psuhoffman

BTW let me preface that I enjoy the conversation, I am not trying to be antagonistic, just presenting the evidence as I see it. But before I get into the numbers...keep in mind "average" doesn't matter because average temps aren't good enough here. When your coldest avg high is 10 degrees above freezing...a season that is "average temps" is still not likely to be very snowy here. We need a below average temp season. But lets simply look at temps overall. If you go back to 1960 Baltimore has had 21 winters with more than 20" of snowfall. All but 4 of them the average winter temp was below 35 degrees. The 4 seasons with seasonal temps above 35 all had an HECS storm. In other words...the only way we can possibly overcome a season with temps above 35 and still get a lot of snow would be to get very lucky with a fluke HECS storm. 2016 was the most recent example of this. But for the most part...81% of our snowy seasons in Baltimore come with an avg winter temp of below 35 degrees. Getting a 20" snowfall season with a temp above 35 from a fluke HECS storm is a 1 in 16 year anomaly. Yes it will happen, and someday that will happen again...but we are NEVER going to get consistent snowfall that way. That is a fluke. Always has been. So what have our avg winter temps been the last 8 years... 2016: 39.4 2017: 40.5 2018: 36.4 2019: 37 2020: 40.7 2021: 37.3 2022: 39.3 and with a month to go we are near 40 for this winter. So...over the last 8 years we simply haven't been cold enough at all at any point during that stretch to have a realistic chance at a snowy winter unless we simply got lucky with a HECS. And that did happen one time during that stretch so considering that is a 1/15 shot we actually got LUCKY during this period compared to temps. We have had 1 snowy season out of the 8 when in reality based on temps we should have had NONE. This is really simple...its odds, math, probabilities and statistics. Yes within the averages we will have weeks here and there when its cold enough and once in a while you will get lucky and get some snow. But the longer term data tells us unless your season is below 35 degrees as a whole...we don't get a snowy season unless we get one huge fluke storm. And that is rare. So our path to a snowy season is simple...get temps below 35. Now that doesn't guarantee us snow. But here are the numbers since 1960. In seasons where Baltimore's winter temps are below 35 degrees we have a 61% chance of 20" of snow. In seasons where Baltimore's winter temps are above 35 its an 11% chance. From 1960 to 2015 our winter temp was below 35 degrees 50% of the time. Since we have had 8 straight years with temps above 35. That seems pretty clear to me. And the fact we have had NO SEASONS below 35 in the last 8 straight also seems to be a pretty clear reason we aren't getting much snow. This isn't complicated. It's just too warm! And it has been for 8 years running. Every single year!

@Maestrobjwa you could be right. We don't have anything conclusive yet. But I see a lot of bad signs and the longer we go without getting a sustained snowier period...not just one storm or one season, but a longer term cycle where we return to what used to be normal, the most the evidence we've permanently declined builds up.

Boston can struggle with a coastal track. They flipped to rain with January 2000. That is due to their further east coastal location. Don't get me wrong...they have WAY more win scenarios than we do, but a tucked in up the coast track can actually be one of the few situations where our area is in a better location than Boston.

You're playing devils advocate, and that is fine, but I could retort that also with this... did 2018 really work? The NAO flipped severely negative the last week of February. Then we got a perfect track rainstorm the first week of March because it was just...take a guess...to warm! The next storm trended north and hit NJ and New England. Then finally we got that 3rd storm...but we lost the first half of the storm, the WAA, to rain even with an absolutely perfect track. Yes it was late March by then but I dunno... that's kinda convenient because we had a perfect track rainstorm early in the month also and it's impossible to test how much of that was because it was March 20th or not. I am sure the result would have been better had it been a few weeks earlier, I am not arguing that...but would it have been the 20" storm it should have been with that track? I am not exaggerating the analogs to that storm were a bunch of HECS events. Dunno... maybe it still would have been muted by mixed precip some. So in a month we had one of the most prolific blocks in recent history the area got like 4-8". Yea it was March but some of the historical analogs to that month like March 58 and March 60 the area had 20" plus. So was that really a W? If we got 6" from a pattern that produced 20" in the past is that really a W for the "its not getting worse" argument?

But what is making that specific setup on the GFS "shitty"? Look at the pattern on the 12z GFS... it isn't shitty This is the setup to the storm Look at the flow over the top of our storm Y as the lead wave X slides by. That is air right off the Yukon, PC air being directly discharged into our source region for the storm. Look at the ridge along the pac coast. This isn't a pac puke pattern. There is nothing wrong with this pattern. Now as the storm crosses the MS valley...this is pretty damn good Nice PNA ridge, direct flow off the arctic, SW taking a perfect track... the only thing "shitty" about this setup is the temps. @Maestrobjwa you say we need to wait for a winter when its actually cold...when the fuck is that anymore? That happens like once every 5 years or less lately. Plus that is like saying... we can only judge if it can be cold enough when its cold enough. I am not arguing it can NEVER get cold and snow. I am arguing it is getting cold and snowing LESS. Saying "we can't judge that because its warm all the time" is kinda...well... you explain that logic to me because I don't see it.

I answered you in the other thread because that discussion could easily take us down that other path we want to avoid here.

I have no idea what storm you're referencing but I never said we can't get WAA snowfall anymore. That better not be true. But this game is about probabilities. Snowfall was never a "normal" high probability event around here. It an anomaly. But there is a difference between something being a 10-1 shot and a 100-1 shot. The right way to think about this is death by a million paper cuts. Decembers have been trending warmer and less snowy for a while...does the fact its not snowing in December recently mean we can't get snow. No. But it could mean we get less. Recently there has been a plethora of waves without any WAA snowfall associated with them. Does that mean we can't get WAA snow no, but maybe we get a little less. Recently we've had some -NAO's fail to work. Does that mean a -NAO can't work...no but maybe they work a little less. But what is the net impact on our snowfall probabilities when you start adding all those things together? If you keep losing on the margins in several different places...the margins start to add up.

maybe, that feature can be inconsistent and difficult to predict...the real issue was why did we lose the WAA to rain with a track like that. Relying on getting deformed to death is never how you want to roll.

Analyzing a 200 hour prog is silly but that's because initially its way too warm, anyone not in the higher elevations loses pretty much all the initial WAA precip to the northeast of the approaching storm to rain. Then as the coastal low passes by and the coastal plain gets into the CCB deform it finally cools...but that wrap around precip is notoriously finicky and banded and so in this case you get that weird presentation. Typically in this setup where the WAA precip was snow there would have been a more uniform snowfall presentation with some "bonus" zones within where the CCB banding sets up...but in this case that banding is almost the whole show because the more consistent WAA precip was rain.

Glass half full version: would be a nice little event, especially given this winter Glass half empty: why is a track off the coast with a perfect H5 pass in the snowiest period of our climo resulting in a mix event where DC loses half the precip to rain and is in the upper 30's until the low passes by and we get under the CCB. We lose pretty much all the WAA precip to rain.

I think the misconception that a dying nina is a good thing comes from 2 factors. Enso neutral used to be a snowier enso state a LONG time ago...it hasn't been in over 30 years abut sometimes once a narrative is established it can take a long time to change. The other issue is simple fallacy where people are looking for any hope and using the faulty logic of "nina=bad so anything else =good" when in actuality its "nina = bad, neutral = worse".

The only time I actually thought the pattern looked good was back in early December, and we did get what, on its face from a 30,000 ft view was a good pattern in mid December. This was actually the one time this year we had a longwave pattern that legit looked good. But it failed because that mean hid within it the fact that while on the whole the SER was suppressed and heights were lower in the east, in reality the SER was still able to thwart our chances because it resisted just enough each time a wave came along allowing each system during that period to cut well to our west. But that look above is a carbon copy of our "how to snow in a -PDO" analogs. But it failed, and I think some decided since that didn't work we are better off trying a different pattern. Problem is just because a really good pattern totally failed doesn't make a bad pattern more likely to work. It's actually simply depressing that we wasted a legit really good pattern. I don't think many actually think we've ever had a high probability of snow at anytime since that mid Dec pattern fail. I think some are just trying to be positive and keep hope alive. That's fine...but me personally, I would rather just accept how awful it is and face it head on and not tease myself with getting my hopes up over what are extremely long shot threats that are extremely likely to fail.

You're right that this is not acting like a canonical nina. @Terpeast noted if you look at the h5 analogs its actually behaving most like a neutral following a nina, which makes sense as the nina fades perhaps we are already into the phase where the atmosphere is behaving like a neutral. Problem is most don't realize, for whatever reason, that a enso neutral following a nina has been even worse for snow here than a nina.

Eventually we will get snow and the clowns who are constantly hyping every day 15 threat will claim victory.

Gefs has some limited support. Super long shot but at least there are a few members hinting maybe. Last few op runs that teased I didn’t even bother to say anything because there was absolutely no support. It’s still the weakest of signals and probably gone tomorrow but I figured I’d mention it. If we ever are gonna get lucky it has to start somewhere.

12z 2/2/23 ensembles BWI snow probability through day 15 1”: 11% 3” you don’t wanna know 6”: my microscope broke

30-40 years

Curious what the red tags think on this. My preliminary theory is “perhaps” the mjo impacts of the expanded indo-pac warm pool along with the expanding pac Hadley cell AND the logical impact of the almost permanently above normal gulf and western Atlantic are all combining to enhance the SER even more so than the pdo alone did during the last -pdo, and that is why we’ve seen patterns that historically were able to mute the SER fail to overcome the SER recently. 2 part question. There is not nearly enough data yet but do you think this COULD have any validity. And if so what other factors could help overcome that?

Good. Either way the more test cases the quicker we can come to a conclusion

Raises hand: Oh OH OH I know this one

The signal is hidden within the ensembles. The near neutral heights up top on the ensembles are because there are competing camps. There is some support for the -NAO the op runs are hinting at. The problem is, within that camp, there is a split between what the mid latitude impacts are, with most members showing continued ridging in the east regardless of the NAO state. We've seen that show now in a couple op runs also, the 6z aside. This is something we should be watching, and there should be more discussion and analysis on imo, is why havent, and what needs to happen for the NAO to have the canonical mid latitude response. IMO this is the most important factor because I do think we have entered a long term -PDO cycle. If we look back at the last -PDO cycle the way we got snow was not typically to get a positive PDO/PNA. The pacific was stuck in a hostile state about 80% of the time from 1945 to 1980. The way we got snow during that period was mostly during periods of high latitude blocking that forced the trough in the western US to cut east under the blocking instead of lifting, resulting in a basically a west to east full continent trough. We didn't ever really get a favorable pacific, we just overcame it. Look at the h5 for all our above normal snowfall -PDO years since 1960. The blue there is exaggerated because most of those years are from a colder base state and its using todays norms but you can clearly see the longwave pattern. The pacific is flat out god awful. Aleutian ridge, western N American trough. The reason most of the years are from so long ago was that was the last -PDO cycle. We have had a +PDO 75% of the time from 1980 on so there weren't that many years that had a -PDO for there to be opportunities. But within that there is a troubling trend where the percentage of -PDO winter months with above normal snowfall is dropping significantly. That is a big problem if we are going to spend 80% of the next 30 years in a -PDO! But if we dig even deeper the problem is related to the NAO. During the last -PDO 35 year cycle positive NAO periods were really really bad by that time periods norms. But -NAO periods were very very good. The reason -NAO's worked though was not because they somehow timed up with a favorable pac. This is why I get annoyed when people blame a NAO fail on the pacific. In our last hostile pac cycle the NAO was how we overcame the hostile pac. The hostile pac isn't going away, and I got bad news...thats likely true even in most nino's, many of our ninos during the last -PDO the pac was still a hot mess just like 2019 was, but the -NAO was able to compensate. But our fail rate in -NAO-PDO months is increasing dramatically. SO far though the data set is too small to say anything with statistical significance. But we really really really need NAO's to start forcing the western trough to broaden into a full west to east coast to coast mid latitude trough and NOT see the SER simply go ape during the -NAO and even link up...because that is the only way we ever got a really snowy winter during the previous hostile PDO period on record. Yea those years posted above may not seem like that many... but if you remove them from out last PDO cycle it would have made that period god awful. What I am most interested in frankly is waiting to see that the NAO still has the same impact it did during the last -PDO, which is to say it can OVERCOME the hostile pacific, because if we truly are in the next -PDO that hostile pacific is going to last most of the rest of our lives. That wasn't a death sentence for snow during previous PDO cycles only because blocking could overcome it.

I don't have an issue with your posts...your keeping hope alive posts are great. You are always clear that these are long shots at small events. You aren't hyping anything. Its good stuff. And you don't get emotional. I was just replying to your post because it was articulating this theme that we need to change the tone. No we need to change the pattern. The tone sucks because the pattern sucks. We can start 500 threads and name them whatever but so long as we are stuck in this pattern the results will be the same. I was agreeing with you on that. ETA: I have only posted a couple times about tangible threats because honestly there has rarely been anything that imo elevated itself to a legit high probability threat at significant snow. But everyone has a different threshold. You're more willing to break down something that, for example, has a 20% chance at giving someone 1-3". That doesn't really rise to the level I am willing to dig deep into and write up analysis. Frankly in a normal year we wouldn't even bother wasting time on that. But I get it...we're starving so take the crumbs. I have no problem with anyone that want's to focus on any little spec of hope we have. Maybe one of these actually works out. That's often how we get snow in a crap year...getting lucky with some longshot mediocre at best setup. I just don't have it in me to get excited by them. I am more interested in analyzing why we're stuck in this god awful long term cycle and looking for signs we are breaking out of it, not just hunting the crumbs within the drought. I am hunting when we finally break out of it in a big way.

It was a joke, he was posting April snow pattern maps, and his reply was clever and funny because I replied "k" to several people yesterday. Can't we at least have fun since its not snowing. Why does everyone have to be miserable.

The coldest I ever skiid in was -20 at Steamboat but honestly it was sunny with no wind and it felt a lot warmer. The coldest I skied in New England was about -10 at Sugarbush a couple times and that felt pretty awful on the lift in the wind.