psuhoffman

True...but almost all the really good years have at least a snowy period somewhere in our area before New Years. Even 2015 I had a decent amount of snow here in November and early Dec before the torch set in. There are some super rare exceptions but 90% of the good years show themselves somewhat. Years where we get to Xmas with no snow anywhere in our region typically don’t end up being great years. But we kinda knew this wasn’t likely a great year already. And we could still get some decent events even if we roll into January with nada. And we could still luck into something in the next few weeks.

The rain held off until Xmas night I think. I remember Xmas day at my Uncle’s near Harpers Ferry WV sledding down the hill in his side yard with the kids. It wasn’t cold but it wasn’t a warm slop fest either.

@Ji I like your presence too. But if you throw your nonsense in the main thread then everyone else will too. Then the discussion thread ends up filled with nothing but complaining. And some aren’t even as funny or knowledgeable as you. It becomes a train wreck. Just post that stuff in here. We all read banter. We will see it. Then post your insightful stuff in the main thread.

If the nina does fade that could help on the PAC side...but the base state even before nina was pretty awful anyways. But as I hinted at above...if the atlantic side stays less hostile it will be able to compensate for the pacific more as we head later in winter. The NAO influence kind of peaks in Feb/Mar. If we are going to try to overcome a crap pac that is when to do it. March 2018 is a good example of that type pattern. Getting a similar type evolution but get it to set in say 2 weeks earlier and we could get a much better outcome.

If there is a silver lining...so far the atlantic side does not seem to be heading in a radically hostile direction. Unlike last year when both the pacific and atlantic were just hot garbage. I was never optimistic the pacific side would do us any favors. But if we are going to have a chance to overcome that...we will need a good period of blocking on the Atlantic side. We can get some opportunities as we head later into winter if the Atlantic side cooperates. December...not so much. That vortex over AK would be pretty hard to overcome even with everything else right until we get into January. But...if the Atlantic side stays less hostile we might have some hope for windows of opportunity later in winter. It's a low bar...but even that look there in the long range isn't quite as hopeless as last year when the pattern set in.

It is "better" hence why we get "some" snow. Mood flakes mostly. But even the euro dives some energy into the trough to our northeast and phases into that vortex which slows it down, amplifies it and creates an extension of the lower height field to its southwest which acts to compress the flow some over top of us. Some is still too much when you have a vortex just northeast of Maine! It's not hopeless...but we need another degree or two of separation between those features. Any little piece of energy that works in the wrong way is a big deal.

Thanks. Glad you're back posting analysis again! There is still time and frankly all guidance has been pretty volatile and unstable with these NS vorts in the medium range but we need some help here. There likely will be error in those features but we need that error to break our way. I need a little more help up here than the southern half of this region.

These 2 features are the big problem. Instead of escaping northeast "clean" just in time...there are 2 pieces of NS energy diving in interacting with the bombing vortex to our northeast. Those pinwheeling features hold the vortex from escaping (fujiwara effect) and squash the heights so that nothing can amplify behind it. The euro has a healthy enough feature out ahead of the upper low to get some light snow up into the area but without solving that bigger problem to our northeast there is a pretty low cap on what this is capable of. But some minor improvements with those features and relax the flow over the top and this could become something. Time is running out though. Most likely we simply get to experience our first fail of the year courtesy of crappy spacing between waves.

If this does get squashed...and not saying it does...we dont know yet, but it would be the suppressive flow behind the bombing storm in Nova Scotia not a high that is the culprit. The upper level flow is pretty compressed and there are too many pieces of energy diving down, we would need a little more space between systems and for the energy to consolidate and phase into the southern feature a little further west. Instead pieces of NS energy are diving down on top of it.

So sorry.

That pretty much sums up a typical day around here

Well...yea but we didn’t even need a high simply not that trough suppressing everything.

we would need there to be more separation then that there. There already is frankly on the guidance now but its still not quite enough.

Are you thinking of the Feb 21 storm? NYC got hit pretty good from that one. Some places in New England got some moderate totals from the Feb 15 2010 event. I think NYC had like 4"...but it wasn't that big a deal up there either. The Feb 21 storm though...that was a monster we just missed. But I had no issues with that...the whole period from late January to March kind of moved linearly imo. The block was at its strongest and healthiest in late January early Feb and each storm shifted a little north in progression from then on as the blocking slowly weakened. I agree the March 2010 storm has some similarity to this. It had two lobes diving into the trough and they ran interference on each other instead of consolidating the energy into one storm. This setup is somewhat similar.

of course having a high in a good spot is preferable. Our simplest path to snow here is overrunning. Anytime we get into needing a perfect upper level pass or phasing and all that jazz it gets complicated. We are a little too far south for all that to go easy for us...and often things come together just a little late for our latitude. But there are examples where things worked absent any real high. Off the top of my head the early Feb storm in 1995 had no high. I remember a storm in January 2001 I think where we got a decent snow with no high. The xmas day 2002 snow (our last true white xmas) had no high. The feb 2006 storm there was some really weak high in new eng but it was only like 1020 which is about what we have in this setup. There wasn't too much of a high, only like 1024 way up in Maine for the January 2011 storm. Sometimes we can work without. But yea it would make it a LOT easier with one.

The op euro has been a little to phase/amped happy lately. Just throwing that out there. I would rather not be relying on the model that has been the most over amped of late being the only guidance showing a decent scenario right now. Everything else is very close, and trending the right way...just warning that the euro has been a little over done lately in the medium range recently

Rgem was about to barrel a miller A up the coast. It was gonna be close though whether it hit the confluence wall or not. We needed it to relax the flow just a bit...but yea it was very interesting.

It’s too stretched out. Need more of the energy consolidated back in IN/KY. It’s not far off.

It’s been trending more progressive the last 48 hours. The big snow for our western fringe zones disappeared. Actually had it been colder we would be freaking out as a 12-20” snow became (in our area) very little at all. But it’s opening the door for the wave behind it. We need just a little more space between waves and we might be able to squeeze in our first legit snowfall of the season.

@DTWXRISK nice write up. Good to see you back!

@WEATHER53 my name is Steve. Everyone can use it. I don’t care. You have made a dozen posts whining and complaining about my rebuttal of your NWP conspiracy nonsense and still you have yet to refute a single thing I said or defend your claims at all. So again, either offer evidence and substantiate your accusations or stop making them! It’s undignified to throw around accusations and attacks on peoples integrity, some of whom are on this forum, without evidence to back it up. And for the love of god stop whining about it. Man up and defend what you said or accept you can’t because it’s BS and move on with your life!

Most haven’t had a snowstorm in almost 2 years and they’re gonna be picky lol If a hot air balloon went overhead flown by a pilot with a bad case of dandruff I’d call it a win at this point.

Lol Ji will be complaining about radar and the back edge before first flakes and how it would have been 30” if it wasn’t moving so fast. If it’s wet snow Mdecoy will be whining it was only 4” on his road because he measures in the middle of the street. If it’s dry Eskimo will be telling us how half of it sublimated by noon the next day. Do I need to continue.

Repeat of last year it is then! Lol Give me a foot of snow during the holiday season and I’ll take whatever else comes as icing.

P27 and call it a winter