psuhoffman

If the monster EPO ridge on all guidance is correct we do not "NEED" the AO/NAO to tank...but we do need it to pull back towards neutral or slightly positive which is what the EPS and GEPS is showing. The GEFS keeps swinging wildly between flipping the NAM negative or not but its been a hot mess lately and should be given much less weight until it starts showing some consistency. The GEPS and EPS especially have been much more consistent with a common progression/theme to the pattern evolution. The EPS idea of a neutral AO combined with that EPO ridge and some PNA ridging is just fine. It's not a HECS look but its a cold look and if we keep getting waves coming across with the active STJ and I would take my chances in that pattern.

By that time...phase 3/4 become more friendly also...and that is important if a wave fires in the IO it gives us more time in cold phases. A death near the dateline followed by a new wave initiation off Africa would give us a nice long extended run without MJO destructive interference. I have been skeptical of favorable MJO help. I am still not dancing in the streets but less pessimistic than a week ago. I know the bias in the guidance is to kill off waves early...but the last wave did die before cold phases, the waters near the MC are boiling, and the guidance was suggesting a stall/loop there which isn't unheard of (last year). But recent developments would favor wave propagation...but I will feel better once those projections get within 10 days. For now things look favorable for a colder period late January into February. Snow...TBD

A little but it wasn’t that far off from the pna ridge/+AO/NAO composite look. We definitely got lucky that a nice vort was passing at exactly the right time given how transient the pna ridge was. Our window was like 12 hours. But there were only 6 of those type storms so it’s not a high probability look but not unheard of. Of course yesterday’s storm wouldn’t show up in my sample because it wasn’t significant in the cities. In our areas we can luck our way to some snow a lot easier in flawed setups.

Moving this here before they come with pitchforks for both of us! Your scenario would be accurate except you forgot the 2 years in 10 that DC gets almost no snow. Those years offset the higher ones somewhat. But again you keep calling average normal. But if DC only gets an average winter 20% of the time is that normal? Those 2 big years skew the average higher than what DC gets the majority of the time. Like I said DC gets between about 7-15” half the time. 25% of the time more and 25% less. To me that makes that 7-15 range normal. You can call whatever you want normal but it won’t change the frequency or probabilities. Wrt your climo, the rain snow line often runs SW to NE in our region due to the fall line and coast. Your north is offset by your east. Your closed to the coast. My elevation is a big benefit. Without it I would only avg a little more than you. Your meso climate is also influenced by the Chesapeake bay to your southwest. That really doesn’t help. Again if you tell me what ball park # and under what conditions you need snow in a season to feel ok with it I could use the local coop data to tell you how often that happens. I could also tell you how far NW you would need to go for that to be a more normal occurrence. I don’t know your personal situation but if you moved only 20 miles to your northwest and to a spot with some decent elevation you could go from about 19” a year to 30, maybe even a little more. Your exact location is pretty bad for snow. And it seems very important to you. So why don’t you move 30 mins NW where a lot of these marginal events would break your way?

Thanks I got lucky today was an early release for students and PD for me. I guess because of that they just said heck with it.

Took a couple shots while my son was sledding on the hill behind Ebb Valley Elementary north of Manchester. This is looking north along 30 towards PA with Dug Hill in the background. My house is on top of the ridge in the background.

This is the snowfall recorded by the coop in Millers a few miles east of us. We have a little elevation advantage but I find their totals to be close to ours most storms. The second to last number is snowfall, the last is depth. They had snowcover from the storm on Jan 4th until sometime after the one on March 18th!

93/94 had such a crazy sharp gradient between places that had a ton of snow and not much. You didn’t have to go far. The closest coop to here in Millers had 44” that winter. That’s only a little above normal but they had snow otg from early January until late March. An incredible run. It seemed like every storm here was like 4” of snow followed by lots of ice. Places not far north of here stayed all snow and had 70”+ that winter. Every storm followed a similar track vs 2015 and 2014 which shifted the boundary around enough to get more regions into the fun. One caution, 2014 was the best but it had a helpful AO much of the time and even some NAO help in periods. If we get the ridge bridge look on the gefs and geps 2014 could be a good match. But if the AO stays positive like the Euro that puts us into a pattern more like Feb 1993, 1994, and 2015. 2015 was the best and it could go down that way again, but the other 2 had a lot of frustration with a string of snowstorms missing just to the northwest. But that look is still light years better than anything lately but given our choice the GEFS look with the epo AND tanking NAM is the better option to get everyone into the action imo.

I had to run to the recycle center in Westminster and it was 40 and significantly less snow otg. High here was only 33. The micro climate on this ridge amazes me every time I leave the immediate area. Turned into a beautiful day though.

Is it that much difference between up here and the high valley there? I’m at 31 now after a high of 33!

It won’t last long with that look up top, especially as we head later in winter.

@Bob Chill gefs would just need another 48 hours. That epo ridge among with the developing -AO would beat down the SE ridge. I don’t care if that takes 17 days v 14 days so long as that’s real I’m happy. It’s still early January. I said a week ago when the disgusting look showed up that if it locked in more than 2 weeks or so that puts us into really ugly analog territory and we wanted to be able to see the “other side” by mid January. It’s only the 8th and the other side might be showing. That’s totally fine by me.

Thanks. Was an inch too high right along the rain snow line maybe.

Small discreet events can pop up in a meh look, but don’t confuse what just happened for that. This was a transient period where we had a legit shot at some snow between patterns as everything was in flux. And this short window of opportunity was forecasted at very long range. At day 15 when it showed up and we couldn’t see past it some were hopeful it was a more permanent pattern shift and not just a transient window between suck fest shutout patterns. What I took some crap for was saying it looked like a transient cold shot as the pattern transitioned from a -NAM AK vortex pac puke pattern to a pac ridge +NAM puke pattern. Ironically the ridge that is progressing to the east and will lock in here for a while created a brief window as it traversed the pna domain, and we timed up a system perfectly for some of the area to get a good snow. But you are 100% that we can luck our way to small fluke snows in flawed patterns. But on the other hand if we want to get to a normal or above winter almost all of those feature a period with a really good pattern look. You won’t find many years where we luck our way above climo without one of those canonical snowy pattern looks I posted. Either a perfect epo or pna or NAM look. So if we just want to get to our “typical” crappy 8-15” winter across the region then yes we can do that with any pattern look with some luck. And when I say it doesn’t look good I don’t mean “no snow at all” just that the odds of getting any appreciable snow in that pattern are below normal. Likewise a great pattern doesn’t guarantee a ton of snow either, just that the odds are higher than normal. Sorry just wanted to explain how I analyze long range patterns wrt climo.

This is the euro mjo from a week ago It simply wasn’t going out far enough to get to where it is now. 4 days ago it was getting it into 6, not quite as far as yesterday but the difference was marginal and not close to the definitive trend towards 8 you are making it. You are taking some pretty big liberties to say “guidance is trending towards cold phases”. The last wave did not make it into phases 8/1. Before that we had a standing wave in 2/3. The euro does often tend to kill waves early. That is a bias I’ve noticed. The gfs looked even worse though. Somehow you don’t even post or mention that! There is also disagreement among experts. Some think this will progress into the pac and others are nervous about a stall in the MC. I am open to all options because the final outcome falls outside our high probability forecast range. I am happy for you that you feel as confident as you do in how everything will play out I don’t ever have that level of confidence in the mjo or anything else at 2+ weeks lead time. You also keep misinterpreting analysis as forecast. When I say “if we don’t get an epo ridge or the NAM state to change we’re screwed” that isn’t “he said we’re screwed”. I said we need to look for either the epo or NAM state to flip because we need one of those 2 factors to change. Yes if neither does then we ARE screwed. But you jump past the “if” and “or” and derive a definitive forecast instead of seeing the analysis of permutations. For the last 10 days the cpc pattern analogs have been dominated by some awful years. 1952, 1989, 2002, 2008 for example have all littered the top pattern comps day after day. You can think that’s no big deal if you want. And there are examples of comps that flipped better also and I presented those as well but they were the minority. But I also pointed out the bad years were mostly Nina’s and this is not. I gave both the good and bad options, and the bad ones outnumbered the good. That’s not my fault it’s just reality. Maybe we beat the odds this year. But the numbers are what they are. I presented what the current projected look lead to in past examples. It wasn’t good most of the time. If you have an issue with that sorry. My style is to present what could to right AND what could go wrong. I look at the fail scenarios and what to look out for. But I’m not a pessimist. I’ve often been bullish on snow chances when it’s warrented. I was bullish on this winter a month ago. I’ve been bullish on a big storm look from long range before. But only when there are legitimate good signs. I don’t blow smoke. If you only want to hear what could go right there are plenty of people that will make you feel warm and fuzzy no matter what the pattern is like JB.

Video during the squall https://imgur.com/gallery/my11iPi

Hard to get an accurate reading but it’s at least that.

Got absolutely rocked from that squall. Driveway has a nice snowpack again after I cleared it last night

My snow study was 5”+ events, which is what most of us are really chasing when we break down patterns long range because minor events can sneak into almost any pattern. This one wouldn’t have shown up because I used BWI. But I did identify every 5”+ storm in my area and I can tell already just from knowing the patterns we were in certain years that we can luck into a 5-6” storm here in almost any pattern the way DC/Balt can luck into a 1-2” event. But for us it’s a 8”+ event that would yield similar results to the 5”+ ones for Baltimore. I saw a lot of 5-7 type events in overall meh patterns but once you get to 8+ most of them featured a good look. But a big portion of our snow doesn’t even come from 5”+ events. I will have to run the numbers but I would guess at least half our snowfall comes from snows less than 5” and they can pop up in most looks with a lot of luck. Stop being a dick. The UHI effect does seem to be getting worse. I don’t know if it’s the extra push from climate change or the expanding urban corridor but lately every 50/50 type setup breaks bad.

Something close to 10”. Id have to go back and add up all the minor snowfalls I had in December.

My daughter Nora got to play in the snow for the first time. She loved it. Then took my son to the school at the bottom of the mountain to go sledding. I was saying we are overdue for a year without a warning level event here, been since 2002. This won’t be the year. Ended up with 5.2”. Down to 27 now. Roads are very icy up here. Going out for one more jebwalk.

Been out having fun. Ended with 5.2”.

Thank you for your contribution

That’s pretty much what I was saying my fear wrt where the eps look could evolve if we don’t get epo help with a strong +AO but it doesn’t have to go that way. But I would feel better if we got some indication forcing would change in the pac.

End?