psuhoffman

They look good out until ranges when it doesn’t matter. Couple points… 1) sometimes when we think the long range guidance is “can kicking” it’s just that when it ends on a good look people project that to remain. But the western trough is ejecting waves and between them there will still be ridging. That doesn’t mean we can’t get snow. A -NAO -epo -pna pattern can work in January if we get favorable wave spacing. Take the euro from yesterday to today. Day 15 last night looked good… But look what day 16 was going to look like… The euro today isn’t can kicking it’s just seeing past one wave to the next! The pattern isn’t perfect “yet?” But it’s one we could work with. Just need things to line up. it gets even better by the second week of January on the weeklies. 2) I know we make fun of the snow maps and taken by themselves they are useless but I think there is some value looking at this 7 day mean for the second week of January to support the h5 map you posted. That’s what we want a 7 day snow map to look like wrt where the snowfall is centered and the distribution. Can clearly see what the guidance thinks the pattern will be like with waves riding SW to NE along the boundary.

First I wanted to say even though I lamented the loss of some of our old regulars there has been some really good analysis on here lately. Second, I don’t mind scientific analysis that suggests results we don’t want. I don’t shy away from saying when it’s bad. But what is kinda annoying is the straight deb stuff with absolutely no legit analysis to support it. The “it’s gonna suck because it just sucks here most of the time” type stuff. Yea it’s probably going to suck at any given time. It sucks ~80% of the time. That’s our climo. Anyone can do that! What most of us are here for is looking for signs of and waiting for those rare instances when it doesnt suck. Having to Wade through dozens of posts of “it just sucks” absent any reasoning to support it sucks even more imo. If you have legitimate observation based evidence that shows why it will suck by all means I don’t mind hearing and discussing it. But if you’re just venting because there isn’t any blue over you on the latest model run…that doesn’t add anything of value. just my 2 cents.

There are a lot of variables. generic phase 7 is warm in January. However 8 is cold. And cold enso 7 is cold. So Imo where in 7 matters a lot and so does what the soi is doing. If the Nina influence wanes we would need a further progression of the mjo to see the same impact. I suspect somewhere between 175-180 there is the flip where we can get the epo ridge nudged far enough east to kick the trough out of the west. The guidance is teasing us with the wave stalling right around that magic spot.

I am getting a little nervous of what happens if the mjo stalls in 7 and never progresses. Frankly the dominant convection has stalled almost in 6. The really good roll forward analog projections are based on the fact that a high amplitude phase 6/7 almost always makes it to 8. But there are always exceptions. The mjo dying in phase 6/7 would possibly muck up my expected pattern progression. I’m not favoring that att but doesn’t mean I’m not aware of it.

Looks like cpc let Chuck have the crayons.

It’s not as necessary as it’s seemed lately. I have a theory. We were in such a dominant +AO phase that it took stratospheric disruption to alter. When we are in a less hostile long term phase l, like I suspect we are now, we can get a favorable high latitude pattern without as much air from a SSW.

VERY nice geps run

Nice gefs run

It’s still a better indicator

All 3 major global ensemble systems are back to forecasting a favorable pattern in January. Where is @Weather Will???

Problem with that is you’re taking only one factor in isolation. There are radically different results mixed in there. What you’re seeing is that years with a super -PDO AND a pos AO/NAO the pattern is such a torch it outduels the -pdo/-AO years in the means. I have no doubts if the AO flips back positive for the remainder of winter we are screwed. I’ve said many times we NEED NAO help in a Nina. But if, big if, we get the NAO to be cooperative at times that changes the metric and what years in that large sample are most relevant.

That’s sad because social media you can’t have the same level of discourse as here. Imo social media is better if your goal is just to blast your own content out there but worse for meaningful dialogue, collaboration and community.

I was thinking EXACTLY what you just said then decided not to even post. Tired of wasting my time.

No wonder bob chill left It’s not just bob chill. Go back and read some of the threads from 10 years ago and the number of really high quality posters in a day. We have about 1/3 now, if that. And I know change is normal but we aren’t replacing the people that leave. I don’t see any new posters of the same quality taking over. It’s troubling. I don’t know exactly why that is but it’s troubling.

Yesterday you were equally pessimistic when every long range model was showing a favorable pattern.

Because you don’t want to see it. Analog based projections on where we are now (mjo phase 6/7 in Dec with a -NAO) roll forward into a cold January. Btw since some are worried about how far the mjo progresses a phase 7 in a January Nina is a pretty good look anyways. Seversl consecutive runs the last 48 hours all 3 major ensembles showed a great look in early Jan. But you focused on the data that supported your fear. Now the gefs had a bad run and you are focusing on that. Even if it showed the same thing it did yesterday would it matter? It didn’t yesterday!

The gefs really deepens the trough west of AK then extends it east which prevents the linking of the pac and atl which is what we need. The geps and eps doesn’t do that so let’s just hope it’s a mistaken handling of one feature. I’ll also trust analog pattern progression based constructs over NWP simulations at those ranges. It’s worth keeping an eye on but I still like where we are in terms of our January prospects (relative to Nina expectations!).

I think this is worth pointing out. Something I’ve known but REALLY stuck out when I was updating some of my snowfall data spreadsheets recently was the fact that the biggest change in our snow climo seems to be the fact we don’t squeeze many minor snowfall events out of bad patterns anymore. Imo where our climo has taken a hit most is 2 places, marginal temp events that used to be 32-33 degree snowfalls 30+ years ago don’t work now and bad patterns are such torches now that you can almost forget about sneaking some lucky 1-3” event in during them. The boundary just isn’t likely to be close enough even behind waves when every ridge goes ape now. So bad patterns are now always a total shutout. We used to eek out some snows in not good patterns, not so much recently. The good news is our luck in good patterns doesn’t seem to have changed that much. DC always only averaged about 1 warning event per season. That is still true the last 20 years. When we do get a good look it does still snow. I also don’t think the prevalence of getting good patterns is changing. I know we just went through several years of +NAO but it looks like that cycle has flipped predictably. We always spend more time in not so good patterns. We’re too far south for the majority of combinations to work. Spending 60-70% of the time in a pattern not “good” for snow is normal. It’s just our typical climo went from spending 2/3 of the time in patterns that weren’t good but still lucking our way to some minor snowfalls then 1/3 in good patterns when we could get warning level events to now spending 2/3 in total shut out no hope torch patterns then praying we cash in during the 1/3 when we have decent patterns because we have to get all our snow then! I know that’s really frustrating but that’s just our reality now.

Thanks. I had a bad reaction to antibody infusion but I’m out of the hospital and doing somewhat better. Hopefully I’ll be up and about again soon. Wish there was something more exciting to track than a pattern change but then again if it snowed now I couldn’t really enjoy it so maybe it’s for the best.

It would be nice to get snow and cold. But that almost never happens. So I’m sure Christmas will be just fine if the weather is what it typically is.

Just to illustrate. Gefs Dec 27 when it was 15 days away and now when it’s 9 days. The gefs hasn’t been kicking the can. That’s amazing consistency.

Setting realistic personal goals is a good thing

EPS moved up the progression by 24 hours too so no can kicking. When this period was at range guidance teased a slightly colder look for next week but it was always precarious and the excellent pattern progression analysis Webb posted showed the SE ridge would temporarily pump again and we had to wait until January to get the trough in the east. The can isn’t being kicked we just aren’t being patient. This happens every time.

Decent agreement for early January

If the pac ridge shifts east into the epo and you get a epo and NAO ridge then you can get a full conus trough.