psuhoffman

We should have dismissed that just on the fact there are no comps. The only thing that came remotely close to what models were spitting out in Dec 2017 was PD2 but that wasn’t as long duration, did have a more concentrated system, and was in a Nina.

People forget we wasted this for a month in O1/02 2 storms got suppressed. One phased late. One missed just northwest of us and a good overrunning setup under performed and de amplified as it got to us. But we got about as unlucky as possible from early December to Mid January. Then the bad pattern set in late January and so it was game over. One point specific to those other scenarios 2001/2 that look set in early December and broke around Jan 15. If we repeat the same pattern but start around Xmas I like our odds better. 2018 we also got unlucky with a pretty good longwave pattern for about a month. But we never got much Atlantic help. In a Nina that’s huge. The NAO is even more important in a Nina to slow down the fast NS and force it to dig and amplify under us. It’s really hard to get a significant snow here absent blocking in a Nina. So if the Atlantic cooperates some I’d like our chances more than Dec/Jan 2018 also. But when I say that I just mean our chances to get a decent storm and make this year an ok one. My bar is pretty low. But it will still come down to luck I think some don’t like when I point out “luck” because some like to try to find reason and certainty and some think I’m excusing bad forecasting. But what I’m really doing is admitting we don’t have the skill to discern the meso scale factors that will determine one locations snowfall results at any range. We can try to identify some general longwave characteristics that will increase or decrease our probabilities at longer leads. But then we need the details to break our way and since we don’t yet have the ability to account for those little discreet details we label them “luck” or chaos. I don’t know if we will ever have the ability to accurately account for every little factor at long ranges (I kind of hope not) so for now calling it luck is good enough for me.

Nothing wrong with using the probabilities maps as a quick indicator of whether things are improving. But I don’t think we’re close enough for the guidance to “see” far enough into the ”better” pattern for those maps to pick up much yet. I know Xmas looms large and we all want the flip to happen in time and there is some potential to get a wave before Xmas if we time up a high but the much better pattern looks to settle in after Xmas.

We could waste a good pattern. But there is no way to know that when it’s still 10+ Days away from even starting. All we can do now is identify very basic longwave trends. Those are all good. Whether we actually get a snowstorm is to be resolved way way later. I don’t get the people bringing up meso scale stuff as a reason to poop on a long range pattern.

I would get annoyed with his drivel but his life must be so sad and pathetic that we probably should just pity him.

If the NAO ridge continues to retrograde west something will eventually cut underneath into the east and flip the pattern. That epo NAO combo is the kind of pattern that can lead to coast to coast cold. It’s the rare time we ”could” survive a -pna.

We should start getting fantasy unicorn storms soon

The Gefs is much faster moving the mjo into 8. The EPS is getting there but is a week slower and ends still in 7 but moving towards 8. That means the same changed on the EPS likely lie behind the end of its 15 days due to its slower pattern progression.

Yea but you need the arctic cold first lol

Up here when I fail it’s more often from suppression. Things go north of course but usually it’s obvious and not close so it’s not really a “fail”. But the suppression isn’t from cold. Like you said it’s just from the flow or bad timing. And 90% of my snow is rain where you are but even here I’ll take the cold and roll the dice.

PD2 had arctic air around, but mostly just north of us. 1994 arctic air didn’t stop us from getting ice storm after ice storm. And it was absolutely frigid up In central PA that year as they got buried by snow. And it was arctic cold up there in 2014 as I got a ton of snow. The laws of physics don’t change in DC! It just doesn’t get that cold that often to have a chance to snow! no we don’t want some 1050 high over DC but how often does that actually happen? I suppose it’s possible. 1977 happened. But from range I’ll take arctic air and play the odds

THIS x100!!! The lack of snow isn’t because it’s cold. The issue is we often only get really cold at this latitude and this close to the coast in the NW flow behind a wave. Then it warms up in the return flow ahead of the next wave. Cold dry warm wet. But the dry isn’t because it’s cold it’s just a coincidence because we only got cold behind the waves in the flow.

Respectfully disagree. It snowed in 2015 the day after one of our coldest February arctic shots I can remember. And it snows plenty in colder places at 3*. You know why it doesn’t snow often here at 3*? Because it isn’t often that cold here! How often is it 3* when cloudy? (No radiational cooling). Plus any strong storm will press the boundary back north so even if it WAS that cold right before it’s incredibly unlikely to stay that cold here at this latitude during a storm! But we’ve had some nice storms during periods of arctic cold shots. 2 of the last 3 arctic shots produced significant snowstorms.

I’m with CAPE. We can get confluence without arctic air in the pattern. And we can get a storm with it. Actually with the warm waters I’d take my chances in a suppressive pattern WITH arctic air to enhance baroclinicity. The last 2 weeks of January last winter is what suppression without cold looks like. The last several true arctic shots we got did lead to snow.

I'm sure I will take some heat for this...since 1996 seems to hold some spot of reverence and honor with snow weenies, but I have come to believe 1996 was a combination of a good pattern (for a nina) but more than that just a LOT of good luck. If you go through the H5 patterns that year...it wasn't as much a classic can't miss pattern as 2010 was for example. It was good at times, don't get me wrong...but no better than the h5 look we have had in other nina winters that had periods of blocking. There were also hints of some of the tendancies in a few other storms that hurt us in other Nina's but somehow didnt'. There were several late developing miller b and frontal wave storms that year...but somehow they managed to not screw 95 while also hitting the coastal plan and immediate coast also. I have come to think maybe we just got lucky with that January blizzard hitting...and a couple other storms. Maybe that was just the slot machine coming up triple bars. If you take all other -NAO nina patterns...its not like we don't get snow and can't get storms. Just that year managed a much higher hit rate than you would expect. Instead of agonizing over some intricate reason why maybe it was just luck.

Nothing is guaranteed and its possible the MJO fails us again. But wrt to the example you gave, and I remember it well, it started as a standing wave in the IO around phase 3. Phase 3 isnt ideal but its not bad and we were stuck in kinda a mediocre pattern and people were wanting the standing wave to break so the MJO could progress and I remember saying "be careful what you wish for" because by far the strongest profile for the MJO at that time was for it to go ape in phases 4-6 if the IO wave died. Thats exactly what happened. It's one of the things that contributed to my "were pretty much screwed" post I made around the holidays that year that got some people upset. A wave starting in phase 6 is much more likely to progress into 8 than a wave starting in 3. The great MJO fake out of 2019 also started in phases 3/4 not phase 6. There are some differences. My other problem with that kind of skepticism is that its not based in predictive science just pure skepticism. Its useless in making a real forecast. It's like the people that say "its just gonna suck because it sucks right now". That's really bad science. Persistence isn't really a thing, its confirmation bias. It feels like "suck" is persistent around here because our climo is "suck" most of the time wrt snow. NOT snowing is the normal in our area. Snow is the anomaly. So simply saying "its gonna suck" all the time makes you look really smart most of the time but you aren't actually making a science based prediction. Just playing the odds. Look at our recent history even. 2015 we had almost no snow into February. The "persistence" matra was LOUD. Then we went on an epic run. 2016 was as god awful a start as you could possibly have into mid January...then one of our biggest snowstorms in history hit. 2018 we had almost no snow at all then got several snows and a 4-8" storm in March. 2019 started cold, got really warm, turned cold/snowy for a couple weeks...then turned warm again. Persistence isnt really a thing...its just we will skew towards a bad pattern for snow more often then not because that's whats "normal" here. Another thing, there are legit science based reasons to be skeptical. The SST profile in the tropical pac bothers me. Its definitely more favorable for convection in the warm MJO phases and destructive to a wave amplifying in 8/1. The nina base state would also support the MJO being less helpful. But the people poo pooing the MJO aren't really making the science arguments they are mostly just making the "things suck so they will continue to suck and we should just expect suck" type arguments and I hate that crap. Its just lazy forecasting. Lastly, when I am "interested" in something it doesn't necessarily mean I expect snow. I know our climo. I know snow is an anomaly. So I come at this from "looking for possibilities" POV. How COULD we get snow. I know most of these possibilities will fail. But waiting until its about to snow to get excited would be boring most of the time since we spend the majority of our time in bad patterns. The final point I will make is, at some point this winter it is VERY likely we will get a better pattern for at least some time. Even the absolute worst winters had SOME opportunities. Even the years we had a total fail there were SOME (granted not many) chances but it was a combo of bad luck and failing at the few chances we did get and having a bad pattern MOST of the time. I can't remember a year where it was wall to wall start to finish a totally hopeless pattern. So the odds say at some point the pattern will evolve to something better than the absolute no hope god awful look we are heading into. I am focused on looking for hints of how that may happen.

I saw a couple flakes… so I picked up some selsun blue.

This wave originating in 6 is more favorable than some recent years when we saw waves originate in 3 then slowly cycle through the MC. Additionally while 6 isn’t favorable there is evidence phase 6/7 is favorable to disrupting the PV. Makes me wonder if the colder looks from 8/1 partially are tied to the after effects of 6/7 since we know PV disruption has a significant lag effect on sensible weather. I’m not an mjo expert but from experience my guess is the wave makes it at least to 8. I’ve seen the same theories and it jives with my anecdotal experiences. Slower waves seem to have greater impact on the conus pattern in my experience. Not to mention a slower wave moving through 8/1 simply gives us more time. Lastly I like a wave starting in 6 much better than the last few years when it seemed everything wanted to start in 2/3 then slowly traverse the warm hell phases then die right as they got to 8. No guarantees but this scenario has a much higher chance of working in our favor Imo.

It’s frustrating now but the very slow speed of the mjo wave will be a good thing in a few weeks.

Just wanted to apologize for not doing much with this lately or trying to set one up to discuss the impending flizzard…but my 3 year old has the flu and is not doing well.

So we will have hourly model runs soon. That’s gonna be great for the manic tendencies here.

Relax I’m giving him a hard time. But he would do better to know his climo. CAPE does! He knows snow is an anomaly where he is and doesn’t act like he expects it. I had to spend significant portions of some winters in Cape May many years ago and when I was there I didn’t even bother to track. It never once snowed over the probably ~100 days cumulative I spend there in peak winter but I wasn’t upset at all because I didn’t expect anything and hadn’t bothered wasting my time tracking on the rare chance it snowed. Same when I was dating a girl in NC and spent significant time there or visiting my parents in winter when they were living down there. If you live somewhere that averages like 10-15” of snow, and most of that comes because once every 10 years or so you get some crazy anomalous snowy year…getting frustrated when it doesn’t snow is just setting yourself up to hate life.

One reason I originally expected a colder December. But some of the Nina’s that started this way turned colder mid winter so it’s not necessarily all bad.

https://psl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/composites/printpage.pl and if you really want to go down the rabbit hole you can make ones with specific dates here. That’s how I created the snowstorm composites in the snow climo thread. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/composites/day/

Why you still here? You should be contacting realtors.