psuhoffman

The skepticism isn’t wrong. It doesn’t snow much here without blocking. But it’s annoying when the woe is me crowd takes over and the thread gets flooded with whining over what’s normal (not snow). It’s been a pretty typical winter. Some snow. Some cold. But not enough to make most happy. And that describes 80% of our winters. How many in the last 20 years truly satisfied the majority of people here? 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015…that’s it really. I was happy with 2006 but I remember people whining that it was really only one storm and it melted so fast. Same with 2016. So other than 4 of the last 20 years people some were complaining. Maybe they need to evaluate their expectations! Im not blind to the low odds of snow but my game in winter is to hunt for the next possible threat, whether it’s 3 days or 15 days away. And whether it’s in December or March. I’m hunting for that chance of a snowstorm and analyzing the pattern to identify our chances knowing full well it’s a long shot and most threats are bound to fail.

The southern and eastern mid Atlantic cashed in on a few waves and in places where avg snowfall is only 15-20” that’s all it takes. Anywhere north west of there all the way to Canada is having an incredibly dry snowless winter. Even the ski resorts in new england. It’s been cold so the conditions are ok but sugarbush averages 275” and is only on 85 right now. Some are doing even worse. I’m starting to get really worried about spring skiing. My favorite time is March and April but unless they get about 100”+ in the next might there won’t be any spring skiing. The pathetic base they have now wouldn’t last the first 3 day 50+ thaw or one good rainstorm.

If we can stall 4/5 a bit...the later we get in winter/spring the more they become ambiguous and not necessarily warm phases anymore.

Maybe after saying the pattern was going to break down for the last month they are finally going to be right. I am not saying they wont be. I don't know. The pattern does have to break eventually. BUT...why do the same people that say it means nothing and deb when the super long range guidance says cold is coming...suddenly believe it totally when those same models say warm is coming???

I’ll be at snowshoe with my kids next weekend.

Tuuuuuuuuucked

My perfect storm. Gives us 10-20” then obliterates the ski resort I’m going to right after it with 40”. ETA: my 10 hour drive to sugarloaf would have 20”+ otg the whole way lol.

If you're talking exclusively about 20"+ HECS storms, then yes the window for those closes around Feb 15th on the coastal plain. But those are extremely rare, like 1-2 per decade rare anyways. The odds we were going to get one of those in a nina was VERY VERY low anyways. But if we are just talking about a snowstorm, even a really significant 10" storm, the odds go down after Feb 15 but its not a cliff its a slow gradual decline until you get to late march where the door finally closes. The metro areas have had plenty of significant snowfalls in late Feb and March. Just off the top of my head there was a 8-12" late Feb storm in 1966. A 10-15" storm in late Feb 1987. I can't remember exactly what years but I know there were big storms (like 10"+) in both the late 1920s and late 1940's in late Feb. March 93, there was a pretty big storm in DC in March 99, A 6-12" storm in March 2009, a very big storm, I think 10-15" across the area in March 1960. I know there was a 8-10" march storm in 1976 and a big storm in March 62. I think there was a big march snowstorm in the 1940's also. Those are just BIG MECS 10" plus storms...there were countless 5-8" type snowstorms in late Feb and early March. The list isnt that much shorter than a similar list for early Feb or some random period in January even. Yes it lacks 20" plus HECS storms...but you made it sound like snow suddenly becomes harder after Feb 15th.

Correlation without causation is just a random fluke.

The weird atypical presentation is because of the combo of the STJ wave out ahead of it and the stronger initial low along the front to the north. The stj wave is the focus of the deep tropical moisture and the low to the north prevents any closed circulation. The combo means no typical WAA precip to the northeast of the developing low until it eventually phases.

I’ve seen that synoptic progression happen a few times. Not impossible. But it’s not something models will get right from range. And to work we need the secondary to pop southeast of us now right over us like the 12z Gfs.

I honestly rarely look but I do know at one point earlier in January they showed a total torch for February.

Very similar problem to last weekend. Not much was said on this but Imo what went wrong most was simply the timing of where the stj waves were. The ridge trough alignment was great. The NS SW dug far enough southwest. The problem was at the critical time as that SW rounded the base and looked to amplify there were two STJ waves, one in the western gulf behind it and one way off east of Florida. It linked up and phased with that one. That pulled all the energy too Far East. We would have been fine if a stj wave was in the eastern gulf coast at that time. Or absent that we would have been better off if there was no stj wave at all. The track of that NS wave was perfect for another 3-6” snowstorm like the one we had earlier this month if it simply amplified on its own along the arctic boundary instead of phasing into the stj wave.

What did the gefs and eps extended show for right now 3-4 weeks ago? I guess eventually they will be correct if they keep saying the same thing. What I’ve noticed is those long range guidance systems skew heavily towards “typical climo” in a given major base state. That’s why in 2019 they kept teasing us with the “typical Nino” look that never came. This year they keep wanting to revert to “typical Nina “ but something is obviously countermanding that. Im not saying they are useless. Going with typical climo for a dominant driver base state isn’t a bad idea sometimes. So when it gets “what’s driving the bus” right they can be useful. But when a season is not going according to typical for a given base state they tend to be awful and keep teasing a shift back to said typical base state climo.

Significant change

We do waste blocks in a Nina sometimes. But we can waste a block in a Nino also. 2016 there were two more episodes of blocking after the blizzard and we mostly wasted them. 2010 had blocking wall to wall but it was one storm in Dec and an epic 12 day period in Feb. No one remembers the miller b we missed in late Feb then weeks of suppression after. We mostly wasted a block in the 2007 Nino and the 2005 Nino was meh despite blocking. 1998 had epic blocking but no cold. It’s just we get so many HECS level events from Nino blocking we tend to forget the misses. Plus if we hit one or two hecs storms no one remembers the month we didn’t snow with the block. In a Nina a hit is more likely to be a 4-8” storm. Or maybe a 8-12”. But if that’s all we get all winter like 2011 it’s still a crap winter.

I broke down all the blocking periods over 20 years by enso once. We are still likely to get snow in a -NAO Nina but they are more likely to be moderate storms not HECS level. Last year kinda fir that bill only it was 2-3 degrees too warm. If not DC would have had several 4-8” level storms.

I knew I should have made that left at Albuquerque!

Well...I'm a Constitutional Law and political science teacher and I help run extended learning programs and summer school for Baltimore City and I have degrees in Sociology and Political Science Education. LOL BUT...what I think you are asking... I was a meteorology major at Penn State for 3 years before dropping it to focus on the sociology and politics stuff. So I did get SOME formal education in meteorology. But honestly 90% of what I know was self taught. Observation and reading. I am probably the only person who read college level meteorology text books for fun as a kid. As an adult I've done my own research, poured through pattern analogs and records to see "what works" and what doesn't, and read up on things I come across I don't understand and want to.

Maybe this belongs in the "climo" thread more and if so Mods can move it. But I wanted to point out something regarding what we are struggling with. Since this pattern set in early January we have been cold enough for snow about 90% of the time. Yet 90% of our precipitation has fallen during the 10% we weren't. That isn't just bad luck. That is the most likely outcome at our latitude (south of the mean latitude to support snow) in any pattern without blocking. The current favorable Pac bad Atlantic pattern is better then a no hope shut out the lights pattern we often get if the pac is bad or both are bad. Historically we could overcome a bad pac with a good atlantic sometimes but lately with the PAC on fire and the base state warmer it seems when the pac is bad it just torches the whole continent and the NAO can't save us. So realistically to get a really high probability snowy pattern we need BOTH to cooperate. Still a good pac isnt awful and it will put us in the game and eventually we might get lucky on some waves...but wanted to explain why we need luck. For most this is nothing you don't already know but we have some new posters. I am going to really really really simplify this. And for those that know more yes its possible to get a storm on the back side of a trough in a NW flow with upper level driven energy and vorticity or with localized WAA along a NW to SE oriented front. But those aren't the typical way we score so lets just make this simple here. Most storms are going to lift the thermal boundary north. As they amplify they will pump ridging ahead of them from the southerly flow. The cold boundary will lift with it north. If we don't have anything to resist this...we are too far south to end up on the cold side unless we get extremely lucky and a wave tracks just southeast of us out of pure chance. With blocking that is not the case. I am using Feb 2010 to illustrate this point. Look at the pacific. This would be absolutely awful without blocking. The mean flow into the central US is all from the SW. But we have that huge block with a northerly flow locked into the northeast so we actually want that southwest flow to our west to take the STJ and throw it up into the cold. Now look at the actual storm track. The primary for the 2010 storm was cutting to Ohio. But it ran into the blocked flow and was forced to turn east, develop a secondary, and slide east and out under us. Because of the block we had a HUGE window to win. ANy storm that tried to track anywhere between those green lines was going to end good for us because of the block. Nothing could cut so it would have to turn east under us. Right now we have a great pacific pattern putting a trough in the east. But without a block we have to get that trough to align absolutely perfectly to get a system to track just southeast of us by pure chance. There is nothing to "block" a storm from cutting west. So basically below is our current "win" box. We have to get a storm to accidentally track within that tiny red box. Again, its not impossible. We do get plenty of our snow from these patterns by luck without blocking...and if we get enough chances eventually we should get lucky...but I do think the big winters of 2014 and 2015 which I've said were probably flukes and not indicative of a typical outcome from pac driven no blocking patterns, skewed some wrt what to expect. This pattern is way way better than if the pac was a mess like most of the last 5 years. If we arent going to have a -NAO this at least puts us in the game. But it's a really frustrating pattern in that it is cold and you think it should snow...but we have to get the storm track to be absolutely perfect for it to actually happen.

For this region in general our snowiest period is Dec 1-March 15. About 1/3 of our annual mean snowfall is from Feb 15-March 15. Yet some people want to throw that away every single year. WTF

stop wasting time on the wrong wave and cue up the jaws music

I’ll be honest I’ve been busy the last few days and I think there is potential for waves after this frontal passage…but I’m kinda shocked we’re tracking this in here. I wanted to head up to northern Vermont (Stowe or Sugarbush) next weekend and I was just praying it doesn’t rain (or freezing rain same difference wrt skiing) all the way to northern VT from this and ruin the surface.

Pattern changes that happen in late December and early January often tend to be more indicative of the predominant winter longwave pattern. The current pacific setup has been extremely stable. So long as we continue to see the trough near or just west of the Aleutians and the corresponding epo ridge it will continue to be cold on the average here. If we remain in this pattern long enough I would think eventually we luck into some of these waves. Feb and March offers increasing baroclinic energy for these waves to work with. We were pretty frustrated at this time in 2015 in a pac dominant pattern also. There is still hope this ends well. For lots of places it’s already been going well, have to remind myself I’ve just been unlucky this year.

It was the lack of key wasn’t it?