psuhoffman

It was never really THAT good. The canadien ridge temporarily traversed the NAO domain for a few runs. It still does but it happens while we torch. But it’s way too transient to do any good or bully the pattern. It’s not a block. Just a weak transient ridge. The real issue is again the epo centers itself too far west setting up an RNA pattern.

It’s very rare to get under 20” here. Only happens about 10% of the time. But we’re due. Hasn’t happened since 2008 when there was only 19.2” here. 2009 barely got to 20”.

Wow why can't we get the front to clear from the midweek storm. That's most depressing thing I've seen this year Come on deep down you knew that’s exactly how it was going to look when a gradient pattern at day 15 showed up. How often do they actually work out here? 10% maybe.

The day 8/11 analog packages show what were up against. Only one significant snow event in all the analogs. Feb 67 which was one of the weirdest fluky storms of all the KU storms. So yea that could always happen but in general it’s not a winning look.

12z eps was a train wreck run. Nothing good about it.

The op euro is doing what the 18z GFS yesterday (to a lesser extent) did. That wave in the PAC is actually displacing the TPV off the pole and seriously impacting the HL pattern. That would work. But the problem is the vast majority of guidance is trending away from that. But I suppose it is far enough out...and coming during a period where this is "some" mjo phase 2 forcing, that MAYBE we get a temporary TPV disruption. Perhaps I am discounting that possibility too much. If so that would set up a more than "needs crazy good luck" period. I still doubt it would last long but we take what we can get.

There is nothing to make that happen... there is no blocking and the trough axis is way too far west.

@stormtracker The STJ wave has no mid or upper level support to wrap up, and also there is no high pressure to create a resistant flow to the southerly flow around the low or enough real cold air to create WAA lift. That inhibits a healthy precipitation shield. Without that the southerly flow simply displaces the air in the way. There is on real cold or resistant flow around a high to create the "lift" needed to get precip.

I planned a more in depth post after the 12z runs finished but I will probably be too busy later so i will just dump my thoughts now. There might still be a window where something is "possible" in the week 2 period but the season long pattern flaws of the +EPO/AO/NAO will continue. A very transient wave through the PAC NW ejects some cold into the CONUS though...and there are some signs a second wave could do the same, but any hopes of those 2 waves effecting a real change on the NAM state are pretty much dead. At range those 2 waves were severely weakening the PV...but the trend away from that has been steady and now neither of those waves even really makes much of a dent. They do at the least deliver some cold. But the trough axis is going to be too far west. To get anything to work it will take luck with taking up waves like the op GFS does. The best way would be to get a series of waves where the first wave draws a front through and a second wave follows close behind. We have lucked out way to some snow in a bad pattern that way before, but its going to take luck and not be something we can track from day 10. After that I have a feeling things get ugly again. It's easy to see where the MJO is heading... another high amplitude cycle through 4/5/6/7 is likely on the way. 7 is also a warm phase in Feb/Mar so we would have to wait until it gets through that whole rotation again to have a chance at a meaningful pattern flip. The feedback from those phases is likely to pull the pacific ridge back and pump the SE ridge in the kind of gradient TNH pattern we are looking at. I suspect this February will end up looking a lot like last February...except with a raging positive NAO instead of a neutral one. The timing of that next MJO rotation takes us into very late February or more likely March. If, and I have no confidence in this, the PV is more vulnerable at that time...that would be the next window to get a meaningful pattern change. Just in time to get 45 degree rain all spring.

95-96 kinda makes sense in hindsight... It came during the period following a solar minimum where the NAO was biased negative for several years. Very favorable QBO. It wasnt a particularly strong nina and it was following a nino so there was probably some mixed signals wrt enso. A few years ago (when we were starting down a nina) I looked at snowfall results in all Nina years and I found that when the NAO is actually negative in a nina our snow results can be ok. The issue is that the pacific forcing in a nina favors a positive NAO and so MOST Nina years have a predominantly positive AO/NAO. But if we ever get the combination of a weak/moderate nina where all other factors (solar/QBO/previous enso state) strongly favor blocking to overcome the enso we could get another 1996. It actually wouldn't shock me if something like that happened in the next few years...provided the nina isnt strong enough to overpower the other influences.

my lunch sucked

Becomes...lol

Let’s see how it screws this up.

@Isotherm can’t an Aleutian ridge RNA pattern be overcome easier in March? Assuming the NAO cooperated a little, which I have doubts of. Btw quick question wrt to last year. I know overall all the factors that lead to a less canonical nino response but there were times last February when the epo was very negative with a not hostile AO/NAO either (not the epic blocking sine expected but not bad either) and yet the trough continued to dump into the west and we had a huge eastern ridge. In some other years with a similar look we got a broad full conus positively tilted trough where could come translate east. What was the difference? This look never struck me as that bad yet in most ways yet we had a monster eastern ridge. I thought with that look in the HL from the epo to the NAO we would at least suppress the SE ridge some.

That’s ice down there. This is the actual clown map

There is a chance that it’s mathematically possible that it could happen.

It’s really only 12” and a ton of ice. Way more realistic.

Ok so if we actually get this ridiculous epo block and the AO flips to neutral like this... then yea that storm is totally realistic. But count me skeptical that flip up top is real. But there is always a chance. And if so it better freaking snow because it leads to this...

I bet kuchera is better

It wasn’t nearly as hostile as this year but it wasn’t ideal.

I’m sure a 36 hour snowstorm from a string of progressive waves with no blocking will play out exactly like that from day 13! I’m getting provisions ready! Btw we should do this bizarro reverso thing more often. Being you is fun.

Wasn’t a fluke. The forecasts that relied on sst heavily had optimism. So did the sst based guidance. In November and early Dec before the jet strengthens those factors could dominate. We had the epo ridge we expected with the north pac sst. But the seasonal guidance was correctly picking up on an unfavorable walker cell structure to disrupt the pv and a raging +AO and they were right. As soon as the PV went crazy late Dec it was game over. The reason we could have a chance again in March is the same reason we did I’m early season. As the jet weakens again maybe the PV grip releases. I’m skeptical but maybe.

Good side of what? A few sleet pellets?

I am starting to turn more of my attention to looking at west to plan my ski trip. I settled on Aspen for a long weekend but have to decide about a week out (before flights book up and get pricey) when I think the snow looks good. I’m quickly becoming more interested in that then our snow prospects.

You didn't really cancel winter. You were excited somewhat at some of these long range looks I was hopeful...but always skeptical. I want it to snow. And I’m also mindful of not flooding the thread with doom and gloom. I made those very detailed posts with data and statistics to support them and that was my peace. Im not going to hammer it home every 12 hours. But I put a lot of research into those posts I made a month ago now. I didn’t just wake up feeling Scroogey and throw that out for giggles. And all the history said this pattern just flat out sucks and most of the time when we entered a January with strong central pacific ridging and a strongly positive EPO/AO/NAO it was lights out on hopes of a good winter. And the only exceptions (and there weren’t many) were years where the NAO flipped strongly negative but that happened by late January in every case. So that ship has sailed. But flukes happen. Im not saying it won’t snow at all. I’m never as confident it will snow in a good look or sure it won’t in a bad. Too much weird stuff has happened in the past to ever rule it out. So I’m hopeful. I’m rooting for the fluke. But the history of such situations were in now says our best chance of that fluke (if it happens at all) is in very late February or March. ETA: on the hope springs eternal side, I think 1948 was an example of a similar year to this where our area lucked into a pretty good (3-6”) snowstorm in February from what was a pretty meh pattern surrounded by a god awful pattern. It was one of tye ugliest looking h5 patterns of all the snowstorms I examined for the snow climo study.