psuhoffman

I posted earlier that I think our biggest issue is the incredibly warm base state of N America. The longwave pattern is pretty good to get these tantalizing threats but with little true deep cold airmass around...we need so much suppression to keep warmth from surging north of us ahead of any wave...that it makes it difficult to get anything to amplify when we are "cold enough". When the flow relaxes enough to allow a system to amplify we get rain...even from a pretty good track.

We haven't even had a typical la nina pattern though. It's been more like a super nino pattern honestly.

Both the GFS and Euro are almost identical at 60 hours as the system crashes into CA. They both have the wave. But the GFS brings it across the southwest and ejects stronger...the euro de-amplifies it some...but its still healthy enough ejecting from the mountains...but for whatever reason...and I can't see HUGE differences in the flow around it to easily account, yes I can see how the flow to the northeast is compressing it but that is there on the GFS too and I am not sure that should be impacting the wave as early on as the euro starts to weaken it...the euro weakens and shears the wave out as it comes across and the GFS amplifies it. But its not like we need the euro to conjure up a wave...its there, and its healthy enough to begin with...just needs to amplify it coming across instead of weakening it.

It's not THAT far off if you look at more then just the verbatim surface results. The track of the h5 feature is perfect...we just need it to be more amplified and suddenly this turns into a nice little snow event with everything else being the same. It's not a huge adjustment needed to see a better outcome from the euro progression. Maybe we dont get the more amplified wave...but there is no HUGE red flag this time that we can't. Its not like some of the recent examples we tried to will a storm up when there was some death vortex over Maine that we knew was never going to allow a wave to amplify or some wave over the lakes to wreck the flow. All we need here is one thing...for the wave to be more amplified as it ejects out west.

yea no that GFS run was fun but I think most of us know that's a max potential only if all the stars aligned thing. I would be happy if we could just compromise...get the euro to amp up just a little...and get a nice simple snow event across the area out of this.

NO...do you remember last nights run? That was a horrific run. If this showed a central NC hit right now...that would be a problem we probably can say we wont recover from. Look at the track of the h5 feature. Look at the track of the precip before it dies during the "transfer" because the system is too weak to initiate a healthy secondary in time. Its heading right for us. The only adjustment we need here is more amplified with the wave and we have a storm. Don't need a track adjustment of the major feature. Don't need some major thermal changes. We just need one thing...and maybe we don't get the GFS op idea...but if the euro is just slightly more amplified we at least get a nice snow event.

so its NOTHING like the gfs/cmc wrt strenght...we need the wave to be stronger and not deamplify as it comes across as much... but imo just looking at h5 the euro made baby steps the right way. Slightly more amplified early on, slightly more ridging..little further north track of the h5 low. But it simply needs to be more amplified to initiate the result of the GFS or even the GGEM.

Not banking on anything...I have no control over it. I do suspect it will come north some from 12z but if it doesn't I will still go to sleep and wake up in the morning just the same.

nice appetizer now on to the real show...

Your storm is Thursday

somehow everyone missed it, or maybe I missed the posts...but rgem had a nice band of snow running right along route 50 in VA at the start of the event.

still slightly colder through 60

I am ok if it trends north from 12z but isn't a huge hit yet.

agree the flow is very compressed to our northeast...so this will hit a brick wall somewhere...we need a health primary to the west so that the transfer ends up tucked nice and tight off the mid atlantic coast. Unfortunately that has us playing with temp issues. But the colder option has less upside.

the long range also is looking blah...not awful but we might have to wait for a reload of the pattern towards Mid February after this next 10 day stretch.

@Ji This captures the whole event without any contamination from other waves.... you really want this to trend any further north right now? Op runs will bounce around. Now I do want to see the EPS come north some...be more in line with the rest of guidance...but at this range we will still have some variance to operation runs...but we are a long way out to want it to start trending north already...we when are in the bullseye on the ensembles already and some of the ops.

It still gets some snow even north of the Mason Dixon line. Year the 1-2 feet stuff is in central to southeast VA...but even that run isn't where we need a HUGE north shift the last 100 hours. Where were the storms at 100 hours out when we missed south? Think back on all of those...the ones that teased us then went south...they were targeting NC... and we were being silly praying for a N trend of 250 miles. And a lot of those did trend north and affect southern VA but not enough to help us up here...think about our storms that were supposed to jack us 120 hours out...how often they still end up hitting PA instead. I would still rather be just north of the jack zone. Not by a ton...we dont want this to be so far south that we arent even in precip from 100 hours out. We dont want to need a 200 miles shift. But if we only need a slight north adjustment at 100 hours...that isnt bad. You really think this is going to absolutely NAIL the details from this range...and so where would you bet it shifts the final few days...a little north or a little south?

The upper low is more amplified but it tracks south...instead of tracking east from that spot at 114 it dives southeast...and that is why the southern solution.

yea its a fringe job... does get snow up into our area but the heavy is south of us.

Just compared and its way more amplified there then the GGEM and about in line with or maybe even slightly more amplified then the GFS.

It's hard to get h5 right and mess up the surface over and over. But...they score those things on a larger scale so if the UKMET has an issue with under and over amplifying discreet SWs it might not effect its overall score as much as it effects its ability to get details on a synoptic system correct.

I would think yea... guidance today has trended back towards a healthy wave coming across...that's what I wanted to see. Some of these runs are starting to align with my expectations for this setup. That GFS run might have been overkill but thats the kind of max potential we have if the upper low amplifies enough to our west.

It's hit or miss...sometimes its crazy amped. It had a few runs where it gave DC a blizzard before that costal scraper storm in 2018. And other times its way suppressed compared to other guidance...last winter it kept giving me 15" of snow from a storm that ended up way north long after all other guidance shifted.

Your really want to tempt fate with 120 hours left to go??? But isn't this a double edge sword...its partially the lack of cold press in front that allows the primary to amplify north and ends up with that bomb over southeast VA. The GGEM is colder but also a much less intense and "fun" storm...especially for us north of the DC area. I guess this is location specific...if I lived south of DC I probably don't want to chance "playing with that fire" and would take the less intense but more sure thing snow. Again..120 hours to go...we want to tempt the snow gods on this?

It would really really really suck...so this is not minimizing it...but sometimes I do think we overplay ice a wee bit...considering we survived like 2" of it in 1994 and yea it sucked but we made it. We are all here to tell the tale.