psuhoffman

The drought thread is suffering

2nd was from an awful year but the one snowy period that year.

As for specific threats I’ve not looked at the frontal wave Thursday so I dunno. The weekend threat imo depends totally on where the timing snd amplitude of the several NS waves coming across. If one of them can be timed up just behind the southern wave and amplified enough it will help pull the storm up. 12z gfs has a NS wave about 12 hours too fast out in front which acts in the opposite way. No way the models are going to nail that yet Imo. Probably 48 hours away from them having a realistic shot. At some point this week the guidance will start to show some consistency both across guidance and run to run and that’s when it’s ok to think synoptic details might be getting resolved.

@Bob Chill to piggy back on you’re pattern post…I’ve seen a lot of fret regarding Feb and I do agree the amplified north pac trough/ridge likely can’t last all winter against the Nina base state but if cold is established and the pac relaxes some, so long as we don’t go all the way to the opposite with a raging western/central pac ridge we probably can do pretty good in February. Actually if we could get another cycle of NAO help in Feb with just a mediocre pac state and cold around that’s better for snow chances Imo. We’ve had lots of years where once we get cold dumped into the conus we can survive a less ideal pattern after and get more chances. On the flip we’ve seen years where good patterns are wasted due to lack of cold around! So long as the pac doesn’t go back to putrid I think we can maintain a workable pattern even after the inevitable relaxation. Maybe even get more snow out if it.

What was our final total? Best guess. Thanks. Btw if that’s the view I think it is my house is just left of those pines on top the hill.

Yup. Life’s short. No need to risk making it any shorter. Just roll with it and enjoy it.

It’s ok. It happens. Can’t control the weather. I might try to get some turns tomorrow since we decided to stay another night. The road is awful right now. Took me an hour to go 500 yards from condo to the top. Problem is all the people getting stuck and blocking the road. Maybe I could get home today if I tried but with 2 little kids it’s just not worth the risk. It’s bad out there and would be for about 75 miles until you clear east of the high ridges to the Shenandoah Valley. And I’m not even sure how good they got those roads there yet but at least there is no upslope snow there.

So far the skiing is an epic fail. All the high speed lifts are on wind hold. None of the expert terrain is accessible. Sitting in the lodge while kids play at kids world debating if it’s worth waiting in hopes the wind dies and they open. Talked to a ski patrol and didn’t like the effusive way they avoided saying anything about prospects. Usually when they aren’t saying hopeful things that’s bad.

Crap… was planning to ski tomorrow. That doesn’t sound too pleasant though. Wonder if lifts will even be running.

Odds DC beats climo this year? lol

I’ve noticed some freezing drizzle/mist and light sleet when it’s barely precipitating but whenever it comes down with any intensity, even light, it’s still snow. I guess we are far enough west to avoid that warm layer with a little help from upslope.

Give me your best guess when it’s over for my records.

Yea we stopped skiing early and had lunch. Now at split rock pools. Tomorrow will be awesome if the wind dies down. We probably won’t get too much between 6pm-midnight in the dryslot but I expect the upslope to start cranking by 1-2am. I could see another 6-10” from that later tonight through tomorrow.

It’s similar without the one key problem for tomorrow…No NS feature diving in behind to phase. Add that and it would cut the same as tomorrow. Remove that from from tomorrow and we would have had a snowstorm. Key detail.

I think we’re just analyzing it from different angles. Lots of intricacies. But Imo (and again maybe this is our climo) when we have a great pac like now we don’t need a cut off Rex block over Greenland. We actually were teased with that for a couple days and that’s when this storm was getting squashed! It was too much! We have a NW flow from the pac longwave pattern, a full ok Rex block is probably too much of a good thing. We need some suppression and the regular old -NAO ridge provided that. It got the SW to dig to GA. But then we need the flow to relax or this is a southern slider like guidance was showing a week ago when there was a Rex block and it wasn’t relaxing in time. We need whatever dives in on the NW flow to be able to turn the corner and amplify up the coast or it’s a cold dry congrats NC pattern! This isn’t 2010. We actually had a trough in the SW so we wanted that crazy block to resist the juiced stj systems that wanted to cut up the east absent that block. That was a perfect combo. Put that block in this pac look and it’s 1977. The bay might freeze over but we won’t get much snow. So my reasoning for focusing on the NS energy behind is that’s the one variable that could have changed this to a white outcome. From where this is in GA we need the flow to relax. No way that affects us at all otherwise. The system had to start to lift from there. So the suppression relaxing when it does is necessary. But that stupid SW diving in behind over amplifies and turns the whole thing negative on a dime. You’re 100% about all the other ways this could have been stopped from cutting but most of those result in a suppressed wave that gets no snow north of Richmond imo. But removing that NS piece allows this to turn the corner but without the phase and going nuts. I think we could have worked with that. Not some huge storm but better than this result. But where you are turning the corner comes with precip type risks so I can see you rooting to be on the northern edge of the suppressed idea. I smoke cirrus in that scenario so…no thabks So what you’re describing

So close man but good starting spot 10 days out It’s a long range op so doesn’t matter but the SW track is good and the flow isn’t over suppressive. All it would take is a slightly more amplified SW.

We have very diff climo. We don’t share many big snows. The huge ones yea but more typically if I’m getting 12+ you’re raining and if you are I’m smoking cirrus. The 95 corridor is in between and can get the NW edge of southern sliders or the SE edge of more amplified coastal climbers. You want to the slider. A storm amplifying up the coast is a loser east of 95 90% of the time. My comments were more for 95 west. I don’t think east of the bay was ever in play in this setup once the confluence broke down. But there was a way that doesn’t happen so fast. Adjust that NS wave digging in and we get way less ridging in front. It’s not like the pattern is awful. Just bad timing with that feature.

Another detail that went wrong that globals won’t be able to pin down at range was the exact trajectory of the SE flow and associated waa precip. It ended up aimed more to our SW until after we lose the mid levels. More e to w v s to n. That’s a worse angle to maximize the WAA before we lose the mid levels.

@Bob Chilland @MillvilleWxdId a great job explaining but I get why many casual observers are confused. This isn’t a typical setup. The physics make sense but to those that just observe and base expectations on typical synoptic progressions this is odd. This was actually a really good longwave setup but a lot of details had to go wrong to get this outcome. First we’re on the backside of a trough in a NW flow and there is confluence over the top right now. That’s why the SW is diving SSE down the Miss valley and digging to to gulf coast. To get that there has to be a NW flow. And so normally there is no way that leads to rain. And I can understand the superficial confusion. But then everything goes wrong in a very rare combination. The upper low is way too amplified and cuts off way too early. That alone would be odd but we could survive that except that for the another very energetic NS SW digs in and phases at exactly the wrong time which manages to turn the whole trough on its axis in a very tight window. We go from being on the backside in a suppressive flow today to a neg tilt trough to our west in 24 hours. That’s special in a bad luck way. That NS SW had to be exactly where it was on the exact trajectory and amplitude to pull that. Faster and it would have been pulled east over the top by the current suppression and would have helped resist the SE flow ahead of the anomalous closed low. Slower and it doesn’t pull off the phase in time and the upper low gets further East before it turns north. But no it was exactly where and how it needed to be to screw up an otherwise good longwave setup. Oh well. Look at the mslp plots without the L. There is no defined closed surface circulation. There is no classic surface low. This is all mid and upper level driven. There is a strung out negatively tilted trough of low pressure along the convection associated with the SE flow ahead of the mid and upper low. Where the L shows each panel is just a function of where the lowest pressure by 1mb happens the be along that trough at any given moment likely convection induced. It’s irrelevant whether it’s over Hagerstown or DC or the bay at any given moment. That feature isn’t driving the bus here anyways.

We’re just having fun. Regardless of the NAM this has changed quite a bit. Look at where the axis of heaviest snow was on the Gfs 24 hours ago and now.

Just have to lol. This is where the actual snowstorm ended up.

That’s how you have to roll. Take no prisoners.

Scranton…it rains to northern VT on this run.

@stormtracker fire up the bus we need to go to Binghamton for their 3 tenths of on inch!!!

Gonna be congrats Alaska in a few more runs