psuhoffman

@PivotPoint composite of our 15 snowiest winters day 15 GEFS (all guidance agrees on this general look) I highly doubt any reshuffle is going to result in a better pattern then that! What you’re proposing is like hitting on 20 in Blackjack

We have never done well in a Nina without blocking. Ever. So your assertion that we should toss the blocking doesn’t have any historical support. NAO phases often last months so your idea that it could break down then reform in time to save the end of winter is dubious. We do not want a ridge where that N PAC low has been. We want a ridge centered over eastern AK into western Canada. That N pac low has been, and guidance suggests will be again, centered west of AK. Most of our best snowstorms have a low there. If you put a ridge there you will get a trough in the west and a ridge in the east! If you are only talking about the one week coming up where that low becomes a monster and crashes into western N Amer then yes that needs to back off. That does temporarily flood us with pac puke next week. But that’s only temporary not the permanent base state. It’s a result of a sub 920 low crashing into the Bering sea. Assuming that pulls back to where the N PAC low base state has been it’s fine Imo.

First of all the pac has not been that awful. But we are recovering from this in Nov which left N Amer scorched. But the means this month are fine. the N Pac trough mean axis is far enough west not to be a major problem. And despite starting from a warm base state it got cold enough to snow in Richmond and the northern 1/3 of our forum and just to our west Xmas eve. Right now our bigger problem is we’re still recovering from a late start and the WAR. There is actually a decent ridge on the pac side right now but the last 2 and next system cut because of the WAR! The pac isn’t the problem. Now it’s about to be. A near record low is crashing into the Bering Sea and for a while the whole trough amplifies end shifts east. This here is no good and kills us for about 7-10 Days so yea we need that to improve but that’s not been the pac base state and guidance says it’s only temporary and pulls back again that there is fine! It won’t be arctic...but you keep the flow into the east out of northern Canada and it will be cold enough. It was cold enough for Richmond and Nashville and everyone just NW of 95 2 weeks ago! lastly what you want isn’t realistic. We’re in a Nina. You want to remove the N pac low and NAO and think we would pop some full lat EPO PNA ridge? No. We would go back to that November look! The NAO and Aleutian low are all that’s keeping that pattern at bay and you want to toss them?

My 2 year old has Jedi hide and seek skills. The 6 year old goes to hide and she just sits down and starts to play with her frozen castle. After a couple mins the 6 year old starts calling “are you coming”. She replies “yea I’m coming” but just keeps playing. Eventually he gets frustrated and walks out and she immediately points at him and says “I found you”.

I said I do expect the blocking to work out. But if we start to see what was our best snow looks stop producing even threats that is a big uh oh. That’s not a revelation. Pulling for ya I coach a policy debate team. Dunno about “training”. We won a State championship a few years ago. I am proud of that.

I thought I was being optimistic...for me anyways. I am bullish overall.

@CAPE @osfan24 I don’t think we’re kicking all of Jan. The SSW has actually already commenced. The wind reversal looks to happen around the 4th (I but the euro here, its adamant about it and it’s been far superior with the strat over the years) and the progression we’re seeing on ensembles matches analogs. Weeks 1-2 after a SSW look ehh but the cold anomalies really kick in week 3 and go ape week 4-5. That lines up with the look on ensembles mid month and gets us into good shape by the last week of January. On a side note Cohen and some others have said this most closely resembles the 2018 SSW. That happened mid February and the flip for us happened after that storm the first couple days of March. From then on it was a favorable pattern into April. If this SSW happens the first week of January that same timeline puts the favorable windows from about Jan 20-March 1. I don’t mind that. Give me that same 2018 pattern but centered on prime climo v March/April and let’s roll!

Don’t worry by the time it gets here we will be worried about the thaw showing on the long range.

When is our last good jan 1-15 event? I think 13-14 had a 9 inch mecs followed by near zero temps. That was amazing The 9” one was around the 20th. There was a 4-6” event in early Jan followed by sub zero. Then it warmed to 50 the next day and melted. Lol

You can add Jan 22 2016 to that list. I’m well aware our snow climo is skewed to the back half of winter, to the consternation of many on here.

I knew that would be up your alley

Was a little more then that. But a lot of the snow was warm storms that melted fast. There was a warm storm earlier in Jan that dropped like 3-6” NW. there was one week of cold in late January with 2 storms bookending it. The first was better NW and the second SE of 95. Then a MECS 10-20” storm across the area in Feb. but it was a warm storm. 50s before and after and temps above freezing during the snow. I was near Philly and we got about 14” but the next day had to drive to Harpers Ferry for a baptism. We left early morning with a foot of snow and by the time we got to MD the snow was pretty much all gone. Harpers Ferry had 18” but when we got there mid afternoon nothing was left but piles. Lol

@CAPE @WxUSAF EPS is a carbon copy of the GEFS.

1987 was an analog showing up a lot in the ncep list and the one big snow we got in Feb that year was 50 the day before and after...but it snowed 12-20” with temps around 33-34 degrees in between lol.

This is NOT the same as waiting for a late save in March. Yea it sucks to wait until later January but honestly this is our climo MO. And frankly if we want to pick the absolute best time to maximize the probabilities of taking advantage of blocking and cold late January into February is it!

It has begun...

Oh yea but I’m sort of hoping we pull that card. I said back in the fall I expected this winter to be pretty awful and the only thing I saw that could save us was if we got blocking. I still feel that way. For my area. You have a lot more ways to make things work up here. I’m just pointing out “if” we do get a west -NAO regime the general pac look we’ve had and look to have can work out. Lots of ifs and buts in there though.

Ideally yes. The near record cyclone that blasts in there this week is a killer. But I’m referencing where the vortex has been centered most of winter so far and where long range guidance suggests it pulls back to after the next 10-12 days. We can do ok with lower heights near the Bering so long as a massive vortex isn’t centered there. the look mid January across guidance right now is pretty close to the composite of our biggest snow years and some of our big dog storms. But if you’re talking about why it’s warm the next 12 days or so yes! I was looking ahead. Btw miss your input in the mid Atlantic thread. Please pop in when we have a threat worth talking about.

@WxUSAF this is about as big a “real” ridge signature as I think you will ever see on a day 16 prog. Even a hint of a 50/50 sig.

@CAPE the new gefs is perfect Imo. This is exactly where we want that N PAC trough. This pumps heights into western N America and gets the ridge axis along the west coast. That’s even too far west without blocking but with a -NAO that promotes the broad trough look under the block we want. Pull that Pac trough any further west though and the ridge pulls back into the PAC and that broad trough will split with the cold dumping into the west and a SE ridge will pop. Give me exactly what the GEFS is showing now. It’s not being pushed back in time so far either. Today actually sped up the progression by about a day.

He isn’t wrong for the mid Atlantic though. I’ve run similar studies of our big snow events down here and our best big snow look often has a trough in the N PAC along with a west based NAO block. It’s a big if, but if we do develop a west based NAO block the pac is just fine. Otherwise it’s crap.

Long range gefs is seeing a bit more of a 50/50 signature. That’s one way this could flip colder fast. Get enough of that and it will fight the eastern ridge.

I guess 2020 didn’t end all bad

This is just for fun but the end of the GFS run is how I see our best chance of getting snow. Something like this. It retrogrades the blocking into Canada. Same PAC look with the WPO EPO vortex sensing systems into the west. Which leads to this... that system is trying to cut...but it’s not going too. Look at all the confluence to our north. There is a 50/50 stuck just off the screen and there are lobes rotating around, one is just over top us. The 850s look iffy at a glance but look at all the dry air And as the system approaches the 850s are already crashing in TN and GA when the precip hits the dry air. All that +1 air over NC will end up below 0 once it saturates and has to advent north before we would go to rain. This was an incoming snow event. It may have been a snow to ice to rain event...but it was at least a decent frozen event oncoming. Same crap pac. Being offset by the blocking. That’s what history says should happen in that pattern.