psuhoffman

I saw that. I remember talking to Ant in 2015 when the mjo plots looked hostile but we were in an icebox pattern. Those auto generated plots can be misleading when there are conflicting wave signals. You have to look at the chi charts and convection and ascertain where the dominant tropical forcing will be. He thinks regardless of the Mjo plots the dominant forcing will be in the Pacific then IO in late January. Those are cold signals.

That’s the one

Yup you should stop tracking and check back in 2 weeks

I can’t predict whether the blocking runs straight through or weakens then reloads but history strongly suggests the -AO/NAO state hangs around in general for a while.

EPS can’t decide which wave to key on between Jan 8-15. Hits scattered throughout. Definitely a coastal signal not inland. A secondary snow Max (you always get one Max along the apps from upslope) runs along 95 during that period.

This comment is directed at Europe but it’s pertinent to us also

Neither of those looks anything like the next 15 days on current guidance although the top one is another example of why we DONT want the N pac trough to go away @stormtracker he needs to hear it again...

EPS generally supports the op with a southern cutoff solution. But there are a few northern non cutoff members. Just enough to keep hope alive.

Yes but it was March with a crazy block. NS system dove straight SE right to the coast and stalled...then redeveloped northeast a day later. Crazy stuff like that can happen in March with blocking.

It’s a nice setup if the upper low doesn’t totally cutoff and dive down the MS valley like the GFS and Euro do now.

FWIW (not much) euro was close to setting up something big around day 12. It’s dropping a lobe of the weakened displaced TPV down into the Ohio valley and phasing. Look at the h5 loop at the end. Would have been interesting to see that play out another 48 hours just for digital fantasy fun.

Well @Amped will love the day 16 GEPS that is a great look if you want brutal cold and dry. It’s not nearly as good a look for a big snowstorm though. The SE ridge is just starting to pop there...it’s likely to get worse in future times as the trough pulls west some. Look at SLP anomalies, it’s a miller b pattern. The STJ is totally cut off there. That’s a look where we are cold and wait through day and day of bone dry model runs frustratedly saying “where did all the storms go now that we got the cold”. Sound familiar? That is a cold dry look there. It’s not the worst, we could luck into something. It’s better then anything we had last year. But it’s not nearly as good a big snowstorm look. I guess if you want the pond in your yard to freeze over it’s drool worthy! And I am NOT even saying that’s coming. It’s on an island with that look. I’m just pointing out if we want a big snowstorm that isn’t the look we want. If you just want really cold and maybe some minor nickel and dime stuff I guess that’s the look you want.

It still did better then the GFS. Euro was by far the best global but the CMC was second. GFS was awful.

Euro is trending more and more cutoff. We need some NS phasing. A totally cutoff solution can’t work out. The flow is too suppressive and there isn’t enough antecedent cold for that kind of evolution.

Lately when I’ve seen verification charts it seems to be consistently doing better then the GFS. GFS has really be a train wreck lately. And the CMC has significantly improved since its upgrade. Anecdotally the para gfs seems like a significant upgrade. Perhaps the GFS retakes its place as on of the elite NWP guidance after the upgrade but honestly lately I’ve gotten to the point where I barely pay it any attention anymore. It gets about the same weight as the JMA or ICON. ETA: I see Wxusaf ninja’d me

It’s not the joke it used to be. I know it teased a south solution in mid Dec but it still caught on way before the GFS. And it was the first model to catch that crazy deform band that ended up giving places 40”. Yes it was too far south with it but it depicted that feature for days when other guidance had no clue.

Why do people keep wanting to get rid of something WE NEED!!!! This is the composite of Baltimore’s 10 snowiest months. look at the gulf of AK!!!! A vortex there promotes ridging into western N America. We want the ridge axis out west near Boise or up in the Yukon if it’s a high lat epo ridge. NOT off the west coast!!!! If you get a ridge off the west coast you get a trough axis too far west and a SE ridge pops!!! Yes if that pac vortex crashes in at times it will flood pac puke but so long as it’s off the coast it’s ok. It’s actually good. It promotes some PNA ridge. I know it doesn’t show well there because you get so many waves crashing in that it washes out the ridging you get in between but all you need is to time up that temporary ridge with a wave in the east. We want all those pac waves crashing in...those end up our storms! No it’s not a cold pattern. But our big snowstorm patterns usually aren’t. The vast majority of our big snowstorms were with patterns that weren’t particularly cold and absent the storm might have even been fairly mild! Lastly some of our worst blocking fails came because there was no trough in the N PAC and so the trough over the US ended up too far west. Yes a HUGE ridge up through Ak can dump arctic air into N America but it’s more often then not going to be directed into the west and any storm that phases and bombs will cut west of us. I am sorry if I seem frustrated but this is like the 10th post seeming to suggest we need to have what is literally our BEST snow pattern mutate into a pattern that historically is colder but normally leads to cutters. What do we want here arctic cold or snow because our perfect pattern is NOT the same for those 2 things! Our coldest outbreaks often do not feature a big snowstorm. Most of our big HECS storms do not feature any true cold.

Unless you’re either a huge deb pessimistic or a troll I don’t know how you can look at that with any other reaction then optimism. It’s literally a carbon copy of our absolute BEST big snow pattern! Unfortunately some of our most prolific posters fall in those 2 categories. I can make a 3 paragraph post with 5 optimistic points and all they read is the one caveat I bring up. I think it’s a little too early for these wildly emotional reactions to every op run. The very first wave after the pattern establishes is still 6 days away. And that wave is “close” enough that the details NWP might still adjust at that range puts us still in the game. Yes temps are iffy but it’s the first wave with a horrible antecedent airmass so that shouldn’t be a shock. Frankly a few days ago we didn’t think that wave has any chance at all or being cold enough. We rarely score on the front end of blocking patterns. After that everything is way too far out to be overly worried about anything more specific then the general longwave pattern look. Imo past 150 hrs it’s better to take the longwave pattern on ensembles and apply historical climo then to look at op run details.

I was posting Eric Fishers reply to Ian. But of course everyone gravitated to the pessimistic part. I am bullish overall. But NOTHING is guaranteed. We can and have wasted good patterns if we get unlucky.

You me and wxusaf went to bed and Ji stayed up.

I totally agree (by the definitions above) hybrid v2 is our best options. But here is where that gets complicated. First some argue over these definitions. Some think hybrid v2 are miller A. I have no dog in that fight. I really don’t care what we call things. It’s just annoying to have multiple classifications floating around confusing discussions. The second issue is that’s very location specific. If your NW of 95 hybrid v2 are the best storms. If you’re east of 95 miller As are. We obsess over Miller A storms but they can sometimes miss us to the east. PD2 had a primary up into TN then jump to VA capes. Feb 6 2010 was pure STJ wave but had a double barrel structure with one low up to KY and other up the coast. 2016 was pure STJ but the primary went from LA to near ATL then jumped to off SC. That one is iffy. That’s a pretty minor jump and so far south I would tend to lean Miller A, albeit a more inland initially miller A. It’s borderline (by my definitions). Judgement call. And again I don’t care lol. It snowed. That’s what I care about. People can call it Mickey Mouse for all I care. The other 2 were clearly hybrids (by these definitions).

From 4-5 days out the guidance had a healthy STJ wave and it was a hybrid system. About 3 days out all guidance lost that wave. Kind of similar to what happened in Dec 2017. Only there was a vigorous enough NS wave and far enough south due to blocking that we still managed a decent snow. But as soon as the STJ crapped out the bigger options were gone. I remember some were in denial about that though. But 2-4” across N VA and 4-8” across MD is honestly a GREAT result for a pure miller b. Usually they miss us completely. And most times it’s not even close. I know we obsess over those rare times one gets Philly and screws us but most Miller Bs miss Philly to the northeast also and some even are too late for NYC. We don’t even think of all those because they don’t tease us by being tantalizingly close.

Yea well those are types of coastals. It leaves out all the tracks that don’t even become coastals. Or all the examples where the track was fine but we had no cold! Bottom line is we are too far south. We are south of the mean polar jet storm track. We need an anomaly to get snow!