psuhoffman

luckly for them it's still far enough out they don't need to have a nailed down perfect forcast YET...there is time for this to resolve. But if it ends up an inverted trough being ignited by a last second developing coastal lol...got help them...that's a nowcast situation and someone always ends up getting dumped in those but good luck predicting where...it's like trying to nail down the exact location of a thunderstorm ahead of time.

assuming they look the same at 84, they usually do, but past 60 sometimes they diverge a little

It wouldn't prove you wrong...this storm could be that fluke outlier...or maybe the pattern is about to flip...but there was a very clear storm track pattern from Mid December up until now. That isn't your imagination.

PS the rug pull is not just an US thing...models are often too aggressive with these and any minor delay in development means the snow shifts northeast some...so when Philly is the back ends 24 hours out it ends up NYC, when its NYC it ends up Boston. Remember 2015 when NYC was expecting 30" and it ended up hitting just east of them.

We can do well with a miller b hybrid where there is a wave coming at us from the TN valley but we almost always fail if its a pure NS miller b developing along the coast. It takes an absolutely perfect phase/capture for that to work. It's only happened a few times ever. There was one example in Feb 1996 that worked out. But we're talking a few times in 50 years that happened and worked...way way way more often we think it might happen and get a total rug pull like March 8, 2018 and Dec 2000.

seeing how close the ICON was...and comparing them at 84, makes me think it would have ended well. RGEM was already amplifying the wave. We need this thing to start developing in the TN valley not relying on that perfect phase capture miller b solution to get anything.

RGEM was significantly more amplified than the ICON at 84 hours...

I liked the end of the RGEM very much

I am not saying you are wrong...you're not... tendencies within patterns are a real thing. You're right. What I am saying is...it's not useful for predictive purposes because there are exceptions within those patters but most importantly you don't know when the pattern is going to flip. In 2005 we wouldn't have known the pattern was about to flip and go from a total torch to cold and snowy from Jan 20th on. Same in 2007. 2009 was dry all winter then we got that big snowstorm early March. 2015 flipped in February. 2016 flipped in January. 2018 flipped in March. 2019 flipped from good to bad in late January. 2022 was great in January and then flipped bad in Feb. It's pretty rare for a pattern to set in for the whole winter start to finish...sometimes a bad one does and we get 2020 and 2023. Sometimes a good one does and we get 1996/2003/2010/2014. But way way way more often the season is a mix and we get some snowy periods and some not snowy periods and end up somewhere between those few great years and few total dreg ones. And we don't know when the flips are about to happen until they do!

This was always a noisy setup with a lots of various SW's and phasing involved. Yesterday the timing and amplitude suddenly shifted with one of the waves and it changed everything. The euro was the closest all along to what everything else shifted to, with a stronger wave in the lakes on Friday/Saturday that stalls instead of lifting out. The timing of the weak STJ wave also changed and its running way out ahead on Saturday now, this is also influenced by the pinwheel in the lakes that wasn't there or nearly as strong on guidance until last night. But guidance is also trending towards a stronger inverted trough feature, also related to what's going on over the top of us. But those are really hard to pin down. With the trough hanging around and the upper low cutting off near us it wouldn't take much for this to come back if guidance identifies another SW to amplify. Most guidance just changed its mind with the wave that is now some weak POS on Saturday...it's not crazy if they find another little vort and say...ok lets amp this one up instead...the trough is there...the mid and upper level energy is there...it just needs something to come along at the right time to amplify at the surface. I want to see what happens today on guidance.

There are patterns within seasons for sure. But some of this is perception bias and selection bias. For example...your theory this year only works if you ignore the first real snow of the season that missed up just to the north in early December and gave parts of southern/central PA 3-6". Of course places further north would point to that snow in November in upstate NY but do we toss that because the winter pattern had not set in yet? Then yes...later in December those 2 events hit south of us...but I got 5" from a storm during that period also. Which one is the one that becomes the real pattern setter? It's easy in hindsight but that is biased. I am not denying your point about patterns within seasons. There are real tendencies for a seasonal pattern to produce repeating results. In a year like 1996 and 2010 that's great for us. Most years...not. But the issue is...this isn't very useful for predictive measures because of 2 things. 1) You don't know ahead of time when the pattern is starting. 2) You don't know during the pattern when it's going to end. Every pattern breaks at some point. Right now we don't know if that is going to be with this next storm (hopefully) or maybe March or maybe the pattern lasts into Spring and it's too late for us by the time it ends...but without knowing when it ends we can't just say every storm is going to do the same thing.

They were but...lol...euro totally missed the 14" we got the evening before...and then still was about .5 qpf too low for the second part. It was a pretty epic fail of the euro at very short lead

FWIW the evening before the Feb 9 2010 storm the Euro was showing about .65 qpf total for me. I got 32" of snow.

no snow for you...you come back one year

Consult the chart

yes

I posted some of our biggest snows and busts side by side once with the date removed and no one could tell them apart. March 2001 was one of the busts. The setup is often the same between a big hit and a bust and luck with minor factors tip things one way or the other.

March 58

in fairness this is a setup where I feel a LOT better here than around DC

@mitchnick @Ji @stormtracker a random thought about the AIFS and all guidance in general. Yes the AIFS will still bounce around at range with details. Exact track. Intensity. It’s not a miracle. It’s performing better than everything else. Take that fwiw. However, over the last 72 hours the thing it keeps bouncing back to is a hecs lol. It goes one way or another but it’s now spit out 5 hecs runs over 72 hours. This is the default it keeps coming back too. That’s important. It’s not some random fluke run. It’s shown up over and over. Doesn’t mean it’s the only solution. But it’s not a crazy outlier permutation it’s a real possibility or at least AIFS things so. In general this is true also. Maybe not hecs but secs/MECS the guidance bounces bit keeps coming back to snow! There was only one other time this winter when the preponderance of evidence was for a storm. Jan 25. All the others we were rooting for the long shot permutations not the most likely. Some were decent shots. 30% maybe 40% but none had a preponderance suggesting yes this is happening. Thats it. That’s the observation. Doesn’t mean we snow. I do think this is our best shot of the season other than Jan 25 from 5 days out.

Look at some of the -pna snowstorms in the 60s. It can happen. Especially if that 50/50 and Hudson high combo verify. But yea what could go wrong is more likely because snow is never the most likely outcome unless it’s that rare -NAO El Niño situation.

Only

Ask him why he thinks it’s going to be warm

@Stormchaserchuck1 you can’t claim every non snow scenario as your win. Of course not snowing is the most likely outcome. There are a ton of permutations and most end in no snow. But you can’t say “it won’t snow because the storm will be too warm, or suppressed, it just miss us, or over amped and track NE. Well duh. Ya likely one or those lol. You mean it’s not likely all the multitude of things we need to go right to get snow will all happen. Nostradamus over here.

@mitchnick. FWIW all The ensembles think the bigger risk is an over amped miss to our NW