psuhoffman

I stopped watching his videos regularly years ago but yesterday I threw one on out of curiosity and he outlined the same progression I laid out a few days ago. It honestly made me feel less confident in my prediction.

Sounds like a normal day to me

+1

All of them. It was impressive!!!

I have no idea. I’m just saying objective studies of it’s accuracy shows it has no validity. Their seasonal forecasts have a slightly better track record and show some skill above just random chance. But their day to day forecasts do not.

Of course it’s non zero. If I made a random prediction for every day of the year I would hit several times by random chance also.

Scientific analysis of their day to day forecasts show they have no more accuracy than random chance.

I stubbed my toe. Is that relevant?

12z cmc kinda did that but the initial wave didn’t cut.

How the wooly worms look?

Both had a string of significant snows after those dates

The para is an upgrade but still based on the same physics. This seems to be a pretty substantive difference with how they handle the longwave pattern. Not shocking the para agrees with the older gfs.

Me either. I actually figured that by just adding what the qpf increased by on the last frame on TT

Number 1 day 8 pattern analog is Jan 28 1979. Number 2 is Jan 18 1966. Both immediately proceeded multiple snowstorms. This is not a pattern problem.

@CAPE fwiw (nothing) DC already has 2” by that last JMA panel according to the total QPF and obviously would still be snowing for a while after given that temp profile.

It could go either way. It’s all dependent on exactly how much mid latitude ridging there is ahead of the western trough and if it can punch a hole in the westerly flow under the block. And the differences are way too subtle to say imo. Of course recent history says go with the solution that screws us the most.

See that spike of cold down right to my house. Finally a Fing model that knows what’s up. Maybe I need to give it more love.

Don’t think it goes out far enough. Which should tell us something lol eta: I don’t blame anyone for the frustration. I’m full tilt now too. My full tilt just might not be as emotionally unstable as Ji’s but no way would I ever be bothering to analyze 200 hour operational (or even ensembles for that matter) if I wasn’t so anxious for us to get snow.

If COVID wasn’t going on I would seriously try to organize a group therapy snow field trip right now.

Careful to differentiate between a temporary cold moment due to dynamics and a truly expensive cold airmass. The Feb 10, 2010 storm was cold under the very intense mid and upper level lows that passed right over us. But that storm mixed with rain/sleet at the start all the way to central MD and it was 34 despite 2 feet is snowcover the day before and 38 despite 3 feet the day after at BWI. The temps did drop into the low to mid 20s with a ferocious wind during the height but that was dynamics driven not indicative of an arctic airmass. You remove the snowcover and storms and that week would have had highs of 40-50 degrees. ETA: 2003 had some true cold air masses but it was a moderate modoki nino with a once every 20 years type stable perfect pacific pattern. Yea that would work but it’s super rare and no chance in a Nina and not even a good bet in a nino.

Last thought on the long term climate/pattern thing. Those cpc analogs kind of support my claims. If you were checking the pattern analogs all cold season at no point have they been spitting out shutout analogs. And in some cases they were spitting out very cold/snowy periods. But even at their worst they were mostly periods with some snow. And those take into account the pacific same as everything else. There is ample evidence patterns that worked in the past are not now. The next 2 weeks is a major test. This coming look a -epo with a retrograding block historically leads to cold/snow almost every time. Not necessarily 20” but we should not get blanked from that.

Btw don’t know if this is a coincidence but 79 has been a pattern analog recently ETA: just checked today’s update and low and behold Jan 28 1979 is the number 1 CPC pattern analog

It was but neither of those storms was ever a legit high probability threat to DC. They weren’t the result of an amplified longwave pattern they were spawned by the temperate contrast off the coast due to the cold over a warm Gulf Stream. They were always destined to be coastal scrapers.

I don’t know that 79 fits this but also some storms that were like 20 degrees it still wasn’t really a true arctic airmass from cross polar flow. It was from a domestic cold source but the airmass was very dry and when it saturated we got a very cold storm. But with the pac jet blasting maritime air in we don’t get those “dry” air-masses domestically anymore. Crows polar flow was always super rare. We have to be able to generate enough cold from air that didn’t have to come from Siberia or were in trouble.

We’re talking about the mid latitude jet not the sub tropical stream. It can still snow here. Don’t take this as a “it will never snow again” post. But we also can’t deny it’s getting harder. The frequency of single digit and <5” DC winters is going up consistently. The length between snowy periods keeps increasing. I can play around with the longwave pattern in my mind to dream to ways to snow despite the pac but when I start to have to get that specific and stack factors it becomes less and less likely. Historically “just get a block and force a SW under us” was the path. Now we need that plus 3 other things. Another issue is ridges have more amplitude now. Warmth gets further north. So an epo ridge western trough that might have has a suppressed eastern ridge in some analog 40 years ago...I don’t know if that would even work anymore. I suppose the perfect pattern would be a ridge a little east of where the epo one is this week and a NAO block. So the trough is over the central US but not far enough west to capture tropical pacific and gulf heat and pump the ridge east of it. The southeast ridge would be suppressed by the NAO and the Atlantic can’t add the same heat because it’s down wind. That would work. But that’s so specific it’s just not going to happen that often.