psuhoffman

Your point is correct but those other things (the ways we quantify the pattern) are pre-requisites before luck even matters. We can luck our way to some minor marginal events without any pattern help but we’re not getting a MECS or HECS or some heater of successive SECS’s without any pattern help no matter what. Sometimes we can score with “less” help but if the NAO, AO, PNA, EPO are all bad luck won’t save us. The pattern puts us in the game then we need luck to win. On a related note, there were a handful of warning snows in my case study (BWI warning snows since 1950) without any discernible pattern help in the indexes but they all had a Hudson Bay ridge. That’s a weird feature that doesn’t always show up on any of the numerical indexes yet it’s a more regional feature that can turn an otherwise bad pattern into a workable one.

No problem. It’s a really cool thing you got over there!

Just to drive home the luck factor…that loop is beautiful. Absolutely perfect pattern. But look at the result of that run on the ground.

Gfs has way less separation because it’s digging the NS into the Ohio valley v the Midwest on the euro and the Gfs is mostly leaving the southern stream behind. Euro has a very good synoptic setup for the weekend the Gfs not so much. Real model war in the not crazy long range going on.

My first two busts were Jan 1987 and Feb 1989 in south Jersey. 1987 they were saying 1-3” changing to rain. Woke up to a couple inches and heavy snow and was excited but KYW radio said it was about to change to rain and school wasn’t even delayed. While at school watched it continue to snow and snow and snow. Around noon they decided to send us home but by then it was a mess and took hours. It was dark by the time I got home. We ended up with about 10”. It did eventually end as some drizzle lol. Feb 89 was awful. Supposed to get a blizzard. 1-2 feet. Went to bed expecting 4-8” by morning. Woke up to sunshine and wind. Atlantic City 40 miles away for 20” and nothing where I was. Storm had a sharp edge and set up 50 miles east of expected.

One thing i kept on insisting on that you cleared up was that 01-02 was a nina. Seems like neutral is our worst winter although logically they should be average lol One of the biggest climo changes have been enso neutral years. Prior to 1982 they were often good. They were the next best to moderate ninos. But since 1982 they have been atrocious and the worst of all enso. I’ve not done any research into why the change happened. Whether it’s warming related or some other change. But it’s a large enough sample size over a long enough time period to say it’s real and not a fluke. Neutrals have become awful most of the time and that fact is responsible for most of the snow climo change.

Made my big post from @jonjons place Stumptown Ales. Really awesome place. Anyone in the Davis area should stop in. Ended up skiing Timberline today. Snowshoe never got western territory open. Not sure why. Kinda annoyed. They posted that it would be open this weekend earlier in the week but then went silent and stopped talking about it or updating then just didn’t open. I don’t mind that things changed. It happens although after cold all week and 14” not sure why. But to go silent and not explain is inexcusable Imo, especially when that’s their best terrain and likely a deciding factor for any advanced skiers trying to plan a weekend. But had a great time at Timberline instead. Conditions were great and the new owners seem to know what their doing. Even had just enough snow to pop into the trees a bit.

I’m sorry

Wrt the pac jet, it’s been buckling, amplifying, and varying which is a big welcome change. It’s still been generally averaging stronger than normal more often than not when I check but it’s not been this straight across blast of pac puke into N America

2019 was more a basin wide weak Nino.

I know this is long but I’m pretty busy this weekend so this is my one deep analysis contribution for the weekend But first man that was some epic entertainment in here earlier. Vice hiatus is a tool but at least he unites us! And Ji is a classic. It’s like dry satire. You have to be a certain way to appreciate it. I know I’m weird but I would miss him. As for the pattern coming, it’s like someone gave me the crayons. But first I wanted to clear up a misconception. Nina’s aren’t that bad. Or I guess what I should say is they aren’t any worse than what EVERY winter is with the exception of the very rare moderate or modoki ninos. The fact is those skew our winters. Everything else is some version of bad on avg. I used BWI for this because DCA sucks and I hate looking at their data it’s depressing. I think BWI is more indicative of more people. If someone else wants to run the numbers for DCA go ahead. The last 12 Nina’s at BWI had an avg snowfall of 16.7” with 2 above avg and 5 single digit years. Yea that’s not good. But get this… The last 12 enso neutral winters had an avg of 13.9” with 2 above avg and 5 single digits! Nina’s we’re significantly better! And even crazier the last 12 non modoki or moderate ninos had an avg of 15.7 with 2 above and 4 single digits. Nina’s we’re even slightly better than all non modoki moderate ninos!!!!! There have been 7 modoki or moderate ninos since 1960 and they were all above average snow with a mean of 45.4”! So basically we want a moderate or modoki Nino. Those are almost all blockbusters! But that’s 7 out of 60 years!!! Of all the rest Nina’s are actually the best option! They all give us about a 17% chance it an above avg snow year but Nina’s have the highest mean snowfall of all the other options. Yea Nina’s are crappy usually. And so are neutrals and weak or strong ninos! But every once in a while (17%) a fluke snowy winter happens in a year other than a mod modoki nino and we just take it and be grateful. Now I want to post the mean Nina h5 again. I wanted this up for comparisons sake. I want to contrast our typical issues in a nina that prevent a snowy winter 83% of the time with what I’m seeing. Note the dominant features. Central pac ridge. But often that ridge does get far enough east to not be a huge problem. Note the mean trough position is central not west. That’s a mean from two different Nina pattern as I discussed with griteater the other day. When the pac ridge extends poleward or there is blocking typically the trough is actually east of that mean and into the east. When the pac ridge is flat or the AO positive it’s west and the trough is out west with a big east ridge. It’s “variable” is what I’m saying. Temps actually avg colder in Nina’s than neutral or strong Nino winters! The real problem is what you see across the south. Note the higher heights across east from that pac ridge through the southern US. That’s indicative that there is no stj. If any systems were running through there you would see lower pressures not higher. That’s the typical problem. We really do need some stj involvement. We’re usually too far south to get much from pure NS systems and too far west for late developing NS induced coastals. The last two snows had southern influencE! Very un Nina like. The first was almost all southern stream moisture. I guess technically a mid latitude SW dug enough to cut off and tap the STJ but I don’t care about that level of detail. Point is the gulf was open for business. This last system wasn’t a total fail because of the influx of gulf moisture. The late developing miller b coastal was a miss. But we were saved the typical miller b disaster by the fact it was a hybrid with some gulf involvement. Now look at this 18z gefs mean for next weekend. This isn’t crazy far out. One week away. The ensembles have been good inside day 10 with the longwave patterns and the eps and geps agree. Aleutian trough pumping an epo ridge. Lower heights from the pac across the south indicating an active stj Ridging across the top. And the best part is the drivers that lead to this are in motion now. The SOI is tanking now. The pacific jet retraction starts in a few days. Now why I and others are so encouraged. This looks like a Nino! This is the comp mean of those 7 really good Nino years. Look at the similarities in the hemispheric longwave pattern coming up. I have no idea why this Nina isn’t behaving like a typical Nina. It wasn’t really when we had a -5 pna either. That’s more typically a enso neutral thing actually. I also have no idea why it’s starting to line up like a Nino now either. Someone smarter than me can dig into hat. We had a Nino that acted like a Nina a few years ago. Maybe enso isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe this is the 17%. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s cold. It’s snowing. The pattern ahead looks great. I’m not kicking a gift horse in the mouth. And Vice Hiatus can suck it.

Model performance analysis of 1/7 event I’m putting this here since I feel it’s relevant to factor in future analysis but mods can move it if they feel it belongs somewhere else. From super long range most guidance was amplifying the trough around a single SW and cutting a storm well NW of us. What eventually happened was the trough split with two SWs amplifying with just enough spacing to work out. The first pulled the boundary south and the second took advantage of that for us. But those are details I don’t expect guidance to get from day 8+. All guidance had the very general longwave pattern pretty well depicted imo. Once inside day 8 the euro was the first to pick up on the details and show the eventual outcome. But the Gfs and ggem were only about 24 hours behind and by day 5 all 3 had the synoptic setup mostly correct. The debate from day 5 in was about meso banding and transfer issues. Not things the globals can possibly nail at range. We knew there would be one max running to our NW and one max further east once the coastal developed. The globals picked that out pretty well fairly early. I remember discussing that possibility based on this type of setup on a zoom chat when it was still 5 days out then the next run both the euro and Gfs picked up on it. That’s pretty good Imo. Around 2-3 days out most guidance was too far SW with the costal transfer and associated development of deformation axis. Most guidance was showing that starting in the VA northern neck through the Delmarva in reality that formed in Delaware and got going in NJ. That’s a typical error and I never want to be on the SW edge of a developing miller b coastal. That’s a recipe for a bust 90% of the time. Within 24 hours the euro, NAM3k and rgem did the best with banding and qpf. Have to factor in ratios. In this type setup even the kuchera can be low. Gfs was way too wet and developed the deform over DC instead of NJ. Hrrr was too dry. I’ve noticed it does ok with banding but often is too dry outside it. Maybe it overdoes subsidence. The href did very well but once inside 12 hours it’s hard to use since it’s only run every 12 hours and has a lag. I really hope they continue to improve on the idea of a short range high resolution ensemble with the new fv3 system. It’s a great idea that just hasn’t been perfected yet. Last thought on the high resolution models. They can be maddening because they’re susceptible to errors due to their high resolution. But they can also see details the globals can’t. The NAM often picks up on mid level warm layers first. Imo when a high resolution model is in line synoptically with the consensus among the globals it’s a good idea to pay attention to their details. Also does what they’re showing make sense. If they have a mid level warm later, what’s the track of the mid and upper level low? Is there a screaming southerly flow at h7? Things like that. Are those details on the globals just being underestimated due to lower resolution? Apply some analysis to determine if what the high res guidance is saying is correct because it can see details better or an error due to going off on a tangent due to higher res. Overall I think the guidance did very well. Resolving a miller b in a fast slow is extremely difficult and they got the synoptic idea correct from pretty far out.

Those long range ensemble means are extremely smoothed and the members themselves are low resolution. Plus it’s 10-1. So you’re not seeing the typical meso scale factors that cause places in the NW zones to get more snow. second those means are skewed towards climo and for most that is above climo for that period and the places that aren’t it’s because of factor 1 above.

I’ll add that when going that far out on an ensemble the pattern gets smoothed and washed a bit. You’re getting a general pattern look v a specific finer details one. It’s different when using the 24-72 hour CIPS analogs for a specific storm. A lot of times a general pattern stays in place for weeks and ebbs and flows or recycles. I know some day those long range analogs are meant to be day specific but I’ve found that when the pattern actually comes to fruition they can pick out pattern similarities and what the potential is for snow from that pattern if it sticks around a while. Some examples both good and bad recently…in late December 2019 those analogs started spitting out every total awful snowless dreg winter we’ve had. In late Feb 2018 they started quoting some of our epic March years. It took 3 fails but we did eventually cash in! comp patterns tend to progress somewhat similar. I do think there is some value to seeing what the same general pattern produced in the past even beyond just on that exact date to set a guideline for potential.

Man there’s some crazy sh*t showing up on the long range guidance. Anyone notice the 18z Gfs nearly pulled off the same thing the ggem was doing at 12z but missed the phase by like 12 hours. Still managed a pretty good storm anyways but that was so close to a monster. I’ll say this…it’s rare we get the arctic jet amplified so far south as being indicated. It does open the door to some fun possibilities.

Would you prefer the op look good at day 9-10 and the ensembles crap?

THIS!!!!! 2016 was way too nerve wracking. Waiting every run for 10 days for the rug to get pulled. Even knowing the pattern supported that event and knowing it had a good chance you know things can still go wrong. A badly timed NS SW or PV lobe comes along and bye bye storm. There is no upside to a storm showing up 7 days out. If it hits by the time it does your emotionally exhausted and it’s not as exciting. Then if it ends up being a small event you’re disappointed. Last year those 2 big storms if I got 10” when 48 hrs out looked like nothing I’d have been over the mood. Instead I was content but meh because it teased me with 20”+ 48 hours out. Give me a storm that pops up 2-3 days out every time. Saves me from my own obsessive tendencies.

We’re heading into a very good pattern and we JUST got snow. If this is the “dark times” your bar might be…oh hell we all know you’re never happy lol As the pacific pattern progression and high lat pattern regression reaches its peak the next trough amplification happens a little too far east and so yes we might have about a 7 day “dead” period to contend with before the pattern begins to retrograde. But what is advertised across guidance and is moving forward in time into a believable range after the peak jet extension relaxes some is a full latitude PNA EPO ridge as the next wave attack on the high latitudes begins to repeat that cycle only this time with a favorable pacific longwave pattern. If that’s even close to reality threats will show up pretty fast. But you know that lol.

Chill out

Maybe this week was the 30,000 ft view big picture “luck” balancing out because I’ve felt the DC area has had pretty awful luck on the whole much of the last 5 years. Don’t get me wrong the prevailing patterns were a mix of decent but flawed and bad much of the time and I’m not saying DC should have done well…but it takes a special kind of bad luck to do as awful as it did Imo. There were enough “decent” periods even in some of those really bad almost snowless winters that I felt like DC should have lucked into at least one decent event. But it’s random. Maybe the randomness turned in our favor finally.

Honestly though, while I was pretty confident this wasn’t going to be one of the REALLY bad dreg Nina’s I still had conservative expectations in terms of final #s. But had I known most of the forum would be at or close to double digits by Jan 10 heading into prime climo AND shockingly the STJ would be showing signs of behaving in a rather un Nina way…I might have gone even higher. At the least we’ve already avoided this year being in that dreaded list of years we all hate to even mention. But with some luck MAYBE this year has the chance to be one of the rare Nina exceptions. No I’m not talking 1996 level necessarily but the rare Nina that surpasses climo isn’t unfathomable given the current results and coming pattern.

What he said! If you just look at the NS over New England and how far south the baroclinic boundary is you might think so but the NS and SS are phasing and the trough is digging pretty far west, about to go neutral near the Miss River and the flow is relaxing ahead of it. My guess is that leads to an absolute bomb up the east coast. Probably a very high impact and large expansive storm due to a deep STJ moisture fetch aided by the warm gulf then the Atlantic and used to maximum impact by a fully mature phased cyclone. That’s the kind of storm with a huge win zone between the high ratio powder on the NW side to the high qpfs closer to the boundary and the fact that even places that might change to ice/rain north of NC had to go through a long period of WAA precip first. The kind of storm we aren’t having to worry about sharp edges and exactly where a band sets up to eek out a few inches. Alas it’s a day 10 op run so enjoy it and imagine living the dream then move on. @WxUSAF feel free to correct me but that was my impression of where that was headed.

It’s on my lawn