need perfect to squash the SER we are in big trouble in a larger scale sense. That should be plenty good enough there to obliterate the SER totally...it shouldn't be showing in the means at all IMO.

IF that 50/50 signal is real its a great trade off since that feature is one of the main positives of a -NAO anyways...and often it lingers beyond the collapse of the NAO which is why often some of our big storms come AFTER blocking...like Jan 96.

Don’t worry, next year there will always be next year.

Yea it snows here so often we should be optimistic

For those that obsess about how fast our snow melts... getting like 6" of snow and 4" of sleet is actually better than 16" of snow...because it takes forever to melt sleet. Back in March 2017 I got like 5" of snow and 4" of sleet and it took several very warm days to melt it because of how dense the pack was. I remember in 2003 driving back from Penn State places further south that had more sleet mixed in with the snow still had snowcover a week after the storm long after the powdery 20-30" in PA had melted away.

I was trolling... I believe at the time what I said was "Maybe if we are really lucky and everything goes perfectly we can get a great late season block like March 2001 or March 2013". But sure obviously there are similarities, both 3rd year Nina's, both had early and late season blocking. 2013 was also similar in that it was a neutral after a prolonged nina and in many ways behaved like a nina and also had late season blocking. But no 2 storms are exactly alike. I don't fear March 2001 as others do. Give me that setup 100 times and we would get a lot of snow 60 or 70 of them. Same with December 2010 or March 2013. Just because those specific examples of a perfect H5 pass with a NAO block didn't work doesn't mean that setup wasnt good. The setup was fine, but some details didn't go our way in each of those cases but those details will be different every time. The boundary layer won't be exactly as warm as 2013 every time. The convection might not set up the same way. March 2001 and Dec 2010 were nearly identical to January 1996 at H5 but both had details go wrong to make the result very different. You got to play with fire to get fireworks...but sometimes you just get burned!

I am supposed to be out of town that weekend but everything is refundable, if we were actually going to get that type of storm I would cancel in a heartbeat. I actually make sure any plans I make during the winter are fully refundable so I have that option "just in case".

I doubt guidance would tease us as bad inside day 5 like that anymore. The extreme south bias on the GFS is gone, it's pretty good with the general track of large synoptic features inside 120 hours now. I was pretty young and inexperienced then also...but looking back on it I probably would have seen the warning signs if that setup played out again. Leading it it was very warm and we were relying on a perfect track and a bombing system to dynamically cool us to get that snowstorm. The fact that a lot of the guidance showed that, now I would still find that troubling and feel unsure of that kind of outcome even at short range. Relying on needing everything to go absolutely perfectly is living dangerously.

@stormtracker unfortunately that other map was counting a lot of sleet and ice as snow. But it was still a big event before the flip. This is closer to what really would fall if that was correct.

Why the fuck not, lets do this. This shit has to end sometime. You still got the bus?

To be clear I am not sure of this...its just a fear of mine.

March 2018 was just before the latest PDO flip. Most of Winter 2018 the PDO was still positive, it was neutral in March. The pac was slightly negative but not crap like its likely to be much of the time the next 30 years now that we are clearly in a -PDO cycle. Yes we will get some fluke lucky years where the PDO is positive even during this -PDO cycle. But that will be very rare. Probably only 1-2 times a decade. And some of those will still be ruined by other factors, like if one times up with a la nina or a positive AO for example. 2018 was a positive PDO for example and not a great winter because it coincided with a +AO and a Nina. SO...if 80% of the time we are going to have an extremely hostile pacific over the next 30 years...and some of the other 20% will get ruined by not timing the pac up with other factors...we are in trouble if a -NAO cannot offset an extremely hostile pac anymore because that is how we got the majority of our snow during the last -PDO. We snowed with a downright god awful pac all the time during that era, because we had to, the pac was putrid most of the time.

@Ji you asked about the PDO... unfortunately we are only about 5 years into this current -PDO. The last -PDO lasted for 35 years. This is something I've hinted at a couple times, but its depressing... but what if the "snowy" period we've been waiting for here actually was the 2000 to 2020 period and it simply wasn't that snowy here because the climate was already degrading we just didn't notice as much because of the +PDO we were in. But places not too far north of us were getting absolutely blasted with snow during that period while we were only about average. What if that really was the very snowy cycle we were due for and we simply didn't take advantage of it because things were already getting warmer. And now we are in another "down cycle" and its god awful instead of just bad. ETA: this does not have to be a AGW debate btw. Whether it's warmer because of a normal cycle that has nothing to do with AGW or not is irrelevant. We can discuss changes in our snow climo without having to debate AGW.

I agree with the SST's being a big part of the problem but I think its more general than a specific 50/50 issue. We have had about 5 blocks since the last time one really worked, and that was even marginal, March 2018. In some of them the fail was that there was no 50/50 and a WAR. But there have been several where we did have a 50/50 and the SER linked up with the -NAO to the west of the 50/50 anyways. Basically the SER bullied the 50/50, forcing it east slightly, then linked up behind it. The problem is simple...the warmth is winning in the equation. The suppressive effects of the NAO are still there... if you look you can see it...but its not winning ENOUGH to get the boundary south of us as much of the time. We are still struggling even during blocking lately. As for why... we should discuss that over in the other thread probably.

But if we are in another long term -PDO, and if like the last one the pacific is going to be in this base state for almost all of the next 30 years...what exactly do we need to snow now then? Because a -NAO is how we overcame that pacific last time we had a long term -PDO. We didn't get snow in that era because the pacific was helpful...we got snow in spite of a hostile pac almost all the time. But the problem I see now is, since this current PDO flip...the things that worked last time are not working the same way now.

The fact only 1 of those dates is this century and only 2 in the last 45 years kind of highlights one of 2 possible things...either in the most recent +PDO phase March snow was less likely....(lets hope its that) and now that we are in a -PDO we will resume March snow being a staple....OR...its that thing we aren't supposed to talk about.

Hope not...pretty soon that will be a good thing

@CAPE something interesting to consider as we head into a March where the NAO looks to be cooperative... during the last -PDO cycle from the 1940s through the 1970s we averaged a LOT more snow in March than recently. The avg during that period at BWI was 5" but more importantly was the frequency of absolute monster months and storms being in March. There were definitely more total shutout March months than Jan/Feb even back then...but 7 times BWI had a double digit March month during that last -PDO cycle. And several more times got close with 7-9" March months. There were even two 20" March months...which is something we rarely even get in January or February frankly. Bringing this up because there are a lot of people that seem to want to toss December and March now. Problem is...the same thing I just said about March applies to December...during that last PDO cycle we had quite a few monster Decembers also... if you start acting like we can't get Dec or March snow and tossing those months...well you are tossing what was a big portion of our snow climo during the last -PDO cycle. If we do get blocking, even in March, we need to be able to take advantage of it. We used to be able to. March 1941, 1942, 1943, 1952, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1969, 1976 and 1980 were the snowiest months of the whole winter in many places in our region. Those winter's wouldn't have been nearly the same if we just tossed March. March can, and has to be, a very snowy month sometimes if we want to maintain anything close to our "normal" snow climo in this -PDO cycle.