psuhoffman

Where is the thread to discuss whether the Earth is round, or whether 2+2 is 4?

Unfortunately it might be correct...just glance at the whole hemisphere and its easy to see the yellow is way more prevalent that the blue. It takes a lot more to get "below normal" anomalies lately. The GEFS is more balanced but it also has the more pronounced cold bias. But here is where I am. If that pattern on the EPS is too warm...I would rather find out conclusively because I really do mean it, if that's true I am done tracking. Because if its true that the only way we can get cold enough to snow is with a huge full latitude EPO ridge, what that means is the last 7 years are not an anomaly but are the new normal. Because we are NEVER going to get a truly snowy period from that kind of pattern. For starters its just too rare. It's never going to be a sustainable long term solution to our snow drought. And second...even when we do get that rare pattern its often not even a snowy one. If we only snow in these EPO cross polar patterns the truth is the last 7 years is simply the normal now and its not worth tracking to me...the same way I didn't bother to track when I was in NC many years ago. I just took whatever snow came but I knew it was too rare to waste time on it. But I don't believe that. Despite my position that has been made clear, I do also think its possible if not likely we are ALSO in a cyclical down period dominated by a hostile PAC. Two things can be true. I still hold out hope that if the PAC backs off we can get cold enough in a more canonical snowy pattern. But I want to see some evidence of it.

I would still take the eps over the gefs. First of all that HAS to be cold enough for several reasons. Look at the flow. That isn’t pac puke. It’s predominantly CP with even some cross polar arctic. Yes it will have a little more MP mixed in without the full lat epo ridge the gefs has but that look has never been a “that too warm” pattern. GEFS look worried me a little. The epo ridge is too far west. Not enough pna. The pna is way more correlated to snow here than the epo. The longwave pattern on the gefs is way more likely to be a warm wet cold dry one. It’s also less sustainable. We want the tpv displaced but not overly. A full altitude epo ridge that causes a major tpv displacement and full lat trough is usually very short lived. Once the tpv progresses the trough lifts. Ideally we want a more west to east flow with cold over the top not these huge jet amplifications. That’s why I hate when people throw around March 93 analogs. That look can lead to a huge storm ya but more often it leads to nothing in terms of snow for us. Give me the better longwave setup on the euro with a less amplified flow and a flow off the arctic into our source regions and I’ll roll with that. Then if it turns out that’s actually is too warm I know it’s time to quit this hobby because I have no interest in being relegated to rooting for weak progressive boundary waves to give me table scraps every blue moon.

There is no doubt that an epo ridge that unlocks cross polar flow can still deliver cold. Problem is an epo ridge isn’t actually, historically, a good way to get a lot of snow. For every 2014 there are 5 examples that didn’t work. See last January. It worked for some in a fairly small geographic area but I had barely any snow at all. It wasn’t a widespread snowy pattern. But let’s see how this plays out. It’s going to depend on other factors. Right now they look favorable. My frustration is that it seems we’ve stacked one more variable that now needs to be favorable for us to have any shot.

A healthy WAA precip shield requires sufficient cold air. Hard to create “overrunning” when there is no cold to over run!

My take is he figured JB needed some competition in the junk clown met division.

It’s a legit fantastic look. But we’ve seen this headfake before. Not saying things won’t improve but recently it doesnt last long before another pacific onslaught. I’ll be more optimistic if this holds inside day 10 and we still can’t see the end. Taking the kids to snowshoe this weekend. If things still look good even we get back I’ll jump all in. It’s not talked about enough that the blocking up top contributed to that season. The pac was great but to overcome the WAR it helped that we also had a -AO much of the time. If you have a perfect epo pna and some high lat ridging then some war can even help. Different equations.

That’s why I said root for the EPS. The Gfs op gives us the pattern the gefs advertises. Ya this looks cold, and it is cold for a few days, but this is very unlikely to lead to a meaningful snowstorm.

@Maestrobjwa I found this. My brother created it from our trip to Revelstoke 10 years ago. He is behind the camera most of the video. We were there a week and it snowed about 30” and the locals were complaining it was a snow drought! Spend a couple weeks there each winter and you will probably feel better!

@CAPE The EPS look is more favorable to us getting snow imo. Before I even get into the details it’s possible it’s not really warmer just less wrong. Both the others have a more pronounced cold bias. That factor aside, the gefs might be a colder look because it has a deeper trough but again cold is only 1/2 the equation. That gefs look is not good for snow. Any strong wave will cut. Any weak wave will get shunted in a progressive flow. We’d be left rooting for a perfectly timed perfectly amplified progressive boundary wave. The eoro has a way more favorable longwave configuration to get an amplified wave under us. It’s not as cold but we have to hope it “cold enough” Its not a pac puke torch like now at least. But it doesn’t have as much straight arctic fetch as the gefs but again for the millionth time a straight arctic fetch pattern isn’t a good one for snow. The vast majority of our snowstorms come with temps near freezing in marginal cold because the longwave pattern that’s best to get amplified systems off the mid Atlantic coast isn’t an arctic cold pattern. I think some are getting fooled into rooting for that gefs kinda pattern because those progressive boundary waves are literally the only snow events we’ve been getting for 7 years now. But that’s also why its been the worst 7 years in history. That’s never going to be a winning game plan. We might luck into one of those waves once in a while but it’s gonna be more of the same crap with way more Ls than Ws. I would way rather run a test case on if what should be our best snow pattern can still work. The eps isn’t a pac puke pattern. It’s a domestic CP regime. There are no excuses if what the EPS is indicating doesn’t work other than the obvious one. But Imo we should roll with that and if we get that EPS look And we still get a couple good track rain events then we know…you know!

Let's avoid the climate change angle here and just focus on the real argument you made which is "right now cold isn't the problem". I don't agree with the attacks but I think everyone is just beyond frustrated. But here is why your claim is problamatic. 1) night time lows during radiational cooling is a horrible way to judge the true nature of an airmass. The cold can be a very shallow surface layer. What is way more important to the chances for snow is the depth and scope of the airmass. 2) There is an issue with probabilities. Cold is only 1/2 of the equation for getting snow. Precip is the other. So saying, it was cold enough to snow during these 10 days this winter and it didn't so cold is the problem is completely ignoring 50% of the equation. Getting snow is about timing up both the cold and the moisture. So if we only get precip on 20% of days in winter and its only cold enough on 20%...well math starts to become a real problem! 3) Additionally due to our latitude and the way waves work we are most likely to be on the warm side of the equation right before and during precipitation because of the fact that any approaching wave is likely to have a southerly flow ahead of it. This gets back to the depth issue. If you are cold but its a shallow cold in a marginal airmass its not going to be enough to resist the warm air advection that comes ahead of any storm. And this is critical because that is also what creates the vast majority of our winter precipitation. So if the airmass is not sufficient to resist WAA we are left with the only way we can get snow is to get super lucky with some crazy perfect cutoff h5 pass and bombing cyclone that dynamically cools the airmass over us. It happens...but its not a good way to roll if you want snow regularly. 4) Putting all that together...yes right now cold is your biggest problem because while you do have a shallow cold layer due to it being the coldest week of the year and good radiational cooling conditions in one of the colder locations in the mid atlantic...the depth of the airmass right now is not enough to win in the equation I laid out above.

Anyone who expects snow from this setup has serious issues. This is like buying a 20$ scratch off. You dont expect to win the 10,000 dollars.

Control settles it. Secondary gets going just in time scrape eastern New England. What we should expect from a NS miller b secondary

I think it’s worse than 12z. Not Gfs worse but it’s hard to say. It could also just be slower. Maybe. It’s still diving energy in behind but it’s either slower or not digging as much.

Your average low right now is about 20*. Ya I know that sounds crazy because it’s been forever since that was a typical night in winter but that’s about the 30 year mean for stations in the Shenandoah Valley area. In past periods it used to even be in the high teens this week! Even IAD avg low is 25! Don’t worry, it won’t be for long if this keeps up.

Unfortunately how it gets there is believable. The better look out west only lasts 3 days, not long enough to do anything, then the pac attacks again and it’s right back to square one. Not saying I believe the Gfs but that’s been the status quo for years.

This isn’t a simple synoptic setup. Placing the banding with a developing secondary dealing with multiple pieces of energy in close proximity is tricky. The kind of thing models would have missed completely 20 years ago. The highest resolution and best physics has the best chance to possible see it and that’s the opp.

FWIW this is the kind of thing, at this range, that if it’s real the op will pick up on it first.

How you get to that look is important too though. A NS wave diving in from the NW to that location is a LOT different than something coming at us from the TN valley. I would be a LOT more excited if I lived in Philly or NYC with this kind of setup. It's going to be really difficult for that kind of setup to come together in time to really significantly impact the DC area. It's possible...the CMC showed how, but history suggests this is way more likely to work out further NE of us. Just beware of objects that might start coming at your head in here if this does evolve into a canonical miller b NYC hit DC screwjob.

That look day 15 isn't just ok its REALLY good...the kind of good we should still be able to win with even if our climo fears are true. If not...well then its really close the blinds forever time. The question isn't would that work...IMO its 1)is that real 2)how long does it last knowing even in a good pattern it usually takes us more than one opportunity with a wave to get a hit

Nothing is trending towards a colder solution. They are actually all trending even warmer still. This is the storm we were tracking 72 hours ago on that CMC run The primary system is toast. Gone. Forget it. Its going to cut. What guidance is trending towards now is the idea that a secondary piece of energy is going to dive in the back side and develop a new low along the coast after the front from the original system catches up...which would open the door some to a crazy scenario where the mid atlantic COULD get snow if everything went absolutely perfectly. Yea I know that is not how we normally roll but once in a blue moon something like that can happen and why not end this streak that way. But to say its trending colder is a gross misrepresentation of the situation.

The only way the coastal plain of the mid atl is getting snow from this is it something flukey happens exactly like that control run showed wrt a secondary development. The primary system is toast.

Oh no… I’ve heard that “rule” used before but unfortunately often misused by maybe the most unreliable, unethical, and biggest crack pot sources there is! JB In a very very very general sense the upper level feature will often exit about the same latitude. But it’s by no means a hard rule. And the devil is in the details. For instance in this case the primary surface low can cut to Ohio then a secondary forms off NJ with the upper low redeveloping off MD. That would accomplish the result of the system exiting at the same latitude but in a way that means absolutely nothing wrt our snow chances.