psuhoffman

I’m sure there are real problems those people could find to worry about

Well yea if we get a -NAO we could get a below avg April but people are acting like it will be a cold miserable month. Maybe a few days tops. But a 55 degree sunny day in April isn’t my idea of suffering or worth obsessively fearing.

As @C.A.P.E. said there is no "normal" for us. Statistically normal is usually anything within a standard deviation. I don't remember exactly what it came out too but I ran the numbers once and one standard deviation wrt snowfall here is useless. Because our snowfall year to year is so varied it was something like anything between 1 and 40". We have no "normal" snowfall distribution...we don't live somewhere that has a typical expected snowfall each year. We can get 1" and 40" with about equal probabilities...and everything in between. WRT this current 4 year run...look if it makes you feel better to cling to the idea that it isnt normal and is the worst spit in our eye of mother nature fine. I have no idea what that would make you feel any better. But if you keep expecting things to be better than recent history and trends suggest its likely to be year to year...you are just going to keep being frustrated and disappointed most years. I have no idea if this is a more temporary climate cycle (some of it probably is wrt NAO) or a more permanent shift due to warming (some of it likely is) but the bottom line is there has been an observable change. Nino years havent changed much. We still average about 25" in a nino since 2000. That was about the same before that. Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino. But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap. We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year. The other 12 were all some variation of garbage. That didn't used to be the case. Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past. Not so anymore. On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing. When you combine those FACTS it makes what is happening now totally expected and inevitable. I don't know if this trend will continue but until it changes we should expect similar results. Some good years surrounded by long stretches of really really bad is the new normal. It's been that way and trending worse for over 20 years now. For some reason you seem to want to set your expectations based on how things USED TO BE 50 years ago instead of what the evidence suggests is a reasonable expectation in our current climate cycle.

Personally I hope its 65 and sunny 6 days a week for the next month...then on the 7th day we get 8" of heavy wet snow.

What we "want" won't make any difference. Not saying you are saying this...but every year we start to get some posts about now with people who want it to be warm and sunny annoyed at people still rooting for late snow...or people tracking snow annoyed with people who are done and want warmth. Who cares....they can all root for whatever they want because it wont affect what actually happens. If what other people want to happen actually affects your mood...well that is a different problem and I am not going there.

Even our coldest Aprils featured plenty of 60+ days... we just might not get a lot of 75+ days in April which can happen without blocking. It would mean we actually get a spring and don't just jump right into Summer weather like @C.A.P.E. said. "Cold April" fears are almost always overblown imo unless a couple chilly days in the 40's is really going to ruin the entire month for you.

It’s bleeding the wrong way on guidance but it’s still barely within the scope of possible so I guess it’s worth a peek each run.

Won’t matter much. Even with blocking most days in April will be warm. Maybe we get a few days of 40s but most days will be 50+ early April and 60+ after April 15th even in a -NAO. Even when we get snow in April it’s often 50+ the day before and after. Sustained cold is very unlikely.

The inverted trough feature is worth keeping an eye on. Even that is likely a fail but there is a chance it could impact the northeast parts of this forum.

Yea Im personally not bothered and don’t mean to be antagonistic, but at this point I think it’s clearly established that this is probably not happening so more posts saying “bad run” is just redundant. If something unexpected happens then it’s worth bringing up. But that’s just my opinion.

Yes and so did the March 18 storm I Referenced. So did Dec 2000. The MO for “these” is often to look good long range, trend bad, then tease us at some point in the final 48 hours only to fall apart right at nowcast time. I wouldn’t be shocked if this makes one more tease just to inflict more pain.

I defended you post last night but now it’s kind of pouring on. We’ve established this is likely dead now. Last nights 18z/0z/6z trends pretty much killed it. The status quo is now “it’s not happening” so pointing out every run that will show “it’s not happening” from here on out is just piling on. At this point we should probably only bring it up if something unexpected comes up and things trend back towards a possible event. As of now it’s dead.

I love your optimism and enthusiasm but you have to be realistic. This has been a dumpster fire winter. Most are beyond fed up. And most are past caring about a coating of slush from a snowshower with an upper low pass. They would probably prefer a 70 degree day now if it’s not going to be a legit heavy snow event. I get annoyed when people crap up the thread in years that aren’t THAT bad or with legit threats. But right now expecting a lot of positivity is unrealistic imo. But I love what you do and keep it up.

Friend just told me JB stole my March 2018 storm comparison this morning.

You knew this was how this was ending.

Yes. Not all Nina’s are the same. Some can be reasonably cold and active but even in those we still tend to end up about median or slightly below mean snowfall. The reason is the lack of SS and fast NS. There is also usually a lack of NAO blocking in a Nina that’s because the central pac pattern is often similar to this year and that pattern is destructive to high latitude blocking. We have all of that now. The only factor we have is chaos from March. The storm I’m referencing was in March 2018 around March 8 or so. It was a similar late phase between a NS and weak SS wave. Teased my area and especially NE MD then pulled the rug out just a few hours before it would have started. This was the NAM and euro from just 18 hours before the storm. But this was the actual results

There was a trend weaker and north with the NS also. It was a bunch of small almost imperceptible adjustments but they all were the wrong way which isn’t going to work when it was barely a marginal setup to begin with. Frankly the rule with these NS SS capture/phase setups is they almost always end up slower and too far northeast for us. This reminds me of the early March 2018 storm that teased us the day before. I knew that rule but having EVERY guidance 12 hours out showing snow here got me to abandon my pessimism with such setups. I remember trying to convince myself with “ the euro is showing 8” just 18 hours out. It can’t be that wrong”. Then the hrrr started shifting east every hour. Then the run that night just hours before it should have started shifted everything 100 miles east. Never again. I will never ever ever fee at all confident or even hopeful in these late NS phase scenarios until the fatties are falling. Yea once in a blue moon they work but 99% they tease us and end up northeast of us. ETA: if the SS trends more amped that could change the equation here. A west dig in the NS too but that’s trending the wrong way and usually the adjustment there is northeast not southwest.

At least I won’t have to waste time I don’t really have on analysis tomorrow.

18z Gefs went the wrong way.

EPS is very close to what we need. GFS not so much.

A bigger help would be a further west dig from the NS. It’s diving in on top which acts to suppress the flow a bit under it until the phase. By then the initial wave escapes and the secondary almost assuredly will be too far northeast. A further west dig would force ridging ahead of it and allow the SS wave to come north and also allow a further southwest phase.

This is probably just that “close miss” I said was inevitable just to inflict the most pain possible (Although my money was on a perfect track rainstorm but there is time for that later). On the other hand I can see the complexity giving guidance issues and an argument to be made for a more tucked in secondary once the phase happens. One key could be a stronger SS wave that can creep further north so that the baroclinic zone isn’t wrecked and way out east when the NS dives in. The NAM is likely wrong but if that was even close there would likely be a second “colder” round of precip from the coastal. The phasing is just starting at 84 on the NAM but it was likely to look good after.

Who cares it would be like 1/2” even if it was cold smoke. We need a much faster phase/capture and tucked in secondary to develop heavy banding to overcome the torched boundary. But I don’t mind because I’m uninterested in a cartopper from bands of light snow showers anyways. March is go big or go home time for me. I’m purely chasing dynamic thump events at this point.

We are getting inside the range where it’s becoming time to see actual hits and not just “nice trends” imo. Large shifts start to become less likely here on out. Yes the icon is “closer” but at some point soon the guidance will converge and the goal posts will narrow. Right now we are still outside those posts. I’d like to start seeing some op hits soon. If we don’t see any hits on op runs tonight this starts to become even less likely imo.

Busy. This is probably the busiest time of year for me. State test prep, curriculum planning for next year, yearly sped meetings, spring observations all hit at once. Plus I’m an admin for summer school and the planning for that starts now. But ive has one eye on it for a while. Just not watching every run come in. I perk once a day. This is an example of how flukes can happpen in March. No other time would this have any chance. The longwave pattern would be all wrong without the shirt wavelengths and added potential energy of March giving this a shot to amplify in virtually no space. Its also complicated. We need some phasing and we need it to happen sooner rather than later. Then there are boundary temp issues. We’re dealing with the play between the SS and NS and we meee them to play nice. That doesn’t end well here most of the time but once in a while we get lucky. And the issue with March is the added volatility can give and take. Long lead tracking is useless. It would be very hard answer a very stable blocking regime for guidance to resolve these type chaos induced scenarios at long leads. So I see it. I’m watching. But I’m not wasting a ton of time on it until we’re into real range. If it’s still there on tonight’s runs tomorrow you will see me start to actually break down the scenarios with deeper analysis.