psuhoffman

You must have taught it everything you know!

It’s soooo close. Not too far north of DC stays all snow. Big jump the right direction. Man get that NS POS out of the way and this was a DC snowstorm. But it’s at a range where this was good enough.

Block is exerting a lot more pressure this run. Might be a better solution despite split but it’s gonna be close. Cold press coming but that NS feature wrecked the airmass in front first. Will have to get in just in time if it works.

That split is a problem. The energy in the SW gets stuck and waits and the front runner that comes across Canada wrecks the flow in front.

Euro Gfs

Gfs already doing what it was doing last few runs different from the euro...splitting the western trough.

Really nice vort pass on the 19th but no surface reflection. If we’re looking for some dark horse long shot to pop up short range that could be the one. Wouldn’t take much surface reflection to at least create a minor event out of that.

One of the contributing factors to the fail of the last pulse of the high latitude blocking was the orientation and progression. The wave break in the Atlantic was mediocre, the NAO ridge was actually enhanced by a mid latitude ridge originating from the pac that transported poleward and linked with the NAO ridge. The result was an elongated inverted omega block extending NE to SW and instead of retrograding it faded northeast. That is not really the greatest configuration or progression for is to score. There were other contributors like lack of cold and fast pac jet but the block itself wasn’t ideal. This next iteration looks like a much more “classic” progression.

I am not saying the wave around the 22-23 couldn’t work. It’s has a decent shot. Just saying imo the progression gets even more favorable just after that.

I’ve been wrong plenty of times too though. Lol that one in 2016 was easy to see the setup from REALLY far out. Even though it didn’t really show on ops until about 9 days out the setup was crystal clear well before that from the way the pattern was progressing although I think I might have originally targeted a day or two too soon as the wave slowed a lot. I also “saw” that 2011 and the Feb 2010 storms from really far out but those were slightly less difficult patterns. The blocking was similar but we didn’t have the raging pac jet we do now. That complicates things. I would not put this threat (late Jan) quite at the same level of confidence as those long range calls. But it’s very good. If those were level 10 (for long range) this is an 8 level. There is more that could go wrong here with the current pac but it’s still a very good chance. I am intrigued by the progression. We’re kind of stuck in a squeeze play. The EPO ridge will put more cold into the US. It will be centered out west initially but it will bleed east under the block more behind each wave. At the same time as the NAO Rex block retrogrades SW from Greenland into Northern Quebec the blocked flow will intensify. That will trap more cold in from the northeast (that over time bleeds into the pattern). At the same time the weakness between the western trough and the eastern trough will allow gulf systems to organize and try to cut. But that will become increasingly difficult as the block retrogrades. I’m simply playing that progression out and “guessing” about the 26-28th is the magic spot where there is enough cold into the pattern and the block has retrograded enough to get something trying to cut to get forced to secondary under us. Hybrid miller b. Those can be NICE. Hopefully my imagination is close to reality.

The period around the 26th seems the most favorable of all the hypothetical waves were watching.

I don’t hate this gfs run. Absolutely beautiful look to the significant longwave features. Perfect NAO block and the epo ridge breaks so much so it cuts off into a Rex block north of AK which allows a vortex to cut south of Ak and pumps a PNA. I would rather see good things from large scale features driving the pattern the model is more likely to get right then details of discreet SWs flying around in the flow. Give me that progression and I’ll take my chances something works out.

It starts in the TX panhandle and gets to Columbus before being stopped by the blocking. We can call it whatever, it’s not a pure cutter though. But it’s no good lol. But it took a lot going wrong to get that...it wouldn’t take much to see a better solution.

I was wrong the euro digs it south not north. I was looking at different SWs. At 120 the gfs/euro are similar. Then they diverge...both have a SW coming into AK. The GFS amplifies it and it moves south east ending up north of the lakes wrecking the flow. Plus the southern end of the trough cuts off and gets stuck in the southwest. The euro dives that AK low south and phases with the southern SW and they come east with a high over the top where the low is on the gfs. Pretty major progression differences for only 120 out.

One major difference is how they handle the flow in Canada. The euro has a SW way up north out of the way while the GFS digs that further south just north of the lakes which impacts the flow over the US. Where the euro has a high over the top the gfs has a low creating a weakness for the storm to cut because of how they handle that feature.

Still no sign of blocking breaking down. But it has to actually help at some point lol. My guess if it holds i through early Feb it will. Kinda hard to run a block through Jan 20-Feb 10 and not snow. That would be something

I see the potential. I’ve been leading the charge on the potential. But the way you worded it confused me. “That would be a memorable run” threw me. Not if it went down exactly as shown lol.

So long as that blocking is there we will have a shot at every wave. But there is a real problem on the pac side. The ridge is retrograding too fast and really pulling the us trough too far west.

I’m pointing out what it shows.

We’re also getting a lot of bad luck here. We’ve been cold enough, not cold but cold enough, to snow recently but the last several waves got shredded. We need less split of the trough in this upcoming pattern. I still doubt these cutter looks with that block.

What para are you looking at?

Gefs is beyond frustrating through day 13. The means look good wrt precip/temps but nada on the snow maps. Looking into individual members reveals why. The temps are skewed colder by cold dry members. The wet members are warm. It’s either suppressed members or cutters. Lol

12z Gfs had the epo ridge and did the same

What pattern isn’t frustrating lol

Instead of a broad spread out w-e trough under the epo/NAO ridge (which is typically what you would expect) the guidance tries to split the trough and pump a ridge in between. Ugh