psuhoffman

It kinda went to what I was saying about the 18z eps amplified members where the track looked good but we still didn’t get snow because it was keying on the NS so it all developed to our north.

Gfs would be a conundrum. Do I stay at snowshoe for 15” or come home early for 9”. Honestly 9” at home is probably more exciting and the kids would probably prefer that.

I wasn’t towel throwing. Just saying it’s not Dec when some 3” snow puts me in the holiday mood. Or Jan when maybe I can build a snowpack. At this point a few more 2-4” snows don’t do much for me. The only thing that would change my perception of this winter would be some dynamic events. im not mad though. Actually I’ve been more focused on my weekend ski trips (got ikon pass and am getting my moneys worth) and I’ve seen a ton of snow in WV and Vermont. BTW for those that get frustrated tracking this is helpful. It’s making the winter fly by and I have multiple locations to track for every week. So I’m not even upset about it but objectively it’s been an absolutely horrible winter here and nothing short of some big storms will change that now. I’m 27” short of average going into mid February. I’m not gonna nickel and dime out if that hole.

I know this is late but what I meant was when I saw a few of the crazy amped solutions still didn’t really have an impressive snow presentation I was curious (how does a sub 990 low over the bay not have a 12”+ area for example) and when I dig a little it seemed to be because the snored solutions were developing the NS wave. The reason we saw mostly misses to the SE and NW with no big flush hits like the gefs was there weren’t really solutions that keyed on the SS and amplified that wave and that’s my preferred solution. We could get some snow from an all NS solution but I’m fully big game hunting now. I’m sitting on the least snow ever on this date of 16 years up here and I’ve seen plenty of minor snows. At this point the only thing that can save this season from being on my personal hate list would be some kind of dynamic singular event. If all were going to get are minor snows I’ll pass. But I don’t begrudge anyone chasing whatever they want! I’ll track anything. But I’m rooting for the big dog options even if it’s lower probability. So far this season reminds me of some of the Nina’s in the 50s, 70s and 80s that weren’t that warm and ended near normal or only slightly below at DC but we’re awful here. Makes sense. If you get a cold but generally blah pattern all it takes is a couple hits to get DC near normal. If DC finished with 14” and we get 18” that was a top 50% year there and a bottom 10% here.

Problem is it’s keying on the NS SW so even the more amped solutions aren’t good (for DC) as they end up too far NW. If the NS SW ends up the focus of the amplification there really isn’t much of a path to victory for some of the area. The GFS and GEFS was much closer to a winning progression with more focus on the SS wave.

You just had to didn’t ya

The icon sucks at sucking

I’m so proud no one took that bait. 10 years ago there would be 20 posts extrapolating the NAM by now. We’re starting to show potential!

NAM at 84 was interesting. Lol

There was some luck to it but on the other hand If you look at the overall snowfall the last 4 Nina years and a mean Nina snow anomaly map they end to kinda close. i can’t find the darn thing right now but the max Nina snow minimum is right along 95 from DC to Baltimore. With near normal to the southeast and northwest. The screw zone near DC to Balt is kind of typical of a Nina.

But again I’m not calling TOD or anything. This has a shot. Sometimes these low % things do work and we get lucky. But I’m also not excited. It’s got a lot working against it wrt the NS flow. We need to get really lucky with the timing of the waves because there are so many and barely (if there is at all) room for this to amplify.

Not exactly. You’re right wrt the timing. But that’s only part of the equation. Imo our bigger problem is the spacing. Conservation of energy laws say we do know simply by “how much is going on” that our odds are low. We need a more amplified solution. The more crap is flying around in the NS flow the less likely anything can amplify more. So simply the fact there is so much going on is bad. It’s complicated. We don’t do complicated. Our winning snow setups are typically “keep it simple stupid”. That’s why our absolute best pattern possible is a split flow NAO block with cold in place. . NS is out of the way. Not all these stupid waves flyinh across to squads and flatten the SS waves. And a block to stop the resulting amplifications from cutting.

But we do…there are goalposts. Those goalposts haven’t narrowed completely yet…but the outcomes seem to very between not even close and kinda close. Yes timing differences determine just how badly the NS messes it up and that determines if it’s not close or close. But you know what we’re not seeing? A bunch of flush hit outcomes mixed in there. That means imo that while it’s possible the wave spacing makes it very unlikely. Even the better runs with better timing are still not good enough. Is it possible guidance converges on the absolutely perfect timing and wave spacing we need for this to work? Yes. Is it likely no. What I’m seeing is that there are simply too many vorts embedded in the NS coming across too fast to make the amplification we need likely.

Gfs went the wrong way. Same problem as always. Too much going on in the NS. 2 doesn’t allow 1 to amplify. Im also kinda over getting excited when we see a “trend” in guidance that takes us from “out of it” to “slightly less out of it”. It’s a fallacy to assume that trend continues. This isn’t dead but it’s low probability. Don’t think I’m saying it’s totally not gonna happen. But I’m not getting excited until guidance actually supports something. I’m tired of entering the 100 hour threshold saying “we’re close if we just get this and that trend”. No. Screw that. That almost never works. We just get frustrated. I’d rather enter the final 100 hours with the preponderance of guidance showing a flush hit and not needing a bunch of things to change in our favor.

Yea of course the pattern matters. My argument was irrespective of the pattern the time since our last snow is irrelevant

2 problems with this narrative. 1) big (let’s say a widespread 10”+) storms dont just happen because of time. They happen when the pattern supports. Yes there is a random typical mean frequency to them simply because by random chance the patterns that support them tend to happen maybe a dozen times a decade and odds say we hit on several of those chances and so normally we will get several of them every decade. But if the pattern isn’t right they won’t happen just because it’s time. 2) because of typical frequencies within the variance there will be random patterns but it’s like a coin toss. The odds of getting 10 heads in a row is extremely rare. But once you had 9 heads it doesn’t change the fact it’s still 50/50 what the outcome of the 10th flip will be. Once you get 9 heads your chance of 10 is now 50/50 regardless of how bad the chances were at the start. I’ve done that math before to show that the chances of getting a big snow or a big year are about the same (if you ignore the pattern) going into every year regardless of what the outcome the previous year was. The patterns are simply random due to typical frequencies within the chaos.

It could. But how often in the last 5 years have we said that. And how often did some adjustment happen in the last 48 hours that actually helped in a significant way? The fringe areas will adjust of course. But it seems increasingly rare that we actually see major synoptic changes that move the core of a storm that much in the final 48 hours anymore. I think if we are really in the game we will see major improvements in the next 24 hours.

Some actually say and mean that…but for the most part 90% of storms end up hitting the general place they bullseye once inside 100 hours. There are some adjustments on the fringes but once we get to 100 hours the guidance has been really good the last few years. Seems between 150 to 100 hours is when the convergence on a close to reality solution happens. We’re in that zone now. And it’s trending better. Problem is that trend could end anytime and very soon I suspect we see guidance find something close to the final outcome and we still have a bit of work to do. We haven’t had much luck getting the SS to time up with the NS lately. Our best chances came when the NS simply dug enough to get it done itself.

True but it was the dud of the modoki Nino cohort

I don’t even want to get into this because there are people who live to argue definitions and classifications and I hate that. There are disagreements about exactly what a modoki is. Some classify them as any Nino that originated from the central pac then sometimes propagates east. Others by any event where the warmer waters are centered in the central pac. For our purposes even a basin wide is ok so long as it’s moderate not a super Nino. But we definitely want the warmest anomalies to be in the central pac. There doesn’t seem to be much pattern of regularity. I think there were modoki or modoki like episodes in 1964, 1966, 1970, 1978, 1980, 1987, 1995, 2003, 2005, 2010 and 2015. 3 weren’t great. 1980 was a nightmare where every big storm (there were 3) hit the southern mid Atlantic and north of DC was just cold and dry. 2005 was weak and didn’t couple well and we got kinda unlucky on several storms. But it was a good winter just not great. 1995 sticks out as the WTF went wrong in that group. 1980 and 2005 at least bore characteristics of a modoki Nino and we just got unlucky. 95 was just an anomaly like 1996 was in the other way.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97111-y ETA: for anyone that doesn’t like to read the short of it is that using this method apparently modoki ninos can be predicted in advance and they are predicting one next year.

It’s a decent setup on the southern part…but damnit with the NS SWs flying across every 36 hours it’s hard to time anything up.

No he has no idea The pattern is what it is. Absent blocking we need luck. We’ve had 2 major amplifications. One cut west the other was east. We had 3 boundary waves. One went north, one south, and we got one region wide 3-6” storm from one. (I’m not counting Jan 3, that was really during a transition from the -NAO -pna pattern). So in the first 4 weeks of this pattern we had 5 legit threats and 1 decent hit and 2 minor fringe events. A little frustrating but not a total disaster. Do we get more luck before this ends…I have no clue. But just like the others we wont know the details of any threats until they’re within 5-6 days. Stuff at 140+ hours will come and go and change a lot. Some keep saying stuff will pop up within 72 hours but I don’t really agree. I think guidance is better than in 2014. These waves have been modeled very well once inside 100-120 hours. But outside 120-140 things have gone through major synoptic shifts. I suspect we don’t go 2 weeks (the pattern looks to last at least that long) without some threat materializing but nothing is within range yet. But we will be at the mercy of the same factors. If it’s a boundary wave we need a weaker wave. If it’s a major amplification/phase we need perfect timing.

That index isn’t always the best way to judge. It’s based on surface pressures between Iceland and the Azores. That’s not really even what we look for. A Greenland block or even Baffin block is better yet sometimes won’t show on that index if there is a trough in the eastern NAO domain. We had a beautiful retrograding block from Dec 18-30. But the pac was historically bad. There was a ton of blocking last winter also.